A few days later I walked through the long Kafkaesque hallways of the federal building on my way to court. I could not help but recognize that in this hallowed building of the law, all eight judges were white, all the U.S. attorneys were white, all the federal public defenders were white, all the probation officers, bailiffs, law clerks, and secretaries were white. Everyone was white except the defendant.
We stood in court facing U.S. District Court Judge Stanley A. Weigel.1 Judge Weigel was a liberal in matters of civil liberties and civil rights, but he was strict with criminals and even stricter with lawyers. He was an intelligent and thorough jurist. His Yale law clerks read every motion and brief and prepared detailed memos for him. A lawyer had to be completely prepared when appearing before him. He also had a reputation for running a dictatorial courtroom. He would fine a lawyer for the violation of any one of over a hundred technical, local court rules. At times, he would lash out at attorneys, humiliating them in open court. One lawyer I knew often threw up before working a trial at which Judge Weigel presided. But you could rely on him to give a defendant a fair trial.
The judge began to take Stevens guilty plea: “You know you have a right to remain silent and not incriminate yourself,” he said. “Do you waive that right?”
“Yes, I do,” answered Steven.
“You have a right to call witnesses in your behalf. Do you waive that right?”
Yes, I do.
“You have a right to confront and, through your lawyer, cross-examine all witnesses. Do you waive that right?”
Yes, I do.”
“You have a right to a jury trial, a jury of your peers. Do you understand that right?”
“If I had a jury of my peers, I would be found not guilty,” replied Steven.
There was a pause as the judge stared at the defendant. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“If I had twelve people who were really my peers they would understand my action,” Steven answered.
The Judge leaned forward, his eyes piercing into mine. “This is not a guilty plea. Counsel, I thought you told the court this was a guilty plea?”
I had been taken completely off guard by Steven’s statements. I quickly asked for some time to confer with my client. The judge motioned to the U.S. marshals. “Take the defendant and his lawyer, and put them in the holding cell until they straighten things out.”
For half an hour Steven and I sat in the cell behind the courtroom as once again I explained my idea of a political, psychiatric defense. Once again he refused, feeling it was hopeless. He said he would plead guilty and answer all the judge’s questions the way the judge expected. We returned to court and went through the litany of rights one waives when one pleads guilty. But when the judge got to the part about a jury of peers, there was only silence. Then Steven spoke out clearly and strongly. “If I had a jury made up of people from Ellis and Fillmore Streets I would be found not guilty!”
Judge Weigel was seconds from exploding. “This is not a guilty plea. I refuse to accept the plea. You are going to trial!”
At the time, none of us expected that a new defense would be the consequence of Steven’s pride and stubborn refusal to accept the legitimacy of a white legal system.
The next month was a busy one. My second child, Jamie Carmen, was born, and two weeks later I had my first jury trial, four counts of post office embezzlement. The assistant U.S. attorney and the postal inspector were sure of conviction, but the jury brought in a verdict of not guilty on the first two counts and was divided on the remaining two counts. When Steven heard the news, he seemed to relax; maybe his young lawyer did know what he was doing.
Our law collective had a summer program in which five law students, including one from back East, worked in the office. We couldn’t pay them, but we offered involvement in every aspect of the cases. Two of the students, Willie Phillips and George Colbert, attended Hastings Law School in San Francisco. There were more than three hundred students in their graduating class, yet they were two of only six African Americans. They wanted to work on Steven’s case, so we sat down and started to divide tasks. Since Steven was in custody we needed to have as much contact with him as possible. I obtained a judicial order allowing Willie to visit him in jail. George began to do the investigation, including trying to get an interview with the bank manager. We brainstormed. Was it possible to explain the life of Steven Robinson to what would probably be an all-white jury? Was it possible to make this robbery a political case in the broadest sense—that is, bring political reality into the vast, intimidating federal courtroom? Our instincts told us yes. We began to mold our idealism into legal strategy.
Lucy Harris, my wife, had some background in psychology. She went through the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (second edition), the official publication of the American Psychiatric Association, and found a mental condition called transient situational disturbance.2 It seemed accurately to describe Steven’s actions: a temporary “cracking up” caused by situational stress. The psychiatrist who had been referred to us by Price Cobbs, coauthor of Black Rage, agreed to examine Steven. His conclusion was that Steven’s robbery of the bank was a result of a transient situational disturbance. The pieces were falling into place.
I sat with Steven and tried to get him to remember everything he could about that fateful morning of January 22. He could vividly remember the faces of the unemployed men hanging out in the tiny park. He remembered going into the bank and stuffing the cash into the pillowcase. He remembered the crushing baton across his throat, squeezing out the air. He recalled walking out of the bank, seeing the crowd, tasting the blood dripping from his nose into his mouth. He remembered saying something about lots of money in the bank and poor children in the neighborhood. He could not remember much else. And he could not explain why he robbed the bank. By now it was eight o’clock at night and I had to get home to my family. As the deputy led him back to his cell, Steven asked me to call his wife and daughter.
That night, I laid down with my two-year-old son Josh and told him a story about our family dragon until he fell asleep. I tucked in my new daughter, said good night to my wife, and opened the investigation file George had given me. Why had Steven robbed the bank? Had he intended to get money for a doctor for Kamisha? Had he intended to get money for the children at the Malcolm X School? I was asking the wrong questions. Steven had not made a rational decision to commit the crime. He had no conscious intent; he was driven into the bank. The question to be asked was: How had life shaped Steven to compel him toward this criminal action? How had his unique individual experience interacted with the racism of our society to produce this explosion? I had to understand his experience if I hoped to help a jury, one composed not of his peers, to understand his actions.
I began reading George’s thorough interview with the bank manager, Mr. Hanston. Steven had pulled his unloaded gun on an employee of the bank, twisted his arm behind his back, and forced him behind the tellers’ windows. He told Hanston that if he moved he would blow a hole in the employee’s back. At the same time, as the police arrived in the bank, an FBI agent telephoned. Hanston told the agent that the police were wrestling with the robber, and the agent said, “Why don’t they just shoot him?” Yet for all this violence, the bank manager felt that Steven didn’t want to hurt anyone, and that he seemed to be “a very proud man.”
Suddenly something jumped out at me. Hanston said he thought the robber “must be crazy to stay here so long and to take this much time going through each drawer, he was going to be caught for sure.” I reread this quote from George’s report, and I began to think it was strange that Steven had robbed the same bank he used to cash his occasional checks. Wouldn’t they recognize him? And how did he think he was going to get away? He had no car, and