The Moment

I grappled with posting this excerpt from my book, Don't Stay in Your Lane: The Career Change Guide for Women of Color. Because it really doesn't paint me in the best light. But it's the unvarnished truth and I believe strongly in transparency. So here goes.

At the Crossroads: Something’s Not Right

I often think back to this particular moment. It was 2014. I was standing in the basement of the Bronx Hall of Justice (a name that still makes me cringe because there’s not much justice to be had in there). I was with a relatively new client of mine and his family. I don’t remember who it was (the names, faces, and stories of many of my clients blur together now). But I do remember that it was the first court date after his – let’s call him James – after James’ arraignment.

I had only met him once before, at arraignment – when someone who’s been arrested is brought before a judge. The judge then decides if bail will be set or if the person is free to go home. James and I met while he was in a tiny jail cell (which were, at the time, disgustingly called “pens”) that was an offshoot of a bigger jail cell with other men in it. I was in a closet-sized room on the other side of a plexiglass window with embedded, crisscrossed wire, which made it extremely difficult to see through to the other side. A few holes in the plexiglass allowed sound to travel between us.

After a few minutes talking back there, I signed him up to be brought before the judge. A few hours later, he and I stood side-by-side in front of the judge, as I argued for James to be released to go home to his family and the prosecutor argued for bail to be set. In the Bronx, bail almost always means that clients will be jailed for the entire length of their cases. This forces 99% of people in jail to take any kind of plea deal to get out – regardless of their guilt or innocence, regardless of the fact that a conviction can destroy someone’s life.

James was released and I handed him a slip of paper with his next court date and the courtroom on it, along with my business card. I probably said something like, “See you on the 14th,” or whatever his next court date was. “Call me if anything.”

Fast forward to his next court date. I was standing outside the courtroom with James and two or three family members. We had appeared before the judge already and the prosecutor’s office had decided to “reduce” James’ case from a felony to a misdemeanor. This meant that James no longer faced felony charges; they had all been dismissed. But the case still existed, as a less serious one. This is relatively good news. Of course, it’s best when cases are dismissed outright, but in our criminal legal system, in the Bronx at that time, dismissals at this stage were hard to come by.

I was out in the hallway explaining the probable trajectory of James’ case to him and his family. I had been a public defender in the Bronx for over four years at that point, so I had a solid handle on what was going on and how things worked. I broke it down for them. I told him that the felony charges were gone, but that he still had an ongoing misdemeanor case. I told him this meant that – assuming he wanted to fight the case – he’d have to come back to court on the case every two months or so, for up to three years.

He and his family balked. Understandably. But I was in such a jaded, burnt out place at the time, that I said (without missing a beat), “I’m sorry, that’s just how it is. If you want to fight this case, you have to be willing to come back on it, even if it takes three years to get to trial.” I might’ve even shrugged as I said it, to emphasize how “normal” and “no big deal” this all was.

I’m not sure exactly how the rest of the conversation went, for reasons I’ll explain. And I don’t even remember now what ended up happening to James’ case. Most likely, he came back to court a few times and either I negotiated, or the prosecutor offered, some kind of plea to a violation (not a crime), which he accepted to end the case.

The main reason I don’t remember how the rest of the conversation went is because I was in total shock at what I had just said. And the way I had said it. You must understand that I went to law school for the sole purpose of doing defense work. I had such a one-track mind that I only wanted to be a lawyer in order to advocate for poor people accused of crimes.

I wanted to be a public defender because I wanted to be part of the resistance against the systems of oppression and racism in this country. I didn’t want to be a public defender because I wanted to work in the criminal “justice” system. I didn’t want to be a public defender because I couldn’t get a job as a prosecutor. I, for shit sure, didn’t want to be a public defender to be a cog in a system that crushed people’s rights and destroyed lives every day.

And yet I had just uttered those words to my client and his family: “I’m sorry, that’s just how it is.” As if to neatly dismiss their understandable dismay at having to fight a case – which was probably bullshit to begin with – for years. As if to communicate, “Yeah, I know it’s a drag and you’ll probably suffer countless ‘collateral consequences’ from this – loss of your job, loss of custody of your children, loss of money from traveling back and forth to court, not to mention loss of your dignity, languishing in this courthouse. But sorry, there’s no way around it. And, um, I have six other clients to get to today, so can you just get with the program, please?”

I felt a paralyzing sense of shock and disappointment at myself. I couldn’t believe I had just said those words, in that way. I couldn’t believe I had become an apologist for a system I didn’t believe in. It was a moment of reckoning. I had been steeped in the system for too long.

A switch flipped inside me.

To continue reading and to find out more about Don't Stay in Your Lane: The Career Change Guide for Women of Color, click here.