No Matter How Loud I Shout by Edward Humes Read Free Book Online

on probation in Judge Dorn’s court.”
    You can almost hear the royal italics in the way he pronounces his nameand title, more preacher in the pulpit than judge on the bench, leaning forward, gripping a court file in his hand as if it were scripture. Department 240 is full this morning, its torn and lumpy rows of ancient auditorium chairs crammed with parents, lawyers, witnesses, cops, and kids accused of crimes. Judge Roosevelt Dorn—who wears the minister’s hat on Sundays—is preaching as much to this audience as to the fourteen-year-old boy whose case is momentarily before him. Part of Dorn’s strategy is to run an open court in the normally closed and confidential arena of juvenile justice. The kids waiting for their cases to be called must listen to Dorn lecture or lock up one defendant after another—the judge figures the message will sink in for at least some of them, much the way Madison Avenue figures repeating the same jingles will sell laundry detergent. It is not precisely legal, but any reasonable way he can frighten, cajole, or persuade these kids into abandoning criminal lives is fine with Judge Dorn, whether the law specifically allows it or not. The defense lawyers despise this practice as a means of intimidating their young clients—which, strictly speaking, it is—but though they have a legal right to request an empty courtroom, few of the lawyers have the grit to ask. Dorn has an odd way of getting his way—and of dealing with those who would impede his agenda.
    The boy before him now is named Robert, a young car thief and robber on his way to worse crimes. He has violated his probation by cutting school to hang out with his street gang, one of the more common entries on the LA juvenile docket. The boy’s frustrated probation officer knows just how to push Dorn’s buttons.
    â€œThis is the second time I’ve had him in here for missing school, Your Honor,” the PO says, glancing at the skinny kid sitting in his oversized, untucked Raiders T-shirt, stereo headphones reluctantly removed from his ears and hanging insolently around his neck. “He’s been missing classes for weeks—starting with the day after he last appeared before you.”
    Dorn’s eyes turn to slits at this, a hooded, reptilian stare he has honed with much practice. Several lawyers in the courtroom shake their heads, knowing what is coming, for this judge is particularly infamous for two things: He insists the juveniles under his control maintain stellar school attendance, and he cannot bear to have his orders ignored. “You cut school after you came before Judge Dorn?” he thunders. It is a personal affront—the kid has already lost. Sure enough, the judge waves Robert’s lawyer and his litany of excuses into silence and says, “This minor has no intention of complying with the court’s orders. Therefore, I have no choice but to remove him from the home and send him to camp.”
    The bailiff immediately rises to stand behind Robert, his days in the street abruptly ended, a stay of up to a year in a county-run boot camp ahead, because he had the misfortune of getting Roosevelt Dorn for a judge instead of almost any other. And Dorn is not through.
    â€œYou’ve seen those homeless people down on Fifth Street, haven’t you? That’s where you’re headed, son, if you don’t get an education. Don’t you understand that if you don’t get an education, if you don’t go to college or learn you a good trade, all you can expect in this world is a lifetime of degradation and poverty?”
    The kid is silent, sullen, staring at his hands as Dorn lectures. The judge doesn’t seem to notice. His eyes are darting around the courtroom now, where several mothers and fathers are nodding and whispering to their children to listen to the man. One father whispers, “That’s a good judge. That’s what that boy