Crack Baby

She gurgles with the cutest sounds…  plum and pink, and rosy cheeks, she sticks her fist into her tiny little mouth, and drools all over herself.  A tiny little pink tutu covers her booty, and her tiny little sleeveless Tshirt is bedazzled with little rhinestones that read:  Daddy’s princess.

She is climbing up and down her mommy, pulling her hair, mouthing her cheeks, and restlessly creating a playground to keep herself amused while contrained between the armrests of the uncomfortable seats of the courtroom.  

She is a crack baby.  Or maybe a Meth baby.  But really is there a difference?  I know ‘cause I represented mom when she was pregnant and using.  Dad is now in custody.  And what should have been a day at the park, or at “Mommy & Me" class, or at the Baby-Gym, is now a routine “let’s watch daddy in court” day… 

What chances does this child have of succeeding in life?  Everything is stacked against her.  Her learning ability compromised in Utero, and further stunted by environmental conditions, such as horrible parenting; what realistic opportunities will she have to become a successful member of the community?  

Will she be that hyperactive restless child who will have to have special education classes?  Will she become the disruptive kid in school who will be constantly marching in and out of the principal’s office?  Is she going to be seeking comfort from the madness of her life by dumbing herself down with drugs and alcohol? And will she replace dad’s missing presence by searching love from one opportunistic asshole to the next?  

Are we going to recognize that troubled teenager as one who started life with everything stacked against her? Or are we going to look at her with judgmental eyes, shooing her away from our kids, and shaking our kids with scorn at her unacceptable ways?  

I don’t have the answers… I am trying to concentrate on the officer’s testimony so that I can cross-examine.  Maybe my job is not to save the Dad because the dad is innocent or not… but maybe my job is to find a way to send Dad home, so that the kid can at least have some semblance of a normal life….

Yet another day, and another tragedy unfolding in the Courtrooms…

Alaleh Kamran

Uncollected Writings.  2015

Lecturer, Radio Host, Citizen Journalist, Blogger

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Mother's Day Juvenile Justice

The sound of laughter of my nephews and their cousins fills the backyard. The kids are clambering on top of the balls, the dogs running after the balls, the mothers after the toddlers, and my own boys engaged in a fierce battle of kick dodgeball. The men hover around the grill. One is doing the Kabob, the other the lobster tails. Another is in charge of pouring the drinks. The women, today, are seated. Mothers, mother in laws, sister in laws, all around. Edith Piaf is singing Padam Padam Padam on top of her lungs.

Pandora keeps getting interrupted. I walk over to the sound system thinking something is wrong with my phone, and i see that i have received a text from a client that i represented years ago. He wrote: "Ms. Kamran, on this mother's day, i wanted to let you know that i am thinking of you. You were like my 2nd mom. Here is a picture of my wife and newborn child. Thank you for not giving up on me when they wanted to throw me away in Juvenile hall."

I stood there for a minute, staring at the picture, and for the life of me, i could not remember the teen ager that he was, nor his case. All i was looking at was the picture of a handsome man in his late 20's. Was it that kid who was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon, a gun? or was it the kid who tried to smuggle 35 kilos of pot across the Mexican border? Was it the other kid who tried to beat up his dad with a tire iron when he learned that his dad wouldn't buy him new tires? or the one who got so drunk, drove a car and almost killed a pedestrian? Was it the tagger? the computer hack? the scoundrel who threatened to blow up his high school? or the kid who was selling oregano as weed? or maybe it was the one that used a stolen credit card for an all expense paid vacation in a Malibu hotel & Bar.

Padam Padam Padam....

i quickly catalog 23 years of criminal defense in my head, trying to identify this man... and the rolodex of pictures that flips in my head at a lightening speed, forces me to sit down. For 23 years, i have had the privilege of representing teen agers who, for one reason or another found themselves caught up in the teeth of the Juvenile Justice System for charges ranging from murder to bicycle theft. For 23 years i have spoken at temples and churches and high schools, giving seminars on Teenage Sex, Drugs and Alcohol.

All these years, my passion has been the convoluted and misunderstood lives of teen agers struggling with multi cultural assimilation, divorce and domestic violence. And every time, i have picked up a new juvenile case, i have learned a new lesson in love, in tolerance, in compassion, in understanding, in abundance and in forgiveness.

No child ever grows up with ambitions of becoming locked up in Juvenile hall. No child ever falls asleep at night hugging his Teddy Bear and chasing away the monsters under his bed dreaming of becoming an outlaw. We all want to be good. We all want to be successful. We all want to be happy. But we each make mistakes, and make bad choices, and sometimes, unfortunately go down a one way path. But a bad choice, does not a bad person make. It is however, the inability to learn from that one mistake in one's teenage years that distinguishes between the man who looks at himself in the mirror in his 30's and says: "shit, that was a close call", and the man who has to look up at the sky to find the horizon, because the prison walls block his views.

My attention quickly shifts over to my calendar tomorrow. My client sits in Juvenile hall. He is 16 and has the most gorgeous blue eyes i have seen in years. He is small, frail and this is his first brush with the law, and tomorrow we have a detention hearing on whether or not the Court will release him home pending his trial in Juvenile Court. The charges are serious. i want to believe that i can win the hearing tomorrow and bring him home to his dad. I want to believe that these past few days in Juvenile hall have given him a glimpse of what he NEVER ever wants to experience AGAIN. i am well aware of my limited capabilities, and know that my dreams and wishes do not have magical powers of making reality. But i also believe in the power of love and of compassion.

xxxxxxx

My inbox and my wall today are full of messages of gratitude and love from many of those Juveniles who are now men and women of valor. I know some of you who are reading this are the parents of those once teen-age clients of mine. And i know some of you ARE those once teenage clients of mine. On this Mother's day, i wish you well and i thank you for having given me the privilege of having represented you. I thank you for allowing me to play an integral role in your life and i hope that all that i have learned over the course of these past 23 years helps me tomorrow, as i take on yet another child as my own.

May 10, 2015

Mothers Day.

Lines, Rhymes and Internal Monologues:  Uncollected Writings.

Alaleh Kamran, Attorney at Law

A Professional Corporation

15760 Ventura Blvd, Suite 1010

Encino, Ca  91436

ph: 818-986-6222

Lecturer, Radio Host, Citizen Journalist, Blogger

Los Angeles

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Heroin's lover: a choice of death.

Open Letter to my doe-eyed client who was so high in court today, he could not stand up in front of the Judge….

I know you are reading this.  I know your mom will be reading this.  There are hundreds like you on my page as they’re getting ready to shoot up, snort up, smoke out, or pop a pill.  And there are hundreds like your mom, silently reading this, weeping and wondering how much more she could have done.

You are right.  Life is not fair.  Death of loved ones is not fair.  The pain, neglect and abuse inflicted on us as children is not fair.  I get it.  I understand your pain.  I understand how badly you need to numb yourself to extricate yourself from that painful existence which is your reality.  The tracks on your arms are a road map of your pains and struggles.  I am not minimizing them.  I honor your pain.  I recognize your struggles.  I understand how you have bowed down, on your knees, to your addiction.  I understand how desperate and lonely and lost you are.  

I have seen you for years now.. I have walked with you from Juvenile court, into adult court… I have walked with you through felony arrests after strike arrests, … And through each case, with luck, with academics, with chambers conferences, with bamboozle, with motions, with tactics, I have walked you out of the doors of the courthouse,  unscathed, untouched, and with a mere misdemeanor conviction.  

Every time you’ve come to court, you were high.  Heroin is your lover.  Your mom is killing herself to keep you safe. You are burying your mother alive in your lust and passion for Heroin.  You’re an addict. You know it.  I know it.  There is no escaping it.  This is your life, and as fucked up as it, it is YOUR life, your gift on this earth for a short time, to make what you want of yourself. 

Years ago,  you sat in my office, excited over the fact that I had just obtained a dismissal on your transportation of a shit ton of Xanax, I looked at you and said:  “you think it’s easy, ‘cause you got off easy… but be careful how you get slammed, because if you don’t clean up, you’ll pay karmic wages”

Your karmic wages are here… Today, I couldn’t save you… you were so fucking stoned, your eyes were floating, your body was rolling, you were flying so high in court, that the Bailiff’s eyes welled up.  

The judge asked us to approach… she was going to ask the DA the charge you for being under the influence.  She was going to kick up the bail on your open case, and increase the case on your pending probation violation.  All I said was:  “He has been like a son” because you have.  Because I have seen you turn from a teen ager into a man, and because like how you love your fucking drugs, I have become fond of you… And it breaks my heart to see you spit your life away, as if you’re going to get a second chance at this merry go round….

You are now in the big boys’ court.  This is big league.  You either clean up your act, and decide that no matter how strong your addiction, you will be stronger.  If you don’t clean up you have two choices.  Either 1) You will do prison time.  I guarantee that.  You are a pretty boy.  Prison will not suit you well.  You won’t do well as someone’s bitch.  You won’t survive the violence, sexual or otherwise. Or the other choice is 2)  You will kill yourself and/or someone else.  Chances are you will overdose on your own vomit and we’ll be left to bury you.  

You are NOT a bad person. You are NOT a failure.  You are NOT evil.   You just have an addiction.  And until such time as you learn to forgive yourself and love yourself, you cannot move on.  I know there have been times you have hated me… Please know that regardless of your lies, deceptions, games, manipulations, all of which I have read through, I have loved you, as has your mother, unconditionally.  

Please know that the world needs you.  You have so much to give.  You have so much to teach… Hug yourself.  Look at yourself in the mirror, and make yourself the promise, that if not for your mother, then for the one person you miss the most, you will go to rehab… 

Let me know when you’re ready, and we’ll check you in.  

CDAK

Alaleh Kamran 

9/5/2014

Alaleh Kamran, Attorney at Law

A Professional Corporation

15760 Ventura Blvd, Suite 1010

Encino, Ca  91436

ph: 818-986-6222

Lecturer, Radio Host, Citizen Journalist, Blogger

alalehkamran@alalehkamran.com

Los Angeles, Las Vegas

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Truths of the Criminal Justice System

22 years in the Criminal Justice world, i have learned: 

1) Not all guilty men are convicted, and not all innocent men walk.

2) Some of the real criminals are not the ones who are facing charges, but rather are sitting on the bench. 

3) Within each defendant, there is a Cop dying for a chance to prove himself.

4) Within each Cop, there is a criminal one step away from reality.

5) Cops are the greatest party animals. 

6) Drug addicts and Alcoholics are the sweetest and most misunderstood creatures on earth. 

7) The most hateful and judgmental people are religious people, often rationalizing their judgments on Religion & God.

8) There is a reason we have two words for Law and Justice. Because one is NOT the other. The merging of the two becomes EQUITY, and we dont have courts of Equity!

9) The more handsome or prettier the defendant, the better the justice they get.

10) A Black Man will never get the justice that a White Man gets. 

11) Black Jurors have more sympathy for the White defendants than White Jurors have for Black Defendants.

12) Justice CAN and IS bought on a daily basis.

Vertical Horizons: A medical student's battle with Heroin.

The solitude of evening has finally arrived. The staff has left for the evening. The phones are switched over to the answering service. And, for a while, my world has paused. The lights in my office are off. I am staring at the lights that flicker from here to the end of the horizon. Life seems at times suspended here, on the twenty second floor. As the CD changer flips back and forth between Pink Floyd, Dire Straits, Leonard Cohen and Kitaro, I come back to reality only to drift away again. I am tired and my soul hurts. Sometimes, I wish I could take an enormous brush and paint the world with peace and calm.

You see, the life of a criminal defense attorney is saturated with unhappy stories and frequently tragic endings. My client was just raped in a California state prison. We both knew it was bound to happen sooner or later. We just hoped it would be later. Fate wasn't kind to him. He was no kinder to himself than fate.

He is, or I should say, he used to be gorgeous. Salt and pepper hair, tall, handsome, and well-spoken. He used to be a medical student at one of the nation's most prestigious medical schools. He was popular, friendly, warm and sunny, with a smile that could win you over.

He was a creature of the night. He'd done the scene, the clubs, the raves, the underground. He'd smoked a joint here and there, popped a "lude", done some "shrooms" and "mesc". By his own definition, he'd sucked the juice out of life. Then, one fateful night he met the cleanest high of them all. He met his true love: Heroin. And little by little, it sucked the life out of him.

Soon, he was kicked out of school. With no job, no qualifications and student loans in repayment, he started liquidating assets. So he says. I think he started liquidating because he had an expensive lover. The condo, the BMW, the trinkets, stereo, etc. Little by little, there was nothing left. When you run out of money, you beg. When you're a junkie, stealing becomes easy.

Sometimes, when you are too impatient to beg and too tired to steal, you'll even sell your body.

His friend called me. He'd been caught for burglary and grand theft. His friend had bailed him out. He had to go back to court and kept begging me to keep him out. Said he'd die on the inside. I told him if he kept it up he'd die on the outside. I fought with the district attorney, used every procedural and substantive tactic that I knew, begged and pleaded for my client. Finally, the charges were reduced, and he got off lightly.

It wasn't long after that when my answering service paged me at 4:00 a.m. on a Saturday, and said Jimmy (not his true name) had called from the West Valley jail. It was raining and cold. I was tired. My client needed me. I slipped my jeans on, threw on a jacket and drove down the deserted path which had become so familiar to my car. More often than not, the cops let you visit your client immediately. Sometimes, they don't. Sometimes, when they see you are a woman attorney, they harass you a little bit. And when they feel they have proven their manhood, they allow you to see your client.

Jimmy sat waiting behind the glass partition. His head and hands were weakly resting against the glass which separated us. As I walked in, he gently lifted his head. His hands slid slowly down the glass leaving a wet trail behind. Sweat rolled down his eyebrows. His throat and neck were damp with perspiration. He was wearing a T-shirt also damp with perspiration. The tracks on the inside of this arms were more marked than ever. This time, I could clearly see the brand new tracks on the back of his hands.

The brown circles under his eyes had grown larger, and the sparkle of life dimmer. A grin, maybe even a smirk took shape on his trembling lips. As he slowly nodded up and down to acknowledge my presence, he closed his eyes. He spoke slowly, faintly. "They picked me up ... I don't know why... I told them everything. I want to come out... Please, Ms. Kamran, please bring me out ... Call your bail bondsman ... Get me out ... Get me out ... Please help me. I promise I'll clean up. I promise I'll do what the judge orders. I gotta smoke ... Get me out. Can you get me out."

The list of charges filed against him included no less than three felonies and several misdemeanors. He'd confessed. There had been witnesses. He was even on video tape. He couldn't afford to go to trial and lose. The jury is not very sympathetic and understanding around Los Angeles. They are even less sympathetic to foreigners who have "invaded" their land and are committing crimes in their communities. Remember, to them, we are not Whites. We are camel jockeys who practice terrorism as a hobby. If convicted of the charges, the judge could have sent him to state prison where he'd be kissing "Bubba" for a long time to come. I got him a deal: less than one year in county jail and by the time the case was done, he was practically out on time served.

I met him by Men's Central Jail on Bauchet Street when he was released. I told him to stay in touch with me on a weekly basis. I asked him to call me if he got in trouble. I warned him about the consequences of his habit. I said "Jimmy, I can't call your parents in Iran telling them to send me money to bury you. If you insist on killing yourself, please make the arrangements and save me the difficult task of telling your parents why you had to die."

He's learned his lesson and served his time, I thought naively. He knows the consequences of a probation violation. He has had time to clean up. His system is clean. He's not going to go back.

Life went on as it usually does. Winter had melted into spring and the trees were in full bloom. I dropped him off wishing never to see him again. Unlike other attorneys, a criminal defense attorney hopes she'll never see her client again. My hopes were in vain. Before long, I got a collect call from San Diego. He'd been picked up on new drug charges. With a probation violation and a brand new case, the judge shipped him off to state prison for nine years.

Sitting here on a calm and quiet evening, I can see the Santa Monica Bay on my horizon. And I wonder how far Jimmy's horizon stretches beyond those barbed wires and the grey skies. He told me once, if he laid flat on his back and stared at the sky, he could see the end of the universe. 

And that is his horizon. 

I guess, in the world of the convicted, the horizon spreads vertically.

Alaleh Kamran

Century City
April 7, 1999

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Heroin and Meth

Breaks my heart.. he is barely 20.. arrested again for Heroin and Meth. Again. His mom sits in my office, not knowing what else to do. Dad tells me that he will kill the motherfucker that introduced his son to Heroin, he will kill him.

I look at the dad... stare him in the eyes and i know he is serious. i recognize the look. It is the look that a man dons when he has lost all that was worth living for. It is the look of a man whose only reason for living is the revenge for the death of the one they love.

My client calls from jail... Collect. Mom and Dad hold their breath while i talk to him. Do they think i can solve their issues here and now? do they think i am some kind of miracle worker? How can i fight Heroin? How can i win over Meth? What kind i possibly do or say to change anything?

He is going thru withdrawals.... stomach pains, diarrhea, joint pains, nausea, vomiting, shakes, sweating, runny nose, agitation, fear, .... The cops left him in the cell, by himself. What can they do? what can anyone do while someone is going thru detox.

I listen, we talk, we discuss plans of what may or may not happen in Court. I hang up. Give mom and dad the phone numbers that they need to deal with Co-dependency. Mom looks at me,... she wells up. i look at her, i well up too.... She says: "my son is your son"... i get up from my desk, hug her and tell her: "your son is my son, help me help him"...

My sons are home, safe. And may God keep them so, from bad friends, from bad choices, from bad events. May God save them all... May no parent mourn for a child lost to drugs...

I need to go home and smell my children....

Signing off

CDAK.

Lecturer, Radio Host, Citizen Journalist, Blogger.

Encino

June 9, 2013

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Justice Delivered

And so the open roads call to me… The ever changing horizons, and the boundless sky which loses itself in the abundance of the green lush pastures in front of my wheels beckon to me…

It never fails!….the sheer vastness of the land washes over me like baptismal water.   And once again, I find myself welling up to tears at the immensity of the universe, and my singular existence within my own skin,

in this moment,
in this lifetime,
on this particular spot,

billions of years behind me, 

billions of years ahead of me, 

billions of planets and people and possibilities… 

And once again, I am alone, with me, in the lone solitude of the open road driving to some courthouse, to some detention facility, but really, trying to make sense of my own existence within the greater world at large.

The words of my Zen master prophetically dance in my ears as they have on previous occasions, as if divinely ordained to hallow my existence which is about to undergo yet another epiphany… “the lesson will reveal itself when the student is ready”….

I am ready!… although I don’t know for what.  Yet,  I know that I am here, thousands of miles away from home, in a part of the country that is so foreign and unfamiliar to me. I can feel the earth breathe rhythmically. I can feel the sky quivering with the same sheer excitement of a young girl about to experience her first passion...

I can sense the trees. The lush of the pastures extend their arms to me… There is a warm sense of welcome in these foreign lands.

I am watched over, I know it...
I can feel it.
I am connected to the earth, … and yet I am lost.

My phone is not picking up any signals…

I do not have a map.

And my secretary’s text messages deciphering the serpentine back roads of these god forsaken rural areas of Texas are innocuous at best. I am lost,  literally and figuratively. Lost in the world of my thoughts, and lost on the roads.

He had been a decorated Sergeant in the Shah’s Imperial guard. A man of valor, a man of integrity… a blue blood.  He never said so,.. but his stoic demeanor told me that his upbringing was one which had known the rigors of a disciplined life. A comfortable educated upper class demeanor gently and quietly revealed itself from behind the glass pane that separated me, the criminal defense attorney and him the criminal defendant held in the detention facility.

Opium: the religion of the masses, the quiet pain killer and the silent companion became his lover to soothe the pain of the Islamic Revolution, loss of position, loss of country, inability to cope with the new country, and his failure in not being accepted into the US Air Force. Fast forward 30 years, he was now sitting in custody on charges of transporting 20 kg of opium for distribution and facing potentially 96 months of incarceration….

I remember the first and only time his elderly mother came to see me in my office… She was a small, frail woman with the bone structure of a sparrow but the presence and sheer strength of character of a Lioness. She had come to bless me and surrender her son’s future in my hands. She, the lioness, had single handedly raised 7 kids by herself, … she was the matriarch of a family and was standing in my office, in front of me, to tender her son’s destiny to my hands. Her head was covered in a simple yet elegant gray and black scarf which covered the thin silver braid of hair that came down to the middle of her back. Hair that must have been thick and lush in her younger years streamed down a spine which undoubtedly stood proud and strong, despite her advanced years.

The innate knowledge that she might never see her son as a free man hung like an invisible somber cloud in my office. Her bony fingers trembled as she raised her hand to my head… she softly laid her hand on my head and closed her eyes. Tears, gently at first, and then with the ferocity of a spring shower, rolled down the lines on her face, which by now had turned into  rivers…. She blessed me with a prayer, a murmur under her breath. She asked her God to protect me, so that I could protect her son. I bent over to kiss her, and in the traditions of our forefathers, in an act reserved for feudal serfs to their masters, she kissed my shoulder.

"Riders on the Storm,  in this town were born". I am brought back to the road. The Doors as if by magic read my solemn mood. The guitar solo is wailing. Who are we? What are we? Why are we where we are? Why me? Why this lifetime? Why here? What is my purpose in life?  Why did my soul choose this body, this vessel, this juncture in time and space to experience this lifetime?

What is this deep profound yearning within me that is like a bottomless cavernous abyss dragging me to the deepest recesses of my existence only to heave me in the context of an epiphany to the boundless and infinite sphere of the universe?

Am I not the master of my choices? Do I not create my own reality? I have willed this, … I know this much. I am here by my own design, this much I know as well. I am the master of my own destiny…this fact, is an absolute certainty in my mind. Yet, what is the destiny? The purpose? The reason?

I AM.

I am being. I know that.

I am experiencing the Journey of my soul… I know that as well… but where am I going??? And why? The teachings of Carlos Castaneda resonate in my mind:  death is the ultimate step in knowledge.  And perhaps not until I pass thru the gates of death will I know.   I pass thru the metal gates…Barbed wires protect the property.   Funny! I think…. Where would they go if they were to run away. The nearest civilization is billions of miles away. They’d die of  starvation! ….

I pass thru 5 set of locked doors in a federal facility that smells more like a meat shop. “Plump Rosy” greets me behind a glass partition and checks my credentials.  “California”, she exclaims, with the sophistication of a potato in a farmer’s market!  “Yes”, I said. “I am a long way from home”.

And within me, Rumi chants to me: "The Universe is your home… take wings my child, fly…"

Clank… clank... clank…..The doors open and shut one after the other….. The sound of his hands and feet in chains drag along the corridor…..He looks good. Cheeks are rosy. He has gained weight. He looks healthy. He shares the poems that his daughter has written for him. He shares his own writings with me. He shares his poetry. We talk about Rumi. He says: “what will become of me”?

“This”, I said…” was the easy part. Tomorrow is your sentencing…. The Judge can deviate from the agreement and sentence you above guideline range, and give you up to ten years… However, if he follows the agreement… you will only have another twelve to sixteen months to do… The real question, is what will you do once you go home? The hard work starts when you try to reintegrate within your own. How will you make amends to your wife? To your kids?  To your family? Your mother is dead… how will you explain this to her? How will you forgive yourself? How will you absolve yourself before your own conscience?”

How will anyone of us make amends to  ourselves for all that we have done or not done to our self? In the context of the greater Universe, is breaking the law the true crime? Isn’t the real crime not being true to our real self? Isn’t the ultimate transgression that which is done against our own existence, our own path? Our own Journey? Who answers for that? who punishes us for that? What is the real punishment for not having taken the right road, or having taken that one wrong left turn? What are these societal rules? What happens to personal ethics when they collide with the mores of the society?

I write out his colloquy to the Judge.  This is his one opportunity to address the Court and tell the Judge about his remorse. I have tried to keep it simple.. I used the words that I thought he might use.. not mine. With any luck, tomorrow, the hands of the Universe will be with me…

My legal arguments are ready…. My passion for my work is flowing like the Ganges ….  My need to find absolution and harmony in a world that is sadly lacking in such empowers me more than my legal arguments.  With any luck, I will find strength  from within…with any luck, once again my desire to perfection, for lust of words, and most importantly, my yearning for yet another epiphany will endow me with the power of speech to deliver justice.

I am for now, a criminal defense attorney, a constitutional defender… that is until such time as I find my true identity.

Alaleh Kamran

March 23, 2011 Dallas/Texas

Law Offices of Alaleh Kamran

 15760 Ventura Blvd, Suite 1010

 Encino, Ca 91436

 818-986-6222

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The Life of a Criminal Defense Lawyer.

I have seen men of iron will collapse to their knees; 

I have seen women of steel fall apart like chalk.   

I have seen tears of blood, shattered hearts, broken lives, and lives cut short... i have seen it all... 

i have seen dead bodies on the ground because of drugs, guns or accidents... 

i have seen zombies, who were alive while their soul was dead...

My soul has lived a thousand lifetimes.. 

i have woken up drenched in sweat, my heart pounding, at times because i found a viable defense while i was sleeping... 

at times, because i was dreaming of the innocent teen-age client who is doing a triple life sentence on contaminated evidence. 

Mothers have entrusted me with their children. Others have said: "first god, then you"... Loved ones have sat in my office picking up pieces of their shattered lives...

Like Sisyphus, i have carried this stone up the mountain, to watch it roll down time and again. Like Alexander, i have faced the Gordian knot time and again... 

i have tried to bring light where there was nothing but darkness. There are times that i won, .. and so often, i have failed. In the process, i have been polished like a mirror, buffed by adversity.

All those who look at me watch with wonder and amazement... yet very few see the pain, and the awesome burden that is part of my daily routine... With every case, my soul is spliced. With every defeat, i am ripped apart... 

There is no victory that is sweet enough to wash down the bitterness of those cases that should have been won, and yet were lost because the government was corrupt, the cop dirty, or the judge biased.

Protect your liberties. Cherish your rights. Soon enough, there will be none left. 

My name is Alaleh Kamran.

  

I am a Criminal Defense Attorney.

I am Constitutional Defender.

I am a Citizen Journalist.

And this is my blog. Welcome to my world. 

CDAK

11/27/2012

Encino

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