It was Jill’s pick-up day in DC Superior Court—the big day she would be appointed as a student attorney to represent a defendant who had just been arrested. As she entered the courthouse, she hoped that her new case would be more challenging than the nearly unwinnable drug possession and prostitution cases to which she usually got appointed.

     Jill saw the typical swarm of people in the lobby—plaintiffs, defendants, witnesses, jurors, and lawyers—heading to their designated courtrooms. The court’s “regulars” were also there— those old-time criminal defense attorneys who were hanging out on the first floor and chatting with their clients, their investigators, or one another. John “The Earl” Bancroft, immaculately dressed in a dark three-piece suit, strutted around as if the courthouse was his manor. “Sloppy Jake” Bulotsky was at his side, his shirt sticking out of his waistband, and his bright red tie marked in the middle with a yellow mustard stain.

     Weaving her way through the throng, Jill reached Professor Mark Freeman, her supervisor at Hamilton University Law School’s criminal justice clinic.

     “Good morning, Jill. How are you doing?”

     “Excited and nervous, like I always am when I come to court.”

     “I know. Just take it slowly,” he said, smiling. “Focus on what you’re doing. You’ll be fine.”

     They walked to the escalator and rode down two floors. A bulletin board in the hallway listed the people who had been arrested, the crimes with which they were charged, and the names of their court-appointed attorneys. Jill saw her name there, beside the name of Carl Johnson, who had been charged with assault and threats. This could be a terrific assignment, she thought.

     Jill took the bail agency’s report on her new pick-up from a nearby metal bin and pressed the buzzer to enter the cellblock area. The door opened slowly and closed behind Jill and Freeman with a thud. They walked into the main interview room—a dreary chamber with gray cinder block walls and a brown metal counter running down the middle, which had a wire-mesh screen on top. Attorneys and clients sat on hard metal benches on opposite sides of the screen, talking with each other.

     On the other side of the room, Jill saw the usual racial breakdown of prisoners, maybe two or three White men in a sea of Black bodies—African American men in their late teens and early twenties. DC was a different world from Jill’s small hometown in southeastern Ohio, where just about everyone, including the criminals, was White.

     Jill called out, “Carl Johnson,” and one of the White men walked with a slow, confident gait to the counter across from her. He had broad shoulders and dark curly hair. Rather handsome, she thought. Looks cool.

     Her client said, in a pleasant voice, “Hey, I’m Carl,” and sat down on the bench opposite Jill and her professor.

     “Hello, my name’s Jill Hansen. I’m the student attorney appointed to represent you. I’m here with my supervisor, Professor Mark Freeman.” She leaned forward so that her face was almost against the screen and said in a low voice: “Whatever you say to us is confidential, but everybody around us can hear what we say. So, we won’t talk about anything now that we want to keep confidential. Understand?”
     “Yes.”
     “My main goal is to try to get you released when we come before the magistrate judge later today. The bail agency couldn’t confirm your home address or your employment. Who can I call right now to verify that information?”
     “My mom, or my brother.” Carl gave Jill their names and phone numbers. “When you speak to either one, tell them not to worry, I’m okay.”
     Carl confirmed the information in the bail agency report: he was twenty-nine years old, had lived in the DC area all his life, completed one semester of college at the University of Maryland in College Park, and was currently employed part-time at a property management firm. He seemed surprisingly calm for a prisoner in the cellblock.
     So far, so good, Jill thought. But there was something else in the bail report that concerned her. “I see two prior convictions listed in your bail report: a prior conviction for assault with a dangerous weapon, a knife, plus a conviction for failure to appear in a prior court case. Accurate?”

     “Hey, those convictions involved the same case. And it’s ancient history. I got that beef in 1987—six years ago.”

     “When you were arrested in this case, what did the police claim you did?”
     “Cops said I threatened and beat up a dude. Put him in the hospital. But it didn’t happen that way.”
     “Okay. We’ll discuss that in more detail later. That’s all the information I need for now. You have any questions for me?”
     Carl leaned into the screen and whispered in an urgent voice, “I need to get out today, you know, to help with my sister. She’s disabled. Can you get me out?”
     “It’s impossible to predict whether you’ll be released. We’ll just have to wait and see what the magistrate judge does. But I’ll do my best to convince him to release you.”
     “Okay. I appreciate you telling it like it is. You seem like a straight shooter.”
     As they left the interview room, Freeman said, “You handled the initial interview well. You enhance your credibility with a client, not diminish it, when you answer, ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I can’t predict that,’ but explain it the right way.”

***

​

Later that morning, Jill and Professor Freeman sat in the front row of the supersized arraignment courtroom, waiting for the magistrate judge. Two dozen other court-appointed lawyers were seated in the first two rows, chatting with each other in low voices, waiting for their cases to be called. Family members and friends of the arrested prisoners sat in the back rows, talking loudly and anxiously. Jill saw Carl’s mother in the third row. Jill had asked her to come to court in case she was needed to verify Carl’s home address and employment. Jill noticed a thin scar on
her cheek, running from below her eyelid to her jaw.

     Jill’s hands were trembling in her lap. “You know how nervous I get every time I come to court,” she whispered to Freeman.

     “It’s understandable. When I was teaching my first law school class, just as I began my lecture, I dropped my notes, and they went flying to the floor around the desks in the front row of the classroom. I was mortified. But with time and practice, I lost my anxiety and learned to relax.”
     “Okay, so there’s hope for me.” Jill managed a smile.
     Even though she was nervous every time she appeared in court, Jill loved arguing on behalf of criminal defendants before judges and juries. She put all her enthusiasm into her cases. She especially looked forward to the mornings when she picked up a new criminal client because it meant that she would be arguing in arraignment court later that day, trying to convince the magistrate judge that her client, who had just been arrested, should be released from jail pretrial. Spending even a few days in jail could cause her client to lose their job or be evicted from public housing.

     To Jill, arraignment court was “the best show in town,” far above any concert, movie, play, or ball game. It was live, free, and suspenseful. And what could be better than to be part of this grand endeavor advocating for a person’s liberty, and battling against the enormous powers of the prosecutor and the police?
     Freeman told Jill’s class that an arraignment is like a game of chess. The first question defense lawyers need to ask themselves is: “What’s my strongest move to get my client released?” The next question is: “How do I expect the prosecutor to respond to try to keep my client in jail prior to the trial?” And the last question is: “What’s my best reply to the prosecutor?” In court, as in chess, it’s often difficult to know what the best choices are and to stick to them, especially if the player becomes too emotionally involved in the game.
     Each time Jill appeared in court, she experienced the thrill of performance and the dread of failure. She was on center stage, performing in front of the judge, her client, her professor,  and the other lawyers in the courtroom. And she was jousting against more experienced prosecutors.
     Jill loved every aspect of this competition. Well, almost every aspect. Why did she get so nervous every time she argued in court? Maybe she wasn’t really cut out to be a trial lawyer.

     Magistrate Judge Luis Jorge Hernandez entered the courtroom and sat down at the top of the two-tiered judicial bench of polished mahogany. He was a large, jovial man, unfailingly cordial to everyone in his courtroom. Below him sat the court clerk, a court security officer, and a representative of the bail agency.
     Carl and five other prisoners shuffled into the courtroom, their legs shackled and their wrists handcuffed in front of their stomachs. A court security officer sat them in a gated area next to the magistrate’s bench.

     The court clerk called out, “First case, lockup number twenty-two, Carl Johnson.”

     Jill and Freeman walked up to the bench directly in front of the magistrate. A security officer escorted Carl so that he stood next to Jill.
     The clerk continued, “Mr. Johnson is charged with one count of assault and one count of threats. Counsel, how do you wish to proceed?”
     “Good afternoon, Your Honor. My name is Jill Hansen, and I’m the court-appointed student attorney for Mr. Mark Freeman.” Jill stopped, realizing her error. Her cheeks reddened. “I-I’m sorry, Your Honor. I’m the court-appointed student attorney for Mr. Carl Johnson. Professor Mark Freeman, who is here with me, is my supervising attorney. Please forgive my mistake.”

     Magistrate Hernandez smiled, as Jill was not the first student attorney to garble her opening. Jill took a deep breath, regained her composure, and continued: “On Mr. Johnson’s behalf, I waive formal reading of the information, plead not guilty, assert all constitutional rights, and request his release on his personal promise to return to court.”
     “What’s the government’s position?” Magistrate Hernandez asked.
     “The government requests that Mr. Johnson be held without bond because he’s a danger to the community and a flight risk. He has serious assault and threat charges in this case. His victim is in the hospital. Mr. Johnson has a prior conviction for assault with a dangerous weapon where his victim was slashed with a knife. And another conviction for failure to appear after being released in a prior court case. Here’s a copy of the Gerstein, Your Honor.”

     The prosecutor handed a copy of the sworn police report to the clerk sitting below Magistrate Hernandez, who handed it up to him. She also handed a copy to Jill.
     Magistrate Hernandez glanced at the report and turned to Jill. “Ms. Hansen, do you want to respond?”

     “Yes, Your Honor. It’s true that he does have two prior convictions. But those convictions were from the same case, involving a fight between Mr. Johnson and the complainant. And that one case occurred six years ago, back in 1987. Mr. Johnson was sentenced to probation and successfully completed his probation in that case. I urge the court to release him under whatever restrictive conditions the court deems appropriate.”
     Magistrate Hernandez smiled. “Nice try, Ms. Hansen, but given Mr. Johnson’s criminal history, his prior conviction for assault with a dangerous weapon, and his failure to appear, I’m going to hold him without bond until the next status hearing.”

     “Would Your Honor consider releasing him into the intensive supervision program, requiring him to wear an ankle bracelet?”
     “No, I won’t. We’ll schedule a status hearing three weeks from today before Judge Bramen if that’s agreeable with everyone’s schedule. Yes? Thank you, all.”

     Freeman whispered to Jill, “Not your fault. Hernandez was so tough because of Carl’s priors.”

     Jill turned to Carl, who was looking down at the floor, dejected. Although Jill also felt disappointed with the magistrate’s decision, she knew that she had to be supportive and reassuring. “I’ll meet with you at the jail tomorrow morning,” she said to Carl. “I’ll do everything I can to get you released and to fight for you in this case.”