Section 14-288.4 of the state criminal code requires proof of intent to cause— Stop. Whitmore held up his hand. Did you just quote a statute at me? I’m presenting my defense, your honor.
You’re wasting my time. His face reened. You walk into my courtroom in your thrift store clothes with your food-stamp education and you think you can lecture me on the law? I’m not lecturing, your honor.
I’m— I’ve been on this bench for 32 years. 32 years. I was interpreting law before your mother started collecting welfare. Before your grandmother started collecting welfare. How dare you?
How dare you stand there and pretend you understand anything about this system? The witness statements clearly show—witness statements. He grabbed the papers she’d submitted and held them up with theatrical contempt. These witness statements, let me guess, friends of yours, cousins, baby daddies, other criminals willing to lie for one of their own.
They were independent customers in the store, your honor. Complete strangers who who will say anything to help another Black defendant beat the system. He tore the pages in half. Let them flutter to the floor.
There, that’s what I think of your evidence. Gasps rippled through the gallery. Even some of the white attorneys looked uncomfortable. Whitmore didn’t notice.
He was lost in his righteousness now. 32 years of unchallenged power had convinced him he could say anything, do anything, and face no consequences. You people," he continued, leaning forward, fingerpointed at Khloe like a weapon. "You come in here with your attitudes and your excuses.
You waste taxpayer money. You drain resources from hardworking Americans. You breed like rats and expect the rest of us to clean up your mess. " Khloe’s heart pounded.
The recorder captured every word. "I’ve processed thousands of your kind," he spat. Thousands and you’re all identical. No fathers, no discipline, no values.
Just generation after generation of criminals raising criminals. A disease that keeps spreading no matter how many we lock up. Movement in Khloe’s peripheral vision. The courtroom doors opening.
A figure slipped in quietly, taking a seat in the back row. Raymondd Foster. Their eyes met across the room. His face went chalk white with recognition. "He knows," Khloe realized.
"He sees me. He understands exactly who I am and what I’m doing here. " Raymondd sat frozen, staring at her, his mentor, his mentee. In this moment, on opposite sides of everything, would he say something?
Stand up and warn his friend, expose her? seconds stretched like hours. Raymond’s mouth opened, then closed. His hands gripped his knees until the knuckles turned white.
She could see the war raging behind his eyes. Loyalty versus conscience, friendship versus justice, the easy wrong versus the difficult right. He stayed silent. Khloe turned back to the judge.
Whatever Raymond chose to do, she had work to finish. "Your honor," she said calmly, "I’m simply trying to exercise my legal right to your legal right. " Whitmore laughed bitterly. "You want to talk about rights?
Your people have been abusing rights for decades, every handout, every special program, every time the system bends over backward to give you advantages you don’t deserve. And what do we get in return? crime, violence, decay, neighborhoods destroyed, schools ruined, a whole race of people who refuse to take responsibility for anything. That’s not— It’s exactly what it is.