July 22–29, 1999

cover story

Power of Attorney

When Philadelphia’s assistant district attorneys are swamped with as many as 60 cases per day, how can justice be served for either victim or defendant?

by Gwen Shaffer

photographs by Trevor Dixon

On the afternoon of January 5, Jill Meyers is happily ensconced in her cozy South Philadelphia apartment, near the corner of Broad Street and Tasker Avenue. Winter break from classes at Temple University is drawing closer to an end, and Meyers intends to maximize every remaining moment.

Down time — particularly on a Tuesday afternoon — is a rare thing for the 22-year-old Meyers. Between waiting tables at Circa and studying for a bachelor’s degree in elementary education, every page in her Franklin planner is full.

Glancing at the clock, Meyers realizes she has nearly two hours before punching in for her 4 p.m. shift at the restaurant. She slumps down on the living room sofa and picks up the phone to call her friend Greg.

While the two of them are chatting, Meyers’ door buzzer sounds. The buzzing — which she and her friends characterize as "obscenely loud" — catches her by surprise. Meyers isn’t expecting anyone.

"Hold on a second," Meyers tells Greg. She scurries over to the intercom and depresses the "talk" button.

"Who is it?" she queries.

An unfamiliar male voice responds.

"I’m looking for Melissa. She home?"

Meyers politely informs him that Melissa lives upstairs. "You’re ringing the wrong apartment." She begins walking back toward the sofa.

Seconds later, even before she can sit down, Meyers’ buzzer rings again. Figuring it is the same guy, she ignores it.

He continues to ring.

Really irked by now, she trudges back over to the intercom.

"Melissa is not here," Meyers firmly states.

"Where is she?" he demands.

"I don’t know. I told you — she lives upstairs."

"I know she sleeps late. Go wake her."

"Melissa does not live here," an increasingly agitated Meyers replies, before stepping away from the buzzer.

Seconds later, the blare starts up again.

"Why can’t you understand that I am not Melissa?" Meyers screams into the intercom.

Apparently, that fact is irrelevant to the visitor.

Meyers decides to confront him face to face. Still cradling the cordless phone on her shoulder, she plods down a flight of stairs to the front door of the building.

When she reaches ground level, the uninvited visitor is standing there — his finger resolutely pushing the button to her apartment. A skinny guy, he is no more than 5-foot-10 at the most. He is dressed in a Tommy Hilfiger jacket and appears more clean-cut than Meyers expects.

"Look, I can’t let you in," she calmly tells him. "All I can do is leave Melissa a note and let her know you stopped by."

He agrees to that compromise. Seemingly satisfied at last, the guy saunters away.

Only he doesn’t stay away for long.

The following afternoon, around 2:30 p.m., Meyers has the misfortune of being at home, tidying up her apartment, when her door buzzer shrieks. Before even asking who’s there, Meyers dreads the response.

Sure enough, it’s the same guy.

After a brief exchange of words — again, he demands to see Melissa while Meyers demands he scoot — she attempts to ignore the buzzer. The blare is so distracting she can barely tolerate it.

The buzzing goes on for a full five minutes. Meyers sets aside the can of Pledge she’s using and steps out onto her second-story balcony, which overlooks the front door to the building.

"I’m going to call the cops," she screams down.

"Go ahead, call the friggin’ cops," he barks right back at her.

Exasperated, Meyers goes back inside. The buzzing immediately resumes. She dials 911.

When the cops fail to arrive within a few minutes, Meyers marches back outside to the balcony. She can’t see the stranger, as he is standing directly below her.

What happens in the next few minutes is a matter of dispute between the visitor and Meyers.

In her recollection, she scans the balcony and notices an empty flowerpot — not much larger than a soup bowl. Perhaps I can scare him away, she thinks. She snatches it.

Meyers lets the pot free-fall down to the sidewalk. It shatters into thousands of tiny pieces about three feet away from Desperately Seeking Melissa.

He barely reacts.

When Meyers steps back inside, the guy is already bearing down on the buzzer. She makes a split-second decision to confront him. After all, that tactic was effective the previous day.

Meyers crosses her fingers, hoping the cops will show up by the time she makes it to the bottom of the stairs.

When she reaches the vestibule of the building, the guy opens the metal gate. This gate is meant to be locked at all times, but the building owners have neglected to repair it for more than a year.

Just as Meyers steps into the foyer, the guy lunges toward her. In self-defense, Meyers kicks him in the stomach. He angrily begins to pull Meyers closer. Is he going to try and choke me? she panics, fearing for her life.

She grabs onto the gate for support. But the stranger is able to yank her by the legs and jerk her away from its metal bars. He drags Meyers down the set of steps in front of the building, her skin rubbing hard against the rough cement all the way. When the guy reaches the sidewalk, he slams Meyers’ legs to the ground and steps away.

Meyers recalls him looming over her as she lay on the ground. "I should knock you out," he grunts, "even though I don’t like hitting girls."

 

	The average assistant district attorney in the municipal court division puts in 13 hours a day and comes in on Saturday. "We call it the Breakfast Club," jokes supervisor Seth Williams.

The moon still radiates bright yellow from behind the curtains when the alarm clock on Catherine Williams-Frank’s nightstand begins beeping. After working 13 hours the previous day — and bringing work home — she is more than tempted to hit the snooze button. But duty calls.

While her husband sleeps, Williams-Frank, 27, climbs out of bed and pads into the bathroom. After a shower, she tiptoes to her bedroom closet and stares at the rack of solid-color jackets and skirts. Shall I wear the navy Ann Taylor suit today, she ponders, or maybe that beige J. Crew one?

Even minor decisions are challenging at 4:30 in the morning.

She goes with the navy, then slips on her shoes — the same conservative pumps worn by most female attorneys in the District Attorney’s office. At just 5-foot-4, Williams-Frank prefers to add a little bit of height. Prosecutors are supposed to look intimidating, right?

She suppresses a yawn and hurries into the kitchen, where a pile of brown accordion folders sits on the table. The stack of case files is perhaps a foot high, but as far as Williams-Frank is concerned, it looms steeper than Mt. Everest.

Williams-Frank gathers the files and loads them into a black briefcase on wheels. Maneuvering it out to her Volkswagen Jetta, she thinks about how desperately the car needs an oil change. How many miles overdue is it? she wonders. At least 6,000. But when you work from dawn till dusk, life’s little incidentals seem to lose their urgency.

And when you earn just $35,000 a year and are paying off hefty law school loans, cash is tight. Laying down money for an oil change suddenly seems pretty low on the priority list.

Just as she has every weekday since she started in September, Williams-Frank climbs into the driver’s seat and speeds away from her South Philly house toward Center City. At the first Dunkin’ Donuts, she hops out to buy a tall cup of coffee — cream, two sugars — and hurries back to the parking lot. Then she’s once again on her way to the district attorney’s offices at 15th and Arch Streets.

Like the 26 other assistant district attorneys (ADAs) in the municipal court division (MC), Williams-Frank handles preliminary hearings for felony cases — except for homicides, rapes and juvenile offenders. Dubbed the M*A*S*H unit, MC is where attorneys spend their time simply trying to stop the bleeding.

MC attorneys also deal with misdemeanor trials for drug possession, aggravated assaults and attempted murders. Those crimes make up a big chunk of the 50,000 to 65,000 cases handled by the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office each year.

By 5:30 a.m., Williams-Frank is seated at her desk, intently reading up on the cases she is expected to argue before a judge in a matter of hours.

You may remember the last time Philadelphia’s controversial District Attorney, Lynne Abraham, stood before members of City Council and bargained for more money. That was back in February. Abraham unsuccessfully asked local lawmakers to increase her office’s budget by 10 percent — explaining that the extra money would enable 22 additional prosecutors to be hired.

Not too much to ask for when you consider the skyrocketing number of cases walking through her door. In late 1996 and early 1997, an average of 679 adult defendants per week were being charged with crimes in Philadelphia. By early 1999, that average had risen to nearly 1,100 per week — a staggering 62 percent increase in workload.

Perhaps Police Commissioner John Timoney is too good at his job.

The total number of arrests in Philadelphia rose by 17 percent during 1998, according to the police department. Compared to the first five months of 1998, arrests this year have risen by an additional 4 percent.

This jump can mostly be attributed to ballooning drug arrests, which increased by 72 percent last year. Again, compared to the first five months of 1998, drug arrests alone have risen by 12 percent in 1999 so far.

Even so, the actual budget of the District Attorney’s office — excluding cost of living raises for staff — has increased by just $177,000 in the past eight years. That averages out to a less than 1 percent increase annually.

Abraham expresses thinly veiled bitterness toward her boss, Mayor Ed Rendell.

"I am glad to say that [City Council President] Anna Verna has been extraordinarily supportive of this office, but it is the mayor who makes the budget."

cover story continued