No Matter How Loud I Shout

by Edward Humes

  However many minutes this chalkboard saves, the courtroom is still crammed to capacity today. Two prosecutors, not one, have been assigned to handle the court’s immense workload. Peggy has finally transferred Hyman Sisman, Dorn’s favorite DA whipping boy, out of the courtroom, replacing him with two other prosecutors—the only courtroom in the juvenile system where the workload is so great, two DAs are required. This is the concession Dorn won when he threatened to go to the press over the stream of dismissed cases—an extra body in the courtroom. The jury box is still full of lawyers waiting to argue, uniformed cops waiting to testify, probation officers frantically scribbling, trying to complete the reports that were due this morning. Judge Dorn’s probationers are still cutting school, and Dorn is still locking them up for it, day for day.

  John Sloan enters the courtroom and sneaks a peek at the gallery. He focuses on his family, then quickly bows his head, pale face expressionless, shoulders hunched, as if he expects to be struck. He had last been seen in Dorn’s courtroom three months earlier, when he pleaded guilty to confronting a Los Angeles building inspector in a parking garage, calling him a Mexican motherfucker, and robbing him at gunpoint. He was caught when his victim turned the tables on his assailants, pursuing and capturing John and an accomplice within minutes of the robbery.

  At John’s fitness hearing, Dorn had resisted following common interpretation of the law and found John fit to be tried as a juvenile, a ruling Peggy Beckstrand wanted to appeal but couldn’t because her deputy DA in the courtroom at the time neglected to ask for a stay. The victim of the crime was outraged by this, but Dorn promised there would be no coddling, saying he could, if necessary, keep John imprisoned in the juvenile system far longer than the adult system ever could. Strictly speaking, this was true. But only theoretically.

  Now John is back, having been to CYA for a three-month diagnostic study. The caseworker there reported being troubled by John’s failure to appreciate the deadly seriousness of using a loaded gun and a threat of death to rob someone. John didn’t seem to think what he had done was that big a deal, a disturbing caveat to an otherwise favorable report. Nevertheless, the caseworker concluded that John would be an excellent candidate for rehabilitation, and that, given the fact he was a first-time offender, he need not spend years confined in a youth prison in order to straighten out.

  “The report is not correct,” John’s lawyer, Angela Oh, tells Dorn, trying to paint an even more positive picture. Unlike Geri’s lawyer, Oh had no problem reading John’s CYA report. “As you can see from his letter to the court, John does recognize the severity of his offense, and he’s sorry for it.”

  Once again, John’s family is assembled in court, his father the doctor, his mother, his younger brother and sister, all in suits and ties and Sunday dresses. Their lawyer, once again, is well prepared and briefed, with an array of plans to offer Dorn for releasing John on probation. She explains how he already has sufficient credits for his high school diploma and is ready to enter community college and to go to work on weekends. His entire family is willing to go into counseling with him, to resolve the conflicts between parents and child that seem to arise from their traditional immigrant values and his American-born sensibilities.

  “His family is anxious for him to come home in some kind of out-of-custody program, so he can get back to his education,” Oh says. “Academic testing shows he is in the ninety-second percentile, Your Honor. This is a young man who has not applied himself, not one who lacks the potential.”

  Just as she argued passionately three months earlier to keep John in Juvenile rather than adult court, Angela Oh now implores Judge Dorn to impose a mild sentence on the boy for his own good. “This is a child the father literally lost control of at age fifteen,” she says. “That father says to me now he feels he has a new son. The incarceration John has had in Juvenile Hall has renewed their relationship and brought them closer. . . . I don’t believe any more is required to accomplish the court’s goals.”

  But though Dorn is inclined to keep as many kids as possible from transfer to adult court, he is not so easily convinced when it comes to relaxing his hold over a child’s life. The rules of The Funnel don’t apply in this courtroom, and Dorn only listens politely to the attorney, hears a brief opposition from the DA, then states his position. He has no intention of sending John home. But neither does he plan to impose the kind of lengthy sentence he suggested was possible at the fitness hearing.

  “It is absolutely essential this young man be removed from the custody of his parents,” the judge says, as John, pale and drawn in his orange jumpsuit, visibly sags at the defense table. “Long-term camp is the place for this minor, followed by probation and a ten P.M. curfew. And I’m ordering him to get C’s or better in school, though that should be no problem.

  “Now, John,” he continues, then pauses for a few seconds, vainly waiting for the boy to look up at him. When John’s head remains bowed, Dorn clears his throat and continues. “I’m going to give you an opportunity to earn your way out of camp early. Here’s how: Work hard, try to become a leader, and it will be my pleasure to release you early, if you earn it. On the other hand, you can earn your way to CYA for five years if you go in with a negative attitude. All right, that’s it. Good luck, young man.”

  Unlike Geri—unlike most kids charged with serious crimes—John has received a sentence that is tailored to him, rather than his offense. It is, in principle, what Juvenile Court was designed to do but seldom accomplishes. It happened in this case only because John had a determined judge, a wealthy family capable of hiring a private lawyer and expert witnesses, and a prosecutor who forgot how to preserve an appeal. Like some rare alignment of constellations, these factors don’t often repeat themselves in Juvenile Court. Even so, the outcome leaves many people in the courtroom unhappy. John’s mother is weeping, heartbroken that he won’t be coming home. The prosecutor, meanwhile, is grimacing at another “wrist slap” for an armed robber.

  And then there is Joseph Gutierrez—the victim of John’s armed robbery—who walked into the courtroom at the very end of the disposition hearing. He had been caught in traffic, arriving barely in time to hear where John is headed. Gutierrez cannot believe it.

  “That’s just the icing on the cake,” he says afterward, shaking his head. “Three months ago, the judge sat up there and made a big speech about how keeping that kid in Juvenile Court meant he would do more time than if he went to adult court. And now I come in here and instead of him going away for five or ten years, I hear he’s going to summer camp. Unbelievable.”

  Gutierrez moves outside to a bench in the hallway and sits down heavily, hot and out of breath from rushing from his car to the courtroom. Now he wishes he had just stayed away. There was no discussion of his wishes at the hearing, no acknowledgment of the harm John inflicted on him or his family. No mention of guns and masks and gloves and racial epithets.

  He says his three girls, ages seven, eleven, and sixteen now, are still fearful from that incident—afraid to go out at night, afraid at school, afraid of Asian-Americans, “because they could be like the two that stuck Daddy up.”

  “I give up,” he says. “That kid’s got money, he’s got good lawyers, and that’s how it works. This system is basically dysfunctional. The judge talks a good game, tells a good story about how he’ll keep him longer than the adult system, but it was bull. That kid stuck a gun in someone’s face—my face—and he’s going to camp, he can even get out early if he’s a good boy. That’s not holding him responsible. That judge is guilty of exactly what he criticizes parents for—being too lax. This is why everyone is so disillusioned with Juvenile Court.”

  Gutierrez rises then, a tall, husky man with sad, dark eyes, ready to wash his hands of the whole process. He begins to leave, but then can’t help but turn around, walk back, and make an admission. Despite all the delays and the anger and the outcome, he still thinks there may be some hope for the system.

  “Nothing’s tot
ally black and white, I guess,” he says. “The truth is, when I caught those kids, they were terrified. They looked like, well, kids, not hardened criminals. And over time, I’ve been starting to feel more sympathetic. It seems like this kid could have everything he wanted, except the thing he wanted most—love, and a family that understood him. He had the money, and all the things, but that love eluded him. And if it’s true that his experience in this case has changed that, well, maybe this kid can still make something of himself. I hope that’s what happens. If it does, then I guess this is okay. I can live with it.”

  · · ·

  While George Trevino spent his three months being evaluated at CYA, he jotted down some thoughts, a sort of free-flowing prose poem, then typed them up on a computer once he returned to Juvenile Hall. The end of it reads:

  Drain the blood from my veins but my heart will beat with pain, cold, shiver, arms hug chest, sleep, dream, nightmare, scream, eyes open, who holds you, who wipes your sweat and hushes your inner cries, no one, alone, deal with it alone, strong, weak, who said you couldn’t be both?

  The light will come, but will cast more shadows, retreat, given in, give up, never, fight, absorb, suffocate, and move on.

  Given George’s stellar academic performance and mostly good behavior in the hall and at CYA, he should have every reason to hope for a lenient sentence. But he expects no mercy. He will not allow himself that hope. He has been in the system too long for hope, the abused and neglected kid, robbed of his childhood, entrusted to the state, which failed him, then dumped him, and has now decided he is beyond redemption, that his crime has made him an adult in need of punishment.

  The jury had no trouble convicting George of taking part in an armed home invasion robbery. Jurors concluded he had joined with one armed adult and two juveniles to burst into a home and rob its occupants—a plan that backfired when the victims shot the adult, leaving George and the others to flee. The only part of the state’s case that didn’t succeed was the allegation that George had carried a firearm during the robbery. Some witnesses said yes, some said no, and the jury let him off the hook on that one, which reduced his potential sentence a great deal—though no one explained this to him. For months, he still thought he faced a life sentence.

  Even with the gun charge dropped, he still faces more time than either of the other juveniles, who were under sixteen and stayed in Juvenile Court, or the adult gunman who cooperated with police and earned a reduced sentence of eight years. Yet another adult, who plotted the crime without physically taking part, also received a lighter sentence than George faces.

  George’s private, appointed attorney in adult court, William O’Donnell, is well aware of the law that would allow George to be returned to the juvenile system and committed to the California Youth Authority, rather than sentenced to state prison. He asks the judge to consider this, but offers little more than argument. Several counselors at the hall, George’s teachers, various volunteers, and Sister Janet would have been happy to come to court to testify on George’s behalf, to speak about his accomplishments in the last year in Juvenile Hall—his high school graduation, his poetry writing, his work as a mentor and tutor to some of the younger inmates—but the attorney never sought them out. There is no one to tell the court about his being nominated Student of the Year at Central Juvenile Hall, or of his becoming a finalist in an essay contest at the Los Angeles Times. Virtually all of the people who work with George at the hall believe he could benefit from treatment as a juvenile and should be spared a state prison sentence. But the lawyer never talked to them; indeed, they weren’t even aware of George’s sentencing until after it happened.

  No information is presented to the sentencing judge about George’s tragic past, either—how the dependency court was in charge of his childhood since age five, yet botched the job by removing him from a wholesome group home where he was doing well, and entrusting his upbringing to a home troubled by drug abuse. That his problems with school and delinquency intensified at this point in his life is indisputable—but this was never made clear to George’s judge.

  “George was the star among the kids who came through here,” recalls Logan Westbrook, the director of the Helping Hands group home, where George lived and flourished for two years before being sent to live with his aunt. “He excelled in school, he was a mentor to the younger children here. He was our success story. We opposed him leaving, but the dependency court had other ideas.”

  Westbrook would have been happy to testify on George’s behalf. “But no one ever contacted me.”

  Indeed, the probation report filed in the case makes no mention of George’s childhood experiences, other than to outline the minor juvenile offenses he committed before the home invasion robbery. The report—intended to guide the judge in passing sentence—paints George as a sociopath beyond redemption, erroneously claiming, among other things, that George had been raised by a street gang since age five, when in reality he had been raised by Los Angeles County as a dependent ward of the court. No mention of this can be found in the probation report, nor of his more recent and more positive year spent in Juvenile Hall while awaiting trial and sentencing. Instead, the probation officer states baldly, “There are no mitigating factors,” then recommends a state prison sentence to the maximum amount allowed by law.

  The CYA report that follows George’s three-month evaluation is somewhat more positive, though its only reference to his childhood history is to say he comes from a dysfunctional family and has been in placement since age five. Still, two of the three evaluators reported that George would do well if sentenced to CYA, that he could be rehabilitated there and benefit from its programs. They also wrote that he would have no hope if sent to state prison with its array of more sophisticated criminals. (The one dissenter on the CYA evaluation team, a psychiatrist known for his conservative views on delinquency, felt George was a very hardened and sophisticated criminal, full of rage and violence because of his tragic childhood, and therefore was a poor candidate for rehabilitation.)

  In any case, the portrait of George presented to Judge P. H. Hickok at his sentencing in the Norwalk Branch of Superior Court was both inaccurate and incomplete. George’s lawyer would later say it didn’t matter, that the prosecutor was out for blood, and that no sob story about George’s past and his good works in Juvenile Hall was going to make a judge go easy on a kid who participated in an armed home invasion robbery.

  “Nobody wants to hear it anymore,” O’Donnell says. “It’s a shame, but that’s the way it is.”

  Given his jury verdict, the maximum sentence George could get was ten years, down from a potential twenty-five to life. The law allowed a sentence as low as five years, but Judge Hickok gave him all ten, just as was recommended by the erroneous probation report. The judge would not commit him to the California Youth Authority but, as was done with Geri, he ordered George housed at CYA while serving his prison sentence. If he behaved himself, he should be able to complete his sentence there, though there are no guarantees.

  Afterward, George sits in the exercise yard at Juvenile Hall, reflecting on his case and his childhood. Much of his early life is still a blank to him, but, ever since his trial, he has been seeing recurrent images from his childhood, sudden recollections that come to him at odd moments. One day he woke up, lying in his bunk at Juvenile Hall, eyes still closed, and he could see himself at age twelve, wearing a cardigan sweater and a bow tie, a little boy looking in the mirror, making sure his little clip-on tie was straight for school. The memory of it clung to him all day as he walked through the motions of life in the hall, wondering if this image was a real memory, or just something he dreamt up, some wish for a childhood he never had. When he mentions this to me, I tell him his memory is true, that the owner of a group home where he once lived told me about the sweaters and ties he used to wear.

  George looks pleased at this, and relieved. “I thought it was real,” he says. “But it’s so hard to be sure. There’s so much pain bac
k there, I don’t like to think about it too much. Memory hurts.”

  Though seemingly resigned to his sentence, George remains bitter about his experience in Juvenile Court. He feels “set up” by the court’s decision to repeatedly release him on probation after he committed minor crimes, leading him to believe there were no consequences awaiting him.

  “That’s how the system programs you. They let you go and they know that just encourages you, and then they can get you on something worse later on. It’s like, they set you up. Of course, I’m to blame, too, for going along with it. I didn’t have to do those things, I know that.” He assumes a look of concentration, trying to focus his thoughts. Sixteen when arrested, he will soon turn eighteen. He cannot conceive of spending the next six years (his earliest possible release) awaiting freedom.

  “I didn’t have to do those things,” he repeats. “But the system didn’t have to make it so goddamn easy.”

  A short time after his sentencing, George learns he has won the Los Angeles Times essay contest he entered, placing first in the high school category, and first place overall. Not just for incarcerated kids, but for high school students throughout Los Angeles. In his entry, he wrote:

  The world’s blind, neglecting its land. The human race has turned on itself, destruction’s loud, but the world’s deaf! Change can be found if it’s truly being searched for, we as one need to communicate, guide our youth, because what we do today is setting the path for our children.

  A few weeks later, George Trevino is shipped out of Central Juvenile Hall, another convict with a prison sentence to serve, a kid with no family, no visitors to see him, no roots left for him to cling to, no one to guide him or set his path. His unofficial, adoptive mother—the woman who took him in when he was living on the streets—tried to come to see him, but he asked her to stay away. He says he doesn’t want anyone he cares about to write him or visit him, at least not for a while. Not until time has eaten away at his sentence, and he can envision being on The Outs.