Everyone had told him that college would be a challenge. That he would be pushed by his teachers. That he would be stressed out of his mind from hours and hours of work. Theodore Hollot had heard it all before his freshman year at Georgia Tech, but no one ever prepared him for this. As he trailed his lawyer into the Fulton County courtroom, he stood with his usually long flowing hair tight in a ponytail and his eyes full of disbelief in what was happening. Since he was never one to blindly follow every rule, he knew that he might run into a some slight trouble his freshman year. He was prepared to get an underage, he was prepared to get caught smoking pot. The 19 year old defendant was prepared for many things going into his freshman year, but this was not one of them.
Standing in court, his mind went back to his years of high school at Seton-La Salle. Theodore was seen by his classmates as just a normal, funny guy. Yes, he was a little out there but most found his eccentricities and self given nickname of "Peaches" amusing as seen by the title of Class Clown and Most Likely to Skip Class. Now he was Most Likely to be a Terrorist.
As he returned back in his mind, the judge was reading the felonies off like a starting line up of mischief: possession and manufacture of an explosive device, aggravated assault ,aggravated battery and a misdemeanor charge of reckless conduct to top it off. His lawyer, Sandra Michaels, tried her best to explain that he never meant to hurt anyone and the dry ice bombs he made were just to duplicate what he had seen in class. As she was trying to convey this message, Theodore knew that the injured worker who picked up the bomb right before it exploded was behind him in the courtroom and he knew that his presence spoke more than his lawyer could. Peaches took a moment to take in the odd grandeur this moment held. As he rose up to hear his sentence a smile flicked onto his face and fell off just as quickly. This was it.
*Source = http://gtalumni.org/buzzwords/nov05/article405.html
I really like how you begin with an internalization of the main character and the weight of what's to come. However, I'd suggest starting with him physically walking into the courtroom to ground the reader and then step into his mind. Give us the physical and then the mental. It gives us something to hold onto in our own imagining of this scene. Really nicely done, Mitchell.
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