Southern Discomfort

'Gentlemen,' I said gravely. 'Ladies.'

Reid held open the courtroom door and grinned. 'Go get 'em, tiger!' *      *      *

'All rise,' said the bailiff.

And they did.

Attorneys, assistant district attorneys, state troopers and town police officers, accused and accuser, character witnesses and anxious parents. Monday and Tuesday sessions of district court are always crowded first thing in the morning, so every row was full of standing (if not upstanding or outstanding) citizens.

I stepped onto the low platform, where Phyllis Raynor stood beside a computer screen that glowed with lists of names and case numbers, then up another shallow riser to the high-backed black leather chair that awaited me.

I was barely a foot above the rest, but as I looked out on all the attentive faces, those twelve inches empowered me as nothing else had ever done.

'Welcome to the bench!' crowed the pragmatist who had schemed and campaigned and compromised an ideal or two for this position and who now delighted in seeing every eye upon me . 'Will you just look at all those people who—'

My inner preacher hauled me up by the hinges.

'They aren't standing for Deborah Knott,' came that stern voice. 'They're showing respect for what you symbolize—the justice to which they're entitled. You're like a priestess now, entrusted with the holy sacraments of Law.'

Suddenly, my pridefulness was gone, and I was filled by a wholly unexpected sense of deep humility.

What am I, Lord, that thou art mindful of me?

O God be merciful to me, a sinner.

To my horror, I felt my eyes begin to puddle—that's Stephenson blood for you. Stephensons will cry just watching one of those sappy greeting card commercials—but some how I managed to rein in my emotions as I stood and waited with everyone else while the bailiff intoned, 'Oyez, oyez, oyez. This honorable court for the County of Colleton is now open and sitting for the dispatch of its business. God save the state and this honorable court, the Honorable Judge Deborah Knott presiding. Be seated.'

We sat.

I've been a trial lawyer long enough that I should've had the routine down pat, but there was no denying it: my perspective was suddenly different. I was part and parcel now of an institution as old as the wigs on English judges, or as the Hear ye, Hear ye! in the bailiff's corrupted pronunciation of the old French Oyez! A sobering moment. Even so, I think I appeared both competent and confident as I said good morning and began to explain courtroom procedure to those who might be facing it here for the first time.

'Everybody has a right to counsel. It says so in the Constitution of the United States. If you are unable to pay for an attorney, the court will appoint one for you. You do have to meet the standard for financial need, though,' I cautioned. 'You can't just poor-mouth because you don't like what attorneys charge these days.'

A couple of my former colleagues seated on the side bench inside the bar snorted and some of the audience smiled.

'If you think you want an attorney appointed,' I continued, 'now is the time to say so.'

Eight people came forward and a bailiff showed them where to go to fill out the forms.

'Those of you who choose not to use an attorney will be asked to sign a release when you come up to plead your case.

That brought whispers and uneasy stirring and I raised my voice one level. 'There will be no talking in the audience during court or you'll be asked to leave.'

I uncapped my pen, carefully straightened the papers in front of me, and met the dark brown eyes of the young ADA seated at the table down below.

'Call your calendar, Ms. DeGraffenried.'

She inclined her head in formal acknowledgement. 'Thank you, Your Honor. And may I say it's a distinct privilege to be here your first day on the bench.'

I'll bet.

Cyl DeGraffenried was still an enigma to me. Very pretty, very bright. We heard that she'd graduated in the upper five percent of her law class at Duke, which made some of us wonder why she had immediately chosen to come do donkey work for Douglas Woodall, our current district attorney. She should have been clerking for one of the justices if she wanted a political career, or joined some eyes-on-the-prize law firm in Raleigh or Charlotte if she wanted to stay in North Carolina and make a million dollars before she was forty.

She was clearly ambitious; I just couldn't define what that ambition was.

It certainly wasn't for the title of Miss Congeniality. In her few months with the DA's office, she'd proven an implacable prosecutor with very little give in what's usually a give-and-take situation. Her rigid adherence to the letter of the law and the way she called for maximum penalties not only had a lot of us defense attorneys grumbling, some of the judges had even spoken a few private words with Douglas Woodall, too. You honestly don't need to make an example out of every shoplifter or Saturday night rowdy. Freshmen ADAs often err on the side of harshness when they first begin, but Cyl DeGraffenried just wouldn't let up.

A loner, too, even though she appeared at all the expedient meetings, both the political gatherings and the professional. When some of us invited her to join us for drinks afterwards, she would come and smile and talk with every semblance of cordiality. Sometimes I wondered if I was the only one who noticed that she managed never to divulge any personal information and that she always left to drive back to her apartment on the other side of Raleigh alone even though she was, as I indicated before, absolutely gorgeous: long fingernails painted a soft pink,