American Style Justice

I almost peed my pants reading my friend's lesbonurse blog about her trials and tribulations at a community health clinic in Western Mass. In fact, she inspired me to record some of the more noteworthy goings on at my organization. Here are two typical conversations I had last Friday:

Conversation 1

Phone rings.

Hello, 9/11 Hotline

Hello, is this the place to call if you've been contacted by the FBI?

Yes, have you been contacted by the FBI?

Yes! Well not directly, but yes, previously directly.

So what is going on now?

The FBI is following me and keeping survallience on me.

But in the past the contacted you directly.

Yes.

And you're looking for an attorney now?

Yes, because they're following me.

What we do here is we find attorneys to speak with people who have been contacted by the FBI due to their religious or political affiliations. The attorney informs people of their rights and speaks with the FBI on your behalf.

Ok.

We find that when the FBI contacts people, they usually leave a card. Has anyone approached you from the FBI and tried to ask you questions?

No, not exactly, but when I came home I could tell they had been here.

I don't think there is anything that we can do for you at this time, but if someone contacts you directly, feel free to give us a call back and I will find an attorney who can help you [said in nicest voice possible to confuse them that I am about to hang up on them].

I will, thanks.

Great, good luck.

Conversation 2

New Intern to me: There is a formerly incarcerated man on the phone who says he is being harassed by the police.

Oh, really?

Yeah, they broke into his house, held a gun to his head and beat him up and they are looking for an attorney.

For what?

To sue the police for breaking into his house and holding a gun to his head.

You can give them the number to a law firm but no one is going to take that case.

New intern looks horrified: Why not?

Because it's practically impossible to get a conviction when the police are caught raping and murdering people on tape. If they just held a gun to his head and didn't kill him or any of his family members then he's lucky.

Intern looks at me like I am a monster.

No, I don't think it's ok they can do whatever they want, you should encourage him to file a complaint, but I'm just telling you, no attorney is going to take that case. We can barely find attorneys to take on really strong cases where innocent people have been killed by the police for no reason because they are so hard to win.

Intern looks sad and lets out big sigh before hitting the hold button on the phone.