Crook County

Chapter 5 looks at how defense attorneys at the Cook Country Courts determine the worthiness of their potential clients. It starts with a description of the courtroom lockup, where desperate defendants appear behind bulletproof glass. According to Gonzalez Van Cleve, this fishbowl environment is a key place where defense attorneys assess defendants to determine who is and isn’t worthy of zealous advocacy. Gonzalez Van Cleve explains how attorneys arrive at their assessments. Time, capital, and goodwill are in limited supply. Thus, defense attorneys, especially public defenders with high caseloads, have to determine which client deserve more attention. Repeat offenders, also called “garden variety or ordinary offenders” (161), receive less attention than clients deemed unique, who warrant slowing the process and receiving better representation. Middle-class markers trigger a better quality of representation, regardless of the defendant’s race, as evidenced by the case of Marquise Thompson, a Black man charged with unlawful use of a weapon. According to Gonzalez Van Cleve, Mr. Thompson’s saving grace were his Calvin Klein eyeglasses. Mr. Thompson had spent months in jail when he met his attorney, Sandra. Despite being stripped of all other markers of class, Sandra treated Mr. Thompson as a unique offender. Sandra introduced Gonzalez Van Cleve as a graduate student and asked Mr.