After practicing criminal law for fifty years, I can attest that not everybody accused of a crime is a low life dirt bag. Once, I represented almost the entire graduating class of Bishop England High School. I inherited them as clients representing the son of a secretary with the firm swept unpin the raid.
Teressa Schaffe worked for the Steinberg Law Firm from the time she graduated high school at eighteen until she retired. A more caring, intelligent, and reliable woman never lived. She not only took care of Charlie Goldberg’s every need as his legal secretary, she took care of her family. One of the perks of her working for the firm was free legal representation when her teenage children did the things teenagers do and wound up in legal trouble.
Teresa’s son attended Bishop England High School and was arrested with his classmates when the crack Isle of Palms Police Department raided their after prom party and charged them with underage drinking. I was glad to represent Teressa’s son and didn’t mind it when I ended up representing his classmates.
Bishop England was a Catholic school and the principal had been grumbling since their arrest that any student convicted of an alcohol related offense would face automatic suspension and be barred from attending the graduation ceremony. Teresa turned to me for help and, I thought, well getting over that first hurdle would be easy. I told her to request a jury trial knowing it would throw a wrench in the works and delay the case until well after graduation. Word got out and the whole class followed suit requesting jury trials. The next hurdle would prove more difficult. The case was scheduled before Judge Jeanette Harper, a school teacher in her day job, was well known for her harsh treatment of underage drinking offenses.
The cases showed up on the Isle of Palms Municipal Court jury trial docket later that summer. I appeared with Teresa, her son, and the twenty or so the other Bishop England students and their parents in the packed courtroom. Fortunately, the Bishop England kids weren’t the only teenagers charged with underage drinking on the IOP and a group of Wando High School kids were making their first appearances before Judge Harper but nobody had warned them about Judge Harper so they were trying their cases without counsel before her.
There couldn’t have been a starker contrast between the two groups of young defendants. The Bishop England students were all clean cut and neatly dressed with the boys wearing button down shirts and ties and the girls wearing Bishop England approved, below the knee dresses with white blouses while the Wando Students were, well, long haired and dressed like hippies or beach bums. The first Wando student called must have been contemplating going to law school himself because he pled not guilty and argued eloquently Judge Harper should let him go because the police hadn’t proved he actually drank any of the liquor found at the party the police raided.
Judge Harper didn’t skip a beat and asked the officer what evidence he had and, without the benefits of any contemporaneous notes, the officer took his cue and recited his canned testimony, “I detected a strong odor of alcohol about his person, his speech was slurred, he was unsteady on his feet, and his eyes were glassy.” Guilty! Judge Harper pronounced and sentenced the boy to thirty days, suspended on him completing the Alcohol and Drug Safety Action Program (ADSAP), and performing fifty hours of community service.” A representative of the ADSAP program was conveniently present to sign the boy up.
The ADSAP diversion program was intended to provide evaluation and treatment for eligible persons convicted of drug or alcohol offenses. It was a worthwhile endeavor but, like so many governmental programs, it morphed into a bureaucratic boondoggle. If your teenage child has started experimenting with alcohol or drugs, its probably not a good idea to have them congregate with other kids doing the same thing. I had more than one client comment they’d met new drug dealers in the classrooms. More to the point, almost to a tee, they all said it was a waste of time and money.
ADSAP isn’t limited to underage drinking cases. A person charged with DUI 1st can get a provisional driver’s license but only if they complete the program. I once had a good friend referred to the program who made the mistake of telling the truth during her evaluation. How many days do you drink in an average week? I don’t know, two or three times a week, mostly on the weekends with my friends, she answered. And, what percentage of your friends drink? Oh, pretty much all my friends drink, don’t yours? When you drink, how many drinks do you usually have? Two or three, you know, til I get a little buzz. And, here’s my favorite, a so-called scientific control question, do you ever change lanes driving without using your blinker. Yeah, I guess I do, every once in a while. Red flags were raised and according to ADSAP criteria, she was an alcoholic in need of intensive treatment before she could pass the program. My client, stuck not able to drive and bewildered, felt like the female evaluator was hitting on her. I had to threaten the Director of the program with a potential sex discrimination suit to get him to personally re-administer the test. She passed muster and was discharged from the program.
While Judge Harper was handing out the same sentence to the other Wando High School students appearing before her, I took the opportunity to meet with the ADSAP rep to propose an alternative to the alternative disposition program. I proposed, instead of referring the kids individually to the program, and charging their parents the customary fee, that we have a single referral of the whole class for a one time meeting for a flat $1,000.00 shared fee to learn about the evils of alcohol and one Saturday of community service cleaning the beach on the IOP.
After getting the ADSAP rep to agree, it wasn’t too difficult getting Judge Harper to go along. I could say it was my silver tongue that persuaded her but, in truth, it was the appearance and demeanor of the Bishop England students that really won the day.
My wife Mary and I raised five teenagers. At one point I had to tell one son, “You must be allergic to alcohol because every time you drink, you break out in handcuffs.” Family gets free representation too. Before we could get our kids threw that stage of their lives, Mary and I began wondering why the police seemed so intent on turning our children into criminals. Of course, Mary and I were once teenagers ourselves but, in our day, things were handled differently. The police had other ways of dealing with teenagers that didn’t rely on superficial programs that cost an arm and a leg. Calling our parents to let them deal with us was the referral of choice. Once my younger brother was picked up for underage foolishness and Juvenile Detective Delzadi of the Westfield Police called my mother to come get him at the station. My Brother was seated on a long bench inside the station and, as my mother came in, she said in a stern voice, “You don’t stand up for your mother?” When he did, she knocked him back into the seat causing Detective Delzadi to come running out of his office saying what my brother had done didn’t warrant corporal punishment and that was the end of it. No booking, mug shot, or rap sheet to follow him the rest of his life.
I was proud to represent the son of our firm’s secretary and his graduating Bishop England classmates, just as I have been have been proud representing many friends and clients who found themselves tangled up in the legal system for doing stupid things we all do as human beings. As I’m sure these young Bishop England men and women were taught in school, “Let he who is free of sin cast the first stone.”
