The clerk stood and called the next one. The parties shuffled into position, but this time the defendant had not arrived for trial, and a warrant was issued for his arrest.
Two more cases were called: another no-show and then a dismissal because one of the witnesses was refusing to cooperate.
Finally, the clerk called, “State of Missouri versus Cecil Bates.”
I looked over at Cecil and nodded. He nodded back, and then we stood and walked up to the front of the courtroom together.
We noted our appearances on the record as the judge pulled the file up on his computer. All the pleadings and other documents were now electronic. There was no paper record for the court, even though I had been unable to wean myself from the traditional paper files.
“OK.” The judge looked at Cecil as would a parent humoring a precocious child. “I remember you.” He glanced at his screen. “Charged with drinking in a public park.” Then the judge looked at me. “What’s the status?”
“My client would like to proceed with trial, Your Honor.”
Judge Polansky could barely contain his annoyance. Going to trial meant that he couldn’t call another five cases for trial that afternoon. The law factory would have to slow down.
Now conceding that my client was a lost cause, the judge waved the prosecutor, a young lawyer named Cynthia Curtis, and myself forward. “Approach.”
Judge Polansky turned off the microphone as Ms. Curtis and I walked up to the bench. He leaned over. “What the hell are you doing?” His question was directed at Ms. Curtis. “You’re honestly going to take a misdemeanor drinking in public case to trial?”
Curtis glanced at me. Prosecutors aren’t used to being challenged. Usually the wrath of a judge is directed at the recalcitrant criminal, not the knight on the white horse. “Sir?”
The judge’s impatience grew. “You dump cases all the time,” Judge Polansky said. “What’s so special about Mr. Bates? Why are we going to waste three days or more of this court’s time on this?”
“Your honor, Mr. Bates is a chronic offender. He’s got multiple convictions for drinking in public, public urination, aggressive panhandling—”
Judge Polansky raised his hand, cutting her off. “Exactly. So?” It was a rhetorical question. “He’ll be back whether you go to trial or not. You’re wasting resources. We could be taking some domestic assaults or robberies to trial. How about them?”
Cynthia Curtis knew enough to know that it was dangerous to argue with a judge, and so she played the only card she had left: she blamed somebody else.
She said, “The deputy told me that dumping the case would reward Mr. Bates for being an obstructionist. He wants a conviction and three months in jail. Get him off the streets, maybe give him a chance to sober up.”
“That’s your plan, huh?” Judge Polansky looked at me and rolled his eyes, but he was playing us both beautifully. He wanted the prosecutor to know that he wasn’t happy with her and also wanted me to hear that my client was potentially facing some significant time in jail.
The judge leaned back. “Well I think you are both assuming a lot of things. This is my only case left for the morning, so I’ll take a fifteen-minute break.” Polansky looked at his watch. “Talk one more time.” To Curtis: “Confirm with your supervisor that he wants to go down this stupid path.” To me: “Confirm with your client whether he really wants to spend three months in jail.” Then to the both of us: “If you’re unable to come to your collective senses, we’ll call up the jury in fifteen minutes.”
Like scolded children, we both responded in unison. “Yes, Judge.”
“And just so you both know.” He pointed at me and then to the prosecutor. “Once this trial starts, I don’t stop. We go until there’s a verdict. I won’t accept pleas in the middle of a trial. We go to the end.”
I met with Cecil in the hallway and did as I was supposed to do. “The prosecutor wants to set an example. Seeking three months in jail and probably a stay-away order, prohibiting you from all downtown parks.”
“Three months and then I’m supposed to disappear?” Cecil shook his head. “Where they think I’m going to go?”
I responded half joking. “They’re hoping that you go away, like to Kansas City or Chicago. That’s what I think. Probably buy you a bus ticket if you want.”
“Well that ain’t gonna happen.” Cecil looked down at the floor, shaking his head. “Don’t want to go to jail for that long, neither.”
“I know you don’t.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “But it’s our word against the cop’s, and I don’t think those are good odds.”
“You telling me to plead guilty to something that I didn’t do?” Cecil looked at me, disappointed. “I’ll plead guilty to something that I did do. Done it before. Do it in a heartbeat. But I ain’t saying I did something that I know isn’t true.”
“I understand. Only telling you the odds and the consequences. That’s what lawyers do.”
Cecil looked up at me. “What about my video?”
“What about it?”
“What about it?” Cecil said, mimicking me. His mood had shifted. He was angry now, and the noise brought a deputy into the hall to make sure everything was OK.
I nodded toward the deputy to assure him that the situation was under control, then lowered my voice to Cecil. “I asked for it through discovery, and the prosecutor says that it doesn’t exist.”
“They lyin’.”
“Don’t know,” I said. “But I can’t make them give us something that they claim doesn’t exist.”
“Well try harder.”
Judge Polansky came back onto the bench, still annoyed that he may actually have to preside over a trial. “OK.” He looked at me. “Have the parties reached a resolution?”
I shook my head. “No, Your Honor. My client has decided that he would like to exercise his right to go to trial.”
The judge looked at Cynthia Curtis. “And you have your witnesses subpoenaed?”
“I do.”
Judge Polansky nodded and then gestured for his law clerk to make the phone call down to the jury room in the courthouse basement. “Then we’ll bring the panel up, select a jury, and start taking testimony this afternoon.”
Both Curtis and I agreed, trying to be respectful.
Then the judge asked, “Anything else we need to put on the record before we get started?”
I hesitated, but then decided that I didn’t have much choice. “I do have one thing, Your Honor.”
Judge Polansky smirked. “You do?”
“Yes.” I looked over at Cecil and then proceeded. It wasn’t necessary, but I wanted Cecil to know that he had been heard, in the hope that he’d be calmer in front of the jury if he knew that I had tried. “We made a discovery request for a video that my client believes is in the possession of the Saint Louis Police Department.”
One of Judge Polansky’s eyebrows raised. “Video?”