Strange But True Story #1
I had been out of law school for a couple of years doing mostly appellate work for the Cuyahoga County Public Defenders Office when I was given a surprise assignment: I was asked to represent a nineteen year old kid who was caught up in a major drug sting involving lots of cocaine. There was so much cocaine involved that the penalties included ten years of mandatory time on top of his potential sentence of a dozen or so years.
I attended the first pretrial conference feeling nervous and out of my league. This prosecution was handled by the "3 x Bulk" unit of the Cuyahoga County Prosecutors Office - the big guns who prosecuted the worst sorts of drug gangsters. The prosecutor assigned to the case never arrived for the pretrial - he was busy in another courtroom, I was told - and the matter was reset for another pretrial conference in a few weeks.
I arrived for the second pretrial feeling slightly more relaxed and prepared: I had studied the convoluted drug statutes, understood the elements and penalty enhancements, I had researched applicable case law and kicked around issues with older, wiser colleagues. I waited for several hours and was told, again, that the prosecutor was busy on another matter and would not be able to attend our meeting. The pretrial was, again, rescheduled.
When the prosecutor failed to show for the third pretrial, I was pissed. I called the busy prosecutor and graciously offered to come to his office for a discussion sooner rather than later. He was both amicable and apologetic, lamenting how swamped he was with cases. He said he could accommodate me and we scheduled a meeting at his office.
I arrived at the 3 x Bulk Unit office and waited in a small lobby. I had only spoken with the prosecutor over the phone and had no idea what he looked like. When he opened the door to greet me I was shocked by his appearance: on his head was a huge, cartoonish pompadour, like nothing I'd ever seen. His hair was perfect, immaculate and mountainous; a symmetrical gravity-defying wave.
We chatted about how busy he was as he led me to his office. He offered me a seat and we chatted some more as I digested my surroundings. On his desk, as garish and imposing as the hair on his head, was a large aerosol can of hairspray. I then noticed the dcor. His office was filled with posters, pictures, drawings and calendars all depicting wolves. There were ceramic figurines of wolves. There were no pictures of people, no family vacations, etc. Just wolves.
The conversation was productive: he understood that I was new at these things and reassured me that my client was a bit player in the operation that was the subject of the sting. He was confident we could work something out. I left feeling off balance, but the guy seemed genuine, despite his caricatured existence. We would see each other in court at the next scheduled pretrial, the Monday of the following week.
That weekend, I was ruined with worry. The Monday morning pretrial would be the judge's last big push to resolve the case before trial. Was the prosecutor conning me? Would he ask my client to snitch? Could my inexperience cause a nineteen year old kid to spend the next twenty-odd years in prison? Had I researched the law enough? Was there something I was missing? As the clock ticked toward Monday, I felt even more confused and overwhelmed. Late Saturday night, I turned on the television to distract me from my thoughts.
And there he was, on television. My prosecutor, his pompadour deflated, wearing a county prisoner uniform, looking haggard and exhausted and unshaven over a grainy, closed-circuit, jailhouse feed. That weekend, he had been arrested and charged with savagely attacking his girlfriend, shooting her and leaving her for dead in a ditch along side a deserted rural road. It was the lead story on the local news.
The following Monday, I arrived for the final pretrial to meet a sullen "replacement" prosecutor who promptly offered my guy guaranteed probation to resolve the matter as swiftly as possible. My client was bewildered by my information and quickly took the deal.
A few days later, I thought to check the calendar, and found my hunch correct: on the night my perfectly coiffed prosecutor transformed into a maniac, his drug-fueled, bloody rampage was bathed in the glow of a full moon.
True fucking story. True. True. True.
I had been out of law school for a couple of years doing mostly appellate work for the Cuyahoga County Public Defenders Office when I was given a surprise assignment: I was asked to represent a nineteen year old kid who was caught up in a major drug sting involving lots of cocaine. There was so much cocaine involved that the penalties included ten years of mandatory time on top of his potential sentence of a dozen or so years.
I attended the first pretrial conference feeling nervous and out of my league. This prosecution was handled by the "3 x Bulk" unit of the Cuyahoga County Prosecutors Office - the big guns who prosecuted the worst sorts of drug gangsters. The prosecutor assigned to the case never arrived for the pretrial - he was busy in another courtroom, I was told - and the matter was reset for another pretrial conference in a few weeks.
I arrived for the second pretrial feeling slightly more relaxed and prepared: I had studied the convoluted drug statutes, understood the elements and penalty enhancements, I had researched applicable case law and kicked around issues with older, wiser colleagues. I waited for several hours and was told, again, that the prosecutor was busy on another matter and would not be able to attend our meeting. The pretrial was, again, rescheduled.
When the prosecutor failed to show for the third pretrial, I was pissed. I called the busy prosecutor and graciously offered to come to his office for a discussion sooner rather than later. He was both amicable and apologetic, lamenting how swamped he was with cases. He said he could accommodate me and we scheduled a meeting at his office.
I arrived at the 3 x Bulk Unit office and waited in a small lobby. I had only spoken with the prosecutor over the phone and had no idea what he looked like. When he opened the door to greet me I was shocked by his appearance: on his head was a huge, cartoonish pompadour, like nothing I'd ever seen. His hair was perfect, immaculate and mountainous; a symmetrical gravity-defying wave.
We chatted about how busy he was as he led me to his office. He offered me a seat and we chatted some more as I digested my surroundings. On his desk, as garish and imposing as the hair on his head, was a large aerosol can of hairspray. I then noticed the dcor. His office was filled with posters, pictures, drawings and calendars all depicting wolves. There were ceramic figurines of wolves. There were no pictures of people, no family vacations, etc. Just wolves.
The conversation was productive: he understood that I was new at these things and reassured me that my client was a bit player in the operation that was the subject of the sting. He was confident we could work something out. I left feeling off balance, but the guy seemed genuine, despite his caricatured existence. We would see each other in court at the next scheduled pretrial, the Monday of the following week.
That weekend, I was ruined with worry. The Monday morning pretrial would be the judge's last big push to resolve the case before trial. Was the prosecutor conning me? Would he ask my client to snitch? Could my inexperience cause a nineteen year old kid to spend the next twenty-odd years in prison? Had I researched the law enough? Was there something I was missing? As the clock ticked toward Monday, I felt even more confused and overwhelmed. Late Saturday night, I turned on the television to distract me from my thoughts.
And there he was, on television. My prosecutor, his pompadour deflated, wearing a county prisoner uniform, looking haggard and exhausted and unshaven over a grainy, closed-circuit, jailhouse feed. That weekend, he had been arrested and charged with savagely attacking his girlfriend, shooting her and leaving her for dead in a ditch along side a deserted rural road. It was the lead story on the local news.
The following Monday, I arrived for the final pretrial to meet a sullen "replacement" prosecutor who promptly offered my guy guaranteed probation to resolve the matter as swiftly as possible. My client was bewildered by my information and quickly took the deal.
A few days later, I thought to check the calendar, and found my hunch correct: on the night my perfectly coiffed prosecutor transformed into a maniac, his drug-fueled, bloody rampage was bathed in the glow of a full moon.
True fucking story. True. True. True.