The Dumb-Ass Things We Sometimes Do

When I was a 3L (Third-year law student), I had to complete a clinical "externship" before I graduated. A friend of mine from U of M, who in addition to being a frat brother, was also my mentor in law from college on, was kind enough to offer me the chance to work with him in his criminal law practice. My friend, D, was no a small man. At one point, before I knew him, he played hockey at Michigan State before he saw the light and came over to the dark side. To make a long story short, he could be quite intimidating physically. One day, he ended up being double-booked at two different courts on the opposite sides of town. Because one of the dates was an evidentiary hearing and the other just an arraignment, he instructed me to go to the arraignment, meet with the client, and inform the judge that he was in a hearing on the other side of town, and he would be there as soon as possible. He was also kind enough to call the judge's JA and let her "smooth the way" so the judge wouldn't bite my head off for being an unsupervised law student there in his courtroom stalling for time. As D headed out the door, he handed me a file. "Here," he said "I think you should read the client's file. His name is J. We'll talk after the hearing. I want to hear your thoughts on the matter." I had already put a spin on the actions of another one of his clients who was accused of evading arrest on a drug charge that allowed him to knock significant points off of the factors in the client's sentencing. I didn't think it was such an unusual thought, since someone in the rough and tumble business of street pharmacology might understandably be spooked and flee from persons he doesn't recognize who are chasing him in an unmarked vehicle. Competition in the business can be fierce, you know.

I had more than an hour before I had to go meet J at the courthouse. He was currently out on bail. I sat down and started to read through the file. Apparently J was one of the bigger drug dealers in the area. D was already defending him on two other sets of drug charges not related to the incident that he was being arraigned for on this day.

J was someone the police all knew. They knew who he was, what he drove, and who his associates were. One night, while driving through the wrong part of town at 2 am in his tricked out Suburban, he was pulled over by the local cops because they couldn't see his license plate, which was taped in the back window, which was of course, tinted. Because the cop knew J, he waited for 4 other cops to show up before approaching the car. One cop stood with J's three companions, and uncle and two cousins according to the police report, while the other 4 surrounded J and started to "ask him a series of questions". After about 25 minutes of questioning, the cops had decided that they just didn't have anything they could hold him on. Then, as they all turned to go back about their business, a bag of rock cocaine fell out of J's jacket. Reading the report, I could see in my head the scene where after the bag drops from J's coat, everyone stops, looks down at the bag, then they all look up at him, as he shrugs his shoulders and says "What can I say?"

I went to the courtroom, and the only person present in the room was a very large black man sitting on one of the benches in the back of the courtroom. He looked up and asked "Are you C?" "I am" I answered. "Yeah, D said you'd come first." I went over and sat down on the same bench, leaving enough of a distance to give the impression of respect, but not the smell of fear. (D had informed me that J had killed a few competitors a while back.) The judge stuck his head out of chambers briefly. I stood up, and he motioned me back down. "You D's intern?" he asked. "Yes, your Honor." I replied. "He says you're smart." the judge said as he seemed to look me up and down. "D has always been generous in his assessment of me." I replied. "He's one of the smartest people I ever met." The judge laughed and said "Yeah, I feel the same way about him. Speak up when he gets here." and with that, he retreated back into his chambers, leaving the door slightly ajar.

J and I sat in silence for a few minutes. Finally, I asked him. "J, what made you choose your line of work?" He looked at me very seriously for a minute, and then he said "C, look at me. I am not very well educated, I'm bigger than almost everyone I meet, including you and D, and I just couldn't bring myself to say "Do you want fries with that?" for the rest of my life. I make really good money. Good enough to afford D. If I do this work for another two years, I have enough money I can retire. Move somewhere else, somewhere where nobody knows me, and maybe live a normal life, with a wife and kids, and maybe even a normal job." I considered what he said for a minute. Then I asked if the risks were worth it. He said "Yes. The money is that good, my competition both fears and respects me, and the prosecutions can all take long enough that I can still finish if I am convicted, and I'll never serve a full sentence anyway."

From that point on, we continued to talk. He asked about my career choices. When D arrived, he said "Yeah. I thought you two would get along." The arraignment was quick. We all rode downstairs in the same elevator when it was over. J in front, D and I flanking him on either side in the back. As the doors shut, D asked in a half-sarcastic, half-amused voice that was his trademark "So did we learn our lesson?" I inhaled slowly, thinking that it might be my last breath on this planet as this hulking man in front of us seemed to straighten up slightly. Then, to my surprise, he slouched, like a chastised child, and said "Yeah..." D started laughing, pausing long enough to say "Good, because I could swear that it said "Dumbass" in the police report." J start to laugh also. Deciding that I was going to get to live after all, I blew out the first laugh I had been struggling to hold in, and joined them.

"What's my point?" you ask?

Well, aside from being a funny story, I wanted to make the point that we all do dumbass things sometimes. Just to prove that we're not perfect, we might do dumbass things over and over again, just like the pledge in Animal House who says "Thank You sir, may I have another?"

In my case, I have done it for years to someone who should be beyond reproach from me. And like a true dumbass, I did it again, in a setting designed to help us get past that kind of dumbass behavior. It wasn't appropriate, and I was speaking from a place of hurt. That doesn't excuse it. It only explains why I did something so incredibly stupid. If you are that person, reading this right now, I'm sorry, and I said it in front of friends. I ask your forgiveness, and no that doesn't mean "forget", that means "forgiveness". It doesn't mean that everything is OK, and no it doesn't come with that expectation. If you're not that person, go hug someone you love, and tell 'em so to their face. They really shouldn't ever have reason to question it.