Crosswords, coffee and a trip to the courthouse make Aspen Hill couple's day

It's an unseasonably hot autumn afternoon, and, like many retired couples, Ed and Harriett Neufeld need something to do to pass the time.

"Do you want drug distribution or armed robbery?" Harriett, 77, asks Ed, 79, as they plan their day in Rockville.

"Whatever you want, honey," Ed replies before returning to their car to drop off his jacket, his wife poring intently over the day's docket at Montgomery County Circuit Court.

The Neufelds aren't some kind of geriatric Bonnie and Clyde, deciding on their next caper. They are, as they put it, "the 13th and 14th jurors."

Every week, the Neufelds leave their Leisure World retirement community in Aspen Hill to enjoy their favorite hobby: watching lawyers argue court cases as the lives of the accused hang in the balance.

"It's better than television, I'll tell you that much," Ed said in their apartment last week, the couple starting their day as they usually do: working crossword puzzles over coffee before making their weekly trip to court.

For 14 years, since Ed retired from civil engineering, the Neufelds have watched nearly 1,000 court cases. They started their hobby when they began dating in New York and Ed was looking for cheap entertainment. Because courtrooms are open to the public, the two would walk into night court after work or class and see whichever real-life drama awaited them.

Bringing murderers, rapists and drug dealers into a courtship was a risky move for Ed, but Harriett, an aspiring lawyer at the time, "thought it was a wonderful idea," she said. They've been married for 55 years.

Last week, after a morning spent watching the sentencing of a murderer's accomplice and then a wealthy couple settling a messy divorce, the Neufelds decided watching a drug-distribution case would be a nice way to spend the afternoon.

As they arrived, a police officer was on the stand describing a daytime drug deal that he said went down 14 feet in front of him in a Gaithersburg parking lot. The officer said he saw the defendant hand a bag with a green substance in it to someone, who handed back a $10 bill, which the officer identified because of the brown spots specific to new U.S. currency.

On the ride home after the trial broke for recess -- it wasn't exciting enough for the Neufelds to stay for the outcome -- Ed and Harriett held their own deliberation. Ed took the defendant's side: From 14 feet away, the officer couldn't have made out that $10 bill, he said. Harriett believed the officer, however, and decided to prove it from the passenger seat.

"You couldn't see this from 14 feet away?" she asked, pulling a $20 bill from her wallet and holding it in the air.

"No!" Ed shot back. "Not the brown spots!"

Although it might appear that the Neufelds find legal matters amusing, they say there are moments when they realize the enormous weight of the court proceedings for everyone involved.

During one such moment, Harriett began to cry as she listened to a mother plead with a judge to give her son, who drove the getaway car in a murder, a lenient sentence. The woman broke down when she described how hard she had worked to keep her son out of trouble.

"When you sit there, you see these people are on trial for their lives," Ed said. "Not necessarily life and death, but just the prospect of spending 10 or 15 years in prison."

"I can't imagine that," Harriett said.