The question I get asked most often is how it is that I can defend "them". Apart from the obvious, that the Constitution affords everyone a proper defense and a champion, I reason that everyone makes mistakes and a fair shot at making the best of a bad situation and an opportunity to move on and that we are all at some times intentional scofflaws. Some times we get away with it and some times we don't. You get caught, you pay the piper.
But those are the straight up crimes; I did this. I knew what the hell I was doing. Other times, though, circumstances can catch a person unawares, dropping them into a happenstance sinkhole of trouble his or her oblivious ass should have seen.
The last time I was in Tampa, it was to defend a guy who had forgotten that he had a gun in his backpack. "How the hell [not the actual word used]," I asked him, "could you forget that you had a gun in your carry on?"
Clients always have some explanation about the weirdness into which they have fallen and he was no different. He always carries the damn thing because he drives a bus for rock stars and they carry payrolls and gate receipts. He always takes it out of there when he travels by air as he knows the rules. His best friend had died while he was at a gig in Orlando and he was rushing back home in the wee hours to console relatives, attend the funeral, hadn't thought about the damned thing, yada, yada.
I got the guy out of the thing. They reduced the charges from a felony and he got probation. All was well.
Some times the explanations border on the incredulous. A friend called me to represent him in a TSA checkpoint matter. He had come to Mobile to attend a wedding and rushed right afterwards to catch a plane in Pensacola. They found a hacksaw blade in his shoe. If this weren't one of my oldest and dearest hippy friends, I can't imagine how I could have accepted his explanation; they had stopped at the Wintzell's parking lot to change and it must have gotten into his shoe then. "And you drove from Mobile to Pensacola and didn't feel that?"
Well, shit happens and some times it's weird shit without much of an explanation. Move on.
And sometimes, just in case we forget that cosmic rule, It happens to you.
And sometimes, just in case we forget that cosmic rule, It happens to you.
A few years ago I made a trip to China. Being a compulsive, I had taken months to pack my bags with items for every contingency. (Padlocks, chains, travel toilet paper, duct tape wrapped around a pencil, etc.) I Got to the airport at the crack of dawn. Checked my bags through, having packed all of my pointy little objects in my luggage, put all razors down so the nice little inspectors wouldn't accidentally cut themselves, made sure my dangerous tweezers, clippers, etc. weren't anywhere in sight, etc. I put by knapsack into the conveyor.
They stopped it and give it the dreaded "rerun". Another person came over. Another. A supervisor. They looked at it, pulled the bag out and went to the side pocket. I was struck with the instant premonition of what was in there.
In packing for my trip I had tried to find the knife that they now pulled out of my bag. It was a serrated folding, high carbon stainless, Gerber buck knife in a sheaf made out of that black gun holster material. It wasn't really THAT BIG of a knife. At least not as big as it looked coming out of the tiny side pocket of my backpack. In fact they measured it and remeasured it and it looked like they were discussing its marginal size.
"That's where that thing went?," lamely I said. I started to tell them that I had settled on this backpack at the last moment when the items that I had packed wouldn't fit in the other bag....that I was going to China and needed a bunch of things, that I had looked for that knife specifically but hadn't found it.....that I now realized that I had packed that knife - something I rarely used - in that bag when my son and I had gone on a field trip some months ago.... It sounded hollow. I sounded like my clients.
"You can keep it, I don't need it," I said, magnanimously.
"I'm afraid it's not that easy, Mr. Soto," now assuming an ominous air that had me afraid that I was not only going to miss my flights but that I would be taking another trip downtown. For what seemed like an eternity, they discussed the matter amongst themselves and with the Mobile Police officer stationed there. He knew me. [Despite that,] they told me that they would only file a report and that they would be "getting in touch with me".
I had been excited to start my odyssey to the Orient. I now took this as an omen - a bad start to a long and horrible journey - and wondered what would be waiting for me when I got back, if I got back. (Job Wanted: Recently relocated Puerto Rican criminal defense lawyer looking for law-related work, speaks Spanish but no Mandarin. Will do divorces.) I spent obsessed about what they were going to do to me, explaining to the bar, etc., but soon forgot about it as the trip emerged into a wondrous experience. .
When it was time to return I remembered about the snafu and went through my bags, knowing that I certainly must now be on some sort of terrorist watch list. (No Chopsticks!) However, by the time I got back to Mobile I had been in the air more than 26 hours (and it was still the same day!) so I was really not studying "the man's" jackboot. I was in a hurry to get my bags and get home. I rushed into the parking lot. Got my car. (MY car! My wonderful car!) I'd been walking and schlepping bags for two weeks, and was now racing to pick up them up before they disappeared. A woman shouted at me as I drove by. I've been in a whirlwind of loud and incoherent noises and commotion for two weeks and didn't pay any attention to her.
I parked in front of the terminal. I was accosted by Airport Police.
In packing for my trip I had tried to find the knife that they now pulled out of my bag. It was a serrated folding, high carbon stainless, Gerber buck knife in a sheaf made out of that black gun holster material. It wasn't really THAT BIG of a knife. At least not as big as it looked coming out of the tiny side pocket of my backpack. In fact they measured it and remeasured it and it looked like they were discussing its marginal size.
"That's where that thing went?," lamely I said. I started to tell them that I had settled on this backpack at the last moment when the items that I had packed wouldn't fit in the other bag....that I was going to China and needed a bunch of things, that I had looked for that knife specifically but hadn't found it.....that I now realized that I had packed that knife - something I rarely used - in that bag when my son and I had gone on a field trip some months ago.... It sounded hollow. I sounded like my clients.
"You can keep it, I don't need it," I said, magnanimously.
"I'm afraid it's not that easy, Mr. Soto," now assuming an ominous air that had me afraid that I was not only going to miss my flights but that I would be taking another trip downtown. For what seemed like an eternity, they discussed the matter amongst themselves and with the Mobile Police officer stationed there. He knew me. [Despite that,] they told me that they would only file a report and that they would be "getting in touch with me".
I had been excited to start my odyssey to the Orient. I now took this as an omen - a bad start to a long and horrible journey - and wondered what would be waiting for me when I got back, if I got back. (Job Wanted: Recently relocated Puerto Rican criminal defense lawyer looking for law-related work, speaks Spanish but no Mandarin. Will do divorces.) I spent obsessed about what they were going to do to me, explaining to the bar, etc., but soon forgot about it as the trip emerged into a wondrous experience. .
When it was time to return I remembered about the snafu and went through my bags, knowing that I certainly must now be on some sort of terrorist watch list. (No Chopsticks!) However, by the time I got back to Mobile I had been in the air more than 26 hours (and it was still the same day!) so I was really not studying "the man's" jackboot. I was in a hurry to get my bags and get home. I rushed into the parking lot. Got my car. (MY car! My wonderful car!) I'd been walking and schlepping bags for two weeks, and was now racing to pick up them up before they disappeared. A woman shouted at me as I drove by. I've been in a whirlwind of loud and incoherent noises and commotion for two weeks and didn't pay any attention to her.
I parked in front of the terminal. I was accosted by Airport Police.
Hadn't I heard that woman to tell me to slow down, etc.? She, it seems, is a non-uniformed airport employee charged with signaling motorists to slow down. (?????) We spent a few tense moments there, me - and then a TSA cop.
"Another confrontation with these folks?", I thought. I was testy. "Are you done?", I asked after he dressed me down for the high crime of not paying attention. He was testy. He would be "done" when he was done, he told me.
I apologized. He backed down and offered to watch my car for me for two minutes while I got my bag. (The next morning, the paper reported a similar incident involving the ball player Jake Peavy.) When I went inside I was panicked because my bags were gone and I was now blaming TSA - not myself - for all manner of imaginary infractions.
I apologized. He backed down and offered to watch my car for me for two minutes while I got my bag. (The next morning, the paper reported a similar incident involving the ball player Jake Peavy.) When I went inside I was panicked because my bags were gone and I was now blaming TSA - not myself - for all manner of imaginary infractions.
"It all started with that stupid knife!", I said to myself. My bags were at the airline counter where they had been moved. "You weren't here within five minutes," the handlers told me. Another rule. I ran back to the car, my two minutes (and ego) now completely expended. I thanked the officer for his further courtesy.
I rode back from the airport fully physically and emotionally drained. When I got settled in and checked my mail, however, I got a real emotional boost. There to greet me was a letter from the TSA telling me that they weren't going to prosecute me. The Great Gerber Knife Incident was concluded.
I rode back from the airport fully physically and emotionally drained. When I got settled in and checked my mail, however, I got a real emotional boost. There to greet me was a letter from the TSA telling me that they weren't going to prosecute me. The Great Gerber Knife Incident was concluded.
