The Great White Hope?

After lunch, we headed to The NY County Supreme Court, Criminal Term at 100 Centre Street. We were given a tour by a court rep and a corrections officer, following the route that a defendant brought over from the precinct would follow.
Immediately inside the gate, there was a big sign reading "Finger Off Trigger," causing many of us to giggle nervously. We were brought through the bowels of the building - a veritable suited horde of fairly freshfaced white kids, listening intently to our smartaleck corrections officer giving the tour. We passed signs warning against spreading tuberculosis, and told by a departing suspect who had just been searched: "Don't commit crimes!"

When we got to the holding pens, we were struck by the smell. It was a rich, earthy, heady, sickly smell. Like shit had been wiped up poorly in a hot room. Or vomit. Or sweat. Or a combination of the three. The whole area seemed only to be ventilated by a single large fan. One guy in the pen kept dialing on a pay phone - others were just lying on the ground, stretched out. I don't think many of us made eye contact. I tried to look. To make sure to look. These are the people I'm going to be working for. These people that will probably have been in this place for 20 hours by the time they meet me.

The corrections officer kept joking around about how Foxy Brown had been through earlier. When the first sheet of the rap sheet he gave me fell to the floor, he teased me, saying something like the officer on duty there was a "good fighter, and if you lose those papers, he'll beat you.. and then will lie about it just like a lawyer would." We all laughed.

As we stood outside the "special pens," where we were told that all the trans, openly homosexual, medicated, ill or violent prisoners are kept (and the main source of the smell) - he told us that to be a public defender is "going down the wrong path... go into corporate law!" That, coupled with the tour of the prosecutor's office, made me wonder: "Is it easier to be on the side of the strong?"

One last bit and then I must finish reviewing the CPL for tomorrow's 9am bootcamp.

When we were led through the final pens, right before going through the door to the arraignment court, there was a pretty big crowd of prisoners. We could see the interview rooms on the other side - the rooms where we will be meeting with clients for the first time, right before arraignment. Many were standing, and agitated.. and they reacted when we walked through. They shouted a lot of things - but I caught: "hey! open tickets, open tickets" "Help me out!" "Only an open container!" But through the din, one comment really stood out, spoken quietly and sarcastically:
"Oh look, it's the Great White Hope."