There is an awkward lull in the conversation. I can’t take the silence, and so I decide to open my mouth one last time. Without editorializing, and with as little eye contact as possible, I explain to him in dry, technical detail where things stand. Because he does not immediately jump down my throat, and because the sound of my voice fills the silence, I say as much as I can think to say: I explain the two standards for bail and how it is that Cameron stands between them. I describe how the stark difference between the standards probably influenced the magistrate judge’s decision to punt the matter to the trial judge. And I tell him that we simply don’t know what the outcome is going to be until the trial judge hears the matter. All we can do right now is wait.
In the few moments that I accidentally make eye contact with him, I notice with relief that Cameron Douglas’s father is calmly listening. One thing that I learn about him during the case is that he wants only to hear the technical issues, and these in as fine detail as possible.
While Cameron Douglas’s father does not seem particularly assuaged by my explanation, he is satisfied enough to end our meeting. When we arrive in the courthouse lobby, I see several photographers posted outside waiting for his exit. Great, I think. This is definitely going to make the paper.
I have no interest in having my picture taken under any circumstances, much less these, so I say good-bye to Cameron Douglas’s father and tell him and Co-Counsel to go ahead without me. I watch from inside the courthouse as both are surrounded by a tiny fleet of reporters and press photographers. I look at my watch and try to estimate how much time it will take for me to finally be at home in bed.
I give them an extensive lead and then exit the courthouse on my own. I can see the backs of the reporters’ heads as I make my way behind them to the main thoroughfare.
But then, suddenly, the reporters have switched direction and are now rushing toward me. I strain to see what has caused the about-face. That’s when I see black skinny jeans and a black leather jacket approaching.
I want to stop the press from taking a single step closer. “Please just go on without me,” I call out to him.
But he keeps walking toward me, press corps in tow.
I am holding my breath. Oh, shit, what now? I think. With the photographers headed my way, I’m also wishing I had checked my hair in the ladies’ room before leaving the courthouse.
He reaches where I am and extends his hand. “Thank you, Jen, for everything,” he says.
“Of course,” I stammer. I pause to see if there is something else, but he has already turned around and walked away, leaving me standing among the press.
We collectively observe his departure into a black SUV. I’m still watching him as the reporters surround me, ask me who I am, why he is thanking me. I don’t provide any response, but as I slink away from them I find I must suppress the urge to smile. Perhaps in the end, like everyone else, I just want to be liked, too.
At some point I make it home, but my comfort under the covers is short-lived. I’m awakened early on Saturday morning by the telephone—first my cell, then my home phone, then my cell again. I feel my pillow shake, indicating that my BlackBerry is vibrating with new messages.
I don’t bother answering the calls or reading the e-mails. Instead, I stumble to the computer and look at Google News. There are a bunch of articles about Cameron Douglas’s father’s cameo court appearance. A British tabloid features a photograph of Cameron Douglas’s father outside the courthouse, looking none too happy. Far in the distance, I see myself making my way through the revolving door of the courthouse. My head is down, and all that can be seen of me is my red wool coat. I breathe a sigh of relief.
I know this can’t be why my phone is ringing. I click on the local papers and see the reason for urgency. The New York Post and the New York Daily News report that according to a courthouse “source,” Cameron had a bail hearing closed to the press, the records of which have been sealed, facts that lead both papers to conclude that “apparently” he is cooperating with the government.
It turns out that Cameron Douglas’s father was exactly right. I am not only shocked by the lack of integrity at the court, but also shaken by it. To learn that a transgression of this kind could occur at the oldest and most distinguished federal district court in the country is like finding out that Santa Claus is a pedophile. Nothing is as I thought it to be.
Disgusted, I pull on MCC-appropriate attire. The phone rings again. “I saw the articles,” I say as I pick up the phone, already knowing that it will be the legal team on the other end. “I’m headed there now.”
In the taxi on the way to MCC, my minds reels back to the confidence with which I told my client’s father that the rules in this process are sacred. I see now that Cameron’s case is altogether different, that I am in a game with rules I don’t know and with stakes that remain uncomfortably high.
“Get me the fuck out of here.”
This is how our meeting with Cameron begins.
He has no clue about the articles, he is learning about them as they are being described to him. The legal team asks if he wants us to pursue any additional protection for him at MCC.
His face turns a dark shade of burgundy. “No. Just get me the fuck out of here.”
We explain that we have to wait for the trial judge to consider the issue, hopefully in the coming week.
“Then please get out of here.”
“Cameron . . .” I say.
“Please leave. Look, if this gets around, I don’t want people to see I’ve been down here meeting with my attorneys.”
We leave.
I come back the next day, expecting him to refuse the visit.
He shows up. I notice one of his forearms is scratched raw.
“Are you okay?” I ask, pointing to his arm.
“Yeah, I don’t know, it started itching.”
“Look, I can go if you want,” I say. “I just wanted to check in and see if you’re doing okay.”
He looks down and shakes his head. “Jen, everyone calls home on Saturdays. Their families have read the articles, and I am getting a lot of questions.”
I swallow. “What have you been telling them?”
“Nothing, I just keep denying it.”
I think for a minute. “Why don’t you just say that your parents asked for the courtroom to be closed?”
“What?”
“Just say that your parents are embarrassed about your case and they pulled strings to have the courtroom closed.”
He gives me a look not unlike the one I received from his father the day before.
I state my case. “How would any of them know what kind of influence your parents have? Just say the press assumed you were cooperating because no one at the courthouse wants to say that they gave your parents a favor.”
It reflects no more poorly on the court than reality, I think to myself.
He considers this. “Fine, whatever. But, Jen, I have to get out of here.”
“I know, Cameron.” I give him my stock line. “We are doing everything we can, I promise.”
“Jen, you know how important this is to me.” His face crumples a bit. This ordeal is trying him.
“Cameron, look at me.”
He does. His face is flushed, as though it might burst.
“Just hang on as best you can. You are not in this alone. I promise you I am going to do everything I possibly can for you.”
It turns out I am a woman of my word.
Cameron appears for a bail hearing before the trial judge the Thursday before President’s Day Weekend, 2010. I have plans to go skiing upstate for the long weekend, and I’m hopeful that Cameron will be bailed later in the day, leaving me plenty of time to pack.
It feels like it could be a good day, but it isn’t.
There is a smattering of press in the courtroom. We ask that the courtro
om be closed, but the trial judge denies the request. Instead, he kicks the press out of the courtroom while matters pertaining to cooperation are discussed, and then opens the court back up for the remainder of the hearing.
After hearing arguments, the judge asks to hear from the psychiatrist, whom we’ve prepared to deliver testimony about Cameron’s medical needs. He gives a reasoned explanation of Cameron’s condition and his serious need for treatment. He also, probably without even thinking about it, gratuitously adds in open court that Cameron was placed under house arrest “because he was going to be an informant.”
When I hear him say it, I think I’ve heard him wrong. But I see that the backs of the two prosecutors at the table in front of ours have straightened up ever so slightly. The two other attorneys at the defense table exchange quick looks. Cameron, who is seated next to me, hangs his head down and simply says, “Wow.”
When the hearing is over, Cameron is whisked out of the courtroom. A reporter for the New York Post then approaches the legal team to say that he plans to run a story that Cameron is an active cooperator. Do we have any comment?
So, this is happening. There isn’t much that can be done. We’ve asked the judge that the comment be stricken from the record. We also tell the government that if they plan to take any steps to protect Cameron that these not include placing him in solitary confinement. I also call the manager of Cameron’s unit and leave a message begging her not to deliver tomorrow’s edition of the New York Post to his unit. After I get off the phone, I feel a brick in my stomach. What on earth will happen to Cameron now?
With few other options, I head home. I make a lame attempt at packing my suitcase, but end up sitting on my couch, my arms crossed, my thoughts jumbled. I think about how Cameron is about to be branded as something he never wanted to be. I also try very hard not to think about the vicious attacks that are regularly meted out against cooperators in prison.
I am there for hours when I hear the familiar “thud” outside my door of the morning paper being delivered. I look at the clock. It is almost five a.m.
I wait until the newspaper deliveryman enters the elevator, and then in my pajamas and socks step out into the hallway. I don’t subscribe to the New York Post and so I wander the hall to see if any of my neighbors has a copy lying in front of their door. They, too, prefer to get their news elsewhere, and so I take the elevator to the top floor of the building and work my way from floor to floor in search of the day’s edition.
After four floors, I finally find a subscriber. I grab the paper, take a mental note of the apartment number, and then ride the elevator back to my apartment.
The cover story is somewhat haunting: the designer Alexander McQueen has committed suicide after suffering from anxiety and depressive disorders. After a few pages more, I see the headline:
SINGING ROLE FOR CAMERON
Then I start to read the story:
The cat’s out of the bag—actor Michael Douglas’s son is a rat.
Cameron Douglas’s shrink let slip the closely guarded, potentially dangerous secret during testimony yesterday at a Manhattan federal bail hearing. [He] confirmed speculation that Cameron was released to house arrest last summer “because he was going to be an informant.”
Defense lawyers asked—
And then I stop reading.
Cameron has been placed in the SHU.
I find this out when I drag my sleep-deprived self to MCC later that morning. On the Attorney Visit form, the number of his prison unit has been replaced with the letters S-H-U. I assume he has already gotten into a fight over what happened and has been sent there for disciplinary reasons.
It takes a full hour for Cameron to be brought to the attorney room. Accompanied by three corrections officers, he is wearing a bright orange jumpsuit and is handcuffed. The officers explain that because Cameron is now a ward of the SHU, the attorney room must be locked from the outside.
Cameron’s face is pale and sweaty, he is breathing deeply. “What happened?” I ask gently.
“You tell me,” he says curtly.
“What do you mean? Didn’t something happen?”
“No. They just pulled me out of my cell in the middle of the night and brought me here. I asked them why and they said to ask your lawyer.”
“We told the government not to put you in the SHU and they agreed.”
“Well, I’m here.”
“You’re not supposed to be.”
“Please just go find out why.”
I motion for the corrections officer to unlock the door. He lets me out, and then locks the door after me. Before I head out to the elevator, I look back at Cameron. His head is in his hands.
The decision to place Cameron in the SHU was made unilaterally by the Bureau of Prisons. He was placed in “Protective Custody” so that no harm befell him on the unit.
Getting to this answer provides its own adventure. As I exit the attorney room lobby, I ask every corrections officer I encounter why my client is in the SHU. No one can tell me anything. Finally, one corrections officer suggests, “Ask his lawyer.”
“I am his lawyer,” I say.
The officer looks me up and down. “I mean his actual lawyer,” he says.
“That’s still me.”
“Well, okay. You can call our legal office, they should be able to tell you.”
“Can I call them from here?”
“No.”
I trudge back to my office. On a phone call with MCC’s Legal Department, I explain to the attorney on the other end that Cameron’s treating psychiatrist has explicitly warned against his being in the SHU.
The woman I speak to in MCC’s Legal Department possesses the same congeniality as most of its corrections officers. “Don’t you care about your client?” she asks me condescendingly. “Do you want him to get hurt?”
While on a day with decent sleep I might have answered with some diplomacy, today is not that day. “I didn’t ask you how to represent my client,” I snap. “I asked you why he is in the SHU and how I can get him out.”
“We are investigating his safety,” she says. “We can’t let him out until we are certain that conditions are safe for him.”
“Yes, but doesn’t his presence in the SHU essentially confirm to the other inmates that he is definitely a cooperator? Aren’t you making him less safe?”
“It’s a risk we have to take. We can’t let him be a sitting duck. We know that if he’s in the SHU he’ll remain unharmed.”
I hate that this sort of makes sense. But the psychiatrist was clear about this. “I’m sure that’s true of other inmates, but not this one. His doctor has specifically said that he can’t be left in solitary.”
Silence.
“Well, can this determination be made today?” I ask.
“No.”
Of course it can’t. “When do you think it can be made?”
“Well, it’s a long weekend.” She pauses, as though she is looking at a calendar.
I suddenly remember my ski trip. What a naïve fool I was to think that I could have enjoyed a weekend away.
“The earliest will be Tuesday after the holiday weekend. Maybe later in the week. It depends.”
I sigh. “Thank you,” I say, and hang up.
Cameron Douglas’s parents have seen the New York Post, and they are beside themselves.
Soon after I finish my phone call with MCC, Cameron Douglas’s mother calls me sobbing. She is terrified that something will happen to her son. I try to comfort her as best I can without mentioning that deep down I am worried about the same thing.
She insists on meeting immediately with the legal team. What seems like moments later, she appears perfectly coiffed in our office lobby. I extend my hand to greet her, but she refuses to take it. Too tired to care, I stuff my snubbed hand into my dress pocket.
Wh
en we sit down for the meeting, she asks that we conference in Cameron Douglas’s father by telephone. He is out of town and has been pulled off a ski slope in order to participate.
The meeting begins as one might expect. There is ample yelling, both from the Douglas in the room and the Douglas on the phone. The Douglas in the room manages to cry and yell at the same time.
We explain that what has happened—that Cameron is now in the very place we said he should not be—is because of a unilateral move by MCC. The Douglases don’t understand how it is that their son has been put at risk twice over, first by the article, then by MCC.
I don’t find the yelling to be particularly pleasant. It isn’t until I have my own criminal case that I develop a full understanding of why clients react this way. In my own case I yell plenty, albeit outside the presence of my attorney, mostly at outcomes for which he bears no responsibility. Sometimes yelling is all one can do, and so one does it, usually at full volume.
Over all of the shouting, we manage to get in that MCC’s move is likely temporary, that they’ve determined that for now he is safer in the SHU, and that as soon as they can confirm that it is safe for him to return they will let him out.
At learning that this is a protective measure, the Douglases change their tone from anger to worry. They don’t doubt Cameron should be punished for his crimes, but they don’t think he should be physically harmed for them, either.
“I just don’t want him to get hurt,” Cameron Douglas’s father says.
“How do we even know he can make it through the weekend?” Cameron Douglas’s mother exclaims through tears. “He can’t even call us to tell us how he is.”
The drama is a bit unbearable to me, I want only for this meeting to end. After a moment, I say: “I will go and see him this weekend.”
Cameron Douglas’s mother looks at me with big, wet eyes. Perhaps due to the pervasiveness of her crying, her voice is that of a little girl. “You will?”
I had already said a mental good-bye to my ski weekend when I was on the phone with MCC. I nod. “I’ll make sure he spends as much time outside of the SHU as possible.”
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