Grif Stockley: Illegal Motion

For the next forty-five minutes I get as much information as I can. At least she has brought the petition and the affidavit of the caseworker, a woman by the name of Sheila Younger. Based on the allegations of the department, it is clear that the case will turn on the opinion of a burn expert. The documents recite in water at a temperature of 140 degrees from the faucet the child would need to have been exposed only about five seconds to receive full and partial thickness burns over forty percent of her body. The mother’s story that the child was left briefly in the tub is considered inconsistent with the evidence, obviously a reference to the medical opinion of a doctor at St. Thomas, where the child was taken by ambulance. As an artfully drawn complaint, the petition leaves a lot to be desired, but since a probable cause hearing has already been held, there is little to do now but go forward.

“Were you having some problems toilet training Glenetta?” I ask at the end of the interview, still hoping this girl will level with me. She wouldn’t be the first parent in Blackwell County to have decided to teach her child a lesson for soiling her pants, “She’s real good about that,” Gina says, as if the child were playing quietly in the next room. If the judge will listen to her, Gina, with a little work, should do reasonably well on the witness stand. Many parents in abuse or neglect cases are their own worst enemies, floundering hopelessly as witnesses in a system that seems to entrap them even as it promises to help rehabilitate their families.

Wise beyond her years to the game that is being played, this girl knows she is being watched and has visited the child in the hospital at every opportunity. I would prefer to believe she is motivated by her concern and love for her child, but all the same it is nice to have a client who knows the clock is still running.

“What about Glenetta’s father?” I ask, suspecting this will be futile.

A sardonic smile coming to her unpainted, pouty shaped lips, Gina looks at me as if I had asked whether her wedding announcement will be in the society pages.

“I don’t think a convicted car thief with a cocaine problem is going to be the answer to my prayers.”

I grunt noncommittally, putting my pen down and pushing my chair back from my desk. Most of the time, the practice of law is about as exciting as looking a name up in the phone book. I have fired blank after blank with questions about her parents (estranged since she announced she was pregnant, they sent Glenetta a card on her birthday) and friends (off-and-on prostitutes who supplement their income with tips waitressing at D.Y.”s or vice versa). One normal witness testifying with a straight face that she would nominate Gina as the Mother of the Year would be nice, but, as is typical with most of my criminal defendants, I expect there will not be a long line of dignitaries waiting outside the courtroom to testify that a model citizen is being hounded by the American judicial system. This case is a long shot at best.

“Nothing is more stressful,” I say, “than trying to raise a child by yourself with no help and very little money. If you were maxed out that day and held your baby down in the water out of frustration, it’s understandable.” She opens her mouth to speak, and I raise my hand to keep her from interrupting.

“If you go into court and admit how strung out you were that day and agree to attend parenting classes and get counseling, I think there’s a decent shot you might get her back some day. The intent of the law is to rehabilitate families, not split them up.”

Gina clutches the tissue in her hand.

“But it was an accident!” she exclaims.

“They can’t take her from me if it wasn’t my fault, can they?”

Almost everyone will lie under stress. The more pressure, the more lies. Yet, for some reason I change my mind and believe this girl is telling the truth. She has looked me straight in the eye and has stuck to her story.

So why didn’t the child climb out of the tub? What about the pattern of the burns? I don’t know how to explain these questions any better than my client right now.

“Not if it wasn’t your fault,” I respond carefully. If her kid dies, she won’t have to worry about a juvenile court proceeding.

“Keep visiting her every day,” I advise, “and try not to piss off the nurses and social workers at the hospital.

Just remember they’re writing down everything you’re doing and not doing and will continue to do so until you go to court.”

Her blue eyes darkening, Gina gives me a fierce look.

“I don’t want you to be my lawyer,” she says stubbornly, “if you think I meant to hurt Glenetta deliberately. I can find somebody else if I have to.”

What a bluffer! I’ve always been a sucker for this line.

Though it seldom happens, lawyers want to believe they are representing an innocent person. As I look at her, I realize that if she had a more oval face, she would be almost pretty.

“I do believe you,” I say. Though she is surely a novice in her profession, she is quite an actress.

She knows two hundred dollars won’t buy her much of a lawyer for a trial that will determine custody of her child and avoid a possible criminal charge. Perhaps she is telling the truth. I look at my watch again and stand up.

“I’ve got to drive to Fayetteville this morning, so I need to get on the road. Did you get a trial date?”

“November seventh,” Gina says as she pushes herself out of the chair. She is tall, perhaps five feet eight. If she owns a decent dress, she will look better than the average parent who comes into juvenile court.

“That’s not far off,” I say, having forgotten how quickly adjudicatory hearings are set in juvenile court. I walk her out to the reception area.

“I’ll call early next week. I’m going to want to see the tub and for you to show me how it happened.”

She gives me a wan smile.

“Just give me a call.”

I watch her exit through the glass double doors to the elevators and remember I didn’t give her a receipt.

“How much is this client paying you?” Julia sneers.

“A couple hundred?”

My face burns with embarrassment at the accuracy of her guess.

“Why didn’t you tell me she had been Dan’s client?” I bluster, long having subscribed to the belief that offense is more fun than defense.

Seated, Julia cocks her head at me.

“Go bellyache to him if you got a beef. I’m not paid to gossip with you guys.”

“I think I will,” I say, eager to escape. Gina doesn’t seem the type to worry about receipts anyway.

Dan’s door is rarely shut, and today is no exception. I enter to find him happily eating a bag of peanuts, his latest diet food.

“I know what you’re going to say,” he says grinning, offering me a handful of goobers.

“So let me explain.”

I look at Clan and shake my head. Incorrigible is too kind a description. Instead of diplomas on the walls, Clan has tacked up cartoons. But rather than caricatures of national figures or Arkansas politicians, bizarrely displayed around him are blown-up strips of hoary, unfunny soap operas like Rex Morgan, M.D.” Mary Worth, and Apartment 3-G. Handling mainly minor criminal offenses and a steady diet of domestic relations cases, my closest friend justifies his choice of artwork as offering cautionary tales to the dozens of tormented women who frequent his office. If his clients think they have been unlucky in love, Margo, a bitchy, but glamorous executive secretary in New York’s Apartment 3-G, has been regularly duped by the opposite sex for many years. Long-suffering and underappreciated nurse June Gale will never get that lunkhead of a doctor Rex Morgan to the altar; Mary Worth, a widow obviously celibate now for decades, fills her time by incessantly interfering in the problem-filled lives of her friends and acquaintances. The message is clear to the female visitor: if things are still this bad for women in the funny pages after all this time, they shouldn’t expect too much out of real life.