Atty at Law Page 2
“This is your namesake,” Taleesa whispered to my brother. “You’re named after him, Martinez.”
I looked at the stranger in the casket. Martinez. And then I came totally unglued. Crying out loud. Shoulders shaking, snot running. As Dad pulled me away, everybody stared at the white girl with no coat or hat who’d suddenly gone crazy. To this day, when I hear the word “Milwaukee,” I just want to crawl under the table.
I cried like that on the way home from the animal shelter. In the back seat, Martinez sat staring blankly, with no video game screen in front of him for once. That’s his version of crying. Taleesa said nothing. That’s one reason I like Taleesa better than most grown-ups. She never tells you it’s going to be okay when it’s not going to be okay.
“They say that dogs can experience grief, just like humans do, when they lose their owners,” Taleesa said. “I bet there are some dogs at the shelter that are just as sad as you are now.”
“But why do they have to kill them?” I said. “I mean, I know they can’t afford to feed them all. But they don’t get a trial or anything. They don’t get to defend themselves. Miz Megg is supposed to be their friend, and she injects poison into them and lets them die.”
“Believe me, Miz Megg is their friend,” Taleesa said. “Why else would she work in that smelly place, cleaning up all that poop?”
“I know,” I said. “I know. It’s just—it’s the fact that we know it’s going to happen, and we can’t stop it. All on the word of one man who wouldn’t even give his name. Without a trial.”
“Now you sound like your dad,” Taleesa said.
I guess I should have mentioned that my dad is a lawyer. Sometimes I feel like he’s the lawyer in Houmahatchee, Alabama. He does what they call “indigent defense,” which means that if someone gets arrested and they’re too poor to hire a lawyer, the State of Alabama hires my dad to defend them in court.
It’s not what it looks like on TV. On TV, when people get arrested, the cops say “If you can’t afford a lawyer, one will be provided for you,” which sounds like you’ll get a lawyer for free. In real life, the state pays my dad, and then it turns around and charges his clients for part of the cost. On TV, there’s always a trial, with a lawyer pacing around the witness stand, asking tough questions. In real life, lawyers sit in a room and make a deal, and most people plead guilty to something, something a little less scary than what they were charged with.
Dad hates that part of the job. And he loves being in court, even if it’s just to present a guilty plea. Which is why, when we got home, we were surprised to see his car in the driveway. When we came in, we found him in the den, still wearing his suit, ironing shirts and watching Reversal of Fortune, an old movie he’s seen a thousand times.
“City prosecutor’s got the flu,” he said. “They postponed everything.”
“Great,” Taleesa said, kissing him on the cheek. “You can keep the kids while I go write my story.”
“All right,” Dad said, glancing up at me. “So, why has everybody been crying? Both of you. I can tell.”
So, while Dad ironed and Taleesa typed on her laptop in the kitchen, I told Dad everything. When I was done, he just nodded.
“Interesting case,” he said.
“It’s not fair,” I said. “We should change the law. There ought to be some way for a dog to get a fair chance.”
“Well, now, wait a minute,” Dad said. “What does the law actually say? People can talk all they want about what the law says. It’s what’s in the law books that matters.”
“You mean Easy might have a chance?” Martinez and I glanced at each other with a smile.
“I mean, let’s read the law,” Dad said. “I’ve got a copy of the Criminal Code on the bookshelf in the dining room.”
Yes, we have law books in the dining room. There’s hardly a wall in our house that isn’t covered with bookshelves, plus stacks of books on chairs and in corners. We’ve never needed the Dewey decimal system. The law books are all Dad’s, anything with a dragon or wizard on the cover is mine, and Martinez owns all the weird manga with guys whose hair looks like a flame. Everything else—a thousand books on everything from fish-farming to the British royal family—is Taleesa’s.
Martinez found it first. The Criminal Code of Alabama 1975, a book in fake black leather, fat as a Bible. He riffled through it.
“Bleah, a big long index,” he said. “I hate looking in the index. That’s what computers are for. You look it up.”
Dog bite. See Animal Law.
Under Animal Law,
anacondas, bear-baiting,
cattle this and cattle that, cruelty . . . there,
dog bites.
That led us to another book, an even bigger one. Code of Alabama Section 3—Animals. Here’s what it said:
3-6-1. If any dog shall, without provocation, bite or injure any person who is at the time and place where he has the legal right to be, the owner of the dog shall be liable in damages to the person bitten or injured . . .
And after that, a bunch of stuff about how you can know when a person is legally on the property of another person, and all the different ways an owner can argue he doesn’t have to pay for a dog bite.
“Dad, this isn’t about dogs,” I said. “This is all about dog owners.”
“Is there a section on rabies?” Dad asked.
Whenever the rabies officer or the health officer shall receive information that a human being has been bitten or exposed by a dog or cat required to be immunized against rabies, the health officer or his authorized agent shall cause said dog or cat to be placed in quarantine. . . . When said dog or cat is unowned, as determined by the health officer after a reasonable investigation, or where the owner of the dog or cat agrees in writing, the animal shall be immediately destroyed and the head shall be submitted for rabies examination to the state health department.
I gasped. Martinez tried to look over my shoulder and see what was the matter, but I snatched the book away from him. The head. No need for him to see that.
Dad looked the book over. “You might have a case here.”
“I don’t see how,” I said. “Easy has no owner. And the only person claiming to be the owner is the guy who wants him put down.”
“Read it again,” Dad said. “With a pen and paper. Read the whole section, and write down every phrase you think can help you.”
Martinez and I sat at the dinner table and made a list.
“Required to be immunized against rabies,” Martinez said. “But every dog’s required to be immunized. So what does that mean?”
“I think it means a dog that isn’t already immunized,” I said. “And we know Easy has had his shots. So we write that down. And look at this: There’s supposed to be a ‘reasonable investigation’ to find the owner of the dog. Has that happened? I don’t think so.”
“Well,” Martinez said. “Cloudy Hair did say he was the owner, and Megg asked him for proof. Is that a reasonable investigation? What does ‘reasonable investigation’ mean? Heck, what does ‘owner’ mean, really?”
“Look at the beginning of the chapter,” Dad shouted from the laundry room. “Every law starts with a definition of terms.”
I looked and looked, but couldn’t find any definitions at all. Dad looked over my shoulder as he passed through the dining room.
“To be honest,” he said, “‘reasonable’ could mean anything. And ‘owner’ comes up so much in law, maybe they didn’t define it.”
“But owning an animal isn’t like owning a car or a chair,” I said. “At lot of this stuff says ‘anyone who owns or keeps.’ So if you feed a stray, and keep him as a pet, and then he bites somebody, you’re responsible, even though you haven’t bought the dog.”
Dad nodded. “All very good points. Keep thinking.”
I sat and read for a long time. Martinez
wandered off to play a game. In the living room, Dad’s movie ended, and in the quiet, I could hear Taleesa typing her story. Bangs and clatters from the kitchen as Dad tried to figure out what to cook for dinner. When I looked up from the book, the tree-shadows on the dining room curtains let me know it was late in the afternoon.
And then I had it. I rushed into the kitchen, where Dad was putting a frozen pizza in the oven.
“Dad,” I said. “A dog can’t commit a crime. Under the law, a dog isn’t a person, he’s property.”
“True,” Dad said.
“So it’s all about ownership. The owner of a biting dog has to pay damages if that dog bites somebody. Only a dog with rabies has to be killed. Or a dog that might have rabies, because he hasn’t had his shots, or because nobody knows whether he’s had shots or not.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Dad said. “You read the law.”
“So they . . . they put dogs to sleep at the shelter every month because they don’t have room for them. But the law says they have to keep them for a certain time so the owner can claim them, if they have an owner.”
“Go on.”
“So Easy isn’t rabid. Cloudy Hair could be an owner. And if he is, he could also be a dog abuser. We don’t know whether he shot first, or Easy bit first.”
“All very true.”
“But what if he’s just a guy who hates his neighbor’s dog? What if he goes onto someone else’s property to kill his neighbor’s barking dog? And he misses. And the dog bites him?”
“Plausible, I suppose,” Dad said.
“So the owner should have a reasonable amount of time to claim Easy, right?” I said. “If Cloudy Hair is the owner, let him come back and prove it. And if there’s another owner, give him a chance to come forward.”
“Makes sense to me.”
“Dad,” I said. “You’ve got to take this to court. You’ve got to save that dog.”
“Why me?” Dad asked. “Why not you?”
“I’m just a kid.”
“So? You can write in English, can’t you? Write up a brief and submit it to the court on Monday. You don’t have to be a lawyer. Anybody can represent themselves in court. All you have to do is come up with a way that you, personally, have a stake in the case.”
“What do you mean by a stake?” I asked.
“A dog can’t make a claim before the court,” Dad said. “It has to be a human, and it has to be a human who’s involved in the case in some way.”
“But I don’t have a stake,” I said. “I’m not the owner.”
“You know, there was a case years ago where an environmental group sued to stop the U.S. government from helping build a dam in Egypt,” Dad said. “The dam was going to hurt, I don’t know, a native fish or something. And the courts ruled against the environmentalists, because they didn’t have a stake. But they said that if one member of the group had just bought a plane ticket to go look at the river as a tourist, they would have had a claim.”
I thought for a minute.
“If we wanted to adopt Easy, then we’d have a reason to go to court, right?” I asked. “Dad, can we get a dog?”
From the bedroom, I heard a muffled “Noooo!” Then Taleesa came out.
“No dog,” she said. “Not that one, anyway.”
“But Easy’s a sweet dog,” I said. “And he’ll die if we don’t.”
Taleesa sighed.
“I guess I’ll be the grown-up here, since Paul won’t,” she said. “As a parent, I have to take care of my babies. You think I’m going to let a dog in here that’s been accused of biting its owner? It’s one thing to stand up for the accused, Paul. It’s another thing to bring them into your house.”
“I’ve already played with Easy,” I said. “He’s not going to hurt anybody.”
“Hold on, hold on,” Dad said. “Maybe we don’t have to adopt Easy to take this case to court. Maybe there’s another way.”
Martinez marched back into the room, video game in hand. “You’re doing this all wrong, Atty. This is no way to get a dog. You’re supposed to do it like I did with my fish. First, you wait till everything’s sweet and cozy and happy, and then you look up at Mom and say, ‘Gee, can I get a fish?’ Then you draw pictures of goldfish and put them up on the fridge. Then you start watching Finding Nemo all the time and saying a fish would make you really happy. You’ve got to work on parents for a long time if you want to get a pet.”
Eureka! Martinez cringed a little as I gave him a big hug.
“That’s it! That’s it!” I said. “That’s the answer.”
Everybody looked at me like I was crazy.
“It’s simple,” I said. “If Martinez and I were grown-ups, one of us would have adopted Easy already. Because, as grown-ups, we’d have the ability to do that. But we’re kids. If we want to adopt a pet, we have to convince our parents. And that takes time. Taleesa, did the animal shelter people tell you how long they normally keep a dog before they put it to sleep?”
“At least three weeks,” Taleesa said. “On the third Monday of every month, they put down every animal that’s been there for at least three weeks without being adopted.”
“So if he weren’t a biting dog—and he isn’t—he wouldn’t be put down this coming Monday, because he’s only been in the shelter for a day or so,” I said. “So Martinez and I would have a month to convince you, our parents, to let us adopt him. By killing Easy on Monday, they’re denying me and Martinez our right to own Easy the only way we can. It’s doesn’t matter if you want to adopt him today, Taleesa. What matters is that you might change your mind within a month.”
Dad beamed.
“My lands,” he said. “That might just work. That’s . . . gosh, that’s kind of brilliant.”
“So what do I do next?” I asked. “How do I take that to court?”
“Well, you’d have to write a legal brief,” Dad said. “Basically, it’s a statement you give to the court to explain what you’re asking for. Then you’d have to go before a judge and argue your case. I won’t lie to you, both things are hard. The writing is hard, and getting up in front of a judge is hard. And with any case, there’s a good chance you’ll lose. Are you sure you want to do this?”
I thought of Easy’s ears flopping as he ran after a slobbery ball.
“Time’s wasting, Dad,” I said. “Show me how to get started.”
3
We can talk later about how courts and judges go all the way back to the Middle Ages, and how all the strange customs of the court—I mean, who wears robes in public, really?—started hundreds of years ago. For now, just know that when you ask a judge for something, you have to write it in very formal, old-timey language that’s even worse than those five-paragraph essays you have to write in school. Dad tried to explain it all to me, but I hate being told how to write. So he left me with a stack of old legal briefs and his laptop, and told me to figure it out myself.
Comes now Atticus Tutwiler Peale, acting on her own behalf, and moves this Honorable Court to enter an Order . . .
See what I mean? It’s Yoda-speak. After a while you get the hang of it, though. When I showed it to Martinez, he begged me to add him, so then it was:
Come now the Plaintiffs, Atticus Tutwiler Peale and Cinque Martinez Peale, acting on their own behalf . . .
Okay, I know what you’re thinking. Why does Atty have a boy’s name? Well, long before I was born, Dad decided he wanted to name his first child after Atticus Finch, a lawyer in a famous book by some woman from Monroeville. His first child wasn’t a boy. But Mom and Dad went with Atticus anyway.
And yes, Tutwiler is the name of a prison. It’s also the name of Julia Tutwiler, a woman who tried to fix Alabama’s prisons back in the 1800s. She also taught slaves to read, set up a college, and wrote Alabama’s official state song. (Trust me, you’ve never heard it.)
Hey, it could have been worse. Mom wanted to name me Podkayne. It’s a long story.
. . . to enter an Order enjoining the Strudwick County Animal Shelter to postpone the destruction of the dog known as ‘Easy,’ currently in their custody.
“Enjoin” was a word I learned that day, and it’s pretty useful. When a judge enjoins somebody, that basically means she orders them not to do something.
And that’s how you start a legal brief. Then you list all the facts of the case, as you see them, in a numbered list, like this:
1) Easy is the name of a dog being held at the Strudwick County Animal Shelter.
2) Easy wears a tag that shows he has been immunized for rabies.
3) On June 29, a man showed up at the shelter claiming to be Easy’s owner, and also claiming to have been bitten by the dog Easy.
And so on until you’ve told the whole story. Then you get into your argument. Again, you make your points in numbered paragraphs. And you have to quote big sections of the law and show where they appear in the law books.
20) According to Code of Alabama 3-7A-9, when a dog is accused of biting a human, ‘if the owner of a dog, cat or ferret agrees in writing, or if ordered by the health officer, the animal shall be humanely destroyed immediately after exposure.’ The man who claimed to own Easy did not agree in writing, nor would he even give his name when asked.
By the time I finished, I’d written fifteen pages of that stuff. It was dark outside. My fingers hurt from typing. And the strange thing was, it was so much easier than writing some dumb school paper on James K. Polk or the causes of the Civil War. I was writing something that mattered. Mimicking all that Yoda-talk is a small price to pay for saving a fuzzy, happy dog like Easy.