Author’s Note:  In my years at USD Law School, I taught Professional Responsibility Seminar, a two-unit elective substitute for the required one-unit class the students called ‘Church.’  I used the following story to raise the issues of arguing nullification of the law and vilification of the client when used in defense of the criminal accused.  Our discussions were often quite lively.  JJK

Archie Palmer was a hip-pocket lawyer, apprenticed to the trade before lawyering required a fancy education.   His law library was The Daily News, his office a cigar-burned bench outside the courtroom.   He boasted of never having opened a law book.   Said Arch, ‘I’m as innocent of books as Eve in the Garden.’ He was a scarred old pit-bull, the courtroom his pit.     

Standing 5’1″ in his never-polished shoes, Archie’s age was indefinite.  He claimed that he’d been practicing since Fiorello LaGuardia was mayor.   In 1914, he enlisted in the American Expeditionary Force and fought at the Somme.   For proof, Archie would brandish a dog-eared photo of himself in doughboy kit which he kept, like cash, in his wallet.

Hawk nosed and bald as an egg, he always wore the same shiny gabardine suit and polka dot bow tie. He smelled of onion bagels and the unlit stogie he chewed right up to the courtroom door.  There, he’d tuck it neatly into his upper left-hand coat pocket, the little pocket where Court Street lawyers in full Monty sported folded handkerchiefs.

Archie always chose to stand at least two steps above me on the courthouse stairs to get eye level with my 5’10” frame.  So, in a conversation concerning what we had called ‘court room attire’ in law school, he turned, poked his bony old  finger at my little white-on-cream hanky,  and said,   ‘Molly-girl you got potential, but you school-made lawyers are just too chicken-shit for this business.  They teach you to dress like a fairy princess at Saint Joe’s Law?’ 

Not pausing for an answer, Archie pranced on up through the grimy brass courthouse doors, left hand on his hip, doing his version of the fairy princess on a fashion runway.   Who could blame me for falling a little in love with such a mentor?

So, it was no surprise when Archie appeared for the defense in a case implicating the groom in the bodily injury of a guest at a Polish wedding.  After the nuptials were celebrated and the liquor began to flow, a gentleman guest, one Czarniki, made unchivalrous remarks concerning the chastity of the bride and the paternity of the child she visibly bore.   The groom, Bieszke, overheard these comments, took offense and vindicated his bride’s honor by battering the unhappy Czarniki with a table leg.

The trial took place amidst the oak and grime of old Part 1-A, before the Hon.  John J. Keegan, a Tammany hack whose interest in justice was strictly economic and for whom the lunch hour and the pleasures of Jack Gastner’s Bar were more sacred than the Holy Bible  in Lady Justice’s hand atop the Courthouse rotunda. 

It was 11:34 a.m. on Friday afternoon and the Hon. Keegan’s afternoon was already blocked off as ‘chambers time,’ that is, an afternoon of enjoying the hospitality of the aforementioned Jack Gastner.  The evidence had concluded at 10:45 and, after a recess, the jury heard me argue strenuously for Bieszke’s conviction. 

Placing myself in a shaft of sunlight and doing my best to look like Saint Joan, I raised my right index finger, invoked the juror’s solemn oath and intoned:  ‘Send a message to the Lower East Side, gentlemen of the jury.   Tell them that violence like this won’t be tolerated in our city.   With that thought, my fellow citizens, I leave my case to your good conscience.’   I felt wonderful.   I’d left Archie just 26 minutes to whine his way to an acquittal before lunch time.  God help him if he delayed his honor’s Friday afternoon devotions.

Archie had been at this crossroad before.  After surreptitiously winking at me, he rose, adjusted his trousers by tugging at his galluses, and addressed the jurors.   

‘Gentlemen it is always a pleasure to appear before his honor, a distinguished jurist.   And I feel particularly privileged just to be here, in this courtroom in this great city, in our free country.  I was born on the Lower East Side myself, of immigrant parents who spoke not a word of English.   In the old country, a sickly child of poor parents would never have the opportunity to serve in the Great War, practice law, and defend the downtrodden.  Our sacred institution of jury trial is as foreign in old Europe as baseball, the Belmont Stakes, and the mighty skyscrapers of Manhattan.  We, you and me, are fortunate, we are blessed people.’

I rose to object, but Judge Keegan beat me to it, ‘Mr. Palmer, just address the facts.’

‘I will, your honor, and sad they are.   Wedding day memories forever marred, an innocent bride’s girlish reputation scurrilously sullied.  And, gentlemen of the jury, as I was saying, America is a land of great opportunity.  People come here with nothing –   nothing but hope and dreams.  Then, with hard work, they become  doctors, lawyers,  and, who knows,  maybe someday one of  their children may become a great and respected  judge  such as his honor.  I’m sure some of you have such hopes for your own children.’

I looked at Judge Keegan with a pained expression.  After all, who could object to hard work, opportunity, the American flag, and the Hon. Keegan’s eminence?      

Looking pointedly at the ancient Regulator wall clock, the judge said, ‘Mr. Palmer, address the evidence or I’ll cite you for contempt.’

Archie, looking abashed, shrugged and hung his bald head.  In the silence, I heard eight full seconds tick off the clock.  A dog barked in the street outside.   A cabbie launched an obscenity.  The jurors leaned toward Arch wondering if something was the matter.   Had the shabby old lawyer died standing up?  

Then, like a bloodied pugilist, Archie drew to his full height, thrust out his ancient bird-like chest, made slow eye contact with each member of the jury and intoned in broad Brooklynese, ‘Gentlemen, one Polack hits another one.  This bothers you?’  He smiled, shrugged, and sat down.

At 12:01 the jury returned a not guilty verdict.   Bieszke walked out the door.

At 12:10 I bought Archie’s first round at Gastner’s, tuition for yet another lesson in trial advocacy.   We toasted the honorable Keegan who nodded acknowledgment from his booth in Gastner’s back room.

Archie said, ‘Molly, girl, who do you like in the 3:15 running at Belmont?’ I grinned, knowing I was about to get another lesson.