law school ninja

(click here for part 1 and here for part 2)

Okay I promise this is the last installment of my little adventure. It’s just that what happened on the last day of the trial has stuck with me ever since, and actually I hope I never forget that moment.

So the previous day, the Department rested its case, then BB put the mom back on the stand for a while and then rested his case, then the attorney for the dad (whose rights were also being terminated) and the ad litem for the two girls didn’t put on any case at all. So the trial was over, and the jury was dismissed. Then all the lawyers (and I!) went back into the judge’s chambers to work on the jury charge.

A jury charge is something I had never given any thought to at all before in my life. Somehow I knew nothing about this, like not even that this whole process existed. I guess I just thought that juries were given some standard forms to answer the questions before them and that was that. Turns out it’s more complicated.

The CPS lawyer had already drafted a preliminary jury charge, so she had her secretary email it over, and we were all given a copy to review. This was about a five- or six-page document that explained the pertinent law, definitions of terms, and the actual questions that the jury was to answer. The jury charge is super important, because the way things are phrased and the words used can influence the jury to some extent, so the lawyers all argue over what to take out and how to rephrase things. For example, the definition of “endanger” included the phrase “metaphysical injury” and one of the lawyers had a complaint about the word “metaphysical” and claimed to not know what it means, so surely the jury couldn’t be expected to know, and so it should be removed. That kind of stuff. Anyway, they were finally able to come up with a jury charge that was satisfactory to everybody, and then we all went home.

The following morning, all that was left to do was to hear closing arguments, so everybody did that in their turn. Then the judge read the jury charge to the jury and off they went to deliberate. At first, some of the lawyers were afraid to even go upstairs to get a cup of coffee because they were convinced that the jury would be back in a flash. But we waited, and we waited, and we waited some more, and then BB suggested that we go down to one of the other courtrooms to watch some arraignments. So we did, and BB kept checking his watch, and an hour came and went, and we kept watching criminal court. Then, like 90 minutes into deliberations, the jury had a question. It was a weird question, or at least phrased weirdly, and nobody could quite figure out what they were really asking, but it seemed to indicate that the jury agreed that the state had the grounds to terminate but that perhaps they could not agree on whether to terminate would be in the children’s best interest. (In a termination case in Texas, it only takes 10 of the 12 jurors to agree to terminate, but at a minimum the same 10 must agree on all questions.) So the judge basically copied and pasted some parts of the jury charge and sent it back to them. Then BB and I headed back to criminal court, and we had no sooner sat down than we got notice that they were ready with the verdict. So in we went.

The jury filed in, and not one of them made eye contact with the mom. Then the judge read the verdict, which was unanimously in favor of terminating the parental rights of both the mom and the dad, and then the jury was dismissed. What happened next is the thing I hope I never ever forget.

So this probably sounds rather melodramatic, but as the judge was reading the verdict I was watching the mom (I was standing behind her so I couldn’t see her face). You know how in the movies, when somebody gets some bad news or something, and they have that shot of the person’s field of vision being blacked out, starting at the periphery and moving in quickly toward the center? Like the whole world is closing in on them? In my mind’s eye, that’s what was going on in the mom’s head as she heard the judge say that she had just lost her kids forever. It was very matter-of-fact, as in, “As to question 1, the answer is yes,” etc., and I wasn’t sure at first whether the mom completely understood what had just happened. But at some point (seemed like a long time but probably wasn’t) her body language changed and it was clear that she got it. The judge thanked the jury and dismissed them, and they left the courtroom.

Then one of the attorneys said something like, “Well, I’m off to [another city] now for a well deserved vacation.” Laughter. Then another person said, “Oh, have a great time! Be sure to take lots of pictures!” More laughter. Then the CPS case worker said, “I’ll be there too! I’m getting married there this weekend!” Even more laughter. And someone else said, “That’s right! Congratulations! Now I’ll have to learn your new name!” Laughter.

And while all this was going on, all this celebrating and discussion of future plans and general happy-happy-joy-joy frivolity, there at the table stood the mom who’d just been told that she was no longer legally the mother of her two little girls. And next to her stood BB, visibly disgusted with the complete lack of humanity on display as this mother’s life just came to a screeching halt.

It made me sick to my stomach.

And then it made me angry. And I’m still kinda pissed off about it, actually.

I have the ability to be very cynical. It’s not that hard for me to slip into a way of thinking that sortof dehumanizes individuals and allows me to think of people I don’t know as objects rather than humans with emotions. I’m not particularly proud of that, but I will say that it’s come in handy more than once in my life when I’ve needed to completely disconnect my emotions from my decision-making process in order to think clearly. I’m reflexively skeptical and I generally approach things from a standpoint of I don’t believe you just on your word but I’m open to being convinced if you have proof.

I say all this, because now I know that there are people out there who are way better at this whole disconnect thing than I ever thought about being. And that’s not meant as a compliment. The majority of people in that room were completely oblivious to the fact that this lady just had her kids taken away from her FOREVER. It was all jokey-joke, yay vacation, yay I’m getting married, hahaha, yay for our privileged lives. This was long before the mom had had a chance to exit the room. So there she stood, processing what had just happened, the reality sinking in, while almost everyone around her was… celebrating? I can’t think of the right word to describe it. It. Was. Sickening.

I understand that it’s a kind of coping mechanism that develops over time. It’s not unique to lawyers, either. I know doctors struggle with the same balancing act between getting too emotionally invested in a patient such that it clouds the doctor’s judgment, versus treating patients like herded cattle. I get it. A lawyer has to keep a certain distance in order to save his own sanity and to effectively represent his client. But a lawyer should never forget that his clients are human beings, not cattle, not pieces of paper or cases. Humans. Who should be afforded some degree of basic human dignity.

May I never ever forget the knot in my stomach that I got while the verdict was being read; the pang of sadness and finality I had when it became clear that the mom realized what had happened; and the confusion, then disbelief, then disgust, then white hot anger I felt after watching the behavior of the other people in the courtroom. There just has to be a way to strike a balance. Surely it’s not inevitable that I, too, will become so callous and insensitive that I immediately brag about my vacation plans after a verdict is read. If it is inevitable, then I have chosen the wrong profession.