Literary Musings & Legal Adventures

Being poor, black, and accused of a crime in this country always increases a person’s chances of conviction. But here in Georgia—at the far end of the punishment spectrum where the stakes are highest—the right to counsel, and the funding so crucial to mounting a defense equal to that of the well-funded, well-resourced district attorney’s office, is in daily jeopardy. Indeed, justice is not necessarily the principal business of business-as-usual in the Georgia courts; justice is too expensive.

The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world.