My LVAD lifeat9200rpms: Early AUSA days and The Usual Motion

    This post is courtesy of my heart pump, a HeartMate II LVAD, which has supported me for nearly 28 months since I succumbed to end stage heart failure.  I was a goner but because of the LVAD, I'm still going.  My advice: never quit.

     I made a career change from reporter to lawyer in 1978.  I found that all the same skills I used in newspaper work transferred to legal and trial work.

     The U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois in 1978 was Thomas P. Sullivan.  Tom was always a criminal defense lawyer in Chicago and had a first rate reputation among lawyers and judges for three decades.  Somehow U.S. Sen. Adlai Stevenson convinced Sullivan to accept President Carter's nomination for the position of the top federal law enforcement officer for the eight million people in Chicago and the northern third of the state.

     I applied to the U.S. Attorney's Office in my last semester of law school at Loyola University of Chicago.  I was covering the federal beat for The Chicago Sun-Times newspaper at the time.  I covered that beat since 1972.  The federal beat, which many colleagues and I considered to be a plum assignment involved daily reporting on federal agencies, the trial and appellate courts and the U.S. Attorney's office.  I worked as the federal beat reporter during the administration of three U.S. Attorneys: Jim Thompson, Sam Skinner, and Tom Sullivan.   Thompson went on to be Illinois' governor, Skinner became U.S. Transportation Secretary, and Sullivan returned to his lucrative law practice as a partner at Jenner and Block.

   When it came time to decide what to do with my newly minted law degree, my choices were to wait in line and hope to eventually be assigned to Washington to cover the U.S. Supreme Court or to present cases in federal court as a prosecutor.  The line to cover the high court was long and unrealistic.  Equally unrealistic was the notion that I could become an assistant U.S. attorney.  I applied anyway and went through dozens of interviews with members of Sullivan's staff, knowing full well that one negative vote of the hiring team would likely be a death knell to my application.

     Eventually, I got a face to face meeting with Sullivan and his First Assistant, Greg Jones.  The conversation took an adversarial tone when Tom asked me whether I would tell my friends and colleagues in the media about cases in the USA's office.  "Can you keep your mouth shut," he asked.  My reply was succinct.  I said no.  I told him my clearance as a Naval Officer was likely higher than his, and that I was not applying to become a federal prosecutor to make it a revolving door.  My friends and colleagues had the integrity not to ask me for privileged information and I believed I had the integrity not to share it, I said.

     Sullivan asked me if I had talked to my wife about the job and its demands.  I said I had.  Sullivan said I would be making 20 to 25 per cent less as a new assistant U.S. attorney than I was as a reporter.  Could I accept that?  Yes I said.

    The office was about to undergo a hiring freeze, Sullivan said, so I had to start before the end of the fiscal year, which ended September 30, 1978.

     I talked to my wife and accepted the offer.  I had yet to take and pass the Illinois Bar Examination.  No matter, Sullivan said, I would start as a Department of Justice law clerk and await the results of the bar exam.

     TPS, as he was referred to, hired me and five other 1978 law graduates without any of us having a law license.  We were all awaiting bar results, which were not due until late October.  We all passed and were sworn in as new lawyers in early November at McCormick Place on the Lakefront.  Tom orchestrated a swearing in for all six of us before the Chief Judge of the District Court, James Parsons.  Tom commented on the record during the swearing in oath of office proceeding that he would never again hire any lawyer who hadn't been admitted to practice. Too risky given the hiring freeze. He said he breathed a heavy sigh when he got word that all of us had passed the bar exam.

     In the weeks between starting as a clerk and being sworn in as an AUSA, all of us prepared briefs of cases on appeal to the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.  The Seventh Circuit was housed on the 27th floor of the Dirksen Federal Building and Court  House, 12 floors above the U.S. Attorney's Office.  None of the six prospective AUSAs had a case load and none of us could appear in court.  But we did have the chance to argue before the Appeals Court the cases we'd briefed, if we passed the bar and were admitted to practice before oral arguments were scheduled to take place.

     Once I was "legal" so to speak as an AUSA, I received a case load in the Criminal Receiving and Appellate Division.  One of the  assignments was covering rotating duty days, processing new cases, arrests, and search warrants for the federal law enforcement agencies:  FBI, Secret Service, Postal Inspectors, and the DEA among others.

     On my first duty day I handled the case of two men charged by Postal Inspectors with stealing mail from a letter carrier.  For some reason, the two accused were given summonses to appear before a federal magistrate.  At the scheduled time, I appeared before U.S. Magistrate James Balog.  Two lawyers, appointed by the court to represent the accused, appeared as well. But the accused were absent.

     I had been in Balog's court as a reporter for many cases over six years in the federal building.  We knew each other at work and had been together a few times socially.

     Balog saved my bacon that day.  His clerk called the case of the accused mail thieves and the lawyers stepped up and introduced themselves.  Their clients were absent.  The defense lawyers said they had spoken with their clients earlier that day and reminded them that it was important to be prompt for their court appearance.

     The magistrate looked over at me and I suddenly was struck dumb.  What I should have said was, "Your Honor, I move for the court to issue bench warrants for the arrest of the defendants."  Instead I stood for a very long minute.

     At last I got my mind in gear enough to say:  "The usual motion, Your Honor."

     Bang bang went his gavel as though he were awaiting any small hint from me of what the usual procedure should be. "The usual motion, your Honor" was enough for Balog to launch into a litany of the facts leading to this point and the issuance of bench warrants for the arrest of the no shows.

     I waited for the courtroom to clear and left.  I entered Balog's outer office and spoke with his secretary who ushered me into chambers.  There I thanked Balog for his quickness in covering for my rookie memory failure.  "No thanks necessary," he said, "it happens to all of us.  I'm glad I was there to help."