When we were kids fussin’ over something silly, somebody would always say, “Well, don’t make a federal case out of it!” Then, in what seemed like the blink of an eye, I found myself handling my first Federal Court criminal case. And what heinous crime was it that required prosecution in the Federal Court? Well, it seems the City of Columbia had been forced to expend a considerable sum of money unclogging a storm drain clogged with what must have been five or six years of unsolicited bulk mail advertisements. Bulk mail advertisements an older, long-term mailman had tossed down the storm drain to keep from having to carry in his shoulder bag in the Carolina heat. They made a Federal case out of it alleging his actions violated Title 18 of the United States Code, Section 1703(a), which makes it a crime for a Postal Service employee to unlawfully “secrete, destroy, detain, delay, or open” mail entrusted for delivery in violation of the Postal Regulations. An offense that carried a maximum penalty of five years in prison.
Not only had the defendant postman been charged criminally, but he’d been fired from his job of almost thirty years. Being out of work, he didn’t have enough money to hire any of the more experienced criminal defense lawyers in the firm, so, he hired me even though I’d never stepped foot in a federal courtroom. Fortunately for him, what I lacked in experience, I made up for with incredibly good luck.
First of all, James Bell, a lawyer for the Postal Workers union was representing the postman on a grievance relating to his termination and he was willing to help me out with the trial. I was encouraged to learn Jim also represented the Hell’s Angels and knew his way around the Federal courtroom but that was just the beginning of my good fortune. We drew the Honorable Robert W. Hemphill as our United States District Court Judge as our trial judge and Jim had been Judge Hemphill’s law clerk when he first graduated law school.
Jim filed a motion requesting that Judge Hemphill issue an Order staying the grievance until after the criminal trial to preserve the postman’s Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination but Judge Hemphill gruffly denied the motion in about five seconds. This shook my confidence in Jim’s prior association with the judge but Jim confidently reassured me everything would work out. What choice did I have but to believe him as the trial began. We sat patiently at the defense table as the prosecutor stood up to address the jury.
The prosecutor began by telling the jury he was not a Department of Justice attorney but had flown down to Columbia all the way from Washington, D.C., and that he proudly represented the United States Postal Service, not the United States of America. Jim tapped me on my shoulder and whispered, “See, I told you everything would turn out.” Judge Hemphill stiffened in his high-back chair behind his elevated desk, his complexion darkened, and he interrupted the prosecutor in the middle of his opening argument, “You aren’t suggesting to the jury the Post Office isn’t part of the United States government, are you?” The overconfident prosecutor stammered, “No. No, sir.” “That’s good because as I recall the Postal Service is authorized by Article I, § 8, cl. 7 of the United States Constitution.” I don’t know what else the prosecutor had written down for his opening statement, but it was obvious it would continue along the same lines. The polished prosecutor began to look every bit as inexperienced as I was struggling to wing it with a new opening statement on the fly. It was Jim who suggested I reserve my opening statement until after the Post Office presented their case, a move I wholeheartedly supported not wanting to make a fool of myself in front of the jury and Judge Hemphill like the prosecutor had just done.
The prosecutor seemed to recover as he began presenting his evidence consisting of testimony and photographs of the sewer drain being unclogged of sopping wet flyers and advertisements and by the testimony and introduction of the postman’s signed confession. Things weren’t looking good for the postman. Looking back on it, I don’t think there was much any lawyer could have done on cross examination, but back then my anxiety grew that my inexperience caused me to miss some opportunity to blunt the evidence against my hapless client. Before I knew it the prosecutor rested his case, and the time had come when I was going to actually have to do something. My heart was racing a mile a minute but, before I could stand up to say anything, Judge Hemphill chimed in asking, “Mr. Prosecutor, the offense charged is failing to deliver the mail in violation of the Postal Regulations. I don’t recall you having entered the particular regulation he is accused of violating into the record.” The prosecutor froze like a deer in headlights before he frantically began searching through the files on his desk for the regulation . Visibly frustrated, he sheepishly asked the judge for 15 minutes to run to the courthouse library to locate the regulation in the Code of Federal Regulations. Judge Hemphill granted his request and said court would be in recess for fifteen minutes as the flustered prosecutor fled the courtroom.
You’d think the prosecutor, being an attorney employed by the Postal Service, would know the Code of Federal Regulations is so voluminous it takes up two or three rows of shelves in the library and would have asked for more time. Just finding the seven or eight volumes of regulations related to the Postal Service somewhere in the middle row already took more than the fifteen minutes granted. Being unable to find the regulation he was looking for in those volumes within another fifteen minutes, the prosecutor gave up and returned to the courtroom empty-handed to avoid further antagonizing Judge Hemphill. When he admitted he was unable to produce a copy of the regulation, Judge Hemphill granted a directed verdict of not guilty and, amazingly, I had won my first Federal Court criminal trial without having to say or do much of anything.
Because the criminal case fell apart, so did the grievance and the postman was not only reinstated but given a desk job to finish out his years before retirement . I couldn’t say I gained much in the way of experience from the trial, but I could say I was undefeated as a Federal Court criminal defense attorney. Oh sure, luck played an enormous role in my victory, but, as I think back on the trial all these years later, I still feel justice was done. I had something every bit as valuable as good facts and favorable law, I had a deserving client. My postman had faithfully delivered the mail through the rain and heat for almost thirty years until his arthritic knees were giving out. What he’d done was wrong, but not five years in prison wrong. He saved his customers the burden of having to throw the junk mail out themselves. The case taught me, as long as you have a deserving client, you always have a chance in a trial. Well, a deserving client, luck, and a Judge like the Honorable Robert W. Hemphill.
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