The first person I represented was a woman named Kim who was probably in her late thirties or early forties. Kim was living in a two bedroom apartment with her nephew in a New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) building. For those unfamiliar, NYCHA buildings are usually called “housing projects.”

I met Kim across a plexiglass window in the attorney conference section of the holding cells. To say that she was visibly distraught is an understatement. She was inconsolable. She had been locked up for two days, she was wearing only a loose t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, and she could barely see anything because when she was arrested inside her own apartment, the police wouldn’t let her take her glasses with her. When I gave her the form to sign to consent to my representation, she had to hold it up right in front her face and squint just to read what it said.

If you’re familiar with the story of Breonna Taylor, you may have become familiar with the term “no-knock warrant” where if police have reason to believe that knocking or otherwise alerting the inhabitants that police are present would be dangerous to the police, they can apply for a warrant that gives them permission to bust down the door without any notice. If you’ve watched any movies, you might believe that a more traditional “knock and announce warrant” means that the police politely knock on the door, inform the inhabitants that they have a warrant, show the warrant to the inhabitants, and then conduct a thorough yet respectful search.

According to Kim, at about 5AM, she was awakened when police knocked once on the door to her apartment and announced themselves. Kim told them that she would open the door, but before she could get out of bed, the police rammed it open with a battering ram, destroying the deadbolt lock and doorknob. She was dragged out her apartment in the nude and restrained in the hallway while NYPD officers ransacked her place. They searched the entire apartment.

I visited the apartment and took photos the next day. Here’s what I saw: the door to the apartment was inoperable; it wouldn’t close and the locks were broken (it took weeks for NYCHA to repair the door). Kim had hung up a couple of dozen of framed pictures of family and friends on her wall and every single one of them was smashed. Even the framed prayer card from her uncle’s funeral was smashed. Every piece of furniture was damaged. They had taken every drawer out of the dressers and broken them. They cut open the couch and the couch cushions. They even smashed the crib that her nephew’s infant son slept in when the nephew took care of him. They emptied every drawer and cabinet, and left the contents on the floor. The search warrant had been taped to her broken door and left there.

Surely there must have been a good reason for serving a search warrant in this manner. Something really bad must have been going on there. If you recall, however, I was a student attorney and I could only represent misdemeanor defendants. Kim, along her with nephew, and her nephew’s girlfriend who had spent the night were all charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance in the 7th degree (lowest possible charge for narcotics possession) to wit: less than half of a gram of crack-cocaine; criminally using drug paraphernalia in the 2nd degree, to wit: seven empty glacine envelopes and a digital scale; and, criminal possession of weapon in the 4th degree, to wit: a switchblade knife. The police report also stated that a roach (the end of a blunt or joint) was found in the apartment, but they weren’t charged for possession of marijuana.

We could tell from the beginning that the weapons charge was nonsense. During that year, we saw several cases of defendants charged with “weapons 4” that were absolutely absurd. One notable case was when one of our clients bought a knife at Home Depot and was arrested as he walked out of the very same Home Depot while the knife was still in the package. Kim swore up and down that the purported switchblade was nothing more than a wine key that had a quarter-inch blade for cutting open wine bottle labels. Three months after her arrest, the DA dropped the weapons charge without explanation. My theory at the time was that the DA finally got a look at the “evidence.” This actually worked against us as we could no longer use the inclusion of the weapons charge and the complaint signed under penalty of perjury as a means to impeach the credibility of arresting officer. Suffice to say that over-charging and including baseless accusations were the rule and not the exception and often used to extract more severe plea deals with defendants.

At arraignment, each of the defendants had his/her own court-appointed lawyer. I represented Kim, the public defender represented the girlfriend, and the nephew was represented by an 18(b) lawyer. 18(b) lawyers are lawyers in private practice who are appointed by the court when the public defender cannot represent someone due to availability or as in this case, a conflict of interest. The nephew’s 18(b) lawyer had a reputation for what I like to call “plea and flee.” The hourly rate for 18(b) lawyers isn’t that great, but they would get something like $75 for each arraignment. One could make a nice living negotiating quickie plea deals all day long and you don’t really have to do any work. 20 plea deals in a day would net 1500 bucks before taxes.

Kim landed the drug and paraphernalia charges because of a legal theory called “constructive possession” whereby anyone in an enclosure is deemed to have legal possession of contraband regardless of whether they physically possessed it or even knew about it. I found out before our case was called that the nephew intended to plead guilty to the drug charge, and in exchange the cases against Kim and the girlfriend would be dropped. This probably sounds like a great outcome for Kim, except for one thing: NYCHA has a policy where if one resident of a NYCHA apartment is found guilty of a drug related offense, the entire family gets evicted. I begged the nephew’s attorney to reject the plea deal, and she reluctantly agreed. Kim and the girlfriend were released with no bail, but the nephew’s bail was set at $1000, which for these people might as well have been a billion dollars.

The subtext of what happened at arraignment was this: it was clear that the nephew was the target of the investigation and that they believed that he was a drug dealer. It was also clear that the police and the DA knew that Kim had absolutely nothing to do with the drugs, yet they charged her and continued to prosecute her as a tactic to pressure the nephew into a guilty plea, which he was going to take until he found out that it would cause his aunt to lose her apartment.

After arraignment, I drafted standard discovery demands, including requests for the results of a lab test for the drugs and the minutes of the hearing when the judge signed the warrant. The DA’s office barely responded to these requests. In fact, the DA’s office claimed that existing case law from the New York Court of Appeals allowed them to continue to prosecute the drug charge without a lab test while still not violating the constitutionally guaranteed right to a speedy trial (I’ll talk about more about speedy trial another time). I also drafted a motion to quash the warrant based on jurisdictional defect. The DA’s office never responded. I later drafted a motion to compel discovery. The DA’s office never responded. No judge ever read the motions.

At Kim’s next court date, the prosecution stated that they didn’t have the discovery evidence and would need more time. The case was put over for a month. At the next court date, the prosecution stated that they didn’t have the discovery evidence and would need more time. The case was put over for another month. At the next court date, the prosecution stated that they didn’t have the discovery evidence and would need more time. The case was put over for another month. And so on, and so on and so on. This continued every month until after I graduated. There were times where Kim called me and yelled at me. She wanted to plead guilty so she could get on with her life. The DA’s offer at the time was a conditional discharge (no jail time, minimal fines). Every time there was a court date, all three defendants had to get time off from work, arrange for child care, travel from their neighborhood in the northwest Bronx to the courthouse in the south Bronx, and sit in the courtroom for an indeterminate amount of time, waiting for their case to be called. Non-lawyers sitting in galley were prohibited from talking, reading books, or even looking at their phones and the court officers would frequently yell at them if they dared not pay full attention to the court’s proceedings which were inaudible and incomprehensible if you’re not a lawyer. If they missed a court date, the court would issue a warrant for their arrest. Understandably, she wanted to get on with her life. The only thing that prevented her from pleading guilty was the threat of eviction.

A few months after I graduated, I found out that the nephew had pleaded guilty to a non-drug offense and the DA dropped the charges against Kim and the girlfriend. Nobody got evicted. This is what passes for a happy ending.