Chapter 1
“All Rise!” the court clerk yells out as Judge Tate enters into the courtroom and strolls towards his seat at the bench.
We all sit back down anticipating what verdict the jury will bring to us in the next few minutes.
The courtroom was immensely quiet as we waited, and my thoughts were constantly reverberating in my head non-stop.
What the hell is taking the jury so long to get in here? Did they not tell us that they reached a verdict? Did I win? Did I lose? Is prison in the future? All sorts of shit is running through my head as I sit and wait.
After about thirty minutes the court clerk goes over to the jury room door to open it and let the jurors enter.
“All rise for the jury,” she yells as she opened the door to let the jurors back into the courtroom from their deliberations. As the jurors took their seats in the jury box, everyone sat back down except for me and my client. As we stand at the Defendant table my client was shaking and stricken with fear for the outcome of the verdict. The foreman hands a folded piece of paper to the bailiff who then hands it to the judge who reads it silently to himself and then hands it back to the bailiff to give to the foreman. The judge then nods his head to the clerk who then stands up and says in a loud voice to the jury, “In the case of State of Maryland versus Angela Garcia, what is the jury’s verdict?”
From the time that the clerk asked that question until the time the foreman answered seemed like an eternity had gone by.
“Not Guilty,” exclaimed the foreman of the jury as he read aloud the verdict of the child neglect case of the young 23-year-old mother who has been allegedly leaving her 7-year-old son home alone for several hours while she worked at her second job.
As the verdict was read, I was so elated and excited that I could barely hold in my enthusiasm for having won the case. I felt like jumping up and pumping my fist in the air like Tiger Woods does after sinking a hole in one. As I looked over at my client, a young, frail looking, petite Hispanic woman, her tears of sorrow had turned into tears of joy.
Angela is an immigrant from Mexico whose life was full of conflict and strife. She was raped by her stepfather at age 15, gave birth at 16, then married a man at 17 who turned out to be very abusive. When she was able to gain enough strength and courage to leave him, she migrated to the states illegally. Five years after leaving Mexico she decided to settle here in Baltimore City, Maryland to raise her son.
With no other family or friends to depend upon, she felt as though she needed to do anything and everything possible that she could in order to provide for her son even if that meant leaving him home alone for a few hours while she worked at the grocery store down the street from her apartment until midnight five nights a week.
She had been doing this for nearly a year until a neighbor found out that she had been leaving him home alone after he caused a small fire in the kitchen when he had fallen asleep while leaving food on the stove and the fire department had to be called by that neighbor in the adjacent apartment. She was looking at four years in prison plus deportation had she been found guilty of child neglect.
Although I work extremely hard for all my clients, this particular case was one of the most trying cases that I have had. I get emotionally vested in my clients and because of that I believe in their innocence. I pride myself on being considered one of the best and highly respected public defenders not only in Baltimore City but the entire state of Maryland. I’m like a god with the law.
Here in a city where the crime rate is a staggering 62 percent and of that 92 percent are black offenders. I am hated by many prosecutors and Baltimore City police officers however endeared by the low-income criminals that I represent. I take serious pride in my career and fully believe that the right to a lawyer is a pillar of American Jurisprudence. Unfortunately, this is a right that we have only had since 1963 when the Supreme Court ruled in Gideon versus Wainwright, where that any person who is too poor to hire a lawyer, cannot be assured a fair trial unless counsel is provided for him.
Being an African American male myself, my main purpose in life is to help as many African Americans as I can, especially Black males, obtain fair representation in a judicial system which is known to be biased, unequal and unfair. Well what better place to do so than being a public defender in a crime-stricken city like Baltimore?
“Gracias! Muchas gracias!” My client says as she embraces me, thanking me for helping her not go to prison. Her eyes were filled with joy and her soft voice now rambling not-so-quietly in Spanish. I couldn’t understand her words but could only know that they were words of adulation and flattery from the sound of the praise in her voice.
I start to head out of courtroom and try to act oblivious to the stares of the many people watching me as I leave in my slightly wrinkled tailored blue pin-stripe suit, still trying to personify a debonair swagger image with a determined look on my face, however, all that is now on my mind is my next case later this afternoon and how to win it.
This is a case of a 19-year-old black male who sold a “dime” bag of marijuana to an undercover officer and was charged with a felony and is now looking at a 5-year prison sentence. Since this young man couldn’t post the $5,000 bond, he must be brought to the courthouse from central booking during the afternoon “shipment” by the correctional officers at Baltimore City Central Booking.
Cases like these make me especially angry because I read somewhere that there are over one hundred and twenty thousand people who work in the cannabis industry yet last year alone, there were well over six hundred and fifty thousand people arrested for marijuana possession, mostly African-Americans.
Blacks in Baltimore City are more than five times likely to be arrested for possession for marijuana than whites even though marijuana use among both races is fairly equal. This makes Baltimore the fifth highest arrest rate for marijuana possessions in the US.
I rush out of the courthouse and into the cool brisk February air which sends a cold sensation down my back. Having forgotten my overcoat in my office, I walk very briskly in a manner to try and warm myself up as I hear my stiff leather shoes making a terrible squeaking sound as they flex against the cold, ice-laden concrete as I head back to the Public Defender’s office almost two blocks away.
“Mr. Clayton! Hey, Mr. Clayton, could you hold up for a moment!”
I turn around and see a very elderly African American woman limping with a bamboo cane that is clacking onto the cracked sidewalk, trying to chase me down. I stop and turn to see what it was that she wanted.
“Can I help you ma’am?”
“Yes, yes you can.” said the woman. “I saw you in court today and wanted to know if you would be able to help my grandson who is currently held at the city jail. He was arrested about two weeks ago, and has been there ever since, and no one has yet to see him regarding his charge.”
“What was he charged with?” I asked.
“He was charged with gun possession and assault,” explained the woman.
“Did he have a gun?”
“Well, yes, yes he did have a gun on him, but he didn’t assault anyone, I just know my grandson and I know that he wouldn’t of have assaulted nobody,” exclaimed the woman.
“Well I’m sorry to hear this but unfortunately I don’t choose my cases. They are randomly given to the Public Defenders on a revolving basis. I’m really sorry ma’am but I most likely won’t get your grandson’s case.”
“Please sir, can’t you do anything? You are the only public defender that seems to care around here,” expressed the woman.
“There’s really not much that I can do, but tell you what, tell me his name and I will try to have a paralegal go to central booking to interview him so that he can be a step ahead when an attorney is assigned to him.”
“Thank you, Mr. Clayton. His name is Jeremiah. Jeremiah Scott. Please see what you can do.”
“I’ll do my best, ma’am.”
“Thank you again sir. You have a lovely blessed day.”
“No problem, ma’am. You have a blessed day as well.
She then turned around and was walking unusually slowly back from where she came from, almost robotically, as if her brain was struggling to tell each foot to take the next step. It was as if her chasing me down drained every bit of energy from her little frail body.
When I finally make it to my building, I rush inside and try to avoid eye contact with anyone for fear that they may stop me and want to chat when I’m clearly in a hurry. I have one hour to pick up my new cases for the week, file the closed cases, and finish writing two briefs which were due yesterday, and then review and prepare for my afternoon case. All this while gobbling down my lunch, brushing my teeth, and of course, “handling my business” in the restroom, and then, the daily ritual of calling my wife Saundra, who seems to be just as busy at her job since she works as a corporate attorney at a large firm in Washington, DC an hour away.
With one paralegal and one secretary assigned to every three Public Defenders most basic work must be done by myself, which makes it very difficult to finish what needs to be finished on a daily basis and makes each day last more than ten hours long.
Just as I had my office key in my hand about to unlock my office door, my supervisor, Fletcher Daniels shouts out for me to come over to his office.
Fletcher is a very tall white guy, with a “buzz” haircut reminiscent of the days when he was a Marine Drill Sergeant before getting into law. He actually looks like the villain in the movie Rocky IV, Ivan Drago, but has the annoying voice of Gilbert Gottfried. I guess all that screaming in the Marines took a toll on his voice because now all I hear is the AFLAC duck when he speaks. He used to be a federal prosecutor known for his intimidating look and his many successful convictions. He is known for being very fastidious and always coerces defendants to take plea deals even if the prosecution might have a very weak case.
About seven years ago it was decided by the state that it would be better for Fletcher to lead the Public Defender’s Office in order to help quickly move the influx of cases by mainly offering plea deals without the expense of having to go to trial. On average nationally, 90 – 95 percent of criminal cases end in plea bargaining. If it were only up to Fletcher, he would make sure 100 percent of cases would end with a plea deal.
“Hey Fletcher, what’s going on?” I asked.
“Richard, congratulations on your case today, but we must all remember that our resources are very limited here and we should spend as little time as possible on each case in order to move on to the next case. These defendants are just looking to move quickly through the system so they can go home faster.”
“Yes, I do understand what the goal is here, but shouldn’t our goal also be to give our clients a good defense as well? Besides, I’m the best damn PD here. I didn’t get that way by just bowing down to plea deals.” I retorted.
“Of course, they have a right to a good defense, but let me remind you that here in the PD office we don’t have the time nor the resources to do anything other than give them the best plea deal we can. We have way too many defendants coming through here every day to waste too much time on just one person,” stated Fletcher.
Honestly, I have never been one to just want to give a defendant a plea deal. Back when I was in law school, I heard of a story of an African American single mother of two, by the name of Erma Faye Stewart, who was arrested in a drug sweep in Texas.
Although she maintained her innocence, her public defender told her to plead guilty, since she was facing 10 years in prison and the prosecutor only offered probation with no added jail time. Erma spent a month in jail, and then relented to a plea even though she had not committed the said crime and was consequently sentenced to 10 years’ probation and was also ordered to pay a $1,000 fine.
The prosecution’s case turned out to be very weak and ended up dropping all the cases of everyone who was arrested but because Erma had already plead guilty her case was not dropped like all the others and she was now considered a convicted felon. Because she now had a felony record, she was barred from getting food stamps and was evicted from her public housing home.
When she and her children became homeless, the children were taken away and placed in foster care. In the end, she had lost everything even though she took a plea for a crime that she did not commit in the hopes of saving everything.
That case had always haunted me, so after I learned of that case, I vowed never to coerce any defendant to take a plea deal, however there was just one case I had where I felt that it was in the best interest for the defendant to take a plea. It was the case of a 12-year old juvenile defendant who accidently shot his little 7-year old brother in the head with a loaded gun that the mother’s boyfriend had left on a table in their house. It was clear that the boy was extremely distraught and devastated by the accidental discharge that killed his little brother and having him go to jail for the rest of his juvenile life was not at all in the best interest of anyone. The boy took the offered plea of a 10 - year probation sentence however; the mother’s boyfriend was eventually charged with negligent manslaughter and was eventually given seven years in prison.
I leave Fletcher’s office to finally get into my own in order to get some work done before the trial this afternoon.
In my office, there is a pile of folders on one side of my desk marked “Done” and on the other side is an even bigger pile marked, “New Cases,” which never seem to go down. I glance at the pictures on my wall for a glimmer of inspiration before getting started.
On one wall is the famous 1965 picture of Muhammad Ali standing over Sonny Liston with the words underneath which states, “I am the Greatest,” and on an adjacent wall is a picture of Nelson Mandela with a quote underneath Mandela’s picture which states, “To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity”.
Then reaching into the top draw of my desk I pull out my old iPod where I blast the two songs that I use for energy and motivation; the theme song to “Rocky” which gives me motivation and then I play “Mama Said Knock You Out” by LL Cool J to give me the needed energy to knock the prosecution out.
As luck would have it, just as I was about to leave my office to head over to the courthouse for my next case, the court clerk calls to inform me that the trial had to be postponed due to an emergency that Judge Ransin, the presiding judge over the case, is having to deal with at the moment. Apparently, a defendant who he had just sentenced to 45 years in prison hit his attorney in the face then tried to jump the bench to attack the judge. Officers had grabbed the defendant just inches before he reached the judge.
I thought that this turned out to be great for me because not only was I dreading having to present in front of Judge Ransin who is known as a hard-ass prick of a judge who goes strictly by the book and is known for giving stiff sentences especially to Black offenders, but now I can settle down for a moment to get organized, call Saundra, and then leave the office early for the first time in two weeks so I can be home to hang out a little longer this evening with my 8-year old daughter, Ciana, who is the apple of my eye. It never matters how hard of a day that I may have had, when I’m with Ciana the stress and anxiety all seem to just melt away.
