I have previously described myself as a paradigm shifter in the realm of improvisational moral theater where:
IbegforjusticeandmercyinthePovertyCapitalofAmericaasmyfatherdidbeforemebeforehediedofaliquorsoakedbrokenheart.
I have also previously described a psychological construct that guides me toward "best practices" in the courtroom. I call it Courtroom Classroom Theater Church.
The fact of the matter is a public defender working the crowded, shit-stinking courtrooms of America has a choice: sit on the sidelines and do as little work as possible (a perfectly reasonable decision, given the utterly corrupt dysfunction of the justice system and the freakishly disproportionate expectations of utility the system has of it's public defenders)
OR,
stand in the eye of the storm, fight passionately, rage against injustice and it's whore-sister, corruption, and give people a voice that rises above the inhuman bureaucratic din and ceaseless hypnotic hum of the prison-industrial complex machinery.
History will reveal which path Bloomsday has chosen. But while my years of legal yoga allow me to pat myself on the back (or, perhaps more accurately, lovingly apply salve to my own whip-lash marks)the truth of the matter is that the vast majority of my clients are not innocent lambs to the slaughter: They're guilty.
They may not be guilty in a legal, semantic sense, because everyone is technically presumed innocent until proven guilty so I can just as easily say that the guy standing next to me who did what he's charged with is also, in this sense, innocent. Of course, the distinction is between actual guilt and legal guilt; actual innocence and legal innocence. Lookie here:
If these distinctions never dawned on you, then you are not a fully functioning citizen of society.
When people ask with sanctimony, "How can you defend those people?", I read the psychology behind the question. And you should know, this psychology behind the question isn't pretty. On one level, it's like asking a plumber, "How can you stick your hands in other people's toilets?" The questioner reveals disgust at the task. But there's also moral revulsion, as if the toilets don't deserve the plumber's help. It's that component of the "how can you defend those people?" question that troubles me most.
In court the other day I had the eyes of everyone upon me as I advocated for a particularly despicable soul, and I explained that I defend those charged and found guilty with honor, because I believe every one of us is more than the worst things we've ever done. I asked everyone in the courtroom to hold in their mind for a few moments the worst thing they've ever done, then imagine that they were standing in a courtroom answering for it. In that moment, with all eyes judging you, you'd want someone to remind everyone that you, too, are more than the worst thing you've ever done.
Bloomsday reaches into his breast pocket and retrieves his strange navigational tool. His hunch is correct: he finds himself perfectly balanced between the four points of the Courtroom Classroom Theater Church compass he designed for himself many years ago.
