Chambermaid

  “Yes, Judge Friedman, the court of appeals is to afford deference. But deference does not mean agreeing with the courts below willy-nilly. If, as here, the state court has made a decision based on an unreasonable determination of the facts, then you are permitted, indeed, compelled, to overturn that decision,” Ms. Northum replied, unflinchingly. “When a lawyer sleeps through a trial and a sentencing hearing, fails to call witnesses, fails to cross-examine witnesses, and fails to make a closing argument, it is difficult to see how one can defer to that, especially when, as here, that behavior sends someone to their death.”

  This was one articulate teenager. The courtroom hushed.

  “Yes, fine, Ms. Northum, but it is all too tempting for defendants to second-guess counsel after he or she has lost,” Judge Adams lectured, “and the district court below, in a comprehensive and incisive opinion, found that, while deficient perhaps, Tip Evans’s errors did not prejudice Mr. Nelson.”

  “With all due respect, Judge Adams,” Ms. Northum began, “I ask how prejudice isn’t obvi—”

  “Let’s move onto the merits, I think we understand your argument,” Judge Friedman interrupted, “specifically, the various mitigation witnesses, Nelson’s grandmother, three sisters, friends, neighbors. It seems like there were dozens of people who loved this man and were willing to beg for a life sentence over death.” Friedman tilted her head in my direction and winked. She’d taken a sentence almost verbatim from my memo and used it during argument—every law clerk’s wet dream!

  The teenager smiled coyly, acknowledging her friend on the bench. “That’s exactly right, Judge Friedman. A host of people came forward wanting to testify on Dell Nelson’s behalf, to spare his life. Tip Evans met with a handful of them, only after they contacted him first. According to Mr. Nelson’s sister Izzie, he spent no more than ten minutes with each of them and then—”

  “I’m glad that you bring up Izzie,” Judge Adams butted in. “Isn’t it true that the reason Mr. Evans excluded Izzie from testifying was based on strategy; he felt that she, that she was—”

  “That she was a—and I quote—a ‘tramp’?” Friedman completed Adams’s sentence. Adams and Friedman locked eyes momentarily, a heavy breather during their blossoming battle. This was getting good. And hard to follow.

  “Actually, what I was going to say, before you interrupted,” Judge Adams said, reclaiming her territory, “was that Mr. Evans pointed to the fact that Izzie herself had filed a restraining order against her brother, Dell Nelson, a mere year earlier because he’d threatened to kill her if she didn’t stop engaging in behavior he deemed unbecoming. And that if he did put her on the stand, the prosecution would decimate her on cross-examination. This was a tactical decision, not one born from laziness. It is not our job to question trial tactics, Judge Friedman.”

  Everything that followed was a blur. More slut. Less deference. Prejudice? Electric chair. Cool Kyle. Rape. Mitigation. Adequate. Fairness. The speed with which Judge Adams and Friedman fired questions almost precluded the child-prodigy attorney from speaking and transformed the courtroom into Wimbledon, the spectators dizzy from ricocheting rhetoric.

  It occurred to me that oral arguments served as a forum for judges to convince one another of opinions already formed. Friedman wanted to give Dell Nelson another shot. Judge Adams didn’t. The tiebreaker would be Judge Stevens, who’d not breathed a word. In fact, it wasn’t clear he was breathing at all, but that didn’t stop the other two from boisterously attempting to win him over.

  At the end of the half-hour argument, I felt exhilarated, like riding a roller coaster for the first time, unable to remember why I’d been so afraid of Judge Friedman before. She’d actually taken my opinion to heart. Indeed, she shared my opinion. My work had not been for naught, and as a result, it was possible for a profound wrong to be righted. If Stevens came on board, Dell Nelson could be spared death. I smiled jubilantly as the next case was called.

  It was one of Evan’s. Evan had three of the cases, whereas Matthew and I had one each. Evan was a memo machine. The only time he’d pull himself away from his cubicle was to saunter into the judge’s office to turn in yet another completed memo. His computer was like an Uzi, shooting out bench memos in rapid fire, which should have made him a shoo-in for least-hated clerk—but not so. Week after week, he’d arrive in the torture chamber, memo in hand, creepy smile on face. In fact, a few days earlier, he had proudly delivered a thick memo for the November sitting. I’d barely read the first ten pages of the defendant’s brief for mine.

  Per usual, Evan marched in and announced: “Judge, this case is really interesting. I just can’t wait for—” But she could wait.

  “Evan, I don’t have time for the November sitting right now.” Without looking up, she reached underneath her desk and handed him another case. The judge masked her dislike for Evan with apathy, which was lost on him. Prior to her stellar performance on the bench, it was for this, and only this, that I respected the judge just a smidgen. For some reason, she couldn’t stand blatant brownnosers; at the same time, she demanded the utmost respect—the trick was finding the proper balance. This was something Evan had not picked up, as evidenced by his current behavior.

  As soon as the judge called the attorney on Evan’s case, he started panting like a thirsty camel. His tongue was fully distended and wagging madly. He was glued to the judge. Fixated. Obsessed. What would she say? Would she ask a question he suggested in one of his memos? Would she wink at him? She didn’t. Instead, the judge fell asleep.

  I couldn’t blame her. She’d worn herself out during the Nelson case. Not to mention, the current lawyer wouldn’t stop droning on about the statute of limitations. Judge Stevens seemed to have developed a thyroid stare. Only Judge Adams seemed to be awake and tossed a question or two at the lawyer. Judge Friedman simply tilted her head forward, exposing her bun to the crowd. It twitched a little. So much for her regal bearing. At first, I thought she was dead. So did Matthew, who nudged me and scribbled a note on his pad to that effect.

  Lawyer: “And so, Your Honors, the clock should start running from the date of discovery of the injury rather than the inception.”

  Friedman: Tilt left. She wasn’t dead. I glanced over at Evan who was still batting his lashes at the bench, so blinded by love that he didn’t even notice the napping judge.

  “She’s going to fall. I swear it,” Matthew whispered, elbowing me. The judge was almost parallel to the floor before the stack of briefs in her lap came crashing to the floor. She popped up like a jack-in-the-box and groaned into the microphone, sending a quasi-pornographic echo throughout the courtroom. Once again, a hush blanketed the crowd.

  The moment she regained lucidity, Judge Friedman turned to us and glared as if her narcoleptic episode had been our fault. Back to life. Back to reality.

  Medieval Roy and Janet had been jousting. Janet won. The defeated bard came tearing around the corner and smacked into Evan. Zillions of documents and one very bruised ego flew about. Roy had been reduced to tears.

  “I-I-I am just so-so-so sorry.”

  It was true, he was a so sorry man. Evan couldn’t be bothered. He had taken to emulating the judge’s treatment of Roy. “Can’t you do anything right, Roy?” Roy cowered.

  “Roy, is everything OK?” I asked, artfully balancing the mammoth Nelson appendix on my hip.

  “Ja-Ja-Janet is just so mean, I can’t stand it,” he stuttered. A speech therapist could have made a killing in that place. Evan collected his stuff and stormed off, leaving Roy midstutter and leaving the rest of us to pat his hairy back. “I was filing. You know, I can file, when she told me that I was doing it wrong. Then she called me stupid and told me that the mere sight of me made her angry.” He had stopped whimpering and had regained composure. “I mean, this place is nuts,” Roy said, opening his mouth wide, which was a bit of a one-two punch, since he was a close talker to begin with. Maybe it was all the Nicorette chewing gum, but we got an unsavory glimpse into a haun
ted house of halitosis.

  “Roy, don’t let her bother you so much, and look on the bright side, you’ve got tomorrow off, right?” Roy nodded at Matthew’s question before orally assaulting us again.

  “Yeah, yeah, you’re right. Man oh man am I psyched for tomorrow. I’m headed down the shore to rock my harp at this awesome Markland festival. It’s totally awesome. Felemid McDowell’s in the house!” Roy smiled as he raised the roof.

  “Roy, we have to get in there,” I explained, nodding my head toward the torture chamber, grateful for the elevator that came and whisked Roy off to a happier century.

  Thankfully, the judge had yet to return to chambers from the courtroom. We still had time to prepare for her meeting with the panel. After every set of oral arguments, the panel met in the office of the most senior judge. In this case, and almost always, that judge was Friedman. As far as I could tell, the woman had been on the bench since shortly after her birth. During the conference, they’d discuss the cases and decide which judge would write which opinion. Of course, nobody had bothered to explain how we were supposed to arrange the judge’s materials.

  Evan was standing by Matthew’s cubicle when we walked in. It looked like he was hiding from something, everything. After we exchanged “What should we do’s?” I decided to take control and ask Janet. After all, she’d been given a four-hour vacation from the judge, which had presumably put her in a better mood.

  “Hey, Janet,” I said, smiling. She didn’t return the favor. Matthew, Evan, and Kate gathered behind me, using me as their collective bulletproof vest. “Can you just tell us where we should put all of this stuff?” I asked gently. This was such an easy question; it didn’t even require Janet to speak. She could have just pointed. But having just kicked Roy’s butt, she was apparently feeling rather macho.

  “Don’t you people know anything?” She definitely needed to fire her writers and get new ones. The judge had used that line on her last week and she’d just used a variation thereof on Roy. Mean and nasty was one thing. Mean and nasty with old, recycled material was altogether different. I refused to be bullied by such a specimen.

  “Janet, listen. I don’t know why you’re so mad at us. But for whatever reason, can you find it within you to just point us in the direction of where we have to put this stuff for the judge’s conference. She fell asleep on the bench and she’s mad at herself, which means she’s going to be mad at all of us. That includes you. So, just tell me. Please.”

  Kate whimpered. As for Janet, it seemed that I had found her price: trash-talking the judge. Not that I had really trash-talked the judge, but the mere mention of bench-sleeping did the trick.

  “Just give them to me. I’ll take care of it. And what’s this about her sleeping?” Janet asked, smiling.

  “She just fell asleep. Actually that case was so boring, I can’t blame her,” Matthew explained.

  “It was not boring!” Evan snapped. “And I don’t think she was sleeping. I think she was thinking.” Before I could tell Evan he was boring, the judge sauntered into the secretaries’ den, followed by Judges Adams and Stevens. Oh no! Her entire staff, but for the interns and Roy, who didn’t count anyway, were all in the secretaries’ office. She’d think we were having a tea party or something. Surely she’d go ballistic. Instead, she smiled.

  “Linda, Joe—you remember Janet?” She motioned from her colleagues to her secretary. They nodded and smiled. Janet cooed. “And of course my wonderful law clerks.” Smiles around once again. I wondered if Judge Friedman had been doing shots, which would explain her sleeping on the job. She buttressed my developing theory by warmly beckoning: “Law clerks, go enjoy a nice lunch. You deserve it.” Definitely tequila. Tequila made people crazy. “Janet, why don’t you take a long lunch. We’ll be back here meeting for a while.” Janet smiled like a pedophile on a playground.

  “Thanks, Judge. That’s really nice, Judge. Thanks.” Janet curtsied.

  “This morning was just so incredible. And so interesting,” Evan piped in. Somewhere in Philadelphia, someone was buying Evan’s and Janet’s self-respect on the black market. And what was Evan referring to? It was true that the Nelson argument was incredible. But I had a feeling Evan didn’t give a rat’s bum about any cases he didn’t work on. So, I surmised by “incredible” he meant the judge sleeping on the bench? Or her glaring? Was it Janet’s Pound Puppy fetish or chemical imbalance? Or perhaps Roy’s breath? Thankfully, none of the judges bought the crap Evan was selling. Before he could finish sucking up, Judge Friedman snatched the materials from Janet and shut the doors to the torture chamber.

  The four of us headed down to the lobby to meet the others. Judge Adams’s clerks—Betsy, Kevin, and Walt—were waiting for us, happily chatting among themselves. Jana wisely skipped lunch, presumably picking up on the fact that I hated her for having humiliated James. We settled on Jones, Mr. Starr’s latest invention, which was modeled after the set of the Brady Bunch. I ordered deviled eggs and mac-and-cheese.

  “Wow, you must be hungry!” Walt exclaimed. Walt had gone to Yale Law but didn’t know Matthew because he’d graduated a year earlier and had worked at Thompson & Siegel, a large New York City firm, in the interim. He was five foot ten and weighed approximately 3.5 pounds. The only thing more unnerving than an anorexic woman was an anorexic man, and the only thing worse than that was an anorexic man named Walt.

  Betsy had gone to Duke and emitted a casual, borderline pleasant vibe, a double anomaly considering most Dukies and law clerks seemed to be jerks by definition. Whereas Harvard churned out irritation, Duke manufactured arrogant monsters who were simultaneously not the brightest bulbs in the box. Mean + kind of dumb = intolerable. At first blush, Betsy appeared to have skirted Duke’s dim fate. Not to mention, she had pretty hair.

  Jana notwithstanding, Adams seemed to have chosen winners. No jerks, no egos, and no fedoras. And aside from Walt’s obvious aversion to eating (or proclivity for puking), they appeared to be a well-adjusted bunch.

  “Yes, I’m starving. It’s been a long morning, don’t you think?” I asked. Unlike with Brian and his cult of no personality, I felt like I could be honest around these three.

  “Long? What was so long about it? I thought it was fascinating!” Evan exclaimed, attempting to distance himself from what he deemed sacrilege.

  “Yes, Evan, I thought parts of it were fascinating, namely the arguments in my Nelson case. But the rest of it, not so fascinating, thereby making it long,” I clarified.

  “Um, Evan, did you not find it slightly uncomfortable when the Judge fell asleep?” Matthew asked.

  “Sheila, at least she seemed pleased with you during that death penalty case. You’d been so scared about that,” Kevin offered, attempting normalcy. “That, by the way, was an amazing argument. I wonder how Stevens will come out. It was pretty clear with the other two.”

  “From some of his other opinions I’ve read in the past, it seems he’s open to second chances. We’ll see,” I said, shrugging. “And Betsy, I know you worked on that case. Did you actually suggest to her that we shouldn’t overturn the opinion below and not give this guy a fair sentencing hearing?”

  “As I said before, we’re really not supposed to discuss this until after the judges have decided. So, I’m pleading the Fifth, OK, Sheila?” In addition to pretty hair, Betsy could keep a secret, an unusual—and respectable—combination.

  “What we can discuss is Friedman’s sleep-sitting. Did you guys see how pissed she was when she finally woke up?” Matthew asked, popping one of my deviled eggs.

  Betsy leaned in and smiled. “Totally pissed. I have to ask—is Friedman really crazy? I mean, Judge Adams is such a class act she’d never come out and say something nasty about anyone, especially not a colleague. Also, she’s got to consider her husband’s campaign but she does allude to not really liking Friedman,” she said excitedly. I instantly loved Betsy—a gossip! So, too, was Walt.

  “Yeah, I guess your judge called our judge a couple of
days ago,” Walt said, gasping for air, “and practically threatened her to sign on to some opinion from a previous sitting. [Gasp.] I happened to be in the office when she called and the judge just grimaced. She didn’t even take her off speaker-phone. Nor did she have a chance to respond. [Gasp.] Friedman just kept lecturing her about how things didn’t work this way and that way and how judges are supposed to support each other and sign each other’s opinions. Finally she hung up and Adams just said, ‘Helga can be really difficult sometimes. I just let her talk. I can’t be bothered.’” Gasp, gasp, gasp.

  Evan shuddered, overtaken by agita. Having others not respect Judge Friedman somehow demeaned his clerkship. “Excuse me. But our judge is a brilliant jurist. One of the last great liberals. She stands up for the rights of the downtrodden—homosexuals, Hispanics, African America—”

  “Yeah, that’s why she thinks gay automatically means hookers and hash!” I blurted. Blank stares all around.

  “UM! Will someone, UM, please get me up, UM, to speed,” Kate demanded. I looked down, scraping my plate in search of some leftover crusty cheese. It didn’t seem appropriate to tell her the truth, namely: We can’t speak to anyone. Can’t use the phone. We’re not allowed to go online. There are blind people who try to poison you. There is a fanny-pack-wearing medievalist and a homicidal homemaker who double as secretaries. And our denture-wearing boss was plucked off the set of Halloween 13. Kate would have to learn for herself like the rest of us.

  “Kate, we work in a strange place. You’ll see,” Matthew offered casually.

  “So, did you know that Judge Adams is being considered for the top spot?” Betsy said, changing the subject and dropping a bomb of judicial proportions.