US thriller lays bare the burden of public defenders

This US courtroom thriller is about a criminal duty lawyer. Set in the American South, it depicts the day-to-day work – including a murder – of public defenders. Solicitors will enjoy noting similarities and differences in the two systems. Both are underfunded, struggling to recruit and at breaking point.

The background is the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans in 2005. Many public buildings were lost and people were killed or displaced. The disaster probably aggravated social tensions of which the justice system bore the brunt.

It is not often that a duty lawyer is the hero of a thriller (though of course they all are in real life). Our heroes include a ‘carpet-bagging attorney’, a former trainee rabbi who attended a seminary. His partner, Boris, is of Russian descent. They are hardworking lawyers, dealing mainly with juveniles in a society where serious violence, shootings and stabbings are common. 

There are humorous incidents, such as the dangers of going to court with ‘low pants’, meaning that your trousers are not done up properly. And lawyers have business cards that contain the following advice when dealing with the police: I want my lawyer. I won’t talk to the police. I don’t agree to any searches. You can’t come to my house. Clients do not always follow that advice!

There are some great puns or malapropisms, including ‘an Afro-David’ (affidavit), and a porpoise as in forma pauperis. There is also a great section on prepping a witness and ordering them to answer a prosecutor with one of five answers: Yes. No. I don’t know. I don’t remember. I don’t understand.

He also counsels a witness to never guess, never explain, nor fill in silences.

Sometimes I struggled with the language. There do not seem to be magistrates; there are Miranda rights, felonies and plea bargaining.

The author was a full-time, salaried public defender. He explained that, in writing what is his first book, he wanted to tell the truth about the pain and injustice that he had witnessed. Full-time public defenders can easily become overwhelmed because they are underfunded. At one point, he was carrying more than 140 felony cases; just processing people, not fighting for them. ‘Fiction was the best way to be honest and protective at the same time,’ he said.

The result is an unusual and interesting legal thriller.

David Pickup is a partner at Pickup & Scott Solicitors, Aylesbury