exam or to hang up a shingle on the outside of your office door. Nor did the supervisors at Legal Aid talk about it. But it mattered; it mattered hugely. And even back then, back in 1986, without ever having been taught about it, Jaywalker knew and understood that. And the best thing about doing it was that it cost absolutely nothing, just like saying “please” or “thank you,” or pausing for a second to hold a door open for someone a few steps behind you. So the only thing about doing all that stuff that mystified Jaywalker was that nobody else seemed to realize how terribly, terribly important it was.
He didn’t go home after meeting with Barnett, or to court or his office. Instead he went back around the corner and walked south, downtown. He passed both entrances to 10 °Centre Street on his left. Even though the district attorney’s office was located there-albeit listed under the side street address of One Hogan Place-Jaywalker knew he wouldn’t find the assistant D.A. in charge of Alonzo Barnett’s case there. No, he’d noticed from a telephone number on the file that the case was assigned to someone in Special Narcotics.
Despite the promising name, Special Narcotics are not high-quality drugs. Created with an infusion of municipal, state and federal funds in 1971 to help deal with the city’s mushrooming drug problem, the Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor for the City of New York was, and continues to be, located one block farther south, at 8 °Centre Street. Its chief function is to handle a portion of the thousands of drug cases that would otherwise overwhelm the regular district attorney’s office. It’s headed by a Special Narcotics Prosecutor and staffed by a fluctuating number of lawyers who act as assistant district attorneys. Except that they handle nothing but drug cases.
Twenty minutes later, Jaywalker was sitting in a medium-sized office across the desk from the A.D.A. in charge of the prosecution of Alonzo Barnett. It was a medium-sized office rather than a small one, because the assistant also happened to be a supervisor, one of a half dozen who oversaw ten or fifteen other assistants and reported directly to the Special Narcotics Prosecutor himself. Though these days that would be
Times change.
The name of the assistant was Daniel Pulaski. He was a good-looking man in his forties, careful with his three-piece suits and his slicked-back dark hair. He was also, at least according to the general consensus of the local defense bar, a Class A prick.
Jaywalker has never had qualms about going up against a prosecutor with sharp elbows. In fact, when it comes time to go to trial, he generally prefers that his adversaries are able to take care of themselves. He’s found over the years that weak prosecutors tend to arouse the sympathies of both judges and juries, sympathies that Jaywalker would far sooner have directed at the defendant.
But there’s sharp, and then there’s nasty. And at least by reputation, Daniel Pulaski fell squarely into the latter category. That said, Jaywalker had never tried a case against him. He’d stood up opposite him on a few matters in court, but none of them had ended up going to trial, or even to an evidentiary hearing, for that matter. So he was willing to suspend judgment on Pulaski for the moment, and even determined to give the man the benefit of doubt, at least until he demonstrated he didn’t deserve it.
It wouldn’t take long.
“So,” said Pulaski, “I see you’re the latest flavor-of-the-month for Alonzo the Malingerer.”
“I’m his new lawyer,” Jaywalker deadpanned. “If that’s what you mean.”
“Right,” said Pulaski, checking his wristwatch in what struck Jaywalker as a crude parody of impatience. And, he wondered, who wore cuff links these days? Especially
“If this is a bad time-”
“No, no,” said Pulaski. “It’s as good a time as any. What can I do for you?”
“Well,” said Jaywalker, “I was hoping you might have copies of papers for me, discovery material. That sort of stuff.”
“Listen, Mr. Jaywalker-”
“Jay.”
“Mr. Jay-”
“Just Jay.”
“Whatever. The point is, you’re this scumbag’s fourth lawyer. I’m out of copies and have better things to do than run off more of them. You want copies, why don’t you go see your predecessors?”
“I guess I can do that,” Jaywalker conceded. “I just thought that since it seems like you and I might have to try this case, we might start off on the right-”
“We’re not going to try this case,” said Pulaski. “Your guy is going to jerk you around for six months, just like he did with all the others. Then he’s going to say he can’t communicate with you and ask the judge to give him a new lawyer. We both know that.”
“Actually,” said Jaywalker, “he seems to be communicating with me pretty well.”
“You’ve met him?”
Jaywalker nodded matter-of-factly. Pulaski countered with a look of surprise. Evidently he didn’t know any lawyers who went to the trouble of going to the jail and visiting their assigned clients even before their cases came on in court.
“So if you’ve met him,” said Pulaski, “maybe you can tell me what he’s waiting for before he takes his plea.”
“As I said earlier, I’m not at all sure he’s going to take a plea.” It wasn’t exactly the truth. Jaywalker was actually pretty sure Barnett would come around, sooner or later. But Pulaski’s certainty about that had been enough to prompt Jaywalker to suggest he was mistaken.
“You understand,” said Pulaski, “that eight to life is the best he can possibly get under the law, don’t you? And that’s on a
“We both know that,” said Jaywalker. “But he doesn’t seem particularly interested.”
“Then fuck him. He can go to trial and get twenty-five to life, for all I care. It’ll be my pleasure.” Followed by another look at the wristwatch, this one even more deliberate and more dismissive than the first.
The meeting, for all intents and purposes, was over. Nine minutes after it had begun.
Well, thought Jaywalker, at least he’d managed to get through it without throwing a punch at Pulaski, a temptation he’d succumbed to three years earlier. The target hadn’t been Pulaski that time. It had been an A.D.A. in Brooklyn, an ex-cop named Jimmy Spagnelli, who’d accused Jaywalker of being overzealous in the way he’d gone after an arson investigator on the witness stand. Jaywalker had ignored the insult, accepting it as a compliment in disguise. But Spagnelli hadn’t wanted to let it go at that, and a moment later he called Jaywalker a “low-life shyster.” Jaywalker’s Jewish half had reacted by taking offense at that, and his Irish half had reacted by clocking Spagnelli with a right hook. Unfortunately, it had landed a bit high on the side of Spagnelli’s head, clearly not a vital organ. For Jaywalker, the result had been a broken hand and a two-year suspension from practicing in Brooklyn.
Kind of like losing his driving privileges in Lithuania.
Over the course of the next three days, Jaywalker did precisely what Daniel Pulaski had left him no recourse but to do. He met in turn with each of Alonzo Barnett’s three previous lawyers, collecting copies of court documents, motion papers and discovery materials. By the end of the week he’d put together the bare bones of a file. And during the course of amassing it, he’d gained a few insights into Barnett’s reluctance to take a plea, but only a few. Among the highlights were “He’s self-destructive,” “He’s a psycho,” and “I dunno, beats the shit outa me.”
The case appeared in court that Thursday, in Part 91. Part 91, located at the far end of the fifteenth floor of 10 °Centre Street, was at that time designated as the L.T.D. Part, which stood for Long Term Detainees or, as one cynic suggested, Let Them Die. Its calendars were filled with cases of jailed defendants that were not only ripe for trial, but overripe. In a system that supposedly guaranteed an accused felon a speedy trial within six months of arraignment, every defendant in Part 91 had already been locked up for a year or more. And in a business that was evaluated largely on statistics, these aging cases were negatively skewing the average arrest-to-completion time that the administrative judge desperately needed to bring down in order to demonstrate efficiency and justify budget increases. So the word had gone out to get the cases disposed of by plea or, failing that, to get them
