Courtroom 302 Read Free Page A

would be shorthanded fast if he granted every request. There’s paperwork involved as well. The prisoners aren’t likely to expire in court, and in a couple of hours they’ll either be the jail hospital’s concern or, if they bond out, not the county’s problem at all. Thus Thomas is often like the detective who persuades a suspect he doesn’t really need a lawyer. For tonight’s dizzy prisoner, he invokes one of his standard fabrications: “I can send you to the hospital if you want . But the officer who drove you here? He’s got to drive you to the hospital. And then you got to ride all the way back here with him.” Dizzy or not, the prisoner gets Thomas’s hint about the peril of being alone in the custody of an aggravated cop, and he decides to forgo medical aid.
    The initial group of prisoners is occupying one of three bullpens down another hallway. The benches are full, the overflow on the floor. Soon the second group comes marching single file down the corridor and fills the middle bullpen. Thomas tells everybody that standing isn’t allowed. Fights in the bullpens were common when Thomas began working bond court three years ago—there were more “gangbangers” (gang members) being arrested then, he says. The fights led to the rule against standing, the idea being that it’s harder to throw a punch while sitting. The prohibition probably isn’t needed anymore, Thomas says, because the prisoners these days are mostly a docile bunch of addicts and small-time dealers. But rules are rules, and so when Thomas spots a man standing in bullpen two, he stridesimmediately over to him and booms, “What the fuck you doing standing in my bullpen? Do I have to chain you to the floor to get you to sit down?” The man quickly drops to the floor.
    When more prisoners come down the hall, Thomas splits them between bullpens one and two, jamming those chambers, the men shoulder to shoulder on the benches and the floor. The female prisoners are being held in an anteroom near the basement entrance. Thomas wishes he could put some of the men in bullpen three, but it’s occupied by the juveniles—the kiddie criminals, as the deputies call them. Most juveniles charged with delinquency are tried at the juvenile court two miles northeast of here. But thirteen- to sixteen-year-olds facing adult charges—murder, rape, armed robbery, drug dealing near a school—are bused here from the detention center next to the juvenile court for their court dates. A dozen of them who had court appearances here earlier today are on the benches of bullpen three, chatting quietly, waiting for the bus to return them to the detention center. The bus, as usual, is late. Thomas will be happier when the juveniles are gone, not just because it’ll free up another bullpen but also because of what pests the kiddie criminals can be, with their godawful whining. “It’s ‘What time’s the bus coming?’ ” Thomas says. “ ‘Can I get something to eat ?’ ”
    Thomas calls his adult prisoners out to the hallway one at a time and with a black marker prints a three-digit number on the back of each prisoner’s hand, and the same number on each prisoner’s property bag. Many of the prisoners already have a number scrawled on one arm, a memento from the district station. Those who end up going to jail tonight will get further markings on their hands or arms as they’re assigned to a division, a tier, and a cell. The bullpens are quiet while Thomas does his numbering. Some of the prisoners are dozing; others are studying the floor or the back of the head of the prisoner in front of them. Most of the adult prisoners have been through this before, and those who haven’t catch on quickly, understanding that remaining silent is not a right now but an expectation.
    There’s always a slow learner, however. Tonight it’s a balding white man, who hails a deputy passing in the hallway, telling him he’s got a question. Thomas overhears, drops the