Defender Works for Fairness, Not Wealth

Dump truck. Public pretender.

Ramiro Cisneros knows the disparaging names he’s called. Everywhere he turns, people look at him with a question mark in their eye. Even his parents at first wondered why he became a public defender in the criminal courts instead of a prosecutor.

His clients talk among themselves about being “dumped” onto the public defender’s caseload. Sometimes in the courthouse, witnesses mistakenly believe that a public defender is not a lawyer but someone of lesser standing. Strangers he meets in social situations sometimes dare to ask him directly: How can he take the side of murderers, gangbangers and other scum?

He has answers, all public defenders do.

He has lofty answers that go right to the Bill of Rights. And he has personal reasons too.

The fact is, his work means something. To those he defends, it can mean almost everything.

This week, earlier in the summer, Cisneros has added to his workload by agreeing to be our guide to ground-level justice at the Los Angeles County felony court in suburban Norwalk.

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Outside Department S this Tuesday, the deputy district attorney needs a cart to carry all the case files for today’s felony calendar. The same thing is happening at five other courtrooms in this monolithic seven-story courthouse.

Often in the movies and the news headlines, the clash between right and wrong engages teams of lawyers in furious weeks of courtroom theater. The far greater share of courtroom life, however, is quite the contrary: one lawyer carrying many cases with tightly scripted appearances often measured in minutes.

Right now, Cisneros is responsible for defending 25 people accused of felonies -- the most serious level of crime, those that carry terms in state prison. Today, four of those defendants are to appear before Judge Larry S. Knupp for one reason or another.

In these appearances and brief hearings, many cases are resolved. This is where the plea bargains are offered, where injustices can be weeded out, where parolees are called to account for their lapses, where the lawyers size up their clients and vice versa.

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As court convenes, Cisneros has one case that’s a defense attorney’s slam-dunk. At least, legally speaking it is. Emotionally, well, it’s a different matter.

Twice before, the accused has failed to appear in court. He has been behind bars in Los Angeles County Jail but did not make muster to the courthouse. Today, he’s been brought here in handcuffs -- a bushy-faced man with a hint of wildness in his eyes. In the courtroom he wears a yellow jailhouse shirt, which is a sign, Cisneros explains, of someone with possible mental problems.

A resident of Bell Gardens, the defendant was arrested after police received a complaint that he was loud and creating a disturbance at a self-service laundry. An officer found that the man had a dagger in a sheath on his belt. He was charged with the crime of possessing a dagger, and his rap sheet showed that he was on probation for a similar offense, so prosecutors used their discretion to file the case as a felony rather than a misdemeanor. The defendant was additionally charged with violating parole and possession of a small amount of marijuana.

After the man was arraigned and given a preliminary hearing in an outlying courthouse, the case landed on Cisneros’ desk. The attorney read the file and did a double-take.

The police report of the arrest and the hearing transcript of the officer’s testimony was specific on one thing: The dagger was visible on the man’s belt. The law makes possession of a dagger a crime only if it is concealed.

Cisneros prepared a motion asking that the case be dropped. That motion is the purpose of today’s hearing.

“I’m at a loss,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Paul Minnetian.

“Me too,” says the judge. “Case dismissed.”

Easy. But not quite so easy. The man has given many signs of being troubled. What if his behavior is a cry for help?

The judge has the two lesser charges to clear. The bushy-faced man has served 73 days in jail, and the judge intends to let that stand as punishment for the probation violation -- carrying a weapon when the terms of probation forbid it. This sentence and a suspended fine for marijuana possession will end matters. But the defendant insists on denying that he is on probation.

“That’s not my name,” he says, over and over, his eyes aflame.

Cisneros taps his shoulder impatiently and tells him to quiet down.

“Excuse me, sir. Would you be quiet,” says the judge. Cisneros has the authority to “declare doubt” about the man’s capacity to fathom these proceedings. That would return him to jail for psychiatric review. He might get counseling. The judge could do the same thing. After all, the man just might be better off under supervision, Cisneros tells himself.

Except, the bushy-faced man did not commit the crime of carrying a dagger. Since when does the judicial system presume to keep a man locked up when he didn’t break the law?

The man is led back to the lockup. He will take the afternoon bus back to jail. And he will be released.

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Ramiro Cisneros immigrated to Southern California from the Philippines as a boy 32 years ago. He graduated from UCLA with a degree in political science. He has been paying for nine years on the loan that he needed to finance his college and law school education. He won’t be out of debt until he qualifies for Social Security.

Cisneros passed the bar 9 1/2 years ago. He took a job in a private firm working on civil litigation.

“But I like trials. I like trial work. I like trial movies.”

He didn’t get a job the first time he applied to the public defender’s office, nor the second. But he persisted. He was hired five years ago and was put to work on misdemeanor cases in Pomona. Last April, he was promoted to felonies and transferred to Norwalk, one of a staff of 15 courtroom public defenders. At this point, Cisneros has already made a career choice. The public defender’s office will not be a steppingstone to another job.

“My role in it? It sounds sappy, but I see myself as a defender of the Constitution. My role is to see that justice is delivered and to make sure our clients are treated fairly in the system.”

Yes, among the accused in a public defender’s caseload are predatory people who are caught red-handed spreading fear and suffering, sometimes repeatedly. Why would anyone try to get them off?

In the warren of offices that are the public defender’s domain, the answer is expressed in different words, all making the same point: The accused already has a judge, a prosecutor and jurors. Cisneros puts it this way: “If someone who is factually guilty goes free, it’s not because I did my job. It’s because prosecutors didn’t do theirs.”

Cisneros could have been a poker pro. His face, not yet lined with age, is impossible to read. He appears gentle and boyish, despite gray flecks in his burr haircut. But make eye contact with him and you see an older, sterner man, and one who has learned to take in more than he gives away.

“Granted, I’m fairly new,” he volunteers. “But I hope I can keep a relationship with my clients and not get hardened.”

It is no small challenge. Some of those he defends are “awful people.” In the back of his mind is the knowledge that someday one of them might be so enraged at The System that he breaks out of the handcuffs and stabs Cisneros in the neck with a toothbrush sharpened on the jailhouse floor, or slashes at his face with a hidden razor blade.

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Two things about the people who are represented by the public defender: Since they are too poor to afford a private attorney, they are probably too poor to post bail. Most of them remain incarcerated for weeks and even months while awaiting trial. Second, most of them have been here before. About 90% of the people Cisneros represents have prior criminal records.

His next client is also bewildered, but in a different way.

While on parole for a narcotics violation, the Los Angeles man was arrested and charged in a car theft. The defendant did not actually steal the car, however, nor was he driving it. Rather, he was a passenger. To him, it’s self-evident: He cannot possibly be guilty of theft for just being a passenger. Cisneros has been trying to explain to him that the law says differently: A passenger can be charged if he knows that the car is stolen and does nothing about it.

The dispute is brought into the courtroom where the accused is shaking his head no. He has been offered a plea bargain: two years in state prison in exchange for his admission of guilt. He wants the judge to understand that he was just riding in the car.

“Let’s make this easy,” interrupts Deputy Dist. Atty. Minnetian with a tone of impatience. “All offers are withdrawn. Let’s give the man his trial.”

The case is advanced. If convicted, the accused faces three years in prison.

Later, Minnetian expounds on his disgust with crimes involving car theft. “For a lot of people, a car is the most valuable thing they own. They don’t have vacation days or sick days at work. If they don’t have their car, the whole family suffers.”

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The calendar rolls on. A case trails forward when another Cisneros client breaks down incoherently in the lockup and cannot control his crying.

Indeed, anguish permeates every corner of this old courthouse, not just the lockup. It’s as if ions in the courthouse air carry a heavy negative charge. Misery crowds onto concrete benches and spectator seats -- defendants who are lucky enough to make bail, wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, mothers, aunts, children, babies -- so many babies. And there are the victims and the bystander witnesses with subpoenas in their pockets. They are as likely as not to be full of their own dread. Will their presence and their testimony arouse retribution?

This is not the overt, faux emotion of reality television but a leaden gloom that bubbles just on the surface.

To make eye contact with the people here is to be left with the dirty feeling of being a Peeping Tom. These are people stripped of their dignity and peace of mind. With nowhere to hide, their humiliation and helplessness are exposed.

Their whispered conversations cannot be shut out. “Three years is the best we can do.” “You’ll have to come back.” “How much marijuana was it?” “But he’s got a strike.” “I’m sorry.”

One can only wonder how much anger boils deeper down.

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Cisneros returns to his office. His desk is furnished with a laptop, a picture of his wife, who is expecting their first child. On the wall he has a small photograph of himself with a bass he caught once on vacation. There is a telephone, a four-drawer file cabinet and a two-volume set of the Evidence Code. He uses the floor to organize the paperwork on his running cases. A visitor sits on a sagging couch with the stuffing exposed through ripped seams.

“I don’t like to decorate my office,” Cisneros says. “They move us around too often.”

He has motions to write. He has to prepare for tomorrow’s calendar. His officemate’s case of an innocent man trapped in legal limbo is heading for a showdown. Cisneros needs to investigate a Sheriff’s Department arrest report that may not stand up against a suspect arrested in a stolen car. And he is facing the beginning of a case involving the worst of all crimes, a 187, a first-degree murder that violently ripped apart a family.

john.balzar@latimes.com

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Ground-Level Justice

Monday

Going to bat for those who have hit bottom.

Today

Should the judicial system lock up a man if he hasn’t broken the law?

Wednesday

A retrial and a sweet victory for the public defender’s office.

Thursday

An extortionist is sentenced and a drug user returns to jail.

Friday

The case of the one-eyed man comes to a conclusion.

On the web

Find previous installments at latimes.com/norwalk