Notes of a Hanging Judge
(from The New Yorker, February 19, 1996)
Soon after New York State Supreme Court Justice Harold Rothwax called his court to order, the origins of his nickname, the Prince of Darkness, became evident. A young woman who was accused of embezzling twenty thousand dollars stood before him as her lawyer made his case for a reduction in bail: the woman was four months pregnant, she had spend the past several days in the prison hospital bleeding, and her new husband, awaiting payment on a workers’ compensation claim, had offered to sign the money over to his wife’s creditors to get her out of jail. When the attorney apologized for rambling on about his client’s problems, Judge Rothwax responded, “Go on, Counsellor. So far, I’ve got my sympathy well under control.”
When the lawyer had finished, the Judge mulled over the issues for a moment. “She’s four months pregnant? Well, she shouldn’t have embezzled twenty grand, then,” he snapped. “When she makes full restitution, she gets out of jail.” The request was denied. The defense attorney grimaced, the woman’s head dropped, and her husband glared at the Judge. Rothwax didn’t seem to notice; he had already moved on to the next case, greeting the attorneys with his usual no-frills salutation: “Come up here on this matter, please.”
Judge Rothwax, who is sixty-five, started out as a criminal-defense attorney for the poor, was a member of the A.C.L.U., and for the last twenty-five years has served as a State Supreme Court Justice; he presided over the Joel Steinberg murder-and-child abuse case and, more recently, the trial of the Brooklyn Bridge shooter, Rashid Baz. His legal career was inspired by Clarence Darrow and motivated by liberalism, but over time the judge had become increasingly conservative. His conversion recently culminated in the publication of “Guilty: The Collapse of Criminal Justice,” a memoirish diatribe against the legal system, in which
Rothwax argues that “the American court-room is dangerously out of order.” His proposed solutions include permitting majority, rather than unanimous, criminal verdicts, dispen- sing with Miranda rights, limiting protections based on the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, and requiring defendants to put written versions of their stories into sealed envelopes before trial to prevent them from changing alibis. Such proposals are a defense attorney’s—and a defendant’s—nightmare.
Typically, there are about two hundred and fifty cases at various stages before Judge Rothwax’s court. On a recent Wednesday, his “calendar day,” the Judge held hearings on about a hundred of those cases. Stone-faced, sardonic, and with a rigid delivery that portended dire consequences for the accused, he denied bail for a seventy-year-old man charged with attempted murder, and heard arguments, ongoing for seven years, on a man’s competency to stand trial. A prosecutor said the man was faking and called him “a malingerer.”
“If so, he’s one of the great ma- lingerers of all time,” Rothwax grum- bled. “When he comes in here, he tries to eat himself, and he stabs himself with paper clips.” Throughout the morning, the Judge saw convicted drug dealers, an accused child molester, two very large night-club bouncers charged with assault, and a man with twenty-nine misdemeanor convictions for shop- lifting. By the lunch break, he had accepted three plea bargains, set four trial dates, and threatened a tardy attorney with contempt.
But even the Prince of Darkness—a nickname that the Judge wears as a kind of honorific—is seized by fits of mercy. A young man due to serve time upstate asked for a delay to get married; the Judge gave him six weeks. And several young first-time offenders received the same offer: complete a rehabilitation
program and you get probation; fail the program and you go to jail.
Things were moving along pretty smoothly in Judge Rothwax’s court. In
fact, it was difficult to find and evidence of the legal system’s great “collapse”: a lot of people were going to jail. Judicial missteps—like Judge Harold Baer’s recent decision that police in Washington Heights had improperly seized four million dollars’ worth of cocaine and heroin—may get all the press, but in reality more than eighty per cent of the felony indictments issued by the Manhattan D.A.’s office result in guilty pleas or jury convictions. The criminal-defense bar agrees with the Judge that there is a legal crisis but reads it quite differently. “The statistics show a phenomenal conviction rate,” said Gerald Lefcourt, who co-founded the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. “There are more people in prison in this country than ever before. Our incarceration rate is higher than any other democratic country’s, and we have the death penalty. The notion that the system coddles criminals is off the wall.”
In Judge Rothwax’s courtroom, defense lawyers are more politic in their evaluation of his book. On calendar day, one even asked him to autograph it. The request, typically, was denied.
Questions on “NOTES OF A HANGING JUDGE”
Directions: Read the following questions and answer them in complete sentences. Use specific details and clear explanations in each of your responses, and be sure to answer each part of the question.
1. The author opens the essay with the terms “hanging judge” and “prince of darkness.” What connotations do these terms have and how do they make the reader view Rothwax?
2. How does the author’s selection of the pregnant woman’s case (look at the specifics of it) in the first two paragraphs make us view Rothwax? How do the specific circumstances of the case convey this impression of Rothwax? Also discuss how the details used to describe the pregnant woman, her husband, and her attorney are being manipulated by the author.
3. What is the rationale behind the author’s selection of biographical information regarding Rothwax in the 3rd paragraph? Explain the reason for the author’s sequencing of the information and what it contributes to the portrayal of Rothwax.
4. What is the author’s purpose for the last 2 sentences in the 3rd paragraph? Why would the proposals be the nightmare of defense attorneys and defendants? How does the author seem to view the proposals? How does the author seem to view defense attorneys and defendants? How are the author’s views made clear?
5. What portrayal of Rothwax is presented in the 4th, 5th, and 6th paragraphs of the essay? Find details that support your answer and explain how they shape Rothwax’s portrayal.
6. How does the description of Judge Harold Baer’s decision in the 7th paragraph make us view Rothwax’s proposals in the 3rd paragraph? Discuss why the author included the description of Baer. What is the intended effect of this description?
7. Why does the author present the view of Gerald Lefcourt? How does the author want us to view Lefcourt’s view? Is there any significance to Lefcourt’s name which may indicate that the author consciously selected him? Explain.
8. What is the function of the last paragraph? What view of Rothwax is conveyed? What is significant about the last 2 lines in the paragraph? What image of Rothwax is being reinforced here?
9. What is the subject and tone of the essay? Explain how the author makes the tone evident? (Imagery, details, diction, etc.)
10. Describe both the immediate subject of the essay and the broader (global) subject of the essay. Explain how the author makes these clear.