The attorney whispered to Mona, “I’d wish you luck if I thought it would help.”
“Wish it anyway,” said Mona.
The attorney smiled. The judge didn’t. He shot Mona a look of displeasure. Judge Ross was a small, jockey-sized man who wore his gray hair trimmed short, army-style, revealing a diamond-shaped birthmark high on his neck. He wore thick-rimmed spectacles that would’ve been trendy on a younger person. When he sat in his high-backed chair, he seemed taller, and Mona guessed that behind his bench, he’d had a raiser installed beneath him.
The room stayed quiet while he spent a moment getting himself organized. Then he nodded to the clerk, who called the first case on the docket: a group of eleven defendants. They turned out to be the group already sitting in the jury box. The attorney sitting next to Mona was defending them.
The judge read out the charge: illegal reentry after removal. He said that the new federal laws provided for them to be arraigned together. The court’s time was precious, he said. He told them they were facing two years in jail, after which they would be deported. The judge spoke in English. An interpreter translated into Spanish. A court reporter tapped it all into his machine. Then the judge called each member of the group to stand and asked them one by one, “How do you plead?”
Every answer was the same: “Culpable.”
The judge’s mood visibly improved.
“Eleven guilty pleas means there’s no need for this court to set a trial date,” he said. “I am happy to hear statements from the prosecutor and the counsel for the defense right away, and then, if no one objects, this court can proceed directly to sentencing.” Mona noticed that the judge had looked at the public defender when he had said, with a slight emphasis, if no one objects.
Over at the other table, the prosecutor stood. Mona got the impression he was just going through well-rehearsed motions; he didn’t seem to have put much effort into preparing his case. He recounted how Border Patrol had found the eleven, thirsty and lost, in the desert outside El Centro. Their coyote had abandoned them. Six were Mexican, the rest were what Border Patrol dubbed OTMs—Other Than Mexican. He didn’t even bother giving their actual nationalities. They all had removal orders against their names, he said. It was a clear-cut case. He sat down, and the attorney next to Mona stood.
Her strategy, Mona was dismayed to hear, was simply to plead for leniency in sentencing. She reminded the judge that she was one of only two public defenders in Paradise—the other wasn’t answering his phone. She hadn’t had the chance to meet any of the defendants until that morning. Because the conference room was occupied, she’d been obliged to meet them in the corridor, a public place that made a farce of lawyer-client privilege; she’d spent at most two minutes with each defendant, enough time to note down their names and backgrounds, and to tell them that, without more time to work out a defense, their best option was to plead guilty to minimize their sentences. None of these people had criminal records, she said. They were just regular folk looking to improve their lot in life. The system was letting them down. Some of them were fleeing war or civil strife. Mona tried not to shake her head in contempt; the attorney was like a dog with the fight whipped out of her.
The judge sentenced all eleven to fourteen months in jail.
“This court will refrain from applying the full sentence to the defendants because they pleaded guilty, thus saving the court a lot of time and the taxpayer a good deal of money,” he said before bringing down his gavel.
Mona checked her watch. From arraignment to sentencing had taken fifteen minutes.
“Fourteen months is good,” said Kristin Chase in a low voice. “It means he’s in a good mood. He usually goes for eighteen, even with the guilty plea.”
“This is an outrage.”
The woman looked at Mona curiously. “This isn’t Santa Monica. There’s no crowd of activists waving placards outside. Judge Ross is probably the most popular figure in Paradise.” She paused, packed away her documents, then went on, “I’ve tried to do something, believe me. I wrote to our congressman. I’ve written letters to the Judicial Council. I wrote to the LA Times and The San Diego Union-Tribune. You know what that’s gotten me? I’m the most hated person in town. If people here had their way, I’d be the first person cast out of Paradise since the devil. This is his town,” she said, nodding toward the door to the judge. She watched sadly as the bailiffs led out the eleven. “The town’s dying, and people here are looking for someone to blame. Judge Ross just gives them what they want,” she said. “He’ll be reelected by a landslide.”
* * *
During the recess, Mona managed to corner the bailiff long enough to discover that Carmen’s case was the first on the docket after the break; she told him she absolutely needed to see her client beforehand. The officer left the room saying he would fetch Carmen, but didn’t reappear until twenty minutes later—just moments before the judge returned. Carmen arrived wearing shackles around her ankles and a frightened look in her dark eyes. Mona insisted the bailiff remove the shackles.
“You okay?” she said in Spanish.
Carmen forced a smile. That was all the conversation they had time for. The judge settled back into his high-backed chair and signaled for proceedings to resume. The prosecutor started reading the charge against Carmen as if he were calling a race at the track. The interpreter kept missing details.
Mona stood. “Your Honor, with your leave, we ask that opposing counsel slow down. The interpreter cannot keep up, and my client isn’t fluent in English.”
The judge let his gaze linger on Mona for a moment longer than was courteous, then gave a nod. The prosecutor resumed, slower now. Mona felt the muscles in her jaw slacken.
The prosecutor began with a summary of what had happened out on the water in the small hours of March 28. He pointed out that the panga had been intercepted within U.S. territorial waters, that it had not been seaworthy, and in fact was sinking when the Interceptor found it. He emphasized that there had been four children aboard. He painted a picture of recklessly selfish people with no regard for the law or the lives of others. He made no mention of how Carmen had helped save a child’s life. He said nothing of the troubles they were trying to escape. Nothing about battery acid. Nothing about torture.
“When immigration agents at Long Beach processed these people, Your Honor,” he said, drawing out these people, “they discovered that this wasn’t the defendant’s first attempt to enter the country illegally: On August 26 of last year, agents at the San Ysidro port of entry discovered Ms. Vega concealed in the trunk of a car. On that occasion, according to her A-file, the acting deputy assistant district director of San Ysidro issued an expedited removal order on Ms. Vega. Furthermore—and again, these documents are all in the defendant’s A-file, Your Honor—Ms. Vega swore an affidavit on that occasion admitting to the misdemeanor charge of illegal entry and acknowledging that she was banned from reentering the United States for five years. So given her previous attempt, Your Honor, under Operation No Return, ICE officials at Long Beach had no choice but to charge Ms. Vega under 8 USC 1326—reentry after removal.”
The prosecutor made a show of gathering his thoughts before continuing, “Your Honor, it is the government’s position that the charge against Ms. Vega admits no doubt or dispute. But there’s more to it than a simple reentry charge. It’s one thing to hide in the trunk of an automobile; it’s quite another to put your own life, and those of others—including children—at risk. And yet that is exactly what the defendant did, in circumstances that can only be described as aggravating. We encourage the court to send a strong message to deter others from getting into unsafe vessels and risking not only their own lives but those of the brave men and women of our border force who have to rescue them. A strong message of deterrence is the humanitarian thing to do, Your Honor.”