The Crime Quandary: Criminal v Victim

People are torn when it comes to criminals. On the one hand, many of us feel an innate sympathy for those who've been punished and suffered a loss of freedom. We know that felons suffer as a result of their actions and feel sorry for that suffering. Throw an unfair system, racial profiling and the lifelong effects of a felony conviction into the mix, and you end up with some truly tragic stories. On the other hand, our sympathy for criminals is tempered because we know that they did something bad, something deserving of punishment. They had it coming, in other words. Every crime has a victim, after all, someone who has suffered as a result of a felon's actions. Do not victims, our thinking goes, when all is said and done, deserve precedence over criminals when it comes to our sympathy and support? 

Crime, by its very nature, presents us with a dichotomy between sympathy and retribution, between harm and punishment, between criminal and victim. This dichotomy leads to moral and ethical quandaries. When thinking about crime and criminals on one side, and victims on the other, we feel forced to take sides. If I support the criminal does that mean I'm somehow condoning the crime or betraying the victim? If forced to choose, should I not side with the victim? With lawfulness? It's this very quandary that makes being a criminal and writing in support of other criminals so difficult. I now find myself to be a "bad guy" writing in support of other bad guys.

I would argue, however, that this dichotomy between the victim and the criminal, this quandary we face in our support, is a false one or, at the least, bridgeable. We should not have to choose. Just because a person supports prisoners, rehabilitation, prison reform and the like does not mean that that person has turned her back on the victims of the prisoner's actions. It doesn't mean she's soft on crime. Conversely, the 'get tough on crime' crowd, with its myopic focus on law and order, may in fact be doing the very victims of crime a disservice by focusing on prison as a place of punishment. Retribution is only side of a many-faceted coin. Without rehabilitation, without support, criminals tend to repeat their crimes. The result? More victims. 

Sometimes I wonder if I am doing victims a disservice, somehow discounting their suffering, as a result of my own personal experience. One goal of my writings about crime and criminals, after all, is to humanize those we tend to demonize. My crime was nonviolent and the victim, as I've written before, was not sympathetic in the traditional sense. I have never been the victim of a serious crime and could not imagine committing a crime that actually hurt someone; violence is not in my nature. As a result, I occasionally catch myself justifying my actions, while at the same time condemning those who commit violent, dangerous or particularly terrible crimes.

But then I start to wonder if I'm being hypocritical, if that big bright line I like to draw in the sand is a fair one. After all, who am I to judge? While certain people may have a predilection for crime or violence as a result of upbringing, disadvantage, genetic makeup, gender, or whatever it is that influences wrongdoing, aren't we all just a step away from falling afoul of the law? I never thought of myself as a felon. In fact, I went through most of life as a productive, law-abiding citizen. But presented with that irresistible mix of opportunity, rationalization and addiction, I did the very thing I never thought I'd do. I found myself to be weaker, more susceptible to temptation than I expected. But weakness in and of itself is not a crime. While I like to think I'd never commit a violent crime, who knows? Many normally non-violent individuals have proven weak at a critical moment, have snapped under pressure and committed crimes which they thought themselves incapable. With honest reflection, I truly believe that we all have the a buried inner weakness - some maybe more than others - that could lead us to commit a crime. Thankfully, for most of us for most of the time, the yin beats out the yang.

The other side of the spectrum requires less introspection. We all have the potential, through no fault of our own, to become victims to a crime. The evening news brings home the fear that crime occurs randomly and could hit any one of us. The involuntary nature of victimhood makes it scary.  One thing I have discovered through my own experience is that the category of 'victim' encompasses a much broader group than is commonly recognized. We tend to think of only the direct victim of a crime: the victim of a scam, the victim of a robbery. But what about all the others who indirectly suffer, the family members, friends, passers-by? Society as a whole can suffer, through fear and a loss of trust. In my case, my children suffered the most as a result of my actions; they were the true innocent victims of my crime. 

What I would propose, what I try to do in my thinking and in my life, is to offer sympathy and support to anyone, victim or criminal or innocent family member, who becomes somehow entangled in our criminal justice system. It is a terrible, painful process for all concerned. Innocent victims are truly deserving of our support; that goes without saying. But felons who recognize their crime and do their time are too. It's in all of our interests to support them in their effort to once again become contributing members of society. The criminal justice system requires the attention and scrutiny of ordinary citizens. It is a reflection of our society, after all and it's failings are our own. In a perfect world, criminals should engender feelings of "there but for the grace of God go I", not suffer from society's demonization of them as some sort of "other".

That's not to say that, in support of criminals, you won't have to draw a line in the sand, as I do, between what you consider redeemable and unforgivable, acceptable and horrific. Every person has her own limits when it comes to forgiveness. Come to think of it, maybe I've hit upon my real line in the sand: a line between those who, whatever their crime, admit to it, atone for it, accept their punishment and try to make good and those who deny, rationalize and deflect. Felons, more than anyone, need to remember the victims of their actions. In any event, once that line is drawn and you consider the human dimensions of crime, the dichotomy - the divide - between support for criminals and support for victims is most definitely bridgeable. 

Not Guilty. No, Guilty. My Day in Court

On a cold Sunday night I fly into San Francisco on a nonstop flight from Chicago.  No, this isn't a much deserved vacation, a happy trip to warmer climes.  My day in court is tomorrow, my turn to plead.  I've been dreading this day for months: it's the day I officially become a felon.

For those of you unfamiliar with criminal justice - and, believe me, I was definitely in that camp - there are many stages in the process from investigation to incarceration.  I am now at the pleading stage, more than a year after I first got wind that the I was the subject of an investigation.  We spent the interim negotiating a plea, and now I must appear before the judge to say those famous words: Guilty, your honor.  But before that - and I'll get to that in a moment - I must also say those other famous words: Not guilty, your honor. 

Oh, how I wish it were true.

I crawl into bed early but toss and turn for hours.  Unable to sleep, I wander the city’s neighborhoods: Chinatown, Fisherman’s Wharf, Nob Hill.  I love San Francisco but take no notice of my surroundings.  I’m not a tourist after all.  I no longer bemoan my fate – it is what it is.  And I did what I did.

What I agonize over on this long walk is the fact that it’s now time to tell the world.  I’ve carried my little secret - that I'm soon to become a felon - for far too long.  My loved ones have to know. Why is it so hard to let the cat out of the bag, I wonder.  I should have told everyone ages ago.  But I can’t.  What I want to do is to crawl under a rock and hide from the world.  I open my mouth to come clean but the words won’t form.  Like a director preparing scenes, I imagine the entire film in my head: my stumbling, stuttering confession, the horror and upset on my [insert character here: mother’s, father’s, children’s] face.  

For a long time the uncertainty gave me an excuse to perpetuate the secret: why worry my family when I had no idea how things would turn out?  But the basic question – whether I would be charged – was settled months ago.  Yet I still procrastinate.  The reason, I understand, is that it’s such a horrible abasement.  I feel like the scum of the earth, like I’ve let the world down and failed to live up to expectations.  I’ve failed my family, I've failed my children, and it’s terribly difficult to admit.  I can’t think of anything that could possibly happen to a person, or at least to me anyway, more humiliating and upsetting.  The only fragile comparison that comes to mind is the anguish and heartbreak I imagine must weigh upon someone who comes out of the closet.  I feel as if I’ve been branded with a scarlet letter or, rather, eight of them: C-R-I-M-I-N-A-L. 

Well, the procrastination is now at an end.  My hand is forced.  With my guilty plea tomorrow the case will go public.  Better that my family hears the news from my mouth than from CNN.  I’m meeting my family several days later in Los Angeles; they think I'm on a business trip.  Although my gut churns at the prospect, I realize that I have to tell them.  And everyone. 

I meet my lawyer early the next morning and we drive to the Federal Building, a hulking, square behemoth that rises up from the slums of the Tenderloin like Tolkien’s Mordor.  I’m dressed in my best suit, my hair carefully combed.  The day is scheduled with a series of – to me anyway – meaningless bureaucratic shuffles. The sad fact is, I don’t know an arraignment from an orange.  I’m embarrassed to admit that as a budding lawyer I avoided all law school classes even distantly related to criminal law.  Everything I know about criminal law I learned from reading Presumed Innocent.  Knowing I would become a corporate lawyer I had decided that they were not, and would never be, relevant to my life. How wrong I was.  

The entire experience is disorienting.  I feel as if I’m having one of those childhood nightmares we’ve all had, the one where you’re sitting at your desk in homeroom and look down to see that you’re wearing only underpants.  Or the one where you’re soaping up in the communal shower after PE and suddenly get an enormous hard on.  After so many years on the right side of the law, I can’t quite comprehend that now I’m on the wrong side.  

“Is this really happening?” I wonder.  “Is this really me?”  At the same time, I’m strangely intrigued: the process is interesting from an academic perspective.  It’s just too bad that it’s my life on the line.   

First, I appear before a magistrate judge, the purpose of which I cannot fathom.  The narrow courtroom is packed with friends and family, the fetid air filled with the sour stench of desperation.  Prisoner after prisoner, dressed in shapeless orange jumpsuits, are paraded in cuffs from a steel door at the rear.  They stand, abject, before the judge while the charges are read.  Drugs, drugs and more drugs; an endless loop.  An ounce here, two ounces there.  Only the substances differ.

I turn to my lawyer.  “Are there always so many drug cases?” I ask.

“That’s all there are,” she says.  “You’re the exception.”

I’m also an exception in that I’m still a free man sitting amidst the onlookers.  In my fancy suit I look like what I am: a lawyer.  During a break, another criminal lawyer come over to speak with mine.  She fumbles when introducing me:

“This is Eli.  He’s a corporate lawyer.”

“Oh, are you taking a tour?  Checking out the exciting life of the criminal bar?”

Now I fumble.  “Well, err, I’m, um, you see….”

Once she leaves we turn to each other and smile.  “Well, that was awkward,” I say.  “You might as well just tell people that I’m a criminal.”

Finally, my name is called.  I stand and everyone stares.  I am the first defendant the entire morning not escorted from the back.  The proceedings are short and uneventful.  For whatever reason, at the arraignment I’m told to plead not guilty.  When prompted, I shakily mouth the words.  Oh, if only it were true.

Following that, I’m escorted to the FBI offices on a higher floor.  A young agent leads me through a warren of cubicles to a small room filled with antiquated photographic equipment.  She takes my prints on a wheezing, decrepit machine and then begins to stick white objects onto a small black board.  I glance over her shoulder and see that she’s preparing a board for me, the same type of board I’ve seen in movies and mug shots.  She hands it to me and I read: “FBI San Francisco, 12/19/13,” followed by “LEIGH SPRAUGE” in capital letters.  I point out her spelling mistake.  She frowns but nonetheless fixes it.  I’m instructed to hold it to my chest and look at the camera.   No one says “say cheese.”  I don’t know the protocol: do I smile?  In the end, although I alternately want to laugh, cry and scream (in that order), I force my lips into a thin line.

Now it’s time for the U.S. Marshals.  Prior to today, I never even knew such an organization existed. Now I see that they seem to be in charge of getting prisoners from point A to point B.  Apparently the FBI photos are proprietary, because for whatever reason the marshals want their own set.  I’m beginning to feel like a model at a photo shoot.  I sit on an uncomfortable metal chair abutting a cinder-block wall as a marshal fumbles with the camera, a basic press-and-shoot model tethered to a computer by a cord.  The unmistakable prison-house clang of steel on steel filters through the wall.  I hear the din of prisoners’ shouts and calls somewhere in the distance.  

I sit quietly and try to rid myself of this disorientating sense of displacement that’s dogged me throughout the day.  And I sit.  And I sit.  The marshal can’t figure out how to work the camera.  Soon, reinforcements are called. Over the next thirty minutes marshals continue to arrive until a small crowd is huddled over the equipment.  Based upon their confusion and clumsy fumblings, it’s clear that somehow this isn’t customary procedure.  I wonder if I should offer to help - it looks so simple - but following the reception by the FBI to the spelling mistake I decide to keep quiet.  Finally, after an hour of increasingly frustrated attempts to take my picture, the marshals give up.  I’m escorted through a locked steel door to my attorney, who whisks me to the day’s highlight: the hearing at which I will plead guilty.

Go Directly to Jail

Well, I have news.  And, unfortunately, it's not good.  

How I wish I was telling the world, as I have at various times in the past, that I'm the proud father of a new baby, or that I married my sweetheart or that I published a novel.  But no.  Not today.  Today, my news is bad.  Thankfully, I don't have cancer, nor is a close family-member sick.  News related to death, dying and sickness is always the worst.  But among the various sorts of non-medical bad news, this is about the worst that I can think of.  Worse than getting fired, worse than divorce.  Worse - dare I say it? - than having your dog die.  In fact, my news ranks right down there with a burning house or a broken leg.  Come to think of it, I'd actually rather break my leg. On a good news scale of one-to-ten, my news is about a zero.  One if I'm generous.

Sorry, I didn't mean to drag this out, especially since I already more-or-less gave the news away in the title. But now that it's time to announce my news to the world, or, in any event, to my own limited readership, it's surprisingly hard to say.  It's bad, it's embarrassing, it's pathetic.  If I had a rock to crawl under, I'd be doing it right about now.  But here in sub-zero Wisconsin, all I've got are snow drifts.

So here goes....Scrunch up my face, open my mouth, force the words from my throat:  

I'm going to jail.

There.  Putting it in tiny type helped a bit.  As did the fact that, for me anyway, writing is easier than talking. But it was still hard.  The truth is, I can hardly believe it.  I know it's true but it seems like a bad dream, like I'll wake up and it will all be gone.  I'm not saying I'm exceptional, or that I don't deserve punishment.  But as bad as it sounds to say, I always thought of jail as a place for someone else. Which, come to think of it, is probably what most convicted felons say.  Or wish.

The announcement is not exactly cathartic.  I didn't really expect it to be. But I decided to put it up here for all to see as a way to, at the least, come out from the cave I've been hiding myself in.  My friends and family all know already anyway and telling them was much harder than writing the news in my blog.  I sprung it on them as a wonderful Christmas/New Year's present. Now they are diligently drafting me letters of support, telling the judge that, despite my misdeeds, I am still a good person.

In this post I am not going to discuss my crime or my punishment.  That's all for later. But I do want to emphasize that my crime was a nonviolent one, committed while I was a lawyer in the Wild East (Russia) for a notoriously corrupt oligarch.  That said, it was still a crime, a federal felony no less.  And I in no way intend to try to justify myself or blame others.  To paraphrase Popeye: "I yam what I yam and I done what I done."

Going public is actually not for me, although to keep myself honest I pretend that I'm writing a personal journal. I've been hiding away from the world in shame for far too long. By pretending all is well I realized I was doing a disservice. My true and abiding hope is that through honestly sharing my experiences, I may be able to prevent someone, sometime from actually committing a crime. I don't overestimate the influence I will have, but even if just one person questioned their actions as a result of my mistakes I would have brought some meaning to my senseless crime.

I don't intend to leave you hanging.  Or not for long anyway.  In coming posts, I will chronicle my experiences as I wend my way through the criminal justice system and face my punishment.  Let me take you along with me on a vicarious trip I hope you will never have to take and have not taken before. In fact, by writing I hope that I can prevent at least one person from taking this very trip.  All you criminals out there: please read my blog!!!

There are several moving, heartfelt blogs out there written by ex-cons (several of which are listed in the favorite sites link on my homepage), but, maybe unsurprisingly, the thoughts and experiences of this population are underrepresented on the internet.  As an eternal optimist, I decided to try to make the best of a bad situation and use my gift for writing to chronicle my journey.  In so doing, I  hope that maybe I can open hearts and minds, and raise awareness of important issues related to incarceration and the criminal justice system.  I hope too that I can help others going through the same thing as me. Being labeled a felon can make you feel awfully alone, upset and confused. Knowing that you're not the only one out there can be of some comfort.  As I've already said, I also hope that maybe my writing will deter others from following in my footsteps. My experience?  It's not worth it.  Crime doesn't pay.

As I like to say, just because I did a bad thing doesn't mean I'm a bad person.  Unfortunately, we as a society are often too quick to categorize, placing people into baskets of good or bad, worthy or not worthy. I hope that I am able to bring some subtlety to the topic, to open a few eyes, and to further debate.

I'M GOING TO JAIL.  

There we go.  I said it again.  No turning back now.