I was lucky enough to get one sentence printed in last Saturday’s Denver Post. It read exactly like this:
“On Wednesday evening, while almost the whole country was watching the memorial services from Tucson , the Speaker of the House, John Boehner, who had been offered a seat on Air Force One to attend the service, decided to attend a Republican fundraiser instead.”
What I said was a fact, pure and simple. One could argue that it was a good decision or not. I submitted that one sentence, and let the reader decide. A letter in response, printed in today’s Post, characterized the decisions of both President Obama, to accept the invitation to speak at the memorial, and of Speaker Boehner, to attend a political function elsewhere as personal decisions and therefore inappropriate for scrutiny.
I could not disagree more. I believe that elected officials like the President, as well as those on the short list for presidential succession like Mr. Boehner, are public figures. This memorial was anything but private. The whole world was watching. The President did his job to stand in for all of us and represent how much we cared and what was good and right about this country. I believe he did just that and in a spectacular fashion. Several times, I was moved to tears. Most of the country appears to agree with me. Mr. Boehner’s decision to stay back and pander to the corporations that bought him new members of congress was not a private decision, but was a calculated political decision, designed to both de-legitimize the President and to dance with the date that brung him. Calling this a personal decision is like saying that the recent GOP vote to repeal the Health Care Law was just a bunch of personal decisions, made individually by each Tea/GOP politician who just happened to have all voted lock-step against the President on every piece of major legislation for the last two years. Any way, my little sentence is what it is.
Yesterday, after I had put my post on Bullying to bed, I received my first type-written hate letter, delivered, via mail, directly to my door. There was no return address and the signature was scribbled, so as to be basically illegible. This is the exact text of this letter:
“Dear Julian,
The Speaker didn’t attend because there was no reason to attend a campaign rally for a lame duck president. You really need to stick to defending shoplifters and forget your monthly letter to the editor.”
The scribbled signature might have been H. Morales Jr., but this was probably a “nom de plume.”
When I got to thinking about it, I realized that this ignorant, frightened, angry, sick man had gone to a lot of trouble to access a data base in order to invade my privacy at home, and to let me know, in that all-too-typical cowardly, reactionary, psycho, Vito Corleone-type code, that he was ordering me to stop speaking out, otherwise he knew where I lived.
I found it so poignant, so fraught with irony, that yet another bully had found me just after I posted a personal experience about being victimized by bullies as a child.
But, as an adult, I see things differently:
1. Anyone who yammers in public about a controversial subject has got to expect a response. I am no exception. There are no victims after a fair exchange of ideas, and anyone who feels victimized because their point is later proved invalid, should either consider another point of view or get out of the discussion.
My friend Dano tells me that a bit of tit for tat comes with the territory and he is right to a point. The problem is, sooner or later, that could very well be the excuse that you give to the judge at your sentencing hearing. There are rules regarding political discourse. It may not seem like it these days, but there are. I make my point, then you make yours. There are also laws regarding criminal conduct. There are many ways that you could have responded to my one sentence without invading the privacy of my home, attempting extortion, and violating my Constitutional right to speak freely. Your response to my sentence was overshadowed by your effort to terrorize me into silence. I understand that you feel your own voice has been muted by insidious, yet pervasive forces. I understand paranoia. In my career I have represented way sicker folks than you.
2. I’m not tiny anymore. You can’t sit on me. To me, you are as light as a feather. I put in 22 years as a trial attorney in the trenches of the criminal justice system, and I no longer respond in fear to threats from pencil-weenies like you. I am sure that you are heavily armed, as part of a plethora of misguided and obviously futile efforts to keep your unseen demons at bay. I am armed with the truth and the law, and I hope to meet you face to face some day. Next time, you might want to include a return address. I’ll get back with you. I promise.
3. If you actually knew me, you would know that I became a public defender so that I could stand up for the truly tiny guys like you, who were sat upon and squashed by that thirteen-hundred-pound gorilla, that oxymoron, we call criminal justice. In those 22 years, I saw the politics of prosecution at its best and at its worst. My clients were persecuted by politically motivated prosecutors more times than I would care to count, yet I also saw heinous cases plea bargained so that the prosecutor could go on vacation. I caught cops lying and cheating and manufacturing inculpatory evidence and destroying exculpatory evidence, just so they could win. I was compelled to cross-examine many “expert witnesses” as they attempted to pass off goofy, discredited, junk-science, on the witness stand. I was fortunate in my career to have stopped that gorilla from pounding guys like you to mulch, many, many more times than not. And I never ever gave up. I never will. And some day, when you go too far and get caught, (and you will) I really hope you find an attorney as dedicated as me. You are going to need one.
J. Brandeis Sperandeo
No comments:
Post a Comment