Monday morning in Courtroom Two, Zehra stood before the Honorable Mary Ann Gordon Smith, the “Hot Tub” judge, for the arraignment of her client, Mr. El-Amin. “My client doesn’t want a female lawyer,” Zehra said. “He wants to represent himself.”
Prior to coming to court, Zehra had researched the issue of a client’s representing himself. If this was an honorable way out of the case, she’d take it.
Judge Smith peered at El-Amin, standing behind the low wooden wall at the side of the courtroom. He crossed his hands in front of himself at his waist. “Are you sure this is what you want to do?” the judge asked him.
He closed his eyes and spoke. “I will not disgrace myself by having a woman represent me, nor will I have a woman judge me.”
The prosecutor, Steve Harmon, stood behind the table reserved for counsel. “I want the record to note the defendant wants to go pro se. He can’t change his mind later.”
“I want my trial as soon as possible,” El-Amin shouted.
To make clear her disagreement, the judge twitched her head back and forth. “It is your right, but under these circumstances, in a murder case—” She looked back at Zehra and the lawyer who would second-chair Zehra, Jackie Nguyen. “I don’t have time for this today. I’ll take this issue under advisement. For now, you are still counsel of record, Ms. Henning.”
“Wait,” El-Amin called out.
The judge’s face jerked up, annoyed. “What?”
“I insist this woman will not represent me.”
Zehra jumped in. “That’s his right, Judge. You could relieve me of the duty to represent him.” Zehra knew the judge was too smart to fall for that but hoped it might work.
“I’ve made my decision. You will keep the case, Ms. Henning.” She gathered the file together, closed the cover, and tossed it aside as if she were tired of a bad novel.
As they moved away from the bench, Jackie whispered, “Way to go, girl. What a bitch. And why do they call her the ‘Hot Tub’ judge?”
They moved into the hallway. Zehra sighed. “Several years ago, the governor worked with Smith in the state legislature. She was a successful lawyer and prominent in legal circles. The governor’s wife and Smith became friends as Smith was always politically savvy. After legislative sessions, they’d go back to the governor’s mansion to relax in the hot tub. When the next judicial opening occurred in this county, guess who got it?”
Jackie nodded. “You’re kidding me. Is she smart?”
“Very. But Mary Ann uses every advantage she has. I’m sure the governor didn’t miss those boobs on his new choice for the bench as she splashed in the tub with him.”
After the court hearing, Zehra and Jackie walked two blocks down Fourth Avenue to the public defender’s office, past a park ramp edged in flowers. They gloried in the morning light—purple, blue, and dark green leaves. A fresh breeze lifted them as if they were dancing.
Reaching the tall office building, they walked around the coffee shop on the main floor and rode the elevator to the seventh floor, all of it occupied by dozens of lawyers, law clerks, support staff, investigators, and the law library.
In the lobby, Jerry Zimmerman stalked around the room, telling everyone about his newest case. “In this crazy job, you think you’ve heard everything. No—they always throw you a curve.” He jerked his head from one person to another but really just wanted their attention.
Jerry’s squat body moved faster as he talked more. Black hair scrambled to cover the top of his head but failed. “So, I’m interviewing this new guy who’s charged with burglary of a jewelry shop at the Mall of America. First of all—” He stopped and pointed at Jackie. “You’d pick a store in the busiest mall in America to rob, wouldn’t you?”
Zehra laughed. There were so many of these stories. After a while as a public defender, you’ve heard so many you become numb to them. She’d found herself in Jerry’s place many times.
“Get this. He plans to commit the ‘perfect crime,’ but he lacks a basic tool—the getaway car. That doesn’t stop our Ph.D. candidate. He must have watched too many motivational shows that encouraged him to ‘be all that he could be.’ Which is a successful criminal. So he takes the bus out to the mall to begin his career.” Jerry moved again, poking the air with an upraised finger. “Into the mall he goes, with no disguise, of course, and heads for the jewelry shop. He smashes open a case, shovels the stuff into a plastic garbage bag, and boogies. To his credit, he actually got outside.”
“What happened then?” one of the secretaries asked.
Jerry stopped dead and hung his head. “Ah . . .you know how they caught him?” He waited to deliver the punch line. “The putz was standing outside waiting for his getaway car—the public bus.” Everyone laughed. “They catch him with the jewelry in his bag. I should write sitcoms. You can’t make this stuff up.”
“You can do it, Jerry,” Zehra called to him as she walked into her office. Jackie followed, and Zehra dropped her leather bag on the chair next to her desk. Her office occupied a corner, shaped like a badly designed triangle. Large windows opened onto the condo high rise next door.
As she settled into the chair, Zehra looked over at Jackie, glad to have her help. Jackie had started working as a public defender two years earlier. She’d come from a corporate law firm but found the work boring, even though it paid almost twice what she made as a government lawyer. She wanted the action of courtroom trial work.
Shiny dark hair curved around Jackie’s round face. Large brown eyes almost distracted Zehra from the beautiful, flawless skin that made Zehra jealous since Jackie didn’t have a wrinkle anywhere.
“Like those killer glasses, Jackie,” Zehra said about the square Buddy Holly glasses she wore.
Jackie worked hard and was sharp and anxious to help. She asked what they needed to do on the El-Amin case.
“Bobby Joe Washington’s coming in this morning,” Zehra said.
“How’d you get him? I hear he’s, like, one of the best.”
“Right. Did you know he’s one of the only investigators trained in the FACS, the Facial Action Coding System?”
Jackie frowned. “Is that like the TV show where the expert can tell if a person’s lying just by looking at their face and watching them talk?”
“Yeah. It should be a big help for us. Plus, our chief assigned him, which didn’t make BJ too happy. But, as usual, he’ll do a great job. He already went to work as soon as we got the discovery evidence with the police reports, forensics, and witness statements. I hope he has some good news for us; otherwise, we’re in deep shit.”
“Why is he unhappy about working with us?”
“It’s not us. It’s because the chief figures that since Bobby Joe is black, he’ll have a better chance of getting access to the black Somali community than a white investigator.”
“I don’t know about that—”
“Of course not. It’s stupid. We’re all stuck with this horrible case. The Somalis don’t necessarily get along with American blacks. In the end, the chief is more worried about how this will look to the public and the media than anything else.”
“Can you talk to him about reassigning the case since the client tried to hit you?” Jackie said.
Zehra shrugged her shoulders. “I’ll try. He owes me some favors. It’s not like we won’t provide representation for the defendant—it’s just that someone else will do it. Preferably a male public defender.” She leaned forward in the chair. “We do this all the time: trade cases within the office for a variety of reasons. Why not this case?”
Jackie twisted her lips and thought for a while. “But Zehra, who else would volunteer to take a case this difficult?”
Chapter Six