(Haven't read chapters 6 and 7? Find them here.)
(Haven't read chapter 8? Find it here.)
CHAPTER NINE
On Thursday afternoon, I finally had a chance to read Mr. Davidson’s file. According to the police report, two patrol officers stopped a car on Lewiston Avenue for a traffic infraction. The officer who had been driving the patrol car approached the driver of the stopped car, while the second officer approached Mr. Davidson, who was a passenger in the back seat. Mr. Davidson and the driver of the car were black; their younger, female companions were white.
When the police officer asked Mr. Davidson for his name, he said, “I don’t have to tell you my name, I’m wearing my seat belt.” The officer noted that Mr. Davidson’s tone was rude and disrespectful. The report indicated that the officer again requested Mr. Davidson’s identification. Again, Mr. Davidson replied defiantly, “I don’t have to tell you my name, I know my rights.”
According to the report, the officer then asked, “What do you think you are, a lawyer?”
Mr. Davidson replied, “Yeah, I’m Johnnie Fuckin’ Cock-Ring.”
Nice, I thought.
While the interaction between Mr. Davidson and the second officer was taking place, the first officer had asked the driver for his license. However, due to Mr. Davidson’s continuous comments, according to the report, the first officer was hindered and delayed in the process of identifying the driver.
How rude, I thought.
At this point the officers determined that they should remove Mr. Davidson from the car. When told to get out of the car, instead of complying, Mr. Davidson asked why. Again, he was told to exit the vehicle. When he finally did get out of the car, a beer bottle fell from inside his coat to the ground. Fearing officer safety, the officer “escorted” Mr. Davidson to the ground. Because the officer felt Mr. Davidson had hindered and delayed the performance of the officers’ official duties, he cited Mr. Davidson with “Obstruction of a Law Enforcement Officer.”
Great, I thought, not only did I have a black client in a white town, but I also had one with attitude. The jury was going to love him.
I tried to call Mr. Davidson at home, but there was no answer. I called the radio station where he worked, but he was on the air, and couldn’t talk to me. I left about a dozen messages for him, becoming increasingly worried about the trial on Monday.
By Friday afternoon, I was in a panic. I didn’t know what our defense was, other than that the charge was “bullshit.” I did not think this defense would get me very far. After lunch, I returned to my office, determined to track Mr. Davidson down.
I walked into my cubicle and jumped back, startled. A tall, overweight man was sleeping in my chair. He was dressed in yellow sweats and hadn’t shaved in a couple of days. A thick text book rested on his lap, Ancient Chinese Philosophers. I cleared my throat. The man scratched his stomach, and slowly stretched.
“Excuse me, sir,” I said, thinking I should install a lock on my cubicle door.
He opened his eyes and regarded me. “I’m Bill,” he said. “Sorry about the flatulence.”
“The lobby is back down the hallway …”
“Oh, I’m not a client—I work here. I used to be a full-timer, but then I went a little off the deep end, so now I just help out on special research projects.”
Just then, José walked by in the hallway. “Hey, Fred,” he said.
I stepped outside my office into the hallway, giving Fred a just-a-second signal, but he was already back to reading the thick book.
“Who is that guy and what is he doing in my office?”
“You don’t know about Fred?”
“No.”
“He used to be one of our best felony lawyers. Fred was talented, but odd. He dressed a little like Sherlock Holmes—he wore a flat cap, odd boots, and carried a pipe. He was a genius of non sequiturs. The judge would ask, ‘Does your client have a job?’ and Fred would say, ‘The exact measure of the progress of civilization is the degree in which the intelligence of the common mind has prevailed over wealth and brute force.’ You would only realize the next day that his answer had been brilliant.”
“Doesn’t sound like that would work very well with a jury,” I said, like I had any idea what would work with a jury.
“I didn’t think so either. But I read a transcript of one of his trials once, and he was exceptional. His cross-examination of a snitch was orchestrated like a symphony.”
“That good?”
“That good.”
“So why is he unshaven, dressed in sweats, and passing gas in my office?”
“About a year ago, Fred had a trial with a young man accused of killing his wife and child. Fred believed the man was innocent, although no one else did. I don’t know if he was delusional or if he was right, but he did everything he could to try to save the man. He worked constantly on that case, sometimes sitting at his desk for days. In the end, though, his client was convicted and received the death penalty.”
“But what happened to Fred?”
“He started to forget things. At first, no one really noticed, because his behavior had always been a little bizarre. The prosecutors actually realized something was wrong before we did. They noticed that he would ask the same question over and over again, not remembering that he had asked it before.
“Tests were conducted. No one could give an exact diagnosis, except that he had lost his short-term memory. He couldn’t work as a lawyer, and he was placed on disability. This place had been his whole life, though. So he still hangs around.”
I went back into my office. Fred looked up from his book.
“Hi, I’m Fred.”
“I’m Kate. Do you mind if we switch chairs for a minute? I’ve got to call a client.”
Finally, I reached Mr. Davidson at the radio station. “Your trial is on Monday,” I said, trying to convey a sense of urgency. “We’ve got to talk about your case.”
“I can’t come in today. I’ll lose my job.”
“We’ll need to continue the trial date then. I won’t be ready.”
“No continuance,” he said. “I’ve already taken Monday off work. I can’t get any other day off. We’ll have trial on Monday, and we’ll win.”
“And why will we win?”
“Because I’m innocent.”
Not another one, I thought as I hung up the phone.
Fred had put his book down, and was regarding me with interest. “Sounds like you have a trial coming up,” he said. “I’m Fred, by the way.”
“I’m Kate.” I wondered how long it would take for me to enter his long-term memory. “I’ve got an Obstructing trial on Monday. My client was a passenger in a car, and was verbally abusive to the police. He says he’s the one who was being harassed.”
“He’s black?”
“As a matter of fact, yes,” I said, wondering how Fred had known this.
“Why was the car stopped?”
“You know, I don’t know.” I opened the file and scanned the police report. “It just says, ‘The driver was stopped for a traffic infraction.’ Doesn’t say exactly why.”
“You might want to know that.”
“How do I find out?”
“You might want to go to court and see if the cop issued the driver an infraction ticket. The ticket would have the reason for the stop.”
Fred slept for the rest of the afternoon in the client chair in my office, his head tipped back against the wall with the book of Chinese philosophy resting on his stomach. His presence was strange, but oddly comforting.
That weekend, Matthew helped me move into the apartment above Moezy’s. Since all my possessions fit into a few boxes, I really didn’t need his help. But Matthew was the kind of person who always helped friends move. I didn’t think I should get in the way of that.
“Is this really all you have?” he said, looking at the motley collection of boxes and plastic bags on my new living room floor.
“Don’t make me feel bad, Matthew.”
“Sorry,” he said, thinking I was serious.
The distribution and arrangement of all my worldly goods took about an hour, and most of that was putting shoes in the closet. Still, we were both a little sweaty by the time I put the last sweater away.
“Don’t you have air conditioning?” Matthew asked.
“You know, I didn’t even ask.”
I went to the two French doors in the living room that looked like they must lead to a balcony. I opened the doors. There was a tiny balcony, but the enormous neon “O” and “E” from the “Moezy’s” sign were mounted to the front of it. The letters were huge, at least six feet tall, although they didn’t look that large from the street. A little of the neon red glow filtered back to the balcony, which was just starting to darken as the sun set. I sat down on the edge of the balcony and hung my legs out of the center of the “O.” I wondered what people walking the streets below might think if they happened to look up and see legs coming out of the Moezy’s sign.
“Matthew, come check this out,” I called to him.
Matthew came to the door. “Wow,” he said. “Those letters are really big up close.” By sitting right next to me, he could also stick his legs out over the bottom part of the “E.”
“It’s like we have a secret view of the world, like from here we can see things other people can’t see, know what they don’t know,” I said, looking at the first stars coming out.
“They’re just big letters, Kate.” Matthew was very practical.
“Matthew, can I ask you something? I’m just curious, don’t think anything. But do you have a girlfriend?” I had a compulsive desire to know about other people’s love lives.
“No,” he said, quickly flushing. “I don’t know if I’m ready to see anyone, Kate.”
I laughed. “Oh, Matthew, you’re adorable, but I’m not trying to date you.”
Through my seven years of undergraduate and law school, I spent about three weeks total without a boyfriend. I always held them a little bit at arms’ length; we would usually end up breaking up after the boy professed his undying love and I would say, “Um, I’m really not sure yet.” I didn’t want to say it until I was sure. And I was never sure. I have all of these books about Fear of Commitment, given to me by guys. Except they’re supposed to be for guys. Simultaneous to my move to Washington, I decided to take a break from dating, try to figure myself out. “I was just curious. Have you ever had a girlfriend?”
“Just one.”
“What happened?” I knew I shouldn’t ask, but couldn’t help myself. I had a secret romantic side that I usually tried to repress. I had spent my teenage years reading every romance novel I could find, and these books had permanently sentimentalized my view of relationships.
“She was sort of, you know, the granola type. I met her in art history, an elective my parents didn’t approve of, paintings of naked ladies and all. Meghan wore long skirts and her hair in braids. She had this thing about her—her aura she called it—it just glowed. Anyway, she was in my study group, and I asked her on a date, and despite our differences, we really clicked. Like on the surface, we were different, but inside, we were the same.
“I did everything I could not to tell my parents about her. But they knew something was up. I was acting crazy, singing in the shower, staring off into space. So, I finally told them. I convinced myself that they would be OK with it. I was 23 years old, after all. And Meghan was so wonderful. I knew they would see it. She came over for dinner on a Sunday night.”
“What happened?”
“It was terrible. She mentioned that she was a member of Green Peace, a vegetarian, and Buddhist. After every question they asked her, you could see my parents clenching their teeth together tighter and tighter.
“After I took her home, my parents made a huge scene. They said that I was ungrateful, that this was not the way they had raised me. And then the ultimatum: I had to break up with her or I would be completely cut off—no place to live, no money for law school, nothing.”
“So you told your parents to go to hell and lived in a small efficiency apartment on love alone?” I loved this sort of story.
“I broke up with her.”
“Oh, Matthew,” I said, crushed. “But I thought you loved her?”
“I did.” He paused. “I do.”
“Let’s call her and get her back. Come on, Matthew, you can use my phone.”
“You don’t have a phone yet.”
“We can use the pay phone downstairs.”
“And say, remember me? I’m the guy who didn’t love you enough to stand up to his own parents. Want to take me back?”
“Shouldn’t you at least try? We’re talking about love here.”
“No, Kate. It’s over,” he said, gazing out over the E’s middle bar, not inviting any more questions.
Monday morning I arrived at court at 7:00 a.m. I was early, but my nerves wouldn’t let me sleep or stay at home any longer. I hoped that my blouse didn’t show that I had already worn it twice without a cleaning. Mr. Davidson arrived at 8:30, nicely dressed in pressed khakis, a mauve button-down shirt, and a skinny tie. I was having a hard time imagining how to win his case.
“Look, man,” he said, “we were being harassed. The cops had no reason to pull us over.”
This statement reminded me what Fred had said. I had forgotten to look for a copy of the traffic infraction given to the driver.
I left Mr. Davidson by the courtroom door, telling him not to let them start without me. I frantically searched the busy courthouse and finally found the traffic infraction counter. “Open at 9:00 a.m.,” a sign taped to the window read. Great. The trial started at 9:00. I decided to risk it. Tapping my foot, I waited while a clerk slowly processed my request for the traffic infraction’s file. Finally, at 9:05, I grabbed the file from the clerk’s hand and rushed to Judge Piddle’s courtroom.
“Ms. Hamilton, you’re late,” Judge Piddle said with a snarl.
“Sorry judge, I was having some feminine hygiene issues.”
The judge blanched and cleared his throat.
I looked over at the other counsel table to see Doug, the crazy-haired prosecutor, barely holding in a laugh. I was relieved to see that Doug was the prosecutor for the case—I had had enough of Bradley lately. Doug leaned over to my table. I could smell the hair product that he used to try to tame his hair. Aveda, I decided, Rosemary-Mint. The curls in his hair were loose, but formed natural ringlets in a few spots. I had a strong urge to grab one of the corkscrew curls and pull it. “I always carry a few extra feminine products in my briefcase,” he said, not buying my excuse for a second. “So next time you won’t have to be late.” The laugh lines around Doug’s dark brown eyes, combined with a dimple on his left cheek showed that he was joking. His nose was flat and his teeth were big and white, but slightly crooked. His look was a cross between nerdy and cool.
“Oh, shut up,” I replied, smiling.
“If your client pleads, I won’t recommend any jail time,” he whispered.
I looked over at Mr. Davidson with raised eyebrows. “Fuck, no,” he said. “This was bullshit.” I was starting to see why the police had a problem with him.
I heard the courtroom door open behind us. We all stood as the bailiff escorted the potential jurors into the room. My client tugged on my suit sleeve. “They’re all white,” he said, his eyes large. I looked. Sure enough, about 35 white people made up the jury panel, and most of them looked over 60 years old. “Don’t I have a right to a trial by a jury of my peers?” he asked.
“I guess it depends on your definition of ‘peers,’” I whispered.
“Those ain’t my peers.”
I had to admit he had a point.
The judge began talking to the potential jurors, asking each to state his or her name, neighborhood, and occupation. While the judge asked these routine questions, I looked at the court file from the driver’s traffic ticket. Flipping back a couple of pages, I found the actual ticket that the officer had written the driver. On the back of the ticket the police officer had written, “Improper Lane Change. Driver signaled lane change, but the blinker only blinked twice.”
I tuned the judge and jurors out as I thought about the ticket. “Blinker only blinked twice” seemed like a weak reason to stop a car. I looked at the ticket to see what time the officer had stopped the car. Two o’clock. Maybe traffic had been heavy. Or maybe the police were on a special emphasis to remind people to use their blinkers properly.
I leaned over to my client. “What was traffic like when you were stopped?”
“There was hardly another car on the road. It was the middle of the night.”
“Oh, 2 o’clock in the morning. Were you in a turning lane?” I whispered.
“Man, you couldn’t tell where any of the lanes were. The streets were packed with snow.”
That seemed strange.
In voir dire, I improvised and asked the jurors if anyone believed that black people were treated differently when stopped by police. No one did. We were in America after all, a nation where racism had died in the ’60s and ’70s.
While Doug gave his opening statement, basically repeating the police report, I mapped out a strategy for my cross-examination of the officer. I wished I had more time. My opening statement was, by necessity, vague, emphasizing the state’s burden of proof and the importance of withholding judgment until all the evidence had been elicited.
After opening statements, the judge took a recess to give Doug time to gather his witnesses.
“What does this part mean?” I asked my client while we waited in the empty courtroom. I pointed to a section of the police report: “‘I escorted Mr. Davidson to the ground.’”
“Man, that’s cop-talk for slammin’ your face into the ground because you failed the attitude test,” James said.
“They did that?” I asked, not really believing him.
“Yeah, man. I had two black eyes, a big gash on my forehead, and a bloody nose. They didn’t just slam my face into the snow—they scrubbed it around a little, too.”
“I wish someone had taken a picture.” Then I would know if it were true.
“You know I was booked into jail that night?” James asked.
“Right …”
“Ever hear of a booking photo?”
I called the office and managed to get Janice. She said she would try to get a copy of the booking photo over to court. She arrived while Doug was conducting his direct examination of the officer. She was wearing a black leather skirt and a jacket with fringe on the arms. She boldly walked past the gate into the lawyer part of the courtroom and placed a manila envelope on my table. She gave me a wink, and then turned and left the courtroom. Trying not to draw any more attention to myself, I opened the envelope and peeked inside. I saw the booking photo, and discretely pulled it out. I must have looked at the picture for at least a minute, because all of the sudden I looked up, and Doug was sitting down, having finished his direct examination of the officer. I looked at the picture for one more second. Mr. Davidson’s encounter with the police that night had been much different than I had imagined.
I stood up and walked to the podium. The officer sat straight and tall in the witness chair. He was heavy and muscular. He held my gaze without expression. I really wished I had another week to prepare this case, especially the cross-examination I was about to begin. The jurors and judge were looking at me expectantly. Clearing my throat, I began by asking routine questions, ones I thought the officer would answer with “Yes.” My DUI book told me that if I trained the police officer to answer “yes” to all my basic questions, then he would be more likely to say “yes” to the controversial ones. I hoped this tactic applied to trials that weren’t DUIs.
“You were on duty on December 30th?”
“Yes.”
“You were with a partner?”
“Yes.”
“You were on routine traffic patrol.”
“No.”
What? This was supposed to be the easy part. I remembered the Golden Rule of Cross-examination: Never ever ask a question that you don’t know the answer to. If I asked him what kind of duty he was on, I didn’t know what his answer would be.
I hesitated, then dove in. “What kind of duty were you on?”
“I was on a special gang-emphasis task force.”
Gang task force? I felt my brain spinning, my world-view tilting.
“You were on a special gang-emphasis task force,” I repeated, buying myself a few seconds to think.
“Yes, we were investigating gang involvement in drug trafficking.”
I felt something click over in my brain. I had an idea about where I should go. I just hoped I could figure out how to get there.
“By ‘gang,’ officer, you mean a group of ethnically similar people engaged in criminal activities.”
“I suppose.”
“And while ‘ethnically similar people’ can encompass a wide variety of ethnicities—Russian, Hispanic, Vietnamese—in Athens we’re talking about black gangs.”
“Well I don’t really know …”
“How many gangs do you know of in Athens?”
“There are about five major ones, with three or four wanna-bes.”
“How many are black?”
“All of them,” he admitted.
“So when you are on this special gang task force, you are investigating the black gangs of Athens.”
“Yes.”
“And while you were investigating Athens
“Yes.”
“Now, you would never pull a car over just because the occupants were black.”
“Certainly not.”
“You would never use some insignificant traffic infraction as an excuse to stop a car with black people in it?”
“I don’t know what you mean. It’s my job to enforce the traffic laws of the State of Washington.”
“Would you agree that you observe a multitude of traffic infractions every day?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t pull people over for every single infraction you see.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Even when you are on traffic patrol.”
“True.”
“How many other traffic infraction tickets did you issue on this night?”
“I can’t recall.”
“Do you recall stopping any other cars for traffic infractions that night?”
“No.”
“Tell me, officer,” I said, setting him up, because I had a hunch that he had only reviewed the police report from Mr. Davidson’s arrest, and not the infraction written to the driver, “Why did you and your partner stop the car that night?”
He looked down at the report, looking for the reason. Finding none, he said, “Well, it says here that the car was pulled over for a traffic infraction. Since Mr. Davidson wasn’t the driver, I didn’t write down which specific infraction.”
“Do you recall what that infraction was?”
“No, I don’t recall.”
“But whatever it was, it wouldn’t have been an excuse to pull over a car occupied with black people while you’re on gang duty?”
“No.”
“It would have been a serious enough infraction to draw your attention away from your special gang task force duties, and to enforce traffic laws.”
“I’m always concerned about traffic safety, ma’am.”
“Would it refresh your recollection of the reason the car was pulled over to see the traffic infraction that your partner wrote the driver?”
“Yes.”
“Your honor, may I approach the witness?”
“Yes.”
I smiled and walked up to the officer, aware of the jurors eyes following me. He looked at me nervously, hating that I knew what the ticket said, and he didn’t. I handed him the court file with the original traffic ticket in it. I opened the file to the hand-written ticket and handed it to him. “Do you recognize this, officer?”
“Yes, I do.”
“What is it?”
“It’s the traffic infraction my partner wrote the driver of the car.”
“Is it the original of the document?”
“Yes it is.”
“And is it in your partner’s handwriting?”
He looked again at the ticket, as if he didn’t know. “Yes.”
“Does it indicate the reason that Mr. Davidson’s car was pulled over?”
He turned the ticket over and read the back of it to himself. He shifted his position in the witness chair, uncomfortably.
“Yes.”
“Tell the jury why you pulled Mr. Davidson’s car over.”
“Ummm, well, the car changed lanes, and it used its blinker, but it only blinked twice.”
“The blinker only blinked twice,” I repeated for emphasis.
“That’s what I just said.”
“Traffic must have been very heavy for this action to cause you concern.”
“The traffic is marked as light,” he admitted.
“It was two a.m.”
“Yes, it was.”
“Is traffic ever heavy at two a.m.?”
“Not really.”
“Tell me, what date was this?”
“December 30th.”
“Do you recall what happened that day, weather-wise?” I held a newspaper, pretending that it was the newspaper from December 30th. It wasn’t.
“It snowed.”
“Just a dusting?”
“No, in the afternoon, a large storm passed through. It stopped by ten p.m., though.”
“The streets were snow packed, weren’t they?”
“None of them had been plowed yet.”
“So you couldn’t even see the lane markers?”
“I know where the lanes are, even if I can’t see them.”
I walked back to the podium, shaking my head, giving the jury time to think about what the officer had just told them.
“Once the car had stopped,” I said, changing the subject, “you approached the back-seat passenger window, while your partner approached the driver.”
“Yes.”
“You asked Mr. Davidson for his identification.”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t it true, though, that you have no right to ask a passenger for identification, unless he is committing some traffic infraction himself?”
“I can ask. He just doesn’t have to tell me.”
“And Mr. Davidson was aware of this right. He knew he had no obligation to identify himself. He told you that he was wearing his seatbelt and didn’t have to tell you his name.”
“He was very uncooperative.”
“I suppose ‘uncooperative’ is what you call someone who knows his rights?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“No, I did,” I said, moving on quickly before Doug could object. “When he told you that he didn’t have to give you his name, because he was a passenger with a seatbelt on, this was a true statement of fact?”
“Legally, yes.”
“And you asked him if he was a lawyer?”
“Yes.”
“And he said ‘Yeah, I’m Johnny Fuckin’ Cock-Ring.’”
“Yes. He gave me a false name.”
“You ordered him out of the car.”
“For officer safety purposes.”
“Had he been threatening you?”
“He had given me a false name.”
“Johnnie Cock-Ring?”
“Johnnie F-ing Cock-Ring.”
“Did you think he meant you to believe that he was Johnnie F-ing Cock-Ring?”
“I’m always concerned when a suspect gives me a false name.”
“A suspect? What did you suspect him of? Aiding and abetting an improper lane change?”
“He was extremely uncooperative.”
“When he stood up, a closed beer bottle fell out of his jacket and onto the ground.”
“Yes.”
“You forcefully threw him to the ground.”
“I escorted him to the ground in a standard police approved maneuver.”
“Because he said Cock-Ring?”
“Because he had the beer.”
“But it hadn’t been opened. Wasn’t he over 21?”
“I considered it a potential weapon, ma’am.”
“Wasn’t it more likely to be a potential beverage?” I heard a noise. I looked over at Doug, who was biting his lip to keep from laughing. The officer didn’t answer.
“Is it a standard police maneuver to bruise and bloody a person because he has a beer?”
“I responded according to my training.”
“Would you agree that as a result of your ‘escort’ to the ground, Mr. Davidson was injured?”
“He had some small abrasions.”
I turned to the judge. “May I approach the witness?” I loved the drama in these courtroom niceties.
I walked to the witness stand and showed him the picture. “Is this what your training teaches you to do to a citizen who is a passenger in a car?” A few jurors strained to see the photo.
“I responded according to my training.”
“Would you agree that this photograph is an accurate depiction of how my client appeared at the time you booked him into jail?”
“Yes.”
“Your honor, I move to have defense exhibit A admitted into evidence,” I said.
“Any objection, Mr. Vaughn?”
“No.”
“It is admitted.”
“May I publish the photo to the jurors?” ‘Publish’ was a lawyer way of saying ‘show.’ I had seen it on T.V.
I passed the booking photo to the jurors. A young woman in the front row actually gasped.
Doug surprised me by resting his case after the first officer testified.
“Aren’t you going to call the other officer?” I asked him.
“After the way you torpedoed the first one? I think another officer like the first one would do me in.”
“What are you trying to hide, Doug?”
“Look, I haven’t even talked to the other cop, but I’m not real thrilled with the first one. I had no idea about the gang duty. I figure the second cop would just make matters worse. Call him as your own witness if you want.”
I considered calling the other officer as a witness, but I thought I had decimated the state’s case. I had shown that Mr. Davidson was pulled over because he was black, that he was harassed because he knew his rights, and that he was bloodied and bruised because he had failed the attitude test. Outside the presence of the jury, I asked Judge Piddle to dismiss the case, citing these factors. I also emphasized that Mr. Davidson was simply exercising his right to free speech, and had indeed correctly identified his legal rights. “The correct expression of legal rights cannot constitute a crime,” I said, almost passionately.
“Ms. Hamilton,” the judge said in his most nasally voice. “I am not impressed with your excuses for your client’s behavior. He was disrespectful to the police, and by his obnoxious behavior, your client hindered a law enforcement officer in the legitimate investigation of a traffic infraction. Motion denied.”
Unable to help myself, I muttered under my breath, “So much for free speech.”
The judge turned back to me. “What did you say, Ms. Hamilton?” His tone was menacing.
I tried to shrug innocently.
“What did you say!” he demanded.
I hesitated, and then stood up straight. “I said, SO MUCH FOR FREE SPEECH!”
“I am going to hold you in contempt, Ms. Hamilton!”
“Exactly my point, your honor,” I said, again, before I could stop myself.
The judge’s face turned crimson with my last remark and he banged his gavel loudly on the bench. “That will be enough, Ms. Hamilton! The court is in recess. Counsel! In chambers!” He stood up abruptly and stomped out of the court room.
“What was that?” I asked Doug. “I’ve never had a gavel banged at me before.”
“I think you are going to have to stay after school. He wants you to go back to his office now so he can yell at you. If you don’t tell anyone, I’ll go with you, try to head him off.”
“Thanks,” I said.
We walked back to the judge’s chambers, really just his office, where he was sitting at his desk, still wearing his black robe. Doug and I sat down in the two chairs facing his desk.
“Miss Hamilton, just because you represent the dregs of society does not mean you are entitled to behave as they do,” the judge lectured.
I felt my mouth dropping open. Doug elbowed me in the side. I shut my mouth.
“I realize, Miss Hamilton, that you are new, and perhaps not familiar with courtroom decorum. However, any first-year law student should know that it is not appropriate to question me once I have ruled.”
I was about to say, “I thought it was my job to question you,” but as soon as I opened my mouth, Doug elbowed me again.
“I was considering a one-day jail sentence for your contempt; however, because you are new, and have not continued to question me, I will fine you $50, payable to the charity of your choosing.”
“Wow,” I said to Doug as we escaped from the judge’s chambers back into the courtroom, “could I really go to jail for that?”
“Apparently, yes,” he answered seriously. He shook a curl out of his eyes.
I was starting to wonder how I had managed to go through my whole life without ever being sent to jail. It seemed to happen easily and often in Olympic District Court.
Despite the judge’s opinion of my case, though, I still believed that we were winning. I decided not to call the other officer or my client as witnesses. I was afraid that Mr. Davidson’s cockiness, so to speak, would turn the jurors off. When the judge came back on the bench, I announced, “We rest.”
I made the same argument to the jury in my closing argument that I had made to the judge in my motion to dismiss. The judge didn’t like it, I could tell, but he couldn’t refuse to let me argue my case.
At the end of my closing argument, I decided to take a risk, and tell the jurors what I thought of the situation. “Let’s focus on the statements my client made that night, besides his flippant assertion that his name was Johnnie F-ing Cock-Ring.” The jurors appeared to be paying attention to me. “First, he said ‘I am a passenger in this car and I am wearing a seatbelt.’ And this was true. Second, he said ‘This is harassment; you’re pulling us over because we are black.’ And it turns out, this was true too. Third, he said. ‘This is mother f-ing bull shit.’ And you know what,” I said, holding up the picture of Mr. Davidson’s bloody face, “that was true too.”
With this last statement, Judge Piddle looked like he was about to bang his gavel at me again. I sat down, thinking that basically saying that the state’s case was mother fucking bullshit was a good enough way to end.
Doug argued that Mr. Davidson’s actions had hindered and delayed a law enforcement officer. His presentation was organized and plain-spoken, but not particularly inspiring.
Because we finished our closing arguments past 5 o’clock, I assumed the jurors would come back the next day to deliberate. I was surprised when the judge said, “Miss Hamilton and Mr. Vaughn, I assume my bailiff will be able to reach you at your respective offices?”
“You can reach me on my cell phone,” Doug said, giving the bailiff the number.
“Miss Hamilton?”
“You can call me at Moezy’s Inn.”
“A drinking establishment? That is not a proper place to wait for a jury verdict.”
“I live there.”
“I am not impressed with the fact that your alcohol consumption rises to such a level that you describe yourself as ‘living’ at a bar.”
“Here’s my home phone number,” I said, giving the bailiff Moezy’s number, since I didn’t have my own phone hooked up yet. I figured Don, the bailiff, would be the one to call the number and hear their cheerful “Moezy’s Inn!” telephone greeting. I didn’t know why, but I imagined that he wouldn’t tell Judge Piddle that I actually did live at a bar.
I waited for the call downstairs at Moezy’s—a pleasing act of defiance against Judge Piddle—bumming cigarettes from Janice because I was so nervous. I hated the feeling that the jurors were talking about my case, because there was nothing I could do about it anymore.
Janice was there, sitting by herself at the usual table, drinking whisky on the rocks with a beer back, smoking a cigarette, and reading People magazine.
I sat down, and Pam brought me a beer.
“I don’t know if I should have a drink,” I said. “I’m waiting for a verdict.”
“Drinking is the only thing you can do when you’re waiting for a verdict,” Janice said.
“Very funny.”
“I’m serious,” Janice said, throwing back the rest of her whisky. “Trials are this incredible combination of stress and focus. Finishing would usually be a relief, except that you don’t know what the result is yet. So you’re relieved to be done, but terrified of the outcome. What are you going to do, make a phone call? Write a brief? It’s worse if you wait in your office, because then you just stare at the phone and will it to ring and not ring at the same time. It can be bad if they go out in the morning.”
“What if they’re out for more than a day?”
“That can lead to trouble.”
“Judge Piddle will kill me if he smells beer on my breath.”
“Screw Judge Piddle. I’ll give you a mint.” She poured beer into the mug that Pam had set in front of me. “What was your case about, anyway?”
“It was amazing. My black client was in a car that got pulled over for a traffic infraction.”
“Was he the driver?”
“Nope.”
“Obstructing?”
“How did you know? Anyway, I start cross examining the cop, and it turns out that he was on gang duty, and he pulled the car over because the blinker didn’t blink enough times.”
“Sounds like a pretext stop to me.”
“A what?”
“Pretext stop. It’s when the cop uses some lame infraction as an excuse to stop a car, when the infraction is not the real reason at all. Happens all the time—you usually don’t get to bust them like that. Gang duty. Un-fucking-believable.”
“So what does it mean that it was a pretext stop?”
“Oh, you probably should have gotten the case dismissed with a pretrial motion.”
I put my beer down. The relief I had been feeling was gone. “I should have gotten the case dismissed before trial?” I put my forehead on the bar and banged it a couple of times. “Oh my god, I have no idea what I am doing.”
“The only way to learn this job is by doing it. Every trial you do, whether you win or lose, you’ll learn something. Frankly, you learn more from the cases you lose, because you beat yourself up over everything you should and could have done.”
“But couldn’t we have, you know, training or something?”
“In a dream world, Kate. Consider it on-the-job training.”
“Yeah, but my clients are the ones who suffer if I screw up. What if Mr. Davidson goes to jail because I didn’t file a pre-trial motion to dismiss?”
“Look on the bright side. If you lose, the case could get reversed for ineffective assistance of counsel.”
“That’s a comfort.”
“I bet you’ll never miss a pretext issue again.”
“Great. I’ll be learning a lot of really good lessons over the bodies of my clients.”
“Basically. That’s why they start you out in misdemeanors—where you can do the least damage.”
I poured myself another mug of beer. Last week I had felt great after winning my first trial. Now I realized I was totally incompetent. “This job is going to be harder than I thought,” I said. “I don’t know what I’ll do if my client goes to jail.”
“I remember the first time I went to jail,” Janice said.
“You’ve been to jail?” I asked, impressed.
“I ran away from home when I was 16 because my mother kept threatening to put me in the juvenile detention center. My boyfriend had a car, so we drove it over to Montana, stealing gas and food all the way. I was a pretty good little thief, but we finally got caught in Bozeman. I gave the police a fake name and date of birth that made me 18 years old and was booked into the jail.”
“How terrible,” I said, trying to imagine myself at age 16 in a jail cell.
“Are you kidding? I loved it. Every day, they would give me this tiny pack of four cigarettes and the jail library was full of true-crime novels. I thought I was in heaven.”
“How long were you there?”
“It took the police a little over a week before they figured out who I really was. Then they had to send me back to Tacoma, because I was a juvenile. My mother promised she wouldn’t put me in juvi, but she sent me there a few days later. I hated the juvenile detention center, all these classes and programs. I just wanted my cigarettes and true crime novels.”
“I wonder why I’ve never been to jail. It doesn’t seem that hard to get in.”
“I remember feeling a little freaked out when I volunteered in juvenile court during law school and they gave me the keys to the juvi detention center. I kept thinking they would remember me, and take away my key.”
Just then, Pam yelled that the telephone was for me. “It’s someone named Don—he’s a bail bondsman or something.”
I picked up them phone.
“The jurors want to go home,” Don told me.
“Then let them.” I couldn’t figure out why he was telling me this.
“They say they are hung,” Don said.
I covered the mouthpiece and shouted over to Janice, “They say they are hung. What does that mean?” Janice rolled her eyes.
“The judge wants you over here right away,” Don said.
When I got to the courthouse, I ran into Doug in the hallway. “What’s going on? Don says the jurors are deadlocked. What do we do?”
“We wait and see if the judge lets them go, or tells them they have to keep deliberating.”
Don came out and announced that the judge had discharged the jurors, having found that they were hopelessly deadlocked.
“What was the split?” Doug asked. I wondered what that meant.
“Five to acquit, one to convict.” Don said with a smile that hinted at something more than his answer. I wondered which juror was the racist who wanted to convict my client.
“What do we do now?” I asked Doug.
“You tell your guy that the judge said he has to come to court and plead guilty,” Doug said flatly.
“No, really.”
“I bet the judge would let you plead guilty in his place, your bad behavior and all that.” Doug’s face was serious, but his eyes were twinkly.
“Doug,” I said in a fake patient voice. Because I was above average height, I was used to looking at most guys close to eye level. But Doug was so impossibly tall that the top of my head came to his chin. Tilting my head back to look up at him made me feel awkwardly vulnerable, but staring at his tanned neck wouldn’t do either.
“All right,” he said, dropping the joke. “Now, I decide whether I want to take the case to trial again. If I want to try it again, I ask the judge for a new trial date. If I don’t want to re-try it, then it just goes away.”
“Are you going to re-try it?”
“That piece of shit? Are you kidding me?” He laughed, and then paused. “Hey, want to go have a drink?”
I hesitated. I almost wanted to go, but didn’t think it would be good form to have a drink with a prosecutor.
“I’m pretty beat,” I said. “Maybe another time.”
“No problem,” he said like he meant it.
On Saturday morning, I went for a walk in Olympic Park, which was close to downtown. I was thinking about my life. I had just turned 26 years old. By my age, my mother was already married. While I knew I didn’t want a family yet—in fact, the thought of children horrified me—I felt like I needed something more. I thought about Matthew and his ex-girlfriend, Meghan. I knew that if I had been Matthew, I would have defied my parents’ ultimatum, and stayed with Meghan. I had always been attracted to forbidden things. It might have been a reckless decision, but I would have chosen Meghan over my parents’ support. Matthew’s story made me grateful for my parents. They thought I was crazy, but they let me be that way. Maybe I was craving romance in my own life, but I didn’t have time for that and besides, had promised myself to lay off dating for a while. Maybe Matthew or Jose? Matthew, while sweet, just wasn’t my type. And Jose was hot, but I didn’t feel any attraction besides friendship.
I was debating whether I would have just lied to my parents and told them that I had broken up with Meghan when I hadn’t, or told them the truth and dropped out of school and gotten a job as a bartender or something. I thought I probably would have continued the relationship but hidden it from my parents, because I had never been that good at roughing it. On the other hand, I had always wanted to be a bartender.
I was jolted out of my musings by a familiar-looking woman calling out to me. “Miss Hamilton!” she called, jogging up to me. I missed a couple of beats as I tried to place her.
“Remember me? Juror number five?”
Of course, the young woman from the front row. “Yes, from Mr. Davidson’s trial,” I said, reaching out to shake her hand.
“I just wanted you to know that that case changed my life,” she told me earnestly. “I couldn’t believe it. I never knew that sort of racism went on here. I thought it only happened in, like, California or New York. Your case made me want to be a public defender like you.”
“I’m not even sure I want to be one.” She laughed like I was joking.
“Do you have to go to college to be a public defender, or is there just an internship?”
“There is college involved,” I said. Changing the subject, I asked, “Tell me, who was the hold-out? I heard there was just one person who wanted to convict.”
“Oh, no,” she said. “I was the only one who voted ‘not guilty.’ It got pretty ugly.”
I felt my skin turn clammy.
“Should I call the prosecutor and tell him how horrible I thought this was?”
“Please don’t.” The last thing Doug needed to know was that only one juror wanted to acquit.
I said good-bye to her, telling her she should call me—not Doug—if she had any questions about the case.
As I walked away, she called out after me, “What’s the difference between a public defender and a real lawyer, anyway?”
I pretended that I hadn’t heard her.
Later that same day, the postman delivered a large envelope from the Washington State Bar Association. It obviously contained the bar exam results. I was surprisingly ambivalent about the contents of the envelope. If I had passed, I would continue to be a public defender. If I failed? Who knew? Maybe I would find a job I really liked.
I opened the envelope. I had passed.
Want to keep reading? Find the next chapters, 10 and 11, Judge Piddle, Mickey Mouse, and Fellatio?, here.
Want to keep reading? Find the next chapters, 10 and 11, Judge Piddle, Mickey Mouse, and Fellatio?, here.
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