by David Feige
Every year, thousands of criminal defendants fail to show up for court. And in New York, there are tens of thousands of outstanding bench warrants, seeking people charged with crimes ranging from disorderly conduct to murder. It’s the Warrant Squad’s job to find them. There are both good and bad officers in the Warrant Squad. Some start on the assumption that someone simply forgot --and in most minor cases (and even some major ones) they’ll call in advance, remind a defendant that there is a warrant out for them, and just meet them at the courthouse to effect a return. Others love the collar, but most of them would rather pick up the little guys than the scary ones --after all, they’re less likely to catch a bullet arresting someone wanted for a health-code violation than arresting someone wanted on a firearm charge. That’s why, despite the thousands of felony warrants, people charged with minor crimes get disproportionately brought in.
They came for Michael on a Saturday morning, grabbing him just outside the house he shared with his mother and little brother. “We’re from the Warrant Squad,” they said, and then, without further elaboration, slapped the handcuffs on Michael and took him to jail. Michael tried to explain things to the cops. “Shut up. Tell it to the judge,” they said. He spent the day in a filthy cell, waiting to do just that.
People arrested by the Warrant Squad generally get low priority in the system, and Michael was no exception. A court clerk in the arraignment office of criminal court explained the logic to me once. “The system’s always crowded,” he said, “and these guys already got their shot at going through quickly. They didn’t come back --fuck ’em.”
Unfortunately, the police department didn’t get around to shipping Michael to court. As a result, Michael spent the night on the hard floor of the cell, a bologna sandwich and some KoolAid for sustenance.
Sunday didn’t go so well either --he waited all day, regularly shuffled from cell to cell. But even though arraignments were going on, no one came for him. No one called his name. He never met a lawyer. He never saw a judge.
Michael tried to talk to the police officers guarding the big pens. He tried to ask them what was going on, how long he might stay in jail. They told him to shut up. Sunday night came and went.
For the second night in a row, Michael stretched out on the tile floor. No one would explain what was going on or how long he’d be there. Every time he tried to tell his story they’d say, “Save it for the judge.” But no one was taking him to see any judge, nor would anyone let him make a phone call (in the Bronx, the “one phone call” rule has long since been superseded by the “we’ll let you call if we feel like it” rule).
Unshowered and terrified, Michael spent his third day in the cell, waiting for someone to listen, for someone to get him up to see the judge. Around him, people, many of whom had been arrested for serious charges, came and went.
“Johnson,” an officer finally called out.
“Here!” Michael barked, and at long last they led him up the stairs to the holding cells that the lawyers had access to.
One of the young lawyers in my office had picked up Michael’s case. “Don’t worry,” the lawyer told him. “This is crazy --these cases should get dismissed, and you should be home tonight.”
There was only one problem: Judge Mary Ann Brigantti-Hughes.
Judge Brigantti-Hughes is not known for her legal brilliance. In fact, she’s not known for much except her unpredictable rulings and surprising ignorance when it comes to the laws she is called upon to interpret. Though a pol all her life (after graduating from Temple Law School, she worked for a judge before moving on to a job with the state attorney general, eventually becoming counsel to the Bronx borough president), exactly how she wound up on the bench remains a matter of some mystery. Brigantti-Hughes is one of the very few judges who managed to be rated “not approved” by a bar association yet was endorsed by both political parties for a seat in the Bronx Supreme Court.
Brigantti-Hughes is short and pinched and beady-eyed, and she speaks with a clipped, exaggerated diction seemingly designed to hide the vestigial Spanish accent lying just below her vowels. In a survey of judges published in the New York Law Journal, Judge Brigantti-Hughes was rated one of the worst criminal court judges in the Bronx. She is irritable and mercurial, the latter making her particularly hard to practice before, since a lawyer can seldom really tell a client what to expect. BriganttiHughes can turn on you without warning, even in the most sympathetic cases.
And that’s exactly what happened to Michael.
Facing a man who had spent three days in lockup armed with the perfectly reasonable excuse that it wasn’t his dog and that his friend had assured him he’d pay the tickets, almost any judge would have either just dismissed the charges (likely) or at the very least sentenced him to time already served (a virtual certainty). Not Brigantti-Hughes.
“If he pleads to the charge, I’ll give him three days of community service,” she said, peering down from the bench.
Michael’s lawyer tried again, repeating the fact that the summonses were legally questionable in the first place, and that in any case Michael had already been in jail for more than three days on a three-year-old misunderstanding.
“Coun-se-lor,” Brigantti-Hughes said, enunciating every syllable, “I said he could have three days of community service.”
“You won’t even give him time served?” the lawyer asked, stunned.
“No,” snapped the judge, “you don’t want it?”
Michael’s lawyer turned to him, trying to explain on the fly why this was going horribly awry, and that he might actually have to come back to court to clear up the tickets. Apparently the thirty seconds of explanation was too much for Judge BriganttiHughes.
“Bail is five hundred dollars on each,” she said tartly. “Next case.”
Michael looked perplexed as the court officers turned him around and steered him back toward the door that led to the jail.
“Judge, please,” the lawyer begged, but it was too late.
“I offered him three days, he didn’t take it. Bail is five hundred dollars,” Brigantti-Hughes said with utter indifference. Three times throughout the night, Michael’s lawyer implored Brigantti-Hughes to rehear the case, and at last, well after midnight, she did so.
Back before the judge, Michael was asked again whether he wanted to plead guilty. His choice, according to Brigantti-Hughes, was plead guilty and spend three days cleaning the parks or go back to jail. Michael wanted the plea.
“So you knew you had an unvaccinated dog?” Judge BriganttiHughes said, raising her eyebrows and looking at Michael’s lawyer with a smug I-told-you-so look.
“Actually, ma’am, it was my friend’s dog; I was just walking it and didn’t have the papers.”
“Fine,” said the judge. “I don’t accept your plea.” She turned to the court officers. “Put him back in --this court is adjourned.” And with that, she got up and walked off the bench.
Michael finally lost his composure. “What do you want from me?” he wailed. “I told you I’d plead guilty --what do you want? I’m gonna lose my job. I haven’t showered in four days; please let me out of here!” His voice was shaking and cracking as the officers roughly shoved him back behind the metal door, closing it before his lawyer could follow.
Behind the door were sobs. “Let me out of here. Please.”
“Court’s closed,” the officers said firmly, stepping in front of Michael’s lawyer.
- - - -
“You gotta be kidding me?” Judge Joseph Dawson was shaking his head. “For a dog?”
Dawson is a criminal court version of Mogulescu --bullying but kindhearted, intemperate but smart, good on the law, and personally charming. He’s a big guy, with a round, jowly face set off with a thick auburn mustache and a pugnaciousness born of being a former organized crime prosecutor. Though Dawson loses his temper occasionally, he is a good man who struggles through a tough job, and on the rare days he can control his impatience, it is almost possible to
believe that he is genuinely committed to justice.
After word of Michael’s night-court fiasco got back to the office, I had been dispatched to court to get him out of jail. As it turns out, Dawson was presiding over the courtroom where that could get done.
Grabbing an assistant DA who knew nothing about the case (ADAs generally aren’t even assigned to summonses), I explained the whole horrifying saga: Dawson just shook his head, rolled his eyes, and tried his best not to dime out a fellow jurist. “Get him out here,” he said.
Michael, though, was nowhere to be found. He’d disappeared back into the vast system of cells, and no one seemed to know where he was. I headed down the back stairs, to the main desk behind which the corrections officers responsible for prisoner movement sit.
“Hey, Counselor,” Officer Dawkins said. “How you doin’?”
I get along reasonably well with most of the corrections officers. Unlike the police department, which is mostly white, the New York City Department of Corrections is largely made up of Hispanics and African Americans --many of whom have a genuine connection to my clients. As unbelievably brutal and terrifying as Rikers is, unlike most state prisons, it is mostly guarded by people who know firsthand that mistakes are made and that innocent people are often locked up. Corrections officers know how brutal and utterly unforgiving the criminal justice system can be, and many of these guards are willing to help out, especially when there is a real injustice to correct.
“Hey, Dawkins, I got a little problem from last night.” “Yeah? Go ahead.”
I told the four or five officers crowded behind the desk the saga of Michael and the dog, of Mary Ann Brigantti-Hughes and the three days of community service, and also, of course, about Judge Joseph Dawson, waiting upstairs to set Michael free.
“No shit,” one of them said. “Three days for dog tags? Damn, that’s ugly.”
“Let’s see if we can find him for you,” Dawkins muttered, typing Michael’s name into the computer.
He looked up a second later.
“Counselor, you sure he wasn’t second called? ’Cause we don’t have him.” If Michael was “second called,” it would mean that he was still in the custody of the police department rather than corrections (who technically take over as soon as bail is set).
“Shit. You sure?”
“Oh, yeah --I’m sure,” Dawkins said, shaking his head. “If I was you, I’d check with PD.”
Back to the stairs, back through the bars, back past the DOC cells, to the police department’s holding cells, where three cops and two corrections officers were sitting around watching a TV at deafening volume. I started to tell the story again, hoping one of them might be sympathetic, but the cop at the computer just scowled.
“Check corrections,” she growled without taking her eyes off the TV or bothering to check the computer.
I realized that if I didn’t find Michael soon, he was going to be stuck until the afternoon court session.
“He ain’t there. Dawkins is sure of it,” I told her.
“Well, that ain’t my problem, is it?”
Actually it is, but once again they’ve got the keys to the cells and the printouts and the tracking information. All I had was a sympathetic story, and it didn’t seem as if it was going to get me what I needed.
I was stuck and looking utterly defeated, when one of the corrections officers stood up and fixed me with a knowing look.
“C’mon, Counselor,” Angela said, “let’s go find your man.” And with that, Angela and I went cell to cell, peering through the bars of the various cages under police department control, calling out Michael’s name. It took us nearly half an hour to find him, and by the time we did, the courtroom upstairs was closed for lunch.
Michael was, of course, in police custody.
I explained to Michael who I was and why I was there. He was frantic. I was halfway through my short introduction when he exploded.
“Please, you’ve gotta get me out of here --I don’t care if I cop out; I don’t care about the fine; I’ll do whatever they want me to, but I’ve been here for days and I can’t take it anymore. Look at me.” He was exasperated, desperate. “I smell, I haven’t shaved, I look horrible, I haven’t eaten anything except bologna and oranges and Kool-Aid for four days. I know I already lost my job; my mother don’t even know where I am.” His hands were balled into fists. “You gotta get me out. I’m begging you.”
“I will, Michael, I will,” I said, hoping that my certainty would somehow help calm him down. “We’re going back to see a judge --a different judge. This is all going to work out --and soon.”
Michael’s face, which had read as confused and angry, now betrayed only despair. “I already lost my job over this,” he repeated. “I’ve been here four days: what do they want from me?”
I hate being put in the position of trying to justify a monstrous system, and so while I tried to explain, I took pains not to sound in any way apologetic. “Michael,” I said, “you got fucked --plain and simple --you got fucked by a horrible judge and an asshole of a friend who shouldn’t have ignored those tickets. There’s nothing I can do about all the shit you been through already --all I can do is get you the hell out of here as soon as possible, which in this case means about an hour from now. That’s what I can do, and that’s what I will do. Okay?”
Michael took a big breath, half closed his eyes, swallowed whatever he really wanted to say, and nodded. And an hour later, he was free --as Judge Dawson, with an apologetic nod, dismissed each of the tickets.
- - - -
“ALVAREZ.”
“Here!”
“JONES, Tynesha. Tynesha JONES.”
“Me!”
“MENDEZ, Pablo, Pablo MENDEZ.”
“Si.”
The court officer with the megaphone continues to call out names. It’s twenty-two minutes before 1:00, and if I don’t get to a courtroom fast, I’ll never get another case done before lunch. Veering away from the metallic shriek of the bullhorn and the listless crowds near the summons part, I turn right, down an escalator, heading toward the tiny courtroom where kindly Judge Robert Cohen presides.
Judge Cohen is thin and slightly stooped, with a sallow complexion and sharp features that light up when he speaks. Near the age of mandatory retirement, Cohen has long, frail fingers and a thin thatch of hair, but unlike almost everyone else in the Bronx, he is always smiling. Cohen is the kindest, most decent jurist I have ever come across. He is the model of what a judge should be. Cohen is so thin that he is almost swallowed up by the bench from which he presides; still, his voice is strong and clear, and he waves his hands liberally while complimenting everyone who comes before him. For Cohen, every plea seems to involve the admirable efforts of the defense lawyer and the commendable cooperation of the district attorney’s office. Under his smiling gaze even routine events become opportunities to congratulate, praise, and approve of the work done in his court. Cohen’s thanks is so unstinting and so genuine that lawyers, clients, and even prosecutors (who think he’s too pro defense) wind up leaving his part with a warm glow. Stepping into his courtroom feels like a holiday from the rest of the building --an oasis of peace on a continent of fractiousness.
“Ooooh, Mr. Feige,” Cohen erupts as I walk through the doors at twenty minutes to one. “So nice to see you, sir.”
“Thank you, Your Honor.”
Judge Cohen presided over the very first murder case I ever handled in the Bronx (a shooting outside a battered woman’s shelter caught on videotape). He also handled one of the strangest trials I ever did. It was a long-term drug operation in which my client (alleged to be the seller) was tried in absentia despite being incarcerated. Basically, he refused to talk to me, to come to court, or to participate in any way in his own defense. By the time he was acquitted I hadn’t seen him in weeks. I never heard from him after the verdict and never saw him again.
I’m stopping by the part because I need to look at a letter that a dissatisfied clien
t of mine wrote to the judge. I’d taken the case as a special favor --the fifth attorney for a guy facing a mandatory life sentence for a series of robberies --and though things seemed to go well at first, they deteriorated rapidly. My client resolutely refused to recognize the indictment as having the force of law and rejected the authority of the court. He insisted that I was failing to understand that he, as a Freemason, was not subject to the laws of the state of New York (which, additionally, he believed didn’t exist).
I’ve had clients like this several times, but there was something even stranger and more insistent about this one, and after a lot of soul-searching and many metaphysical conversations with colleagues, I decided to have him evaluated for competency to stand trial. He was found unfit to proceed and was transferred to a psychiatric / prison hospital to be stabilized. He never forgave me for believing him to be crazy. He and his family wrote angry letters denouncing my work on his behalf. He refused to talk to me, and in short order our working relationship eroded past the point of no return. Then he sent a letter to the judge.