One of the best gigs a lawyer can land is being local counsel for an out-of-state big shot lawyer representing a fat cat criminal defendant. You see, in order for an out-of-state lawyers to represent clients in South Carolina, they have to hire local counsel and apply to the Court to be admitted pro hac vice which, I’m pretty sure, is Latin for pay the price. Although theoretically obligating you to try the case if out-of-state counsel doesn’t show up, really all the local lawyer has do is show up to collect his fee. Well, that and provide local entertainment during off hours, knowing the best restaurants and bars, arranging transportation, and planning excursions on the out-of-state lawyer’s tab, or his client’s tab, or whoever’s paying his client’s tab. Oh, that and you have to laugh at all the out-of-state lawyer’s jokes and be suitably impressed by his tales of courtroom prowess and financial wealth.
At least that’s the way I felt about being hired to be local counsel until I was hired to be local counsel for a lawyer representing a witness called to testify before a Federal grand jury investigating union corruption. Waiting for their flight to arrive in Charleston, I thought about the $5,000.00 fee I’d already been paid for a quick in and out appearance before the grand jury. Then I thought about the even fatter fee I’d be paid for the trial if the defendant was indicted. The thought I was rooting against my own client never crossed my mind.
The lawyer called my cell phone to say they’d picked up their bags. I described my car and told them I’d pick them up out front of the baggage claim area. I spotted them in the crowd as I was pulling up but confused the client for the lawyer. The person I thought was the lawyer was older, with a squared off, hardened look about him, dressed casually wearing a jacket and slacks. I called him by the lawyer’s name as I opened the trunk of my car and reached for his bag but he turned to his right, towards the younger man dressed in an open collar shirt, shorts, and flip flops appearing like a tourist on vacation. He handed me his bag and introduced himself and his client. I worried I had gotten off on the wrong foot.
We exchanged pleasantries during the drive into downtown Charleston from the airport. I mentioned I had a boat waiting to take them on a harbor tour before we ate dinner at a creek side restaurant. The lawyer smiled and I stopped worrying. We pulled up to the Mills House Hotel conveniently located about a half block from my office and the Federal courthouse. I waited in the hotel’s Best Friends Bar while they checked in. Thinking on it, I realized the client hadn’t said a word but shrugged it off to him worrying about whatever charges he was facing. While I enjoyed a couple of drinks and my good fortune while I was waiting, I called ahead to the marina to make sure the boat was gassed and stocked with a cooler of ice-cold beer ready to go. I offered them drinks when they came down but the lawyer, still smiling, reminded me he was from Harlan County, Kentucky, and said he was anxious to get out on the water on that boat ride I’d mentioned. I cleared the tab and off we went.
As we drove over the bridge to the marina, I pointed out the sites in the Charleston harbor, the port, the Yorktown WWII aircraft carrier, and way off in the distance, Fort Sumter where the Civil War began. When we arrived at the marina the boat was tied up to the dock ready to go. I jumped in, started her up, untied the ropes and eased out from the dock. I idled into deep water before pushing the throttle up to get the boat on plane. The client sat alone on cooler bench seat ahead of the console while the lawyer and I sat in the bucket seats behind the console and windshield. It wasn’t long before the lawyer asked if he could drive the boat, and I turned the controls over to him. I’d been running at about two-thirds power, but the lawyer opened her up full throttle. I glanced at the client but still couldn’t read if he was having a good time. I didn’t have any trouble reading the lawyer and knew my retainer for trial was as good as in the bag if the client got indicted.
Before long, the lawyer eased back on the throttle and let the boat settle back into the water at an idle. We sat there enjoying the evening breeze and sun setting purple on the water in the relative quiet. The lawyer thanked me for letting him run the boat and commented about there being no open water like Charleston’s harbor in the mountains where he was from. I asked how he came to live in Kentucky. He laughed and told me he wasn’t what anybody would call law review material in law school, so the public defenders job in Harlan County was the only job he could find. He said as soon as he graduated law school he packed up his car and drove to the heart of Kentucky expecting it to be a steppingstone in his career but, then he paused, smiled, and said he stayed because he fell in love with the mountains and the people who lived there. It was about at then he decided I needed a history lesson and I was glad to listen.
He began by saying most people know of Bloody Harlan County because of the coal war from the 1930’s but few know the real history. What started out with the mine owners demanding miners shop at the mine owned grocery stores turned ugly when a miner caught shopping somewhere else was fired. The dispute grew to include other demands for more safety in the mines, decent housing, and higher wages but the United Mine Workers union refused to support the miners. That left the owner free to hire scabs and a private militia and left the miners desperate without strike pay. The miner’s blocked the road leading to the mine and the owners organized a relief convoy with a police escort to bring in supplies to feed the scabs. The miners stopped the convoy and a deputy got out to clear the road when a shot rang out. Nobody knew who fired that shot but all hell broke loose. The “war” as it’s been called lasted less than fifteen minutes, over a thousand shots were fired, but only three deputies and one miner were killed. The National Guard was called in to quell the riot, break the strike, and force the miners back to work. He said, in the end, nothing changed in Harlan County.
But the lawyer wanted me to know things not changing wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. He said the miners caring for each other and their community was something good that never changed. He then told me when he arrived, he was close to shunned as an outsider but slowly earned the respect of the community one client at a time. When his tenure with the PD ended, he hung out a shingle and opened his own law office taking on any case that came his way, often as not for a promise down from a mother he couldn’t refuse. Although no more shots were fired in the war, he said the war never ended. In fact, whether I knew it or not, we were right smack in the middle of that very same war today, .
I asked him what he meant, and he said he would tell me a story to help me understand. Mining has always been boom or bust, he said. The price of coal goes up and the mine owners make a fortune. Miner’s demand more pay and benefits and threaten strikes. But before long the price of coal drops again, mines close, and miners get laid off. This up and down cycle continued until someone figured out the mines, miners, and utilities would all benefit if the long term price of coal stabilized. The utility companies and mines were willing to enter long term contracts to buy coal at fixed prices but only if the miners would agree to long term contracts fixing wages and benefits. They did, contacts were signed, the market stabilized, and peace reigned for a time in the Kentucky mountains.
Until vast veins of coal were discovered lying just under the surface in the southwest United States. Coal you didn’t need a skilled miner working half a mile underground to recover. All you needed was a giant steam shovel and you could scoop the coal right out the ground and load it into a rail car. Ship it anywhere in the United States you wanted at a fraction of the cost of Appalachian coal. The utility companies saw potential profits and sought to break the long-term contracts they had profited from for so many years. They filed lawsuits but the Courts ruled the contracts were knowingly entered into for valuable consideration and refused to set the contracts aside.
Needing more direct action, the utility companies got their political cronies to get political prosecutors to open criminal investigations into alleged price fixing, racketeering, and bribery the utilities feigned to have just discovered. Florida was the first state to crank up such an investigation and issued subpoenas to mine owners and union officials threatening prosecution for certain gratituties that may have been exchanged between the contracting parties. Miraculously, the utilities who were into it up to their eyeballs didn’t receive any subpoenas. For the mine owners and union officials who did, the price of a plea bargain to avoid prosecution, huge fines, and possible jail time was to agree to void the long term contracts.
It worked in Florida, so it wasn’t long before the utilities in anti-union South Carolina decided to give the scheme a go. All that was needed was a friendly U.S. Attorney to start threatening prosecution and issuing subpoenas for grand jury testimony . I glanced towards our silent client but he showed no reaction to the lawyert’s story The lawyer conceded, with multimillion dollar contracts being involved, some gratuities may have changed hands from time to time but emphasized it was all just a story.
With the sun setting, we decided it was time for dinner. We tied up to the dock at R.B.’s restaurant on Shem Creek where we enjoyed some of the world’s best fried seafood. Over dinner the lawyer told me stories of his clients and cases back home in Kentucky. Of his escapades representing ordinary folks tangled up in the inept and corrupt Kentucky legal system. In his practice there were no snitches, no cooperating witnesses, and no plea deals. He specialized in plain talking juries and turning prosecutor’s laziness and mistakes into not guilty verdicts for his clienrs. I’ve shared quite a few dinners with out-of-state lawyers, and they’ve always talked about themselves, their courtroom prowess, and their riches. What I noticed was his stories were about his clients. He spoke affectionately of the clients he’d helped with problems big and small. He never once mentioned a big fee he’d been paid or how he’d gotten his name in the newspaper. He was proud of the law he practiced, not the money he’d made. He made me remember why I became a lawyer in the first place. Before I knew it dinner was over we’d become friends. Without thinking, I picked up the tab because he had become my guest. It was late and we were quiet on the ride back into town to the hotel. We agreed to meet at my office in the morning as I dropped them off.
They arrived at my Broad Street office a few minutes before nine. The lawyer was dressed in a suit and tie. There wasn’t any time to discuss the case, but I had no doubt the lawyer had explained the drill to his client. He didn’t have to say anything but, if he did decide to testify, he needed to tell the truth. We lawyers wouldn’t be allowed in the grand jury room during his questioning but would be waiting right here in the waiting room if he had a question. All he had to do was ask to come out to talk with us. We walked the half block to the courthouse and, when we arrived, I told the U.S. Marshals we were there to appear before the grand jury. We were processed through security and instructed to exit the elevators on the mezzanine level where we’d be shown where to wait. And wait we did. They ought to teach a course in law school on waiting so you’ll know to expect it and know they make you wait its so you’ll know who’s in control, feel helpless, and have time to get nervous. I noticed the client didn’t appear nervous in the slightest.
After an hour, as if on cue, the Assistant U.S. Attorney, came out of the grand jury room and called our client’s name as if we weren’t the only people in the waiting room. Our client stood and followed him back into the grand jury room. There is a helpless feeling waiting outside the closed door to the grand jury room. The grand jury is supposed to be check on prosecutorial abuses but, in reality, they are told only what the prosecution wants them to hear, and their verdict is little more than a rubber stamp. If a juror, heaven forbid, should begin asking questions seeking the truth, its immediately called a runaway jury and shut down. Questioning either lasts just a couple of minutes until the witness pleads the Fifth Amendment and refusaes to answer questions because they might incriminate themselves or lasts an hour or two.
It hadn’t been long when the door to the grand jury room burst back open. Out stormed our client followed by a red-faced Assistant U.S. Attorney threatening to have him indicted for obstruction of justice and perjury. To my surprise, our previously stoic client replied in a raised voice, “’Fuck you, you little piss ant. I’m from Harlan County Kentucky and you have no idea who you’re fucking with!” I’m not used to hearing such language in the halls of the Federal courthouse and expected armed marshals to appear at any moment. The lawyer seemed completely unfazed, like this was our legal system at its finest. I hustled them both out of the courthouse as quickly as I could.
On the sidewalk outside the client remained animated and talkative. When the lawyer asked how it went, he laughed and said, “Just like you said it would. When he asked if I was on any drugs or medication that could affect my ability to testify truthfully, just like you said he would, I did what you told me to and told him the truth. The truth about my teenage depression that led to my chronic drug abuse, hospitalizations, and heavy medications before I turned twenty. When he tried to change the subject, I told him to hold on, I wasn’t finished. I told him how I got to feeling better, so I stopped taking my medications which sure enough led to more hospitalizations and more medications. So many medications I can’t remember all their namesbut I began listing them off. What it as called. How many pills or milligrams I was supposed to take everyday and all the side effects they caused. I told him how all the stress and anxiety of my addiction and breakdowns caused me to suffer from chronic illnesses like high blood pressure, diabetes, migraine headaches, and bad nerves all of which required more medications that made me woozy, forgetful, and caused ED. He about jumped into the witness box when I started describing my ED. That’s when I noticed his face was turning red like he was having a coronary and he started yelling at me to get out. You should have seen the looks on the jurors faces as I was leaving the room.” The lawyer laughed aloud, a great big belly laugh, and gave the client a big pat on the back.
I walked them back to the Mills Hotel and offered to give them a ride back to the airport, but they declined saying they’d just grab their bags and a cab to the airport to catch the first flight back home. I thanked the lawyer for the education about Harlan County and about lawyering and made him promise to call me if he ever made it back to town, but I never heard from him again. Still, I think of him often. I imagine him, one of the best lawyers I’ve ever met, still appearing in magistrate’s court on drunk and disorderlies like they were headline murder cases. I imagine him finding a satisfaction practicing law I often yearn for.
I watched for stories about the union corruption investigation in the papers but never saw a word. No indictments were ever issued. There was one story in the local section of the paper about some poor middle level manager at a local utility who had been subpoenaed in the investigation that caught my eye. He had been suspected of being one of the recipients of the gratituties but nobody told him the investigation was just a ruse to break the contracts. It was reported he drove to the power plant on the lake and blew his brains out with a shotgun sitting on the tailgate of his pick-up truck. That and one other story buried on about page five of the paper many months later about questions being raised why a certain politically connected lawyer was paid a $5,000,000.00 for unexplained legal work uncovered during a big rate increase hearing. Nothing further vwas said about either article.
Since then, fracking has made natural gas cheaper than even strip mined coal out west. I suspect that just made the already hard life of the Harlan County miners even harder but, as the Harlan County lawyer taught me, the people who live there have endured worse and still have a quality of life we could all use more of.
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