Perri O'Shaughnessy - Unfit to Practice

“Not at this time. As I say, I’m still in charge of an open investigation.”

“Thank you. Nothing further.”

“We will take the midmorning break,” said Judge Brock. Nolan left. The clock stopped. The clerk took off her headphones and disappeared.

Jack nodded at the door.

“I’ll stay here for a minute,” Nina said, “and try to remember how hardworking and innocent I looked to myself only yesterday.”

“I warned you. They trowel on the accusations. Hearsay, opinion evidence, all sorts of character-battering is an integral part of the proceedings. You’ll get a better crack at showing a balanced picture of your career, who you are, how well you’ve done in your work, during the next phase, the mitigation hearing. This is a different kind of court.”

“Yeah, it’s a quasi-court practicing quasi-law with quasi-rules of procedure. And quasi-protection for the defendant.”

Jack said, “You’re right. Welcome to the Bizarro universe of law.”

“I read the rules, but I can’t believe the way they play out in practice. This is not supposed to be a criminal action, but it sure feels like one.”

“If only it were a criminal matter,” Jack said. “Then you might have the statutory presumption of innocence. You don’t get that here. You already know that the technical rules of evidence in criminal cases aren’t applicable. The case doesn’t even have to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. It’s unclear how much hearsay evidence can come in, and Hugo likes to hear it all.”

“Then why do I need an attorney?” Nina said rather rashly. “You don’t object. You can’t keep the worst slimeballing out. You can’t do anything but sit there.”

“I haven’t cross-examined yet.”

“Is that when you start defending me?”

“Look, we got off to a rough start this morning. I’ll take some of the blame.”

“I hate sitting there unable to open my mouth and defend myself. I feel like a crash-test dummy.” She helped herself to some of the bottled water.

“Back at my office, I have a quote from Kafka taped inside my drawer. Funny guy, in his bitter European way. The Trial speaks to some of your ordeal. You remember, this clerk, K, keeps getting hauled off to this court in this crummy run-down warehouse, and he can’t find out what the charges are. At first he scoffs, but he finally starts believing in the whole strange system. At that point he’s doomed.”

“Then he and I have nothing in common,” Nina said. “I refuse to let this sorry system ruin my life.”

“All they can do is lift your license.”

He said it lightly, but she heard the worry behind his words. Jack was being kind. They both knew this could go beyond the California bar court into a criminal investigation of fraud. “That can’t happen,” she said. “We won’t let it.”

“If it happens, it won’t be the end of the world.”

“Nobody is running me out of this career that I worked so damn hard to achieve.”

Silence while he digested this. “Good, because you’re exactly the kind of lawyer we need out there, dirty-kneed, trudging through the trenches.” He lifted her chin to look at her. “Ah, Nina. How life changes.”

“I’ve never feared change, Jack. I see it as an opportunity.” She got up. “I’m out of here. When does the kangaroo court resume?”

Jack looked at his watch. “Nine minutes. Nina-”

“What?”

“Relax a little with the constant pen and paper, okay? It makes the judge nervous. And you might want to slap a little lipstick on or powder your nose or something. Look like a winner. You look too worried.”

Wanting to fume in private, Nina went down a floor, an old trick of hers when she wanted to be alone, and paced around in that hallway. Nine minutes passed, then they returned to their tables in the ice-cold court.

Judge Brock entered and they all stood and sat down again in a clumsy shared motion. The clerk detached, plugging her headphones into some distant place like Mars, her eyes looking somewhere into the middle distance of the room where there was nothing but dead air to view. Officer Scholl was advised that she was still under oath.

“Good morning, Officer,” Jack said, receiving a curt nod in return.

“So you already knew Ms. Reilly from traffic court?”

“Yes.”

“You hand out the traffic citations, she fights them?”

“That’s about it.”

“How many times have you come up against Ms. Reilly?”

“Oh, five or six.”

“And every single time, she beat your ticket, didn’t she?”

“Objection,” said Nolan.

“Goes to bias.”

“Overruled.”

“She beat you, didn’t she?” Jack said with a little smile.

“I can’t remember every case.”

“Do you need me to refresh your recollection by having you go through this stack of records here and then putting in evidence each of the instances?”

“She got her client off on the tickets each time.”

“You say she resorted to trickery. What tricks did she pull?”

“She took advantage of the situation. She attacked the calibration of the radar gun. She continued cases until I or the other officers had a conflict and couldn’t make it to the court appearance, and got a dismissal that way. She knew we couldn’t remember every detail of a traffic stop from months before. She made one little inconsistency look like we were lying.”

“‘We were lying’? Wasn’t it just you up there?”

“She made it look like I was lying, which I wasn’t.”

“So you were humiliated by her tactics?”

Scholl flushed. “I take personal pride in my work.”

“She blighted your otherwise good record?”

“My record is otherwise very good.”

“Did the issue of your frequent losses in court on cases against defendants of Ms. Reilly come up during discussions with your superior officer about an upcoming promotion to the Detective Unit?”

Scholl paused and thought before she spoke. “Yes.”

“Did you get the promotion?”

“No.”

“Do you attribute your failure to be promoted to Ms. Reilly?”

“I can only say the citations were good, and I was accused of lying on the stand, and the judge dismissed the citations. And this was a factor.”

“Did she ever get sanctioned by a court for her tactics?”

“I wouldn’t know about that.”

“Did she ever get found in contempt?”

“I have no way of knowing.”

“So she attacked the prosecution’s case and got her clients off on the tickets,” Jack mused as if to himself. “Guess that didn’t make her too popular with law enforcement up at Tahoe.”

“Exactly. She could not be trusted.”

“It sure didn’t make her very popular with you, did it?”

“I-I didn’t like her tactics.”

“You didn’t like her success, you mean. How do you like criminal-defense attorneys in general, from your viewpoint in law enforcement?”

“They are a necessary ev-they are part of the system.”

Smiling, Jack said, “They could all get shipped off to Timbuktu and you wouldn’t miss ’em, would you?”

“Not really.”

“I appreciate your forthrightness,” Jack said. He had a rhythm going, Nina thought. He wasn’t half bad. A small relief released some of the built-up pressure in her chest.

“Now, you mentioned that it didn’t help your investigation that Ms. Reilly wouldn’t tell you her clients’ names.”

“I felt she was not cooperating with the investigation.”

“Ever heard of Rule 1.6 (a)?”

“I’m not a lawyer.”

“Indeed you aren’t. Let me put it this way. Did you know that there is a rule of practice for attorneys that prohibits them from revealing any information relating to the representation of a client unless the client consents after consultation?”