Overkill

Joseph Teller Overkill

1

GUILTY WITH AN EXPLANATION

Jaywalker’s sitting in Part 30 when it happens. Part 30 is one of the Supreme Court arraignment courtrooms they have down at 10 °Centre Street. It’s where you go before a judge for the first time after you’ve been formally charged with a felony. A felony being anything they can give you more than a year for. Like murder, say.

Jaywalker’s there for a sentencing. A client of his, a wiseguy-wannabe named Johnny Cantalupo, pleaded guilty to possession six weeks ago, in order to avoid going to prison for sale. It was cocaine, and not that awfully much of it, and Johnny’s white and had no record to speak of, so the assistant D.A. and the judge had agreed to probation and time served, specifically the two days Johnny had spent while he was in the system.

In the system.

Whenever he hears the expression, Jaywalker can’t help picturing a huge beast, gobbling up the newly arrested, digesting them for a day or two, and then, well, the rest is a bit vague. Spitting them out? Undigesting them into a courtroom? Or even worse, perhaps.

Although he was the first lawyer to show up this morning, and Johnny (under penalty of death by Jaywalker) the first defendant, they have to wait to get their case called. A written probation report first has to complete an arduous journey spanning three entire floors of the building, a feat that can take hours, sometimes days or even weeks. Never mind that the report will have no impact whatsoever on the sentence; its presence is mandated by law. In fact, the appearance before the judge this day promises to be a perfunctory one, the precise details of the sentence having been long ago worked out, recited on the record, and promised to the defendant on the sole condition that he show up today, which Johnny dutifully has. Consequently, Jaywalker will barely speak, having no need to convince the judge to do anything or refrain from doing anything. He’s therefore allowed his attention to wander from the half-finished crossword puzzle in his lap to the defendants who one by one are brought out to face the judge, stand beside their lawyers and hear the charges they’ve been indicted on by a grand jury.

The first thing that strikes Jaywalker as out of the ordinary is when the clerk calls a particular case and a lawyer, instead of simply rising from his seat in the audience and quietly making his way up to the defense table, shouts out, “Defendant!” This immediately brands him as a civil lawyer, unfamiliar with how they do things over here on the criminal side.

The guy even looks like a civil lawyer, Jaywalker decides. Not just that he’s short and bald; those descriptors apply to plenty of criminal lawyers. No, it’s more than that. There’s something decidedly shifty about him, something just a touch too practiced. Something that suggests ambulance chaser, or fixer. The old term shyster even comes to mind, but Jaywalker immediately banishes it, half forgiving himself only because he himself is half Jewish. Sort of like how African Americans are free to call each other nigger, but others need not apply.

They bring the guy’s client out from the door to the pen, and Jaywalker’s attention shifts to him. He’s a kid, a kid who looks no more than sixteen or seventeen. Tall, though, with good posture for a teen, pale skin and closely cropped blond hair. A couple of years older and he could be a marine recruit, thinks Jaywalker, or in his first year at West Point. But the thing that really stands out is how good-looking the kid is. Beautiful, almost. Though having grown up in the homophobic ’70s, Jaywalker still has a bit of trouble applying the term to a young man. Handsome, yes. Striking-looking, sure. But beautiful? No need to get carried away. But that’s how good-looking the kid is, even after a day or two in the system.

He misses the kid’s name, but leans forward and is able to catch the word murder as the clerk reads off the charges and asks the young man how he pleads, guilty or not guilty.

Now the thing is, the answer to that question is “Not guilty.” Always. Even if immediately after the phrase is spoken, the lawyers were to approach the bench, huddle with the judge, work out a plea, and sixty seconds later the not guilty plea were to be withdrawn and replaced by a guilty plea to some lesser charge with a reduced sentence. Precisely as had been the case with Johnny Cantalupo, six weeks ago.

Only that’s not what happens now.

Instead, as soon as the clerk asks the question, the civil lawyer answers for the kid. “Guilty with an explanation,” he says.

Now that may work in traffic court, or in the summons part. But here, what happens is the entire courtroom- and it’s a big courtroom, pretty much filled to capacity-goes stone-cold quiet.

“Excuse me?” says the judge, a white-haired old-timer named McGillicuddy.

“Guilty,” the lawyer repeats, “but with an explanation. It’s my feeling that probation would be an adequate sen-”

He gets no further than that before McGillicuddy waves him and the assistant district attorney to come up. Which, to Jaywalker’s way of thinking, is a pretty decent thing on the judge’s part, deciding not to show the guy up in front of a roomful of onlookers.

Because the thing is, you can’t get probation on a murder charge, not even if you have the best explanation in the history of the universe. The ten best explanations. The range of sentencing on a murder count begins with fifteen-to-life, and goes up from there.

Jaywalker can’t hear what’s being said up at the bench, but he can see that whatever the words are, the judge is saying most of them and is being considerably less charitable than he’d been a moment ago. The civil lawyer has been pretty much reduced to gesturing, mostly with upturned palms and shrugging shoulders. “Who knew?” he seems to be saying.

As for the A.D.A., a prettyish woman with dark hair, dark-rimmed glasses and a thick file under one arm, she’s shown the good sense to back away from the two of them as far as she can get, evidently wanting no part of an irate judge chewing out an incompetent defense lawyer. Meanwhile, back at the defense table, the defendant has been given a seat by a thoughtful court officer who must have decided that this sideshow is going to take a while.

Actually, it doesn’t.

It ends abruptly, with the judge suddenly standing up and ordering the lawyers back to their places. “Mr. Fudderman is relieved,” he announces. Then, scanning the front row of the audience, he looks for a replacement.

Jaywalker’s instinctive reaction is to break off eye contact. He’s been in the military, been in law enforcement, and learned long ago that you never, ever volunteer for anything. Nothing good can come from it, whereas the potential for disaster is virtually unlimited. So even as he senses colleagues to his left and right straightening up in their seats and subliminally begging the judge to choose them, Jaywalker locks onto his crossword puzzle, focusing all his energy on coming up with a six-letter word for annoy.

“Mr. Jaywalker?” he hears.

H-A-R-A-S-S, he pencils in, never quite sure how to spell it. It could be two r’s or two s’s, or even two of both. But if it’s two of both, it won’t-

“Mr. Jaywalker?” Louder, this time.

He looks up, feigning bewilderment.

“Come up, please.”

He glances to either side and over both shoulders before looking back at the judge.

“Yes, you.”