No Matter How Loud I Shout (54 page)

As a result the fundamental question Juvenile Court was designed to ask—What's the best way to deal with this individual kid?—is often lost in the process, replaced by a point system that opens the door, or locks it, depending on the qualities of the crime, not the child. Kids walk free when they are in desperate need of being reined in. Others get hammered by harsh punishments, whether they deserve it or not. Twelve-year-old Cecil goes back to his clubhouse, freed after his unspeakable molestation of a retarded boy. But Geri enters a courtroom, the judge and the prosecutor do some calculations from the penal code, and he goes to prison, out the door in five minutes, no questions asked.

The same forces are at work a few days later at Thurgood Marshall Branch, when the bailiff calls the case of the
People
v.
John Sloan
, set for disposition hearing.

“Which case is that?” a prosecutor asks a colleague.

“I don't recognize the name,” the other deputy DA says, checking her notes. “Oh, here it is. That's the kid who did the armed robbery with gloves and a mask and Judge Dorn said it wasn't sophisticated because that sort of robbery happened all the time.”

“Oh, yeah, that's right, that's the fitness case where we blew the appeal.” The prosecutors look at one another, having remembered the facts of the crime, but unable to recall anything meaningful about John Sloan himself. “I don't know anything about this kid, do you?”

The other prosecutor shakes her head and hurriedly begins reading the file. Five minutes before sentencing begins and John Sloan's future is determined, the prosecutor is just finding the time to figure out who this boy is.

There are, however, a few differences between Geri's situation and John Sloan's. John has a supportive and affluent family; Geri is alone. John has a private lawyer who has devoted significant time and effort to his case; Geri had an overworked public defender with deficient knowledge of juvenile law and a vacation that conflicted with Geri's sentencing. And, most importantly, Geri can't even remember the name of the judge who sentenced him. John won't have that problem; he has Judge Roosevelt Dorn.

·  ·  ·

As his caseload has continued to grow, and with an increasing amount of his time taken up by his status offender program and private meetings in chambers, Judge Dorn has tried to streamline his courtroom. The results have been mixed at best. In a corner at the front of the courtroom, a green chalkboard has been set up, with the names of each case set for the day, with spaces for the attorneys to mark off whether they are ready to proceed or not, and for the bailiff to indicate whether a child has checked in on time or not. This way, the judge can call the next case with a mere glance to his left, rather than sorting through the piles of files on his bench, or relying upon the attorneys to shove and shout their way to the front of the line.

However many minutes this chalkboard saves, the courtroom is still crammed to capacity today. Two prosecutors, not one, have been assigned to handle the court's immense workload. Peggy has finally transferred Hyman Sisman, Dorn's favorite DA whipping boy, out of the courtroom, replacing him with two other prosecutors—the only courtroom in the juvenile
system where the workload is so great, two DAs are required. This is the concession Dorn won when he threatened to go to the press over the stream of dismissed cases—an extra body in the courtroom. The jury box is still full of lawyers waiting to argue, uniformed cops waiting to testify, probation officers frantically scribbling, trying to complete the reports that were due this morning. Judge Dorn's probationers are still cutting school, and Dorn is still locking them up for it, day for day.

John Sloan enters the courtroom and sneaks a peek at the gallery. He focuses on his family, then quickly bows his head, pale face expressionless, shoulders hunched, as if he expects to be struck. He had last been seen in Dorn's courtroom three months earlier, when he pleaded guilty to confronting a Los Angeles building inspector in a parking garage, calling him a Mexican motherfucker, and robbing him at gunpoint. He was caught when his victim turned the tables on his assailants, pursuing and capturing John and an accomplice within minutes of the robbery.

At John's fitness hearing, Dorn had resisted following common interpretation of the law and found John fit to be tried as a juvenile, a ruling Peggy Beckstrand wanted to appeal but couldn't because her deputy DA in the courtroom at the time neglected to ask for a stay. The victim of the crime was outraged by this, but Dorn promised there would be no coddling, saying he could, if necessary, keep John imprisoned in the juvenile system far longer than the adult system ever could. Strictly speaking, this was true. But only theoretically.

Now John is back, having been to CYA for a three-month diagnostic study. The caseworker there reported being troubled by John's failure to appreciate the deadly seriousness of using a loaded gun and a threat of death to rob someone. John didn't seem to think what he had done was that big a deal, a disturbing caveat to an otherwise favorable report. Nevertheless, the caseworker concluded that John would be an excellent candidate for rehabilitation, and that, given the fact he was a first-time offender, he need not spend years confined in a youth prison in order to straighten out.

“The report is not correct,” John's lawyer, Angela Oh, tells Dorn, trying to paint an even more positive picture. Unlike Geri's lawyer, Oh had no problem reading John's CYA report. “As you can see from his letter to the court, John
does
recognize the severity of his offense, and he's sorry for it.”

Once again, John's family is assembled in court, his father the doctor, his mother, his younger brother and sister, all in suits and ties and Sunday dresses. Their lawyer, once again, is well prepared and briefed, with an array of plans to offer Dorn for releasing John on probation. She
explains how he already has sufficient credits for his high school diploma and is ready to enter community college and to go to work on weekends. His entire family is willing to go into counseling with him, to resolve the conflicts between parents and child that seem to arise from their traditional immigrant values and his American-born sensibilities.

“His family is anxious for him to come home in some kind of out-of-custody program, so he can get back to his education,” Oh says. “Academic testing shows he is in the ninety-second percentile, Your Honor. This is a young man who has not applied himself, not one who lacks the potential.”

Just as she argued passionately three months earlier to keep John in Juvenile rather than adult court, Angela Oh now implores Judge Dorn to impose a mild sentence on the boy for his own good. “This is a child the father literally lost control of at age fifteen,” she says. “That father says to me now he feels he has a new son. The incarceration John has had in Juvenile Hall has renewed their relationship and brought them closer. . . . I don't believe any more is required to accomplish the court's goals.”

But though Dorn is inclined to keep as many kids as possible from transfer to adult court, he is not so easily convinced when it comes to relaxing his hold over a child's life. The rules of The Funnel don't apply in this courtroom, and Dorn only listens politely to the attorney, hears a brief opposition from the DA, then states his position. He has no intention of sending John home. But neither does he plan to impose the kind of lengthy sentence he suggested was possible at the fitness hearing.

“It is absolutely essential this young man be removed from the custody of his parents,” the judge says, as John, pale and drawn in his orange jumpsuit, visibly sags at the defense table. “Long-term camp is the place for this minor, followed by probation and a ten
P.M.
curfew. And I'm ordering him to get C's or better in school, though that should be no problem.

“Now, John,” he continues, then pauses for a few seconds, vainly waiting for the boy to look up at him. When John's head remains bowed, Dorn clears his throat and continues. “I'm going to give you an opportunity to earn your way out of camp early. Here's how: Work hard, try to become a leader, and it will be my pleasure to release you early, if you earn it. On the other hand, you can earn your way to CYA for five years if you go in with a negative attitude. All right, that's it. Good luck, young man.”

Unlike Geri—unlike most kids charged with serious crimes—John has received a sentence that is tailored to
him,
rather than his offense. It is, in principle, what Juvenile Court was designed to do but seldom accomplishes. It happened in this case only because John had a determined
judge, a wealthy family capable of hiring a private lawyer and expert witnesses, and a prosecutor who forgot how to preserve an appeal. Like some rare alignment of constellations, these factors don't often repeat themselves in Juvenile Court. Even so, the outcome leaves many people in the courtroom unhappy. John's mother is weeping, heartbroken that he won't be coming home. The prosecutor, meanwhile, is grimacing at another “wrist slap” for an armed robber.

And then there is Joseph Gutierrez—the victim of John's armed robbery—who walked into the courtroom at the very end of the disposition hearing. He had been caught in traffic, arriving barely in time to hear where John is headed. Gutierrez cannot believe it.

“That's just the icing on the cake,” he says afterward, shaking his head. “Three months ago, the judge sat up there and made a big speech about how keeping that kid in Juvenile Court meant he would do more time than if he went to adult court. And now I come in here and instead of him going away for five or ten years, I hear he's going to summer camp. Unbelievable.”

Gutierrez moves outside to a bench in the hallway and sits down heavily, hot and out of breath from rushing from his car to the courtroom. Now he wishes he had just stayed away. There was no discussion of his wishes at the hearing, no acknowledgment of the harm John inflicted on him or his family. No mention of guns and masks and gloves and racial epithets.

He says his three girls, ages seven, eleven, and sixteen now, are still fearful from that incident—afraid to go out at night, afraid at school, afraid of Asian-Americans, “because they could be like the two that stuck Daddy up.”

“I give up,” he says. “That kid's got money, he's got good lawyers, and that's how it works. This system is basically dysfunctional. The judge talks a good game, tells a good story about how he'll keep him longer than the adult system, but it was bull. That kid stuck a gun in someone's face—my face—and he's going to camp, he can even get out early if he's a good boy. That's not holding him responsible. That judge is guilty of exactly what he criticizes parents for—being too lax. This is why everyone is so disillusioned with Juvenile Court.”

Gutierrez rises then, a tall, husky man with sad, dark eyes, ready to wash his hands of the whole process. He begins to leave, but then can't help but turn around, walk back, and make an admission. Despite all the delays and the anger and the outcome, he still thinks there may be some hope for the system.

“Nothing's totally black and white, I guess,” he says. “The truth is, when I caught those kids, they were terrified. They looked like, well, kids, not hardened criminals. And over time, I've been starting to feel more sympathetic. It seems like this kid could have everything he wanted, except the thing he wanted most—love, and a family that understood him. He had the money, and all the things, but that love eluded him. And if it's true that his experience in this case has changed that, well, maybe this kid can still make something of himself. I hope that's what happens. If it does, then I guess this is okay. I can live with it.”

·  ·  ·

While George Trevino spent his three months being evaluated at CYA, he jotted down some thoughts, a sort of free-flowing prose poem, then typed them up on a computer once he returned to Juvenile Hall. The end of it reads:

Drain the blood from my veins but my heart will beat with pain, cold, shiver, arms hug chest, sleep, dream, nightmare, scream, eyes open, who holds you, who wipes your sweat and hushes your inner cries, no one, alone, deal with it alone, strong, weak, who said you couldn't be both?

The light will come, but will cast more shadows, retreat, given in, give up, never, fight, absorb, suffocate, and move on.

Given George's stellar academic performance and mostly good behavior in the hall and at CYA, he should have every reason to hope for a lenient sentence. But he expects no mercy. He will not allow himself that hope. He has been in the system too long for hope, the abused and neglected kid, robbed of his childhood, entrusted to the state, which failed him, then dumped him, and has now decided he is beyond redemption, that his crime has made him an adult in need of punishment.

The jury had no trouble convicting George of taking part in an armed home invasion robbery. Jurors concluded he had joined with one armed adult and two juveniles to burst into a home and rob its occupants—a plan that backfired when the victims shot the adult, leaving George and the others to flee. The only part of the state's case that didn't succeed was the allegation that George had carried a firearm during the robbery. Some witnesses said yes, some said no, and the jury let him off the hook on that one, which reduced his potential sentence a great deal—though no one explained this to him. For months, he still thought he faced a life sentence.

Even with the gun charge dropped, he still faces more time than either of the other juveniles, who were under sixteen and stayed in Juvenile Court, or the adult gunman who cooperated with police and earned a reduced sentence of eight years. Yet another adult, who plotted the crime without physically taking part, also received a lighter sentence than George faces.

George's private, appointed attorney in adult court, William O'Donnell, is well aware of the law that would allow George to be returned to the juvenile system and committed to the California Youth Authority, rather than sentenced to state prison. He asks the judge to consider this, but offers little more than argument. Several counselors at the hall, George's teachers, various volunteers, and Sister Janet would have been happy to come to court to testify on George's behalf, to speak about his accomplishments in the last year in Juvenile Hall—his high school graduation, his poetry writing, his work as a mentor and tutor to some of the younger inmates—but the attorney never sought them out. There is no one to tell the court about his being nominated Student of the Year at Central Juvenile Hall, or of his becoming a finalist in an essay contest at the
Los Angeles Times.
Virtually all of the people who work with George at the hall believe he could benefit from treatment as a juvenile and should be spared a state prison sentence. But the lawyer never talked to them; indeed, they weren't even aware of George's sentencing until after it happened.