Small Great Things(68)

“The white supremacist? He has nothing to do with your case.”

Ruth blinks. “I don’t understand how that’s possible.”

“He isn’t the one who indicted you. None of that matters.”

She looks at me as if I’m crazy. “But I’m the only nurse of color on the birthing pavilion.”

“To the State, it doesn’t matter if you’re black or white or blue or green. To them, you had a legal duty to take care of an infant under your charge. Just because your boss said don’t touch the baby doesn’t mean you get a free pass to stand there and do nothing.” I lean forward. “The State doesn’t even have to specify what the degree of murder is. They can argue multiple theories—contradictory theories. It’s like shooting fish in a bucket—if they hit any of them, you’re in trouble. If the State can show implied malice because you were so mad at being taken off the baby’s case, and suggest that you premeditated the death, the jury can convict you of murder. Even if we told the jury it was an accident, you’d be admitting to a breach in duty of care and criminal negligence with reckless and wanton disregard for the safety of the baby—you’d basically be giving them negligent homicide on a silver platter. In either of those scenarios, you’re going to prison. And in either of those scenarios it doesn’t matter what color your skin is.”

She draws in her breath. “Do you really believe that if I was white, I’d be sitting here with you right now?”

There is no way you can look at a case that has, at its core, a nurse who is the only employee of color in the department, a white supremacist father, and a knee-jerk decision by a hospital administrator…and not assume that race played a factor.

But.

Any public defender who tells you justice is blind is telling you a big fat lie. Watch the news coverage of trials that have racial overtones, and what will stick out profoundly is the way attorneys and judges and juries go out of their way to say this isn’t about race, even though it clearly is. Any public defender will also tell you that even though the majority of our clients are people of color, you can’t play the race card during a trial.

That’s because it’s sure suicide in a courtroom to bring up race. You don’t know what your jury is thinking. Or can’t be certain of what your judge believes. In fact, the easiest way to lose a case that has a racially motivated incident at its core is to actually call it what it is. Instead, you find something else for the jury to hang their hat on. Some shred of evidence that can clear your client of blame, and allow those twelve men and women to go home still pretending that the world we live in is an equal one.

“No,” I admit. “I believe it’s too risky to bring up in court.” I lean forward. “I’m not saying you weren’t discriminated against, Ruth. I’m saying that this is not the time or place to address it.”

“Then when is?” she asks, her voice hot. “If no one ever talks about race in court, how is anything ever supposed to change?”

I don’t have the answer to that. The wheels of systemic justice are slow; but fortunately, there’s a little more oil in the machinery for personal justice, which throws cash at the victims to remove some of the indignity. “You file a civil lawsuit. I can’t do it for you, but I can call around and find you someone who works with employment discrimination.”

“But I can’t afford a lawyer—”

“They’ll take your case on contingency. They’ll get a third of whatever payout you win,” I explain. “To be honest, with that Post-it note, I think you’d be able to get compensatory damages for the salary you lost, as well as punitive damages for the idiotic decision your employer made.”

Her jaw drops. “You mean I’d get money?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a couple million,” I admit.

Ruth Jefferson is speechless.

“You’ve got one hundred and eighty days to file an EEOC complaint.”

“And then what?”

“Then, the EEOC will sit on it until the criminal trial is finished.”

“Why?”

“Because assigning a guilty verdict against a plaintiff is significant,” I say frankly. “It will change how your civil lawyer will draw up the complaint for you. A guilty finding is admissible as evidence, and would hurt your civil case.”

She turns this over in her mind. “Which is why you don’t want to talk about discrimination during this trial,” Ruth says. “So that guilty verdict won’t come to pass.” She folds her hands in her lap, silent. She shakes her head once, and then closes her eyes.

“You were kept from doing your job,” I say softly. “Don’t keep me from doing mine.”

Ruth takes a deep breath, opens her eyes, and meets my gaze. “All right,” she says. “What do you want to know?”





THE MORNING AFTER I AM released from jail I wake up and stare at the same old crack in the ceiling that I always say I’ll patch and never get around to doing. I feel the bar from the pullout couch digging into my back and give thanks for it. I close my eyes and listen to the sweet harmony of the garbage trucks on our street.

In my nightgown (a fresh one; I will donate the one I wore to the arraignment to Goodwill at the first opportunity) I start a pot of coffee and pad down the hall to Edison’s bedroom. My boy rests like the dead; even when I turn the knob and slip inside and sit down on the edge of the mattress, he doesn’t stir.