My Beloved World (34 page)

Adoption was an attractive alternative. Eight years after Kiley’s birth, Junior and Tracey adopted a pair of twins, Conner and Corey. Tracey likes to point out that they are Korean boys with Irish names, a Polish mother, and a Puerto Rican father—the perfect American family. My nephews are all the proof I could have needed of how emotionally satisfying adoption might have been. Still, there remained the fear that I might not be around long enough to raise a child to adulthood. Ultimately, the satisfaction of motherhood would be sacrificed, though I wouldn’t say it was sacrificed to career.

It is interesting to me how, even after all the strides of the women’s movement, the question of whether we can “have it all” remains such a controversy in the media, as if the ideal can be achieved. Most women of my generation who entered professional life did not forgo motherhood, and many did succeed at both. But they paid a price, one still paid by most women who work outside the home (and men too, I believe, if they parent wholeheartedly): a life of perpetual internal compromise that leaves you always feeling torn, neglectful by turns of one or the other. Mindful of this struggle and of how often Junior and I needed to interrupt Mami’s workday at Prospect Hospital with our phone calls, I
have always made a point of running my chambers in such a way as to help mothers feel comfortable working there. And if in some corner of my heart I am still sulking about her absence during our childhood, I nevertheless credit the powerful example my mother set me as a working woman. But as for the possibility of “having it all,” career and family, with no sacrifice to either, that is a myth we would do well to abandon, together with the pernicious notion that a woman who chooses one or the other is somehow deficient. To say that a stay-at-home mom has betrayed her potential is no less absurd than to suggest that a woman who puts career first is somehow less a woman.

During my time at the District Attorney’s Office, women were only beginning to enter the legal profession in significant numbers. Fewer still were those practicing criminal law, either as prosecutors or as defense counsel. As Dawn would grimly observe, the only client happy to have a female defender was one accused of rape. Men and women got equal pay at the DA’s Office, but promotions came far less easily for women, my own quick move from misdemeanors to felonies being unusual. I saw many women who were no less qualified wait much longer than men for the same advance. And they would have to work twice as hard as men to earn it, because so much of what they did was viewed in the light of casual sexism.

Nancy was doing arraignments one time, and the judge kept addressing her as “honey.” She actually approached the bench and said, “Judge, I don’t think it’s appropriate; I’d prefer you didn’t call me that.” But he didn’t even acknowledge her plea and went right on doing it. I’ve even heard a court security officer call a woman judge “sweetie” in her own courtroom.

And how many times would a defendant’s lawyer enter the courtroom before a session and ask each of the male clerks and paralegals around me, “Are you the assistant in charge?” while I sat there invisible to him at the head of the table? My response was to say nothing, and my colleagues would follow suit. If it rattled him a bit when he eventually discovered his error, that didn’t hurt our side, and perhaps he’d be less likely to repeat it.

Nancy and Dawn had no use for such patient strategies. They faulted my reluctance to rage vocally, just as my friends at Princeton
had wanted me to be more of a firebrand. I credited their passion, and admired their brave readiness to jump into the fray of protest, but I continued to believe that such wasn’t necessarily the best or the only way of changing an institution. As difficult an environment as the DA’s Office could be, I saw no overarching conspiracy against women. The unequal treatment was usually more a matter of old habits dying hard. A male bureau chief who’d headed a predominantly male bureau for many years would naturally have a man as his image of an exemplary prosecutor.

But this is not to deny that the culture was decidedly and often inhospitably male. I was lucky to be in Trial Part 50 under the unusually enlightened leadership of John Fried and then Warren Murray. Some of the other chiefs were disdainful of having women lawyers around, and in their bureaus a locker-room atmosphere prevailed. Sexual innuendo was used to explain everything, from the judge who was in a foul mood (obviously he wasn’t “getting any”) to the sensation of winning a guilty verdict. When they did win a case, they would celebrate at Forlini’s, a restaurant of wood paneling and tufted red leather banquettes, where lawyers dined alongside judges in clubby conviviality. I never felt the sting of exclusion from such outings. Though I was always glad to have won my cases, somehow the idea of a person going to jail, with all the misery that entailed for a family, never quite seemed cause for celebration.

Otherwise, I could hold my own among my male colleagues, not losing my sense of humor in the face of their macho antics. It certainly helped that I could, as Rudy had observed, argue like a man and that I’d actually heard far lewder jokes in two languages than most of these guys could have dreamed up. But could I have managed to negotiate this culture as well as the crushing caseload with a child tugging at my awareness in the background of every moment? I thought not. The idea of another life utterly dependent on me, the way a child needs his mother, didn’t seem compatible with the professional necessity of living at this punishing pace. As it was, I thought there was already too little time to accomplish the things I envisioned.

——

HAVING MADE
a different choice from that of many women, I occasionally do feel a tug of regret. When her mother died, Dawn’s eulogy was an expression of such feeling and care that I was shaken beyond the grief of having lost the dear friend her mother had become. I spent the following days pondering the bond between parent and child and wondering whether anyone would miss me that much when I died. Ultimately, I accept that there is no perfect substitute for the claim that a parent and child have on each other’s heart. But families can be made in other ways, and I marvel at the support and inspiration I’ve derived from the ones I’ve built of interlocking circles of friends. In their constant embrace I have never felt alone.

I
N RETROSPECT
, I’ve wondered how I could have devoted all my waking hours to a job without reflecting more on the kind of work I was doing. Joining the DA’s Office had represented a chance to be a practicing lawyer right away and to play a tangible part in protecting the public. There was no denying the allure of the mission, or the thrill I derived from accomplishing it, but while I was working fifteen-hour days, I wasn’t giving much thought to the daily experience of confronting humanity at its worst, any more than I was noticing the subtle signs of the rift developing at home. It was Kevin who had made me see what was happening between us, but eventually, when the divorce was behind me, I would have to discover for myself what my job was doing to me.

Law enforcement is a world unto itself: few outsiders can appreciate the psychic effects of inhabiting it. And so prosecutors and police socialize mainly among themselves. They do a lot of drinking together. And their divorce rates are well above average. During our many talks about what had gone wrong in the marriage, Kevin had never suggested that being a prosecutor had changed me, even though the long hours had undeniably contributed to the strain. But once I realized that my intense focus might have blinded me to certain cues at home, I couldn’t help examining myself for unremarked changes as well.

There are those in law enforcement who manage to remain unaltered by the work in their private selves, but they stand out with the rarity
of saints. All around me I saw personalities darkened by cynicism and despair. Trained in suspicion, skilled at cross-examining, you will look for the worst in people and you will find it. I’d felt from the beginning that these impulses were at odds with my essential optimism, my abiding faith in human nature and its enduring potential for redemption. But now I could see the signs that I too was hardening, and I didn’t like what I saw. Even my sympathy for the victims, once such an inexhaustible driver of my efforts, was being depleted by the daily spectacle of misdeeds and misery. I began to ask myself whether there weren’t other equally worthy jobs. Meanwhile, I would persevere at the DA’s Office, convinced at least I was doing something valuable.

It was a relatively minor crime that caused me to doubt even that. I was working in the complaint room one day, my eyes, as usual, skipping over the names, when I picked up a new file, going straight to the facts of the case. Names don’t appear in the arresting officer’s narrative: it’s always the defendant did this; the victim did that. But as I read to the bottom of the page, I said to myself, I’ve already seen this episode. We caught this guy. We tried him. We locked him up. I swear, it’s Mr. Ortiz!

Sure enough, it was. He had served his time, but no sooner had he landed back on the street than he was caught in a carbon copy of the earlier crime. What had been a misdemeanor in the first instance became a felony now by virtue of repetition, but otherwise the cases were identical. He was, of course, not the first repeat offender I’d come across, but somehow his unremarkable case crystallized a certain sense of futility in my efforts. If this was the system, maybe I should be working to improve it rather than simply enforcing it on the front lines.

It was now that the old dream of becoming a judge seemed, if still not within reach, at least something that I might reasonably start working toward, and I was aiming for the federal bench. The federal bench was where matters of broad consequence, cases affecting far more lives than those of a victim and a defendant, were decided. I’d been aware of this since law school, when I studied with particular fascination how the landmark rulings of southern judges like the legendary Frank M. Johnson Jr. had done so much to advance civil rights and bring an end to Jim Crow. The idea that a single person could make such a difference
in the cause of justice was nothing less than electrifying, and having more or less accepted the primacy of career in my life, I saw no reason to stint on ambition.

By now I had seen enough of the world to imagine what a path to such a goal might look like. Most federal judges come to the bench with one of two accomplishments behind them: partnership in a prominent law firm or an important stint, at some point in their careers, in government. There are exceptions, of course, and the only invariable requirement is a record of excellence—in academia or elsewhere—that rises to the attention of a senator’s selection committee or the president’s staff. Nowadays many federal judges have served first as federal prosecutors, and though this was a less likely path when I was at the DA’s Office, I knew that I needed a rest from criminal law. Throughout my time there I had interviewed occasionally when I spotted an opening in public service, but it became clear that I would need more varied experience if I was going to aim higher than a line attorney in a government bureaucracy.

In any case, I wanted to gain experience in civil law, a challenge I welcomed, having certainly enjoyed my courses in business law at Yale (how many people got honors in Commercial Transactions or really took an interest in tax law, anyway?). Those courses had also taught me how much of legal work involved representing corporations and economic power. To be a judge, I’d need to learn to move comfortably in that world. And so I decided that my next job would be an immersion in civil law.

When I announced my intention to jump, Bob Morgenthau tried harder than I might have expected to dissuade me. He indicated I would likely become a bureau chief if I stayed and that post could lead to a state court judgeship, unaware that my gaze was set on the federal bench. He did manage to delay my departure for well over a year by assigning me to a handful of exceptionally challenging cases that were very much in the public eye.

It was very soon after that exchange that my bureau chief called me. “Sonia, this is a very sensitive situation. The Boss wants you to be the one to handle it.” The office needed to investigate an accusation of police brutality made by a church leader in Harlem. Relations between
police and the black community were already severely strained. A year before, a man picked up for graffiti vandalism had gone into a coma and died in custody. Now a Harlem reverend was claiming to have been beaten after being stopped for a traffic violation. The two officers countered that he had assaulted them. “I’m not going to tell you what the outcome should be,” the Boss said. “Just make sure the office doesn’t look bad in the press.” I would hear from him once again during the investigation, asking for a status report. Otherwise, he left me to it and kept his distance.

Vernon Mason, the well-known civil rights lawyer, was representing the minister. Visiting my alcove office, Mason lectured me at length on the alienation of the community, its anger at the police, its distrust of the prosecutor’s intentions, and his own belief that justice could not and would not be done, and he declared his client’s unwillingness to cooperate. I in turn lectured him back: assuming the corruption of everyone in law enforcement was a self-fulfilling prophecy, I said, whose effect was only to sabotage the system, ensuring that justice could not be done. I made an emotional plea for him to give me a chance. While I could not pledge in advance to prosecute the officers, I did promise a thorough investigation with an open mind. But he would give me neither the benefit of the doubt nor any help at all in the investigation.

Mason didn’t understand where this prosecutor was coming from. As much as I respected the police and appreciated the difficulty of their job, I was never so naive as to believe that abuse didn’t happen. As in any other population, some on the force had emotional problems that could dispose them to misconduct. I had seen for myself how the frustrations of a massive crime wave and a woefully underfunded response could change people who’d started out with the best of intentions. The streets had become dangerously unpredictable, a place where violence might escalate faster than anyone could reason. But if the community could have no faith in law enforcement, the job of policing would be infinitely harder, the mission ultimately doomed. If I found wrong had been done that day, I would prosecute it.