I give you my child

Her hair is long, fiery red and curly, just as unmanageable as mine. She sits in front of me at the office, and tries to get the words that come out of her mouth to sound coherent, but her uninterrupted sobbing makes for a difficult conversation. Her 19 year old son sits next to her, addled between looking like a wanna-be bad-ass gang member and a scaredy cat looking at a 15-year prison term with a 7 year prison offer on the table.

We talk about the case, the evidence, the gang evidence, the gun used, the forensic evidence, ballistics, Gun Shot Residue, the "admission" signed by the client, the video showing the shooting, the field identification cards... We talk about his age, his lack of prior brush with law enforcement, his immigrant family and working parents. His successful siblings... and the path that this young punk has chosen.

"It's very simple", i say to this 19 year old whose innocent childish eyes betray the menacing facial hair covering his face. "i am not your mother. i don't have time for your excuses, or bullshit. Don't waste my time if you're not gonna listen to me. But if you want me to represent you, you gonna have to man up and do as i say. If you don't, i'll break your knee caps and will make you cry. This is the day you decide whether you gonna clean up your shit and say goodbye to the gangs, drugs and your street life or you gonna end up living in the shadows as a gang member. Which one is it??"

Before he has the time to answer, mom says: "I give you my son... please do what you can".

Nine months of fighting in Court, 9 months of motions, conferences and setting up a defense. 9 months of fighting the DA, and the best that we have on the table is a 3 year state prison offer.

In the meanwhile, he has enrolled and continuing with his college education. He has a full time job, and has moved to a better neighborhood outside of gang territory and lives with his girlfriend. He is dressed up in slacks and a sweater, and is clean shaven.

We can't take the offer. Prison will make him a full fledged gang member. I can't go to trial either. I will lose as i have no defense. I ask for a chamber conference with the Judge, and try to explain to the Court why he should be given a chance at probation so that he can eventually reduce his felonies and strikes and clean his record. I explain his immigrant parents. I explain the 19 year old's life. and i find myself welling up and becoming emotional.

"Your honor, i have a 19 year old" i say... "but for the grace of God, it could have been my child. Give him the chance to prove himself and yet the rope to hang himself. Give him the choice to redeem himself. I will stand by him and my office will provide him will all sorts of support services. Give him a probationary sentence. I will deliver a respectful member of the community to you".

My client pled open to the charges today. He faces a maximum of 15 years if he violates. But if he does well for the next 5 years, the court will reduce his felonies to misdemeanors, his strikes will fall by the wayside, and he'll be able to clean up his record.

He won't do any jail time. He won't do prison time. He will remain in school and finish his education and will become a fully integrated member of the community.

As we walk out of court, mom and dad and my client hug me and sob. I look at him and say: "Don't disappoint me" and i walk away unable to hold back my tears. My thoughts are with my own teen age sons. I thank you boys for teaching me love and patience, for making me understand life and teaching me the power of communication and forgiveness. I thank you for showing me the challenges of your generation and the avenues to deal with it. And most importantly, i thank you for making me a better mother so that i can be a better advocate for my clients...

And to you mothers out there who have trusted me with your teenagers. Thank you for sharing your kids with me and allowing me the opportunity to be a part of their wondrous life. I have hundreds of children out there, who have risen up to the challenge, and made exceptional members of the society from the wreckage of their arrests. Thank you for making my job an incredibly rewarding career....

Namaste

3/20/2017

Alaleh Kamran, Attorney at Law

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Encino, Ca  91436
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Mental Illness that is the criminal justice system.

The rhythmic metrical beat of the music synchronizes itself to the white lines of the freeway. I am once again headed to the Mental Health Court, that aging beat up space once known as a pickle factory. An old red brick building, dressed up in parts in hastily drawn gang graffiti and naked in parts as the paint has slowly been peeled off by the patient hands of time. Her dark stories are many… her tragic comedies of human error and fallibility even greater. Her secrets and her pains, etched in the hallways, in the courtrooms, on the walls, and in the holding cells much like her muted cries are only visible and audible to those who share the hallucinations of the patients who breathe life into her.

Life here is the theater of the absurd. A poorly painted tableau of incomprehensible and hard-to-decipher images of mental illness, family shame, disappointment and human tragedies intertwined with murder, rape, violence etc…. This is a rabbit hole, and I never know what to expect.. The mental health patients from various hospitals loiter around in the sitting area waiting for their cases to be heard… Some are catatonic. Others clearly responding to internal stimuli. Some are ragged looking. Others disheveled. A few well groomed. The army of nurses, forensic doctors, clerks and attendants glide invisibly much like the agony and torment of these patients.

As I walk down the hallway, my heels syncopate on the bare floors. I feel the breath of the building, rasping under the weight of the cases… or at least, the weight of my cases, in this building, is too much …. A son charged with attempted murder of his mom by driving a knife into her face to rid her of the perceived evil that had engulfed her, another man charged with murdering his best friend while in Meth induced psychosis, and yet another 21 old beautiful girl with a schizophrenic breakdown charged with attempting to blow up an imaginary bomb and yet another 50 year old charged with hate crimes and terror threats against those he believes have planted monitors in his head and have raped him electronically….

I walk to the security area to gain access to the holding cells where the incarcerated ones are held. The long walkway smell acrid. The putrid smell of a meat packing house sauced up with putrescent air fresheners attack the senses. I look at my wrists. Unshackled, unbound, and free… I am walking to the holding area. I lift my arm and bring my wrist closer to my nose. I remembered to wear my perfume today. It lifts me to a happy place, to a place of love, comfort and sweet tenderness… of music, joy and euphoria. It’s my defensive wall in this harrowing place.

Dressed in Yellow connoting “mental health” jail classification, my client stares at me with vacant eyes. He has not shaved, bathed or brushed his teeth or hair in days… Dogs on the streets are better managed, I remark to myself. Our conversation is stunted, the content void of any significance, legal or otherwise… I slowly trudge back to Court and wait for my case to be called.

I think it is Victor Hugo that said that "society is culpable in not providing a free education for all and it must answer for the night which it produces. If the soul is left in darkness sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.”

We have failed… we as a society have failed to provide basic necessities, such as education, health care, mental health care and jobs… and if these souls are left in the darkness to commit sins and crimes against the society, it is US that is guilty… for we have turned away from the light… We are the cause of the darkness.

Signing off.

Alaleh Kamran

Uncollected Writings, 2015

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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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The Pickle Factory that is the Mental Health Courthouse.

I'd rather be anywhere but here today... Parking is hell.. and there are no available spots for at least 3 blocks... I squeeze my car into a tiny hole, on badly mangled asphalt disfigured by mighty root trees that refuse to change their nature in the construct of man-made civilization.   I stumble out of the driver seat by catching my heel on the ground. 

The weight of my client's case carries heavier in my heart than my huge briefcase stacked with Jail records, Mental Hospital and psychiatrist reports.  I walk by the railroad tracks, on my way to get to Courthouse.  The train drags by along the tracks, lingering & hesitant... It too, is loathing arrival at the destination point. 

I walk into this building, an old pickle factory, now transformed into the Mental Health Court.  The hallways are packed with patients from different mental hospitals, accused of some type of a crime, or being placed on hold for being either a "danger to self" "danger to others" or "unable to provide for their own food shelter & clothing"....

Some are disheveled... others talk to themselves and respond to internal stimuli.  Yet another is catatonic and is staring into the dead space... There is a distinct smell to Mental Illness, permeated in the hallways by the pungent odors of disillusionment and the putrid smells of confusion, disappointment and desperation.

I made the mistake of becoming emotionally involved with this case.  I made the humoungous mistake of meeting family members in this wretched case of mine, and allowing my mothering instincts to gel with that of the mother.   I am now twined to the case, twined to the defendant who is facing a life sentence, twined to his mother, and his family members ....  and I have lost my footing.

I was up all last night.  My insides writhing with anguish, struggling with strategy, policy, morality, and law.     Yes, after 22 years of practice, there are still some cases that grapple my soul, and etch themselves to my inner fibers... 

The tragedy of Mental Illness occurs when it collides with the defunct, bankrupt and dilapidated criminal justice system... Years ago, in an effort hailed by the Republicans as Reaganomics, all fundings were stripped from Mental Hospitals, Mental programs, outpatient and inpatient programs much like the way ISIS strips its prisoners dignity prior to killing them.

I walk to the back of the Courtroom towards that long hallway that leads to the holding areas.  Walls are painted an ugly forest Green and the familiar smell of jail burns my nostrils.  It smells like a dirty meat shop.  The heart of this courthouse is the testament of our failure as a society.   Alexis de Tocqueville, the French political philosopher of the 19^th Century once said that the best way to judge the success of any democracy is to measure how it treats the mentally ill and the incarcerated.  And by what I have seen in the last 22 years and having worked a great part of my law school career in the mental health units of the criminal justice system, I know that we have failed.  Utterly, absolutely, unequivocally and without a single doubt. 

September 4, 2014

CDAK

Alaleh Kamran

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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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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