Backlash

For whatever reason, we have a suprisingly large number of East African refugees here. It is large enough that I have made some inroads into the community during the 9 months I've been working here. I learn more about the region nearly every week, through my clients.

Today, I had a guy at jail pleas charged with misdemeanor marijuana. I call him up, we start talking. He tells me right away that he had a small quantity of marijuana on him.
He proceeds to tell me this horrible tale about how he was mistreated by the police. They found a copy of the Koran, which apparently had been printed in Iran. They called him a terrorist and pushed him around. They threatened him with deportation. They said other insulting things, which he wouldn't even repeat to me. They had taken all of his belongings and expected that he would be deported. This guy is from East Africa originally and a Muslim, but obviously spent a lot of time here because he has a New York accent. In fact, he is a naturalized citizen and has served this country in the armed forces. He was working for a pizza chain, delivering pizzas. He had fallen on hard times and was sleeping in his car for a couple of weeks.

After getting his side of the story, I walked over to the prosecutor's table and got the file so I can make some sense of what is going on and grab the warrant. The file only had the accusation, the warrant, and his criminal history. There iass no report. When the prosecutor hasn't gotten the report yet, I have no idea why the guy was stopped, so I normally suggest that we wait a week. That is never popular, because that means the client has to sit in jail for another week.

In any event, I take a close look at the warrant, and the magistrate had written by hand that the fellow had "Hamas clippings" in his car and that he wasn't using his own name. So they called Homeland Security.

What the hell?

I dig a little deeper in his criminal history, and it becomes quite obvious that he isn't using his own name. Because his real name is the surname of the former royal family, and that could get a person killed or kidnapped in his old country. So, in a very pragmatic move, he adopted a pseudonym.

And as for the Hamas newspaper clippings -- so what? He has been living in his car for the past two weeks. Guys who come to this country to do bad things at least have enough resources that they can rent an apartment in a non-descript quarter of town. They don't live out of their cars. They don't work for pizza parlors.

So I go back and talk to him, and explain that I am uneasy resolving his case, because I don't know why he was stopped, so I can't tell if the prosecutor would be able to prove him guilty of the controlled substance violation. (A bad stop would mean that the marijuana was supressed and the State's case would implode.) In a move that made my stomach drop, he said, "This is what the Muslims must deal with" and told me that he just wanted to get it over with. I explain that the fatalistic attitude only reinforces the problem. He says, "you're just one man, what difference can you make?" And I respond, "I can fight for you!" I tried for a while longer to persuade him that we should ask for a bond modification so that he could get out, or at least wait until next week, so that the prosecutor's could secure the report. He insists that he just wants to get the case done.

So we enter the plea.

That was this morning, and he should be hitting the street just about now. I hope he has a place to sleep tonight.