【Episode 40 – If the Case from
New York,
West 37th Street.
There had been two cases at Kings County Criminal Court since morning. When he checked his watch, it was already two o’clock.
*Growl.*
He’d considered buying a hot dog from the cart in front of the building, but since he’d eaten one yesterday too, he’d just come inside. Already, he was regretting it.
Danny Duncan set down his briefcase and sat at his desk.
“Here.”
Before his backside even touched the chair, his secretary Donna entered and handed him a memo with the missed calls.
“I can’t even sit down yet. All I’ve eaten since this morning is one Mars chocolate bar from the courthouse vending machine. You could at least let me catch my breath before handing me this.”
“Here.”
Before Danny’s complaints could even finish, Donna held out a brown paper bag containing a cream cheese bagel.
“Oh! Donna! I love you!”
“There’s no one but me, right?”
“Yeah! Want to marry me?”
“Still can’t get your head on straight? Who would want to marry a man paying alimony to two women?”
“Ouch. That stings.”
“Prosecutor Shane’s office called twice. It’s about Mrs. Go’s case. They said to call back today.”
“Oh yeah?”
At Donna’s report, Danny checked the cell phone in his suit pocket. It was off. He’d forgotten to turn it back on after court.
“I’m out this afternoon.”
“Where are you going? On a date?”
“Mind your own business.”
“By the way, is there no coffee?”
Donna didn’t bother responding to such trivial jokes and returned to her seat. Before she could even sit down, another lawyer in the shared office called for her.
She probably hadn’t eaten anything since morning either.
Danny took the bagel out of the brown bag she’d given him, bit into it, and glanced over the memo she’d also given him.
Nothing looked urgent.
In the blink of an eye, he finished the bagel, then called the person he was most curious about among them: Carl Shane.
*Ring, ring.*
“Just which call girl were you with last night that your phone’s been off all morning?”
“She was an absolute knockout. Rode a motorboat on my face for hours.”
“Don’t suppose you still have her number? Send it to me if you do.”
“Why? Gonna call her tonight?”
“No, I was gonna arrest you for solicitation.”
Danny Duncan and Carl Shane were Harvard Law classmates. They’d never been particularly close, but they hadn’t disliked each other either.
They were most comfortable with each other when working opposite sides of a case, as they were now.
“So, how many years are you offering?”
“Before that, let me ask you something. How’d you get those witnesses and statements? No matter how down on your luck you are, surely a Harvard Law graduate magna cum laude like Danny Duncan hasn’t stooped to fabricating evidence? How’d you do it?”
“Passion.”
“Bullshit.”
“Unlike some people, I’m a lawyer who still has a corner of his heart burning with a passion and longing for justice.”
“Enough. I don’t know how you got them, but I hope they’re not paid witnesses. No matter how just a nation is, I don’t want to put a friend in prison.”
“Alright, I’ve humored you enough. Get to the point. So, how many years?”
“Two years. If he behaves well in prison, parole review after one year.”
The initial offer had been five years in prison with parole eligibility after two. There was no reason not to take two years.
But,
“We’ll pass.”
“Are you crazy? You know legally you have to discuss this with your client before answering.”
“We did.”
“What? What do you mean…?”
“My client says she’ll never agree unless it’s a not-guilty verdict.”
“That’s absurd! She killed her husband by bashing his head with an iron. If this goes to trial, I can stake my life that she’ll never be found not guilty.”
“I’ll pass. Your life’s not worth much anyway.”
“Go talk to your client again and call me tomorrow.”
“She said no.”
“Persuade her. What do you think a lawyer’s job is? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?”
“I’m not going to persuade her. I’ll relay the message. That’s the law.”
A brief silence. Along with a short sigh, Prosecutor Shane’s tone changed.
“So, what is it you want?”
*Yes! This is it!*
He couldn’t quite explain why, but he had a feeling they could bid even lower.
Shane wasn’t the type to waste time on this sort of thing normally, but this time, for some reason, it felt like they could literally bargain.
This was a case that should have wounded his pride.
Because it was a case where they had all the evidence, witnesses, and a confession.
It was clear that accepting the offer as-is would be a waste.
That’s probably why he’d called with a higher demand than his final offer.
Danny Duncan’s instincts had been right.
“Not guilty.”
“Cut the crap. Okay. Let’s not drag this out. One year. Not a day more. If you don’t take this, we’re going to trial too.”
“What’s the plea? First Degree Manslaughter?”
“You know very well I couldn’t offer one year if it weren’t. You have until tomorrow morning. If I don’t hear from you, the offer’s revoked.”
*Click.*
A broad smile spread across Danny Duncan’s face as he hung up.
The Prosecutor’s Office, which had initially offered five years in prison with parole eligibility after two, had changed their plea bargain offer to one year.
This could be called a major victory.
Just then, a thick file of documents came into Danny’s view.
These were the witness statements the New York University law students had obtained over the past three weeks.
Starting with a University of Toronto Korean Language Department professor, to Harvard Korean Studies, Columbia University Korean Language Department, Seoul National University law school professors, English Language and Literature professors, and more—over thirty American and Korean university professors’ statements, along with hundreds of petition pages signed by the New York Korean Association, churches, and other Korean expatriates.
Even though just four people had done it, the volume was truly enormous.
He’d told Carl Shane “passion” as a joke, but real passion was contained within.
If a big law firm had prepared the same volume of statements and petitions, it would have cost hundreds of millions of won.
Danny felt guilt and envy simultaneously.
“Here, your coffee.”
Just as he was being moved, Donna came in carrying coffee.
“Keep this up and I’m really going to propose.”
“I’ll think about it when you bring me a 5-carat Tiffany diamond.”
“That much is nothing. Compared to our Donna…”
She went back out again.
The American poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson once said,
“The good lawyer is not the man who has an eye to every side and angle of contingency, and qualifies all his qualifications, but who throws himself on your part so heartily, that he can get you out of a scrape.”
Danny Duncan picked up the phone.
He planned to tell the students the good news first.
*They were just pro bono law students I’d requested to do interpreting…*
They had been more than qualified.
*Ring, ring.*
“Hello?”
“Yes, Attorney Duncan.”
---*---
When the call from Attorney Duncan came, Jeheon was eating a late lunch with Donguk, Sein, and Michael.
“What did the attorney say?”
Throughout the call, Jeheon’s eyes sparkled. Sein, dying of curiosity about the conversation, asked the moment Jeheon hung up.
“Done!”
“Done? What?”
“The prosecutor adjusted the plea bargain offer from five years to one year. And lowered the charge to manslaughter!”
*Yeah!!!*
Before Jeheon’s words could even finish, Michael let out a shout.
At that, the people in the restaurant stared at them, but they couldn’t stop the exhilaration they were feeling in that moment.
“Jackpot!”
“Wa—holy—seriously! Haah—”
“Wow—so this actually works!”
“Ah—”
For the past three weeks, they’d all slept only three or four hours a day.
Since taking a pro bono case didn’t excuse them from school, they’d had to scrape together time outside of classes.
Lawyers usually said they “spent X hours” on a case to indicate how much effort they’d put into it.
“I spent 30 hours writing the briefs for this case.”
“I spent 80 hours preparing arguments for this case last week.”
Jeheon and the kids had spent over 500 hours obtaining statements and petitions over the past three weeks.
The fruits of their labor were sweet.
It was hard to hold back their shouts.
“Good work! Everyone, good work.”
“You worked hard too.”
They patted each other on the shoulders and celebrated.
Because it was an amazing result.
But Jeheon and the kids’ plan didn’t end there.
“Alright, now that we’ve cleared one hurdle, shall we continue the conversation we were having about the next issue?”
Go Jae-sook’s case had two problems.
One was the confession, and the other was causation.
“So, Jeheon? You said you found a precedent related to medical accidents?”
【If the Case from
In 1974, a man in England entered the home of an 18-year-old girl.
The man requested sexual relations with the girl, and when she refused, he attacked her with a knife he was carrying.
He stabbed her a total of four times, one of which was a serious injury that had pierced her lung.
Stabbed, the girl staggered out to the road and barely managed to get help.
A neighbor discovered her collapsed and called an ambulance.
Arriving at the hospital, she was examined by a doctor immediately.
Her wounds were severe, and she had already lost a lot of blood.
Still, the girl remained conscious. The doctor immediately ordered preparations for surgery.
However, just before surgery, the girl refused a blood transfusion.
“I am one of Jehovah’s Witnesses.”
The doctor recommended a transfusion and warned her repeatedly that she would die without one, but the girl, adhering to her religious convictions until the end, eventually died from excessive blood loss.
Not long after the girl’s death, the perpetrator was caught.
The British prosecution charged him with murder, and in the first trial, he received a life sentence.
The perpetrator appealed the first court’s decision.
His reason was that he had not intended to kill the girl, and her cause of death was not his stabbing but the girl’s own refusal of a blood transfusion.
This case is the famous R v Blaue case related to novus actus interveniens (a new intervening act that severs the existing chain of causation).