Read Online INDEFENSIBLE: One Lawyer's Journey Into the Inferno of American Justice by David Feige - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: David Feige
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care of it --we’re good to go.”
“Okay, Counselor,” he said, nodding to the others. “Thanks.”
“Ms. Stallings, could you turn around please?”
Cassandra stood up, put her hands behind her back, palms out, thumbs touching, and waited to be handcuffed.
“B-Bye, David,” she said, and then, seeing the look on my face, she added, “it’s okay, I’ll see you tomorrow. Thank you, David.” And with that she was gone.
Today, I realize as I sip my coffee, is the day Cassandra comes out.
- - - -
Every morning it’s the same --up the West Side Highway past the procession of cars stuck in traffic streaming toward midtown, across Harlem, along the ridge at the top of Sugar Hill, and eventually down a long viaduct and across the Macomb’s Dam Bridge into the Bronx.
Three clients and three murders are going to start my day. One of them is certain to be my next trial. I just don’t know which one. A hint would be nice.
All three homicides are pending before the same judge, and having them together allows me to get a sense of which prosecutors are pushing for a trial, how the judge sees each one, what I can expect. All of this will help me prioritize. Having all three on the same day also means that I can spend some time in the pens with each client. And so, as the 155th Street cemetery glides by, surrounded by an army of trucks crammed with movie equipment, I make mental notes on each case to be sure I won’t forget anything later.
Just past the cemetery, from the top of Sugar Hill, the Bronx spreads out below me. Yankee Stadium, abandoned for the winter, dominates the landscape. Above it, perched on the Grand Concourse, its golden windows shimmering in the winter light, I can make out the Supreme Court building, home to all three of this morning’s murders.
The Bronx is a world unto itself. Known, like Watts or Cabrini Green, as much for its crime rate, violence, and poverty as anything else, the Bronx is amazingly diverse: from the palaces of Riverdale to the working-class neighborhoods near the Whitestone Bridge, there are parts of the borough that utterly defy the stereotypes. Take a drive through the very northern edge of the Bronx, where it fades seamlessly into Yonkers, and you’d think you had stumbled into Dublin --you’ll find pubs filled with rowdy locals watching soccer, stores filled with Irish delicacies, and accents so thick they are almost incomprehensible. Similar enclaves exist in other areas too. The fabled Italian restaurants of Arthur Avenue, in the heart of Belmont, are surrounded by the kind of small butchers, fishmongers, and fruit stands you might find in Tuscany or Palermo. And it’s not just the ethnically ghettoized enclaves that persist. City Island, a small strip of land connected to the rest of the Bronx by a long, narrow bridge, sports marinas and clam shacks that could fool you into believing you were in a New England fishing village. In huge swaths of the Bronx, Jamaicans, Dominicans, Italians, Irish, and African Americans live side by side in comfortable, stable neighborhoods.
But not down south. From Mott Haven to Hunts Point, from Morrisania to Castle Hill, there is much of the Bronx that really does reek of the violence, pestilence, and poverty of stereotypical urban decay.
As you drive south on the Bruckner Expressway, away from Westchester and the ever-greener neighborhoods and suburbs above, toward the heart of the industrial South Bronx, on your left, just before the Colgate Scaffold yard, you’ll see the hulking cement-frame towers of the Soundview Houses. Built a halfcentury ago, Soundview is one of the most violent housing projects in the Bronx. Cut off from the main bulk of the Bronx by the highway, Soundview is a study in contrasts: neat
“Okay, Counselor,” he said, nodding to the others. “Thanks.”
“Ms. Stallings, could you turn around please?”
Cassandra stood up, put her hands behind her back, palms out, thumbs touching, and waited to be handcuffed.
“B-Bye, David,” she said, and then, seeing the look on my face, she added, “it’s okay, I’ll see you tomorrow. Thank you, David.” And with that she was gone.
Today, I realize as I sip my coffee, is the day Cassandra comes out.
- - - -
Every morning it’s the same --up the West Side Highway past the procession of cars stuck in traffic streaming toward midtown, across Harlem, along the ridge at the top of Sugar Hill, and eventually down a long viaduct and across the Macomb’s Dam Bridge into the Bronx.
Three clients and three murders are going to start my day. One of them is certain to be my next trial. I just don’t know which one. A hint would be nice.
All three homicides are pending before the same judge, and having them together allows me to get a sense of which prosecutors are pushing for a trial, how the judge sees each one, what I can expect. All of this will help me prioritize. Having all three on the same day also means that I can spend some time in the pens with each client. And so, as the 155th Street cemetery glides by, surrounded by an army of trucks crammed with movie equipment, I make mental notes on each case to be sure I won’t forget anything later.
Just past the cemetery, from the top of Sugar Hill, the Bronx spreads out below me. Yankee Stadium, abandoned for the winter, dominates the landscape. Above it, perched on the Grand Concourse, its golden windows shimmering in the winter light, I can make out the Supreme Court building, home to all three of this morning’s murders.
The Bronx is a world unto itself. Known, like Watts or Cabrini Green, as much for its crime rate, violence, and poverty as anything else, the Bronx is amazingly diverse: from the palaces of Riverdale to the working-class neighborhoods near the Whitestone Bridge, there are parts of the borough that utterly defy the stereotypes. Take a drive through the very northern edge of the Bronx, where it fades seamlessly into Yonkers, and you’d think you had stumbled into Dublin --you’ll find pubs filled with rowdy locals watching soccer, stores filled with Irish delicacies, and accents so thick they are almost incomprehensible. Similar enclaves exist in other areas too. The fabled Italian restaurants of Arthur Avenue, in the heart of Belmont, are surrounded by the kind of small butchers, fishmongers, and fruit stands you might find in Tuscany or Palermo. And it’s not just the ethnically ghettoized enclaves that persist. City Island, a small strip of land connected to the rest of the Bronx by a long, narrow bridge, sports marinas and clam shacks that could fool you into believing you were in a New England fishing village. In huge swaths of the Bronx, Jamaicans, Dominicans, Italians, Irish, and African Americans live side by side in comfortable, stable neighborhoods.
But not down south. From Mott Haven to Hunts Point, from Morrisania to Castle Hill, there is much of the Bronx that really does reek of the violence, pestilence, and poverty of stereotypical urban decay.
As you drive south on the Bruckner Expressway, away from Westchester and the ever-greener neighborhoods and suburbs above, toward the heart of the industrial South Bronx, on your left, just before the Colgate Scaffold yard, you’ll see the hulking cement-frame towers of the Soundview Houses. Built a halfcentury ago, Soundview is one of the most violent housing projects in the Bronx. Cut off from the main bulk of the Bronx by the highway, Soundview is a study in contrasts: neat
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