“I have to do something. You have to go to school.”
“It’s awful.” Sammy looked away again, eyes bloodshot with tears. “Girls say I’m acting white. They leave Oreos in my locker, Daddy.” Her head dropped, defeated. “Black on the outside, white on the . . . Oreos.”
Now tears welled up in my own eyes. I put my arm back around her and squeezed her. “They’re ignorant.” Weight pressed down on my chest with a mix of sadness and anger. The idea of sending Sammy back into that school building another day made my own stomach hurt.
If Monica were still alive, she would’ve known the right thing to say. Sammy was just like her mother. That mother-daughter conversation, however, was impossible.
Then I caved.
“Why don’t you come to work with me today?”
Sammy wiped the tears away. Her body visibly relaxed. “Seriously?”
I nodded. “Just for today, and we’ll try and figure something else out.”
The decision to bring my daughter to work with me at the courthouse was arguably not my finest moment as a single parent, but you know what they say about desperate times. It was a general arraignment calendar, which is inherently chaotic. Keeping track of a tween girl amid the crowd of low-level street criminals made it even more of a scrum.
In the hierarchy of legal proceedings, misdemeanor and petty misdemeanor arraignment court is near the bottom. It’s a sea of people who are usually homeless, mentally ill, addicted to drugs, or all the above. They haven’t been charged with major crimes like murder or robbing a bank, but quality of life offenses—loitering, open bottle in a park, urinating in public, possession of a small amount of drugs, shoplifting.
I deputized Sammy as my assistant. I gave her the stack of files we’d picked up from the public defender’s office that morning and told her to sit in a chair in the hallway with them while we worked through them together.
“Who’s on top?” I asked.
Sammy handed me the first file, reading the name. “Schultz.”
“Thank you.” I took the file from her, and then I shouted, “Schultz.” Nobody responded, but the mass of people in the hallway quieted down. I looked at the label. “DeAnne Schultz. Is there a DeAnne Schultz here?”
Still no response. I handed the file back to Sammy. She put it on the bottom of the stack, then handed me the next file. “Bates,” she said.
I took the file and shouted, “Bates.”
An older man, about twenty feet away, raised his hand.
“Cecil Bates?” I asked him.
“That’s me.”
“Good.” I nodded and walked over to him. “Mr. Bates, I’m your attorney, and we’ve got about forty seconds to figure out whether you’re going to plead guilty today or we’re going to set this matter on for trial.”
I turned and shot Sammy a wink, and she winked back. At least she was having a good time.
The law factory started in earnest around ten in the morning. By the time the judge took the bench, I had spoken with about 70 percent of the people who were identified in my stack of files. There were a few people who came late that I didn’t get a chance to consult. The remainder did not show up, and when their cases were later called, the judge would issue a warrant for their arrest.
Sometimes I didn’t see the logic in spending the money to arrest, transport, book, and jail a guy who didn’t show up for court to receive a seventy-five-dollar fine for pissing in an alley, but that was how it worked. That was justice in America.
I kept my frustration with the system contained. I did my job, made my arguments, and collected my check. It was dangerous to think too much while on the clock. Railing against the Man was restricted to off-duty hours. In the evenings or at happy hour with the other public defenders and low-rent street lawyers, I was allowed to complain as much as I wanted about the system’s failures and inefficiency. But when I was at court, I had to get the job done.
It was a sentiment shared by most of the veteran attorneys at the public defender’s office. One public defender even had a sign taped to her door that said:
DISTRICT COURT MISSION STATEMENT:
SHUT UP AND PUT THE CHOCOLATES IN BOXES
It was an acknowledgment that we were often the practitioners of assembly-line justice, and a not-so-subtle recognition that most of our clients were black.
“Next case, State versus Hernandez, file number 65-MD-14-293849.” The clerk picked up a copy of the criminal complaint and police reports and handed the stack of paper to the judge.
In the meantime, Sammy located the Hernandez case in our stack of files as the defendant walked from the back of the courtroom to the front. She handed me the file, and I noted my appearance for the record and stated that the defendant qualified for the services of the public defender’s office.
The judge looked at Sammy and then at me. He was about to say something, but didn’t. Sammy wasn’t causing any problems, and if she wasn’t slowing down the assembly line, he didn’t care. “Mr. Glass, what’s the status?”
I looked at my client and he nodded. “My client would like to plead guilty to the shoplifting charge, if the charge of trespass would be dismissed.”
“Is that true, Mr. Hernandez?” The judge peered down at my client from the bench.
“Yes.” He nodded. He’d been through the routine before.
The judge turned to the prosecutor. “And that’s the deal?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“Very well, proceed with the waiver of his trial rights and the factual basis for the plea.” The formalities of the plea agreement were placed on the record, and the judge accepted the deal. He adjudicated my client guilty after the four-minute hearing, then picked up his pen and crossed Hernandez off the list of cases on his docket.
The system lurched forward.
“Next case, State versus Cecil Bates, file number 65-MD-14-358217.” The clerk picked up a copy of Cecil Bates’s criminal complaint and police reports, then handed the stack of paper to the judge.
I got the file from Sammy, and once everybody was in their places, the judge officially appointed me to represent Mr. Bates. The same script as the others was followed. “Mr. Glass, what is the status?”
I looked at my client, and he vigorously shook his head. “Mr. Bates would like to plead not guilty, and we’d like to set this matter on for pretrial and trial.”
The judge sighed and rolled his eyes. It was an expression and gesture that would never appear in the court reporter’s transcript, but the judge’s body language made it clear that he did not approve of Mr. Bates wasting the court’s valuable time and clogging up the system. They were all guilty, after all.