INDEFENSIBLE: One Lawyer's Journey Into the Inferno of American Justice (23 page)

      
Sometime in August, your child is sick, your boss needs you at work, or your court date falls during a vacation you scheduled six months ago. You call your lawyer, leaving a message explaining that you can’t make it to court. When you get home there’s a message from your lawyer: “Because you failed to appear in court, the judge has issued a warrant for your arrest. Please call me as soon as possible.”

      
You call your lawyer. “I left you a message,” you explain angrily.

      
“Yeah, I know,” he says. “I explained the situation to the judge, and he says that if you voluntarily surrender in the next day or two, he’ll expunge the warrant.”

      
“Yeah, okay, but doesn’t that mean they can come and arrest me again?”

      
“Technically, yes.” Your lawyer’s voice is oozing with patience. “But there’s not much of a risk in the next few days. The warrant will have to be sent over to the police department’s Warrant Squad, and that usually takes a few days, so if you just come in tomorrow or the day after . . . really it’s not a problem.”

      
A warrant for your arrest
.

      
And finally, more than before, more than that time in front of the judge, you just want this over; you don’t want to talk to your lawyer anymore --you don’t even want to
have
a lawyer. You never want to go back to that courthouse again, never stand in the lines, never deal with the searching, the scanning, the tears, and the crowds.

      
“I want to get this over with,” you tell your lawyer. “I can’t take this anymore.”

      
“I’ll see what I can do,” your lawyer promises as you make plans to surrender yourself on the warrant early the next morning.

      
In the morning heat, the line seems unusually long. Maybe it’s the sticky summer air, or the additional apprehension of knowing that somewhere there is a warrant out for your arrest, or because having finally decided to plead, to capitulate, you’ve become like everyone else in the line: ground down by the system, beaten by it. And now, having joined them, everything feels different. You shuffle along with the same distracted gait that everyone around you sports. The building seems grayer somehow, the chatter darker. The constant barrage of barked orders from the dozen uniformed court officers manning the magnetometers seems more ominous, more controlling, the inevitable argument or ejection, or the occasional arrest, seems profoundly part of a vast regime of calculated brutality.

      
Inside the courtroom, the court officer looks at you with raised, impatient eyebrows.

      
“I h-have a warrant,” you stammer, “and, uh, my lawyer told me to tell you and give you the docket number so I can get it taken care of.”

      
Scribbling the docket number on a scrap of paper, the court officer looks at you with utter indifference.

      
“Take a seat” is all he says.

      
The day drags on with the usual rhythm. One after another, the people surrounding you on the benches get up for their forty-five seconds with the judge. Your lawyer checks in once, late in the morning, and explains that because you’re a warrant, the DA’s office doesn’t have the file --you can try to see the judge and then come back another day, or wait until the afternoon, when, if you’re lucky, the DA’s office will be able to have someone find your file in the warrant room and bring it down to the courtroom.

      
“Let’s just get it over with,” you hear yourself murmur, agreeing to come back at 2:15.

      
You skip the fast-food offerings of the food court across the street. Hungry or not, it’s better to just spend a few hours quietly reading in the hallway rather than deal with coming back into the courthouse after lunch, and so you sit, waiting as the building empties out, recently released inmates bounding down the stairs, their orange jail-issue slippers flashing in the midday light, lawyers by twos and threes chatting animatedly to one another, dejected girls with tear-streaked cheeks muttering, “No, Mommy, he ain’t comin’ home today” into their cell phones.

      
The doors swing open around 2:20, and you are swept into the courtroom with the tide of lawyers and defendants eager to have their cases called first thing after lunch. There’s no judge on the bench; she doesn’t arrive until about ten minutes after the floating sea of humanity has settled down, and in the meantime lawyers and cops fill in the front row, a kid with an oversized Pelle Pelle jacket and dreads slumps defiantly in the last, and everyone else spreads out evenly in the six rows in between.

      
Your lawyer strolls in, sees you, and waves. “Hold on,” he tells you, “I need to make sure the DA’s office got your file. You still wanna just get this over with, right?” You’ve rarely wanted anything so much in your life.

      
“Please” is all you say.

      
Your lawyer and the ADA slip outside through a back door, the one the judge just came in. You get a quick glimpse of a ratty, unembellished hallway beyond, and then the door closes and the first cases of the afternoon are called. Finally, the ADA and your lawyer reappear, and your lawyer strides purposefully out through the swinging gates, hitching a finger at you, beckoning you out into the public hallway.

      
“There’s good news and bad news,” he says, starting abruptly. “The good news is that if you want this over today, we can still do that, and do it without pleading you guilty to a crime.” He looks at you soberly and then, plowing forward, explains: “The bad news is that we can’t get the conditional discharge back --the ADA is being all stupid about the warrant and about why it took you so long to take the plea, and so she’s back to a day of community service.”

      
You feel your face start to flush as the futility of trying to fight begins to sink in. You’re already imagining yourself in one of those jumpsuits, cleaning a park with one of those weird, pointy sticks designed to skewer garbage, a nasty woman with a Queens accent pestering you to hurry up; you can almost feel the shame and humiliation, the damp, cool air on your skin, the depressing view of the tumbledown urban park, the idling minivan waiting to take you back to the pick-up point, and you’re back to thinking,
To hell with this --let’s go to trial
, when your lawyer continues: “But she’s agreed to a fifty-dollar fine instead.” The building knot between your shoulder blades starts to subside; all of a sudden, paying the money seems like a relief --the fine like some kind of oasis, a link to a familiar world far from the lunacy of this building. A fine you can do. A fine’s fine. You almost feel grateful.

      
“Oh, one other thing,” the lawyer explains as he makes an undecipherable notation on his file. “With the mandatory court costs and victim services fees, that’ll actually come to almost one hundred fifty dollars --I just thought I should let you know so you’re not surprised.”

      
Well, you are surprised, but you’re also kind of limp, exhausted from the process, feeling as though if you could just be done with this, just get it over with, you can go back to your life, put the whole thing behind you, forget that the Bronx Criminal Courthouse even exists.

      
“I don’t have that much on me today,” you explain.

      
“Oh, no problem.” He shrugs. “You’ll have three months to pay it.”

      
You agree and return to the courtroom; now that it’s 3:30 or so, the audience has gotten thin. Without much ado, your case is called.

      
The judge starts in on you before you have a chance to say anything.

      
“Where were you the other day?” she demands.

      
You weren’t ready for this --it’s one of the only times the judge has ever addressed you directly --and you notice that just behind you, a court officer slides into place, blocking your exit, gently unsnapping the little black leather belt pouch that holds his handcuffs.

      
“Ah, Y-Your H-Honor,” you stammer, explaining the situation, the words tumbling out, “I called my lawyer in advance and tried to explain. I can show you proof.” The judge obviously couldn’t care less about any of it, and it feels as if things are getting out of control, when your lawyer interrupts.

      
“Judge,” he says calmly but firmly, “we have a disposition of this case.” This seems to back the judge off, and she turns to the ADA.

      
“People?”

      
“The People’s offer is a 140.05 and a fifty-dollar fine,” says the ADA.

      
The court officer seems to relax slightly.

      
“Your Honor,” your lawyer says, a practiced staccato rhythm taking over, “after consultation with my client, I have been authorized to withdraw all previously entered pleas of not guilty and to enter a plea of guilty to a violation of penal law section 140.05 --that’s trespass as a violation, not a crime --in full satisfaction of the docket. We’ll waive allocution and stand ready for sentence with the understanding that it’ll be a fifty-dollar fine.”

      
The judge listens impassively, scribbling a seemingly more complicated note on the file. “People?” is all she says.

      
“That’s correct, Your Honor,” says the ADA, with barely a nod in your direction.

      
“Fine,” snaps the judge. “Is that what you want to do?” she asks you. “Plead guilty in this case?” Her voice comes to you from far away. It’s hard to believe you are doing what you’re doing, and as you stand before the judge pleading guilty, agreeing to pay a fine for a crime you didn’t commit, there is a strange disjunction, a disconnect between your brain and your mouth.

      
“Yes, Your Honor,” you manage to croak.

      
“Now, did anyone force you or threaten you to make you plead guilty to this charge?” the judge asks. Once again, flashes of the mountain of blue slips, the interminable delays, the stress, the warrant, the lines. Your lawyer glances over at you, sensing your momentary hesitation.

      
“No, Your Honor,” you murmur quietly.

      
“And are you pleading guilty because you are in fact guilty?”

      
And there it is: the ultimate question. The judge hasn’t even looked up. In some crazy way you want your lawyer to stop this train, to pipe up and insist here and now that you take back this horrible plea, that you, an innocent person, demand your trial; you want him to protect you from what’s happening. Just like the judge and the ADA, he is simply waiting for your answer, for the moment when, under oath and in a court of law, you admit to a crime you didn’t commit.

      
Another moment of hesitation, and it’s just then that the judge looks up and raises her eyebrows. The air is heavy; the court officer behind you seems alert again; the prospect of coming back is too much to bear. You’ve come this far; you’re on the spot and seconds from having the whole thing over.
Just do what you have to do
, you tell yourself, swallowing hard.

      
Your lawyer turns to you, whispering, “I thought you wanted to get this thing over with?”

      
And then, taking a lungful of air, you grit your teeth, square your shoulders, and say it: “Yes, Your Honor.”

      
You barely hear the judge as she pronounces, in the same monotone you’ve heard her use a thousand times over the past year: “I accept your plea and sentence you to a fine of fifty dollars --mandatory surcharges are imposed. So, that’s one hundred forty-five dollars payable at the cashier on or before October twenty-first. Next case, please.”

      
And that’s it. The judge tosses --literally tosses --the stapled sheaf of papers that represents your criminal justice nightmare into a wire basket on the side of the bench, next to where the clerk of the court sits. You’re mesmerized by the slowly spinning, airborne file. The court officer melts back, allowing you to walk out, following your lawyer, who, smiling kindly, hands you a slip of paper with the amount and payment instructions, shakes your hand, wishes you good luck, and, in a single, smooth gesture, turns smiling toward yet another waiting client.