Abstract
Soon thereafter, you find yourself in an intake/booking area with numerous other individuals who do not appear to want to be there, look to be confused and seem to be in various degrees of stress and pain.
After being stripped-searched and required to wear ill-fitting unisex garb, you are escorted to a private room. The next day, a person who is apparently an employee, tells you to stay calm and not to worry, a lawyer will be with you as soon as possible. Later that day, an individual with the title “legal assistant” visits you and tells you that you have been charged with engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity. The assistant learns from you that you believe you have not done anything that would cause you to be confined, you do not understand the legal system and you are not even sure what the charge means, although it sounds serious. The assistant informs you that the sentence for this offense is 10 years in a maximum-security prison and that investigators are considering other charges that could include the death penalty, depending on how the facts (over which you have no control) turn out.
Your brother's sister-in-law's uncle knows a lawyer, but that lawyer is not permitted to practice in the county in which you are detained. You have a personal attorney, but that attorney knows very little about this area of law. Your spouse is allowed to talk to you through a screen, but you are not permitted to see anyone else in person.
Several days later, a lawyer comes to your cell. You have never seen this person before, but you are instructed that this lawyer's firm will represent you and the lawyer assures you that “we” will do everything possible to get to the bottom of this “situation” and do whatever can be done to minimize the sentence.
About a week later, a law partner of the lawyer who previously saw you comes to your cell and says that the investigation has been completed, that “they” have examined all the documents (although you are not permitted to see them because they would simply confuse you) and that they recommend that you plead guilty. They say that they cannot predict what the sentence will be because this is all very complicated, especially to a nonlawyer; for example, you must consider the culpable mental state, mens rea, actus reus, allied offenses of similar import, organizational liability, the differences – if any–between racketeering activity and corrupt activity, and the potential necessity of establishing an “enterprise” as a structure separate and apart, or distinct from, any pattern that functioned as an ongoing unit, if that term is indeed ascertainable or merely redundant and potentially misleading.
The lawyer acknowledges that you may find this overwhelming but assures you that the alternatives are much worse. Therefore, “we” are going to go ahead and schedule your plea and sentencing. You are soon escorted, with numerous other detainees who seem very confused, resigned and depressed, to another area to await the results.
The lawyer tries to comfort you, saying that if this does not work out, you can try to appeal, if what happens is indeed a “final appealable order” as defined by the state or federal constitution and the statutes, ordinances, and regulations as they have been, to date, interpreted by other courts, agencies or administrative processes, and even then, you must be able to distinguish between sufficiency and weight of the evidence, and whether a de novo or abuse of discretion standard applies. The lawyer does confide that the odds of an appeal being accepted, let alone you prevailing, are not favorable, but you should relax and live your life, because there is not a lot you can do about the future.
You are then escorted back to your room, and later that evening are put by yourself (your spouse was told to go home and your lawyer is nowhere to be found), in chains, on a bus that drives with no lights into a very dark night.
Welcome to my world; how does a patient and family feel in yours?
The author has been a judge for more than 35 years; he and his wife met more than 50 years ago when she was 13 and he was 15. Marsha died of acute myeloid leukemia in November 2011, after 19 days in the hospital.