A Naked Singularity: A Novel
Page 19
“I still don’t see where the reversible error comes in.”
“Patience. When I’m done evacuating the burritos I feel about fifteen pounds lighter with a markedly sunnier disposition. I also realize, however, that the necessary cleanup will not be minor. Of course all that’s available to me at the moment is standard court building one-ply toilet paper. One frigging ply! My God, one would think that by now at least two-ply would be the legally permissible minimum. What I needed then was something like eighty-two-ply. Anyway, mindful of this, and determined at all costs to avoid any fecal epidermal contact, I begin to unroll an obscene amount of toilet paper, in effect creating a toilet-paper catcher’s mitt around my hand.”
“This may be more detail than I can handle.”
“Quiet, I paid good money for this. Continue, Ronald.”
“So I take this catcher’s mitt and I begin my task. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to me, the mitt has unraveled as I lowered it and about twenty percent of the mitt is currently in the fecal brown water. Now as I raise the mitt in order to fold it, the previously submerged portion comes up and drips its sordid contents on to my lap. Well I panic and immediately take off the mitt, which falls into the pocket of underwear between my feet effectively drenching my underwear in putrid brown aqua-shit. Of course, fate picks this moment to send a bunch of rowdy teens into the previously empty bathroom. These kids are horsing around and wrestling and my new worst fear is that they’ll come tumbling through the door to see me covered in shit and toilet paper with tears streaming down my face.”
“Ha, ha, ha! What do you do? I love it! Ha, ha, ha!”
“What could I do? There was no way I was putting those underwear back on so I threw them to the floor. As for the rest I cleaned up as best I could. It took forever but eventually I made my way back in to the courtroom. When I got there I realized McGarrity had been a prick. He was pissed I’d taken so long so he brought the jury back into the courtroom to show them I was responsible for the delay. Well I saunter in, my pants soaked but relatively shit-free and my shoes so wet they’re squishing as I approach the well, and I decide I’m going to ignore this monumental slap in the face and simply go right up to the jury box and continue my summation. Anyway by now the smell is gone but I notice that one juror in particular still has this look on his face like I kicked his dog. He’s doing that thing where he’s looking at me then looking at the judge as if to say isn’t someone going to do or say something? I try to ignore it but it’s becoming harder and harder to ignore. Then I notice that he’s not really looking at my face but rather at my waist area. When I look down, God damn it to hell if I don’t see my contaminated underwear hanging from the back of my pants.”
“Noooo!”
“They had somehow become caught in my back pocket button during my panicked ministrations.”
“What the hell did you do?”
“I did the same thing you would do if shit-soaked underwear was on your eight hundred dollar suit, I threw them off. Unfortunately, the fan got a hold of them and sailed them right onto the head of the guy making the face. Well the guy was so horrified that he in effect became catatonic. At this point the underwear, which is really the equivalent of waterlogged cotton shit, is on this guy’s head in a way reminiscent of the way Fat Albert’s friend wore his hat with each of the guy’s eyes perfectly lined up with a corresponding leg hole. Understandably, the guy flips out and the rest of the juror’s aren’t exactly ready to vote me Lawyer of the Year.”
“What the hell do you do?”
“I move for a mistrial but idiot McGarrity won’t give me one. He replaces Fat Albert’s friend with an alternate then smiles while he gives the jury a curative instruction.”
“What kind of curative? Please disregard the shit-soaked underwear incident during your deliberations?”
“Words to that effect then he had them deliberate.”
“And?”
“And what? They came back in like fifteen minutes and convict my guy.”
“Holy shit.”
“You said it.”
“That thing’s coming back down you can bet on that. Ha, ha, ha!”
“It better after the appellate lawyer made me relive the entire indignity for the sake of his brief. To add insult to injury the Fat Albert guy sued me for Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress!”
“Ha, ha, ha! What happened with that? Did you settle?”
“Fuck that! I impleaded the deep pockets of fucking Señor Smoke as a third party defendant and the case goes to trial in a few months.”
“Maybe you can get McGarrity to preside. Ha, ha, ha!”
Near the end of this I had surreptitiously put on headphones, and now, confident that the misadventures of the fat fifty-year-old fecund defecator were over, I headed Far Beyond The Sun with Yngwie Malmsteen. Listening to music in the courtroom is a major top-of-the-charts-no-no so when the court officer began to approach me I lied 911 tape so I could be left alone.
Yngwie and I were waiting for Richard Hurd. Mr. Hurd was a thirty-three-year-old drug addict with one tooth and three ears. The lonely tooth was an upper tooth and it was located in what seemed like the exact midpoint of his gums. The Third Ear requires further explanation. Although Hurd’s two conventional ears were just that, if admittedly a bit small, his Third Ear never failed to elicit real horror from me and only some of that horror stemmed from the fact that it was, after all, a fucking Third Ear. The Third Ear was not small. It was large, located below the right ear it dwarfed, and oddly resplendent in its full tympanic glory. It was not functional, Mr. Hurd had informed me, having none of the interior hardware—cochlea, ossicles et cetera—required to create bona fide auditory experience yet said ear did interfere with the functioning of its two healthier counterparts and generally compelled Mr. Hurd to yell, presumably in an effort to hear himself. (Still Far Beyond The Sun but now Jens Johansson was on the keyboards). Impotence notwithstanding, The Ear cast a large shadow and was impossible to ignore. The Ear had large flaps of skin and cartilage that threatened to commandeer its owner’s lower neck.
I was not waiting for The Ear to come in through the front door of the courtroom. The Ear was incarcerated in the pens behind the courtroom and I was waiting for corrections and court officers to bring its owner out so Icould do the case. This was my only case for the day and it was going to be a plea. After protracted, soul-draining attempts to get Mr. Hurd and his extra ear into the District Attorney’s Office’s Drug Treatment Alternative Program (“DTAP”) had failed, he had agreed, to my immeasurable pleasure, to take 3 to 6. This decision pleased me because I did not want to try a case where the defense was that the police got the wrong guy and the wrong guy happens to have an extra fucking ear. That would have to be the defense too, because Hurd was adamant he had never made a sale, though that would soon have to change if he wished to take, and he claimed he did, the 3 to 6 currently being offered.
Now, still waiting to be horrified, I raised the volume to a dangerous level and crouched forward to blot out the outside world, only occasionally raising an eye to watch for Hurd. The keyboard interlude was done, the guitar taking over its final lick, and now the comparatively slower playing was beyond tasty. Of course this was all building to Yngwie’s volcanic, inspired, notes-fretted-at-186,000-miles-per-second denouement. But no such luck because just as the music began a rapturous ascension to cataclysmic conclusion I spied Hurd as he actualized in the doorway leading to the pens. The court officer leading Hurd into the courtroom looked as if he’d just been force-fed twelve lemons, doubtlessly a result of ocular contact with aforesaid ear. Hurd sat at the defense table, mercifully to my right, as the case was called into the record:
THE CLERK: Number twenty-six on the calendar, Richard Hurd, also from the pens. Hurd, Richard Hurd.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: Casi (unintelligible) for the defendant.
MR. ZORN: David Zorn for the People.
THE COURT: Come up.
(Conference at side bar
.)
DEFENSE COUNSEL: I have an application.
THE COURT: Yes.
DEFENSE COUNSEL: My client has authorized me to withdraw his previously-entered plea of not guilty and enter a plea of guilty to the crime of Criminal Sale of a Controlled Substance in the Fourth Degree in full satisfaction of the indictment before this court.
THE COURT: Mr. Hurd, you’ve heard what your attorney just said. He’s indicated that you wish to plead guilty to the lesser charge of Criminal Sale of a Controlled Substance in the Fourth Degree. Is that what you wish to do?
(The defendant conferred with his attorney.)
THE COURT: Mr. Hurd listen to me. First of all, I’m going to have to ask you to keep your voice down in the courtroom because you’re screaming. Of course you have the absolute right to consult with your attorney before making this decision. My understanding from my discussions at the bench with your attorney is that you’ve decided to plead guilty. You do not have to plead guilty, however, you can decide that you want the case to proceed to trial in which case we will set a trial date today. I assure you that I have no interest either way. If you accept the People’s offer you will receive a sentence of 3 to 6 years in state prison. If you go to trial and lose you can be sentenced to up to 12½ to 25 years in state prison. However you decide it’s all the same to me, but we do have a rather full calendar and I am going to ask you to decide now. Do you wish to plead guilty, yes or no?
(The defendant conferred with his attorney)
THE DEFENDANT: Yes.
THE COURT: Very well. People can I have a copy of the indictment? Now before I can take this plea I have to ask you some questions. Again, at any time you can discuss with your attorney the answers to these questions. Now you understand, I hope, that by pleading guilty you are giving up certain crucial rights. You are giving up, for example, your right to possibly have evidence suppressed. Do you understand that?
THE DEFENDANT: Huh? I don’t understand.
THE COURT: Your attorney has made motions in this case seeking to suppress certain evidence that the police have obtained. Specifically, I believe the motion in this case dealt with United States currency recovered from you and a statement attributed to you. Your attorney has moved to suppress this evidence on the basis that it was obtained in violation of your constitutional rights. Pretrial hearings have been granted as a result of these motions. At the hearing, your attorney and the DA would litigate whether the evidence should be admissible. It is possible that at the end of that hearing the judge would rule that all or some of the evidence which is the subject of the hearing must be suppressed and cannot be introduced at your trial. When you take a plea, however, you waive your right to challenge the police conduct and no hearing is conducted. Do you understand that you waive that right?
THE DEFENDANT: They did violated my rights. They. . .
THE COURT: Talk to your attorney.
(The defendant conferred with his attorney)
DEFENSE COUNSEL: He understands.
THE COURT: Do you understand, Mr. Hurd, that you give up that right?
THE DEFENDANT: Yes.
THE COURT: Fine. When you plead guilty, you also waive your right to a trial by jury. At a jury trial you would be presumed innocent until proven guilty. The People would have the burden of proving your guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and they would have to do so to the unanimous satisfaction of twelve jurors. At trial you would have a Sixth Amendment right to confront the witnesses against you. That means your attorney would be able to cross-examine the witnesses the People present in an effort to prove your guilt. Do you understand?
THE DEFENDANT: Yes.
THE COURT: Were a trial to be conducted in this case, you would also have the right to call witnesses on your behalf as well as to testify on your own behalf. Do you understand that you have that right and do you understand that you give up that right by pleading guilty?
THE DEFENDANT: Yes.
THE COURT: Do you further understand that at a trial you would also have the opposite right, meaning that if you did not wish to testify, you could not be compelled to testify. You have a Fifth Amendment right to remain silent. Do you understand that by virtue of this plea you now renounce that right?
THE DEFENDANT: How to pronounce it?
THE COURT: Renounce! Do you understand that you give up that right and no longer have it?
THE DEFENDANT: Yes.
THE COURT: Now are you currently under the influence of any medications, drugs or alcohol?
THE DEFENDANT: No thank you.
THE COURT: And are you entering this plea of your own free will? In other words, is somebody coercing you into pleading guilty or are you pleading guilty because that is what you want to do?
THE DEFENDANT: No, it’s my will. My will is free. That is to say, I free will it.
THE COURT: Are you pleading guilty in this case because in fact you did commit the crime of Criminal Sale of a Controlled Substance in the Fourth Degree?
THE DEFENDANT: No.
THE COURT: Counsel I’m not taking this plea.
(The defendant conferred with his attorney)
THE DEFENDANT: Yes, fine. Yes.
THE COURT: Are you sure? You don’t seem sure.
THE DEFENDANT: Yes.
THE COURT: Well what happened?
THE DEFENDANT: I sold drugs just like they said.
THE COURT: How? What happened?
(The defendant conferred with his attorney)
THE DEFENDANT: The guy came up to me. I didn’t never say nothing to him but he said he wanted to cop and did I know where he could cop. And he said he wanted one so I took him to the guy in the store who I know sells because I bought from him many times previous. And that was it.
THE COURT: And did this person indeed buy drugs?
THE DEFENDANT: Yeah, he bought one for five dollars. But I never touched the drugs or took the money from the guy or anything so I still say I’m innocent.
THE COURT: Well you did this for remuneration isn’t that correct?
THE DEFENDANT: I did it for the guy because he asked me. I don’t even know what nation he was from.
THE COURT: Did you receive money for your role in the transaction you just described?
THE DEFENDANT: Ain’t nobody rolled the guy! That crackhead got his drugs.
THE COURT: No, after the crackhead, um, the undercover officer, purchased the drugs did you receive any money for your efforts?
THE DEFENDANT: One dollar! Now answer to me this. How could I be guilty of a drug sale if A they wasn’t my drugs to begin with and number two I only got one dollar!
THE COURT: Who gave you the dollar?
THE DEFENDANT: The dude who sells drugs! He gives me a dollar for every customer I bring him. He gave me the dollar after the covered officer bought the stuff and just before we was both arrested. I also want to put on the record, is this on the record your honors?
THE COURT: Yes. Everything is being taken down by the court reporter.
THE DEFENDANT: Then I want to stipulate that the person who gave me the dollar, my co-defendant, is in here and he has made it be known to me, through the proper channels and whatnot, that he wants his dollar back because I bought him a cop as a customer. And I also want it stipulated that the street interpretation of that is that he will cause physical pain unto me if he gets the opportunity.
THE COURT: Okay, well that’s totally incorrect usage of the word stipulate but your point is well taken and you can request protective custody through your attorney if you wish later. In the meantime, we’ll continue with the allocution. The conduct you’ve described does constitute a drug sale under New York law so there’s no legal impediment to the plea. Now you’ve been promised that on the day of sentencing you will be sentenced to an indeterminate prison term of three years to six years. Has any other promise been made to you to get you to plead guilty that we are not aware of?