July 22–29, 1999

cover story

Power of Attorney

by Gwen Shaffer

photographs by Trevor Dixon

continued from here

Williams-Frank graduated from Millersville University, before earning a law degree from Temple.

From the time she was a little girl, she planned to attend law school. "In sixth grade, my grandmother told me that my dad wanted to be a lawyer but he never became one."

Of course, Williams-Frank’s mom has a different theory about her daughter’s chosen profession. "She says I love to argue."

 

Three weeks prior to her scheduled trial date, Meyers repeatedly attempts to contact someone at the DA’s office.

"I wanted to offer help with getting witnesses, and find out about submitting my medical records and photos," she recalls. "They were completely rude to me. No one ever called me back."

After a number of failed attempts at reaching someone, Meyers decides to go straight to the top.

"I was so upset, I called Lynne Abraham’s office directly. Nobody got back to me, even though the secretary assured me someone would."

When someone finally does get back to her, it is an ADA named Varsha Pradhan. She contacts Meyers around 4 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon.

To discuss her trial scheduled for the following morning.

The belated phone call is just one of the many things Meyers doesn’t appreciate. Pradhan’s assessment of the case also vexes her.

"Ms. Meyers, I am going to be totally honest with you. It is unlikely the judge is going to uphold aggravated assault because you only sustained 10 stitches," Meyers recalls Pradhan informing her. "He doesn’t have a prior criminal record… that is just the way the city of Philadelphia operates."

Meyers says she asked the attorney if it would be possible to force Alvez to pay her medical expenses, including future plastic surgery for her scar.

"Sorry, Ms. Meyers. There is no way we can put in an order for restitution for a procedure that is in the future," is the cut-and-dried response Meyers says she received. "Anyway, the city of Philadelphia just doesn’t have that kind of money."

Most hurtful, Meyers says, was the sense that her appointed counselor expressed no compassion for what she had been through.

"She sees it every day," Meyers rationalizes.

 

If you ask Ellen Greenlee, director of the Defender Association of Philadelphia, she will tell you that her office is no better off than the DA’s office. In fact, she insists that the approximately 180 attorneys working for her have it even tougher. They represent about 70 percent of criminal defendants in Philadelphia.

"Actually, the burden is heavier on public defenders than it is on ADAs," she says.

That’s because the District Attorney’s office has the automatic cooperation of police officers as witnesses.

The Commonwealth is to blame for the slow pace at which cases travel through our legal system, Greenlee adds. The lag time in courtrooms would be shorter if ADAs were given more autonomy, she asserts.

"They lack the authority to agree to reduced charges in a guilty plea, and they have no real room to negotiate beyond the charges on paper," she says.

ADAs must contact their supervisors to maken these modifications. More often, however, prosecutors simply request a continuance on the case and it shows up on the list another day.

By contrast, the public defender is standing there with his client, who may be immediately consulted.

Ellen McBennett has worked as an assistant defender for two years, and argues against ADAs in court every day. About a year ago, McBennett noticed a marked increase in the volume of cases on the daily list.

While public defenders certainly ask for continuances themselves, McBennett has noticed more attorneys for the Commonwealth coming into the courtroom unprepared.

"In part, it is due to not analyzing cases and deciding which to focus on, versus which to set aside," she says

	Short-changed: DA Lynne Abraham says her office is underfunded. Her budget has failed to keep pace with increased arrests in the city.

The DA’s office holds the power to lighten its own caseloads — by exercising more discretion when deciding which cases to bring, McBennett adds. For instance, since the police department initiated "Operation Sunrise" and began cracking down on drug dealers in Kensington, there are street sweeps where 25 residents are arrested at once, she notes.

"The DA can’t take every case. It needs to act as a sieve… It doesn’t appear they are triaging," McBennett says. "The DA is saying, ‘These are all equally important.’ And they’re not."

She points to a case that came up in court earlier this same day.

It involved a "retail theft" that occurred years earlier. In fact, the store closed in the mid-’90s. The suspect, her client, was recently picked up on a bench warrant and is now being tried for the crime.

This is the kind of case that wastes everybody’s time, McBennett sighs. It will be impossible for the ADA to bring in a "complaining witness" since the shopkeeper is nowhere to be found. Yet the prosecuting attorney asked for a continuance.

"Another ADA is going to get it on her list, which is already overcrowded," McBennett groans.

On May 3, Meyers shows up at the Criminal Justice Center, as instructed, at 9 a.m. Alvez doesn’t arrive until 10:50 a.m. "My client is experiencing car trouble," his attorney, Felipe Restrepo, explains.

"The defendant wasn’t there," Meyers recalls. "I was freaking out."

Finally, at 12:30, she and Alvez are sworn in. Meyers takes the stand first and shares her perception of what happened.

When Alvez’s turn arrives, he tells Judge Joseph Rogers that all of his actions were in self-defense.

The flowerpot Meyers dropped was "huge" and filled with cement, he asserts. Alvez also testifies that Meyers’ injuries were caused when she lunged toward him and he pushed her leg out of the way — causing the woman to fall down the steps.

While several character witnesses testify on behalf of Alvez, neither the arresting officer nor Meyers’ neighbors are called to the stand.

As Meyers re-enters the courtroom following Alvez’s testimony, Judge Rogers is already reading his decision.

If Meyers had been sincerely concerned about her personal safety, the judge concludes, she never should have thrown a flowerpot or walked downstairs.

"You egged one another on," he determines, before promptly acquitting Alvez.

Restrepo, the defendant’s attorney, has little comment on the case. "We presented a defense of self-defense, and the judge found him not guilty."

Meyers, on the other hand, has many thoughts on the verdict.

The judge’s rationale to throw out charges against Alvez amounted to a claim of "comparative negligence," according to a private attorney hired by Meyers. (She is filing two civil suits, one against her former landlord for failing to repair the gate, and another against Alvez.)

Comparative negligence means that the plaintiff and the defendant are equally at fault.

Regardless of whether dropping the flowerpot or confronting Alvez face to face were dumb things to do, Meyers says he still attacked her. Furthermore, there is no such thing as comparative negligence in criminal matters — the determination applies only to civil cases.

Pradhan should have called the judge on this, Meyers asserts. And if the ADA had had more time to spend on the case, in general, the verdict would have turned out differently, Meyers asserts.

"But she wasn’t prepared."

A lack of planning had absolutely nothing to do with Alvez getting off, Pradhan counters. Her boss, District Attorney Lynne Abraham, backs her up.

"I don’t believe this would have turned out any differently if we had spoken earlier, and I don’t believe the number of cases we have in the system is responsible for the defendant getting off," Pradhan says. "I got the medical records and photos — they were admitted with no problem. The only thing not submitted was the witnesses."

When Pradhan received Meyers’ file, she says, the police report in it did not list any witnesses. The first time Pradhan learned about the neighbor was when she phoned Meyers the day before the trial.

Pradhan offered to request a continuance so that the neighbor and cop could be contacted, Pradhan says. Meyers replied that she would rather proceed that day.

"I had to make a judgment call," the ADA says. "When a victim tells me, ‘I want to get this over with,’ it tells me that person may not want to proceed in three months."

Even if the police officer had been called to testify, the tussle had already occurred by the time he arrived on the scene, Pradhan points out. "He couldn’t offer any evidence."

Ultimately, the judge determined that Alvez was not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. "It is a very high standard — as it should be," Pradhan says. "I don’t necessarily agree with the judge… but I don’t think anything we did was inadequate or improper."

Everyone in her section, the felony waiver unit, cares about what they do, Pradhan stresses. "They all work their butts off."

That fact, however, does not change reality.

"Often I wish I had more time to talk to people, or stop by the crime scene and see where an incident occurred," says Pradhan, who has been a prosecutor for three years. "Sometimes I feel badly that there are 15 civilians in the room, and I wish I could spend more time with each person, discussing their cases."

 

No one disputes that multiplying caseloads are landing on the desks of Philadelphia prosecutors like wild mushrooms. But the situation is a microcosm of a larger national crisis.

In Chicago, where there are 740 assistants, and in Los Angeles, which has 1,200 ADAs, prosecutors are also flooded, points out Newman Flanagan, director of the National District Attorneys Association and a former prosecutor himself.

"You can’t do justice by mere volume," he says. "The chances of giving each case just attention is hindered due to a lack of people power."

The association is currently conducting a study, funded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, on caseload management. The study examines how many cases a given number of prosecutors can handle in a single year. Prosecutors will be asked to record how much time they spend on specific activities. (Results should be available in about six months.)

Besides the increase in caseloads due to police anti-drug initiatives like Operation Sunrise, there are also a "tremendous number" of legal issues coming down the pike that previously never existed, Flanagan says.

"Domestic violence is huge, whereas 10 years ago, it was an exceptional case to have."

Charges against telemarketers are another time-consuming new area for prosecutors. And introducing DNA evidence has only recently become common, Flanagan says.

"There are only so many courtrooms to try so many cases," he says. "And a delay in trial is sometimes a delay in justice," as evidence grows cold and memories less vivid.

Is there an upside to working crazy hours for ridiculously low pay?

Flanagan believes so.

"Assistant district attorneys must be very dedicated to want the job," he says. "If the city is getting dedicated public servants for $35,000, it is getting a good bang for the buck. A lot of these young assistants would love to be career prosecutors but they can’t afford it."

The ADA is the most important person in the courtroom, Flanagan takes the liberty of saying. "He is the public’s attorney."

 

Since her trial, Meyers has lost all faith in Philadelphia’s judicial system. "Everyone has failed me… the judge, the detective, the DA… " she says. "When I took that stand, I was honest. That guy wasn’t — and he got off."

Up until her trial, Meyers planned to teach in the public schools when she finished her education degree.

"But now I figure, why should I give anything to a city that does nothing for me? I’m leaving."

Even today, more than six months after the attack, Meyers has nightmares and shirks from strangers who even slightly resemble Alvez.

"I really don’t feel safe anywhere," she says. "And the justice system doesn’t make me feel any better."

Meyers looks down at her hands.

"Once you lose faith in the system, there’s nothing left."