Sergio De La Pava - A Naked Singularity

“What did he say?”

“I think he had no idea what she was talking about except that it was in some vague sense supportive. He was heartened, let’s put it that way. I think he expects a last-minute reprieve on the day of sentencing. You know a disgusted Judge Preskill sticks her neck out, lobbies the state legislature, coerces the DA, whatever, but somehow gets the guy with three ears into a drug program. His appointed savior.”

“Is that what that was? That fucking thing on his neck. A goddamned third ear?”

“What’s the big deal? You never seen a third ear?”

“Does it?”

“No.”

There followed a not-too-brief discussion during which it was established that we’d have lunch together. This was followed by extensive analysis of the relative merits of our options and all this took far too long considering we were outside and the cold wind made my face feel like it was about to spontaneously bleed until finally an ultimatum from me to decide led to a decision to attempt a reprise — to the extent that sort of thing is even possible — of our lunch from the Friday past and so off to Little Italy we went.

On our way there we saw a strange thing.

“What in the holy hell?” said Dane.

What it was was one of those blue plywood walls construction sites are always putting up in the interests of gawker-prevention. Only this one was blood red with a small black-velvet curtain in the vertical and horizontal center. The curtain covered a port/peephole and above it in gold letters:

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU LOOK INSIDE

TO SEE MAN’S GREATEST INVENTION SINCE

THE WHEEL. AGAIN, WE URGE YOU

NOT TO LOOK INSIDE

FOR ANY

REASON

!!!!

As we walked by some guy stood directly in front of the curtain. He stared intently at the immense golden words. His head lolled slightly to one side then the next as he read. Then he paused, threw the curtain over his head and looked in the hole.

We kept walking.

“Let’s sit here again Casi.”

“Fine.”

“So what do the Preskills of the world want?”

“Huh?”

“Judge Preskill, she agrees with your client in many respects she says. What does she propose as an answer? Legalization?”

“I don’t know. I guess you’ll have to read her upcoming article, only promise not to fill me in.”

“Given the source, I assume the article will be dim. But I’ve been ruminating on what she said and it’s not incomprehensibly stupid.”

“High praise indeed.”

“Let’s think about this for a moment, because I find that in our jobs it’s important to constantly think things through and analyze them; instead of just getting by with the bare minimum required of each day, without scrutinizing the landscape we’re operating in.”

“Thanks for the tip.”

“I’m going to show you something, really just as an intellectual exercise. Let’s take it from the top and feel free to chime in if you disagree at any point.”

“If you must.”

“Preskill identified two things she disagreed with and which she presumably feels create injustice. Let’s put aside any Socratic concerns over what it means for something to be unjust et cetera.”

“Yeah definitely let’s.”

“The two things were the sentences given on drug cases and more generally the whole War on Drugs bullshit. Right? Right?”

“I’ll chime in if I disagree remember?”

“Good. So regarding these matters where are people and how did they get to this point? I’ll take these questions in inverse order.”

“My favorite kind.”

“This is how I bet they got in their present situation. At some point someone told a politician that it would be to his advantage to make drug policy one of his core issues. What this always means of course is a get-tough policy since tough is the only thing to get if you want to have a job. The idea caught on with those of his ilk and soon everyone had to have their own get-tough policy. These things always rocket to the top because anyone who opposes is accused of being a drug-lover or something similar, highly intelligent things like that. In this case the ascension of these harsh, anti-drug policies was abetted by the fact that most feel drugs really are a legitimate problem that leads to all sorts of social ills, so on the surface the steps seem necessary.” He stared and I facially reminded him of the thing whereby I would only interject in the event of disagreement.

“At any rate,” he continued. “War was declared on drugs, soldiers were drafted, money spent, and new laws passed. Sentences for drug-related offenses were increased and more resources were devoted to enforcing the existing illegality of drug use and sales. So what resulted? Let’s only discuss and analyze that which we know intimately so as to avoid being the typical underinformed idiot. That means I’m going to limit myself to what this drug policy means and creates in New York of which I have firsthand knowledge. Note, however, that this doesn’t decrease the legitimacy of my observations vis-à-vis the greater population. The reason for this is simple. You know how some motions must be decided while viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the defendant?”

“Yes?”

“Well, as I’m sure you’re aware, New York is widely considered one of the best places to be arrested in this country. This state’s appellate courts, for example, often provide greater protection to defendants than is required by the federal constitution right? Therefore by looking at the situation as it exists at one of the polar extremes we can draw far more legitimate conclusions than if we looked at a random locale not easily susceptible to extrapolation. This is true, by the way, of all aspects of the criminal justice system not just drug cases; we can safely assume that any injustices suffered by our clients here in New York City would only be exceeded elsewhere and, at least with respect to the other places I’ve practiced, I have found this to be invariably true. So I think it a valid proposition, agreed?”

“You’re really determined to flout your own procedure aren’t you?”

“Very well. Here’s what you’ve got. I handle only felony cases, and I currently have about sixty or seventy of them in various stages. Of these cases, fifty to sixty percent are drug-related. Now when I say drug-related I’m not referring to criminal acts that arise out of drug addiction, I mean cases where the top count is either the possession or sale of drugs. My understanding is that these numbers generally reflect what other similarly-situated attorneys experience. If that’s the case, then we can assume that about one out of every two people charged with a serious crime in this city is a prisoner of this war on drugs. Of course one of the first things to note about this high volume of drug arrests is their ultimate impotence. I don’t know of anyone claiming that the drug trade in this city has been curtailed in any meaningful way. There are hundreds of drug spots in the city each of them moving thousands of dollars worth of drugs a day. The aforementioned fifty percent seem to be highly fungible and all these four-to-eight sentences mean is that someone else steps in and starts preparing for their state bid.”

“True.”

“So who are these people the police round up when they go on rooftops with binoculars, or pose as strung-out addicts to buy five-dollar vials, or beg some poor sap to sell them their extra bottle of methadone? Well one thing we know about them is they don’t have any money. We know this first of all because we’re their attorneys. It’s hard to imagine any group of people being held in less esteem than we are by our clients. The overwhelming majority of them feel that we are either bumbling incompetents — after all if we’re otherwise why aren’t we in private practice making real money? — or, even worse, actively conspiring with the DA against them as evidenced by the fact that we know and appear to act friendly towards a lot of these people who are prosecuting them. Throw in that we are employed, at least in their eyes, by the same government. We also know that people tend to greatly overestimate the efficacy of private attorneys. Now despite these time-honored perceptions, I find that I have no shortage of drug clients and that other attorneys, who I’m sure inspire far less confidence than I do, also have an abundance of drug cases. What this means is that these people, who were arrested for participating in the drug trade and who presumably profit from what is unquestionably a highly lucrative industry, are unable to scrounge up enough money to hire an attorney in a city that has more attorneys than mosquitoes, and this is the case even though they firmly believe their failure to do so will result in them going to prison for long stretches. Throw in the added fact that a substantial majority of this same population is being held in jail on bail the equivalent of which I spend in assorted bars in a typical week. Really though I only say all this in the interests of being thorough since we don’t really need this recitation of facts to tell us that the majority of these defendants are indigent right? Seeing is believing and we can see that these people are primarily toothless drug addicts or twerpy teens who think they’re being hard and ultimately these are the people that are getting sent upstate and who the police are cracking down on. So what do you say about this situation Casi? Someone like your thrice-eared friend peripherally participates in a drug sale in exchange for the grand sum of one dollar and now he’s doing three to six.”