Part II: The Jurist.

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Wednesday, December 3. 

Dinah checked her phone again; nervous habit. Always the first one to the courtroom, she waited for opposing counsel to stroll in five minutes before the hearing started, and for the judge to take the bench approximately 20 minutes after the hearing was scheduled to start. It was the normal cadence of federal litigation. In those few quiet moments she had, where the courtroom deputy and the clerk checked in about the day’s events, and the quiet humming of the printer offered a mechanical white noise effect, Dinah couldn’t just sit. She had to do something; there was always something to do. There was never enough time in the day, never enough grace to just sit and stare off into space. A wasted moment was a guilt-racked moment. So even though her therapist counseled her to take five minutes to herself before stressful events in her life, Dinah instead flipped through the usual series of apps on her phone. She started with her work email (wincing with one eye open, hoping that problematic litigants didn’t end up in her inbox again). She pivoted to her Teams Messaging app (wincing with one eye open, hoping that one problematic support staff wasn’t messaging her again about something she had done wrong on her most recent pleading). She then rounded out her tour de cellphone with the fun things; Instagram (wincing, hoping the audio wouldn’t embarrassingly go off on one of those silly cat videos she loved), her text messages (again wincing at the idea that she and her sister would bicker about what to give their mother for Christmas, for the twentieth year in a row). 

“Do you always look that pained?” Dinah turned on a dime at the piercing and traumatic sound of her supervisor entering the courtroom. Appointed to the position after the 2024 election, he walked in like he owned the place. She hated it; she’d given over ten years to this job and she wouldn’t dare behave like he did. “It’s not going to help with those occupational hazards and the husband market,” he added, pointing to the wrinkle between her eyebrows. Somewhere behind her in the midst of the whirling printer sounds, Dinah swore she heard the clerk mutter “ass.” 

“Good morning, Mr. Slade.” Dinah feigned deference and a smile as the swelling feeling of a bad case of acid reflux rose in the back of her throat. Five minutes of quiet for yourself, Dinah’s therapist lingered in her mind. Her mental retort, in another life, with another boss.

“I can’t believe they got this shit carried over for a month. Taking us forever to get rid of this woman who just needs to accept that her time is up-pah.” It was the last pop of the “p” on up - the pahh - sound. Dinah wasn’t sure where Gregory Slade went to law school, but she hoped it was some bottom of the barrel diploma mill with those courtroom manners. 

“Well, today should be the end of their presentation of evidence. While this matter should have been resolved on the pleadings, I do feel we’ve done sufficient work to rest on the pleadings and insufficient evidence without continuing this matter out any further.” Dinah turned away from Gregory, facing counsel’s desk. As they worked through the morning chatter of supervisor and supervisee, she wanted to triple check that her trial binders were in the right place, and everything was ready to go. 

“Good, good” Gregory replied absentmindedly. Like he heard a word I just said. As Dinah thumbed through the tabs prepared for potential impeachment of the plaintiff’s star witness, Gregory noted, “Thank god there was one woman left in this office to try this case. Probably wouldn’t have gone down well with someone super masculine like me cross-examining a woman, even if she’s a dyke.”

Dinah froze, hand midway through turning the binder tab to the next section of impeachment material. It was as if time was suspended at that moment; while the printer helped cover some of the courtroom “confidential” conversation, it wasn’t that good (even if it was bulky and outdated). The deputy stopped midway in the process of bringing his paper cup of coffee to his mouth. The courtroom clerk was derailed in the process of stapling the day’s trial docket for the judge.

Next thing, Dinah felt two large hands grab her shoulders and squeeze - squeeze unnecessarily hard and slow. “And you know Dinah, one day, this won’t be necessary. One day” - he continued pushing and pulling in and out into Dinah’s shoulders - “one day the taxpayer’s dollars won’t be wasted on this DEI bullshit. Affirmative action babies will stop crying in a court of law because they’ll realize they didn’t even belong in the first place. The science proves it Di - the science proves that people like the Maxine French were never qualified in the first place. And we know that! And I am just glad we’ve got one good woman left to have the good fight and to set this all straight. And then, who knows Di? Maybe you can hang that pretty law degree on the wall and return to what matters to you and the rest of the god-blessed Americans we represent.”

Dinah rolled her shoulders out from underneath Gregory’s grip. She pushed the rolling chair of counsel’s table back, wheeling the back rest straight into his shins. She turned on her 3” heels, facing him, angrily crinkling her eyebrows to flex that “occupational hazard” in his face.

“First, it’s Dinah Johnson, not Di. But really, it’s Ms. Johnson. And second, this” - Dinah gestured to the courtroom - “this really matters to me and the rest of the god-blessed Americans we represent. This really matters, with my hard fought, pretty Harvard Law degree that hangs on the wall of my office. And that’s where it will stay until the day I retire from the Department of Justice. Thank you for giving me the moment to clarify that information for you.” Dinah grabbed his shoulder and gave it a firm squeeze; Gregory winced, perplexed in response. “I wouldn’t look so pained if I were you, might create unwanted wrinkles. Not really good for the political career market.”

Before Gregory could reply, Dinah caught a glimpse of the plaintiff and her counsel entering the courtroom, along with a straggly looking teenager who told people she was a reporter. Candidly, Dinah had never been more grateful to set eyes on Rosie Dixon. Once a name she often screamed at - alone in her office - when it appeared in her email inbox, she was grateful that one of her archnemesis was there to interrupt the barrage of idiot that was coming her way. 

“Now, if you’ll excuse me - I have a hearing to win.” Dinah gestured to the back row of chairs behind counsel’s table, reminding Gregory of his true place in this hearing. She turned, facing the clerk and the courtroom deputy. She stared forward, unsure of what the hell to do next, stunned. But she was certain that she couldn’t stand to interact with Gregory Slade for one more moment. As she continued to stare, she saw the deputy slowly put his cup of coffee down on the edge of the clerk’s desk. He raised his free hand to his hip, out of the line of sight of Gregory. In the plain view of Dinah Johnson, the deputy nodded and gave her a dad-like thumbs up, pumping it once or twice in approval. She grinned to herself, hung her head, and had a sinking feeling she may have just tanked her storied career. 

*****

“Objection! Calls for speculation, expert opinion outside the scope of the witness.” Rosie’s shrill voice filled the courtroom, yet again. She was going to make it impossible for Dinah to complete this cross examination of Maxine French. 

“Well which one is it, counsel? Because I am not sure a question can be both speculative yet so specific that it requires an expert’s opinion?” Dinah was turned, facing Rosie from the middle of the courtroom well, at the lectern. Dibah was losing her patience, although she tried her hardest to mask it behind the principles of the law. 

“That is enough,” the judge interjected. Dinah knew there she had crossed a line; she turned back to face the judge. “The back chatter must come to a stop or I swear I will hold the both of you in contempt, and I won’t care much for who the hell started it in the first place.” Even the court reporter raised an eyebrow at the judge and she slowly inputted h-e-l-l into the federal court transcripts. “The objection is sustained as to both, alternative grounds of evidence. Counsel, rephrase or move on.”

Dinah sunk into the lectern; it was the fourth time this afternoon the judge barked the commands, “rephrase or move on.” If she was going to save the record, and her own neck for that matter, Dinah had to make the record that the plaintiff was unfit for duty and command. The evidence she had was speculative, and it did require an expert opinion. She knew this and she told Gregory this multiple times as they prepared for this hearing for the last two months. But she remembered him barking in the conference room, “I am not spending money on some expert to tell us what we already knows - the Gays don’t belong in the fucking military, let alone as command leadership. They are weapons of woke destruction and we are not having it any longer - the American people are not having it any longer!” Dinah wanted to tell him it wasn’t a campaign rally. It was the 1980s conference table of the office, littered with random napkins and donut crumbs from the box of Stan’s one of the support staff brought in that morning. But who was Dinah to tell her supervisor to come back to reality?

“Counsel? Rephrase or move on. Time is of the essence.” The judge brought Dinah back to the present moment. As soon as she registered the moment, preparing her next line of questioning, she felt a tug at the back seam of her suit jacket. “Dinah, a word,” Gregory was standing there, commanding her back to the counsel's table. 

“Sir, have you made an appearance on the record?” 

“No, your honor, I have not, but I am Ms. Johnson’s supervisor.”

“I don’t care who you are; unless you’ve made an appearance as an attorney of record, you are not standing in my well, interrupting counsel in the middle of court proceedings. Go back from wherever you came from, and stay there, sir.” Gregory looked flabbergasted, standing frozen in the court well. “Was something I said unclear?”

Dinah interjected, “No, it’s not your honor. At the court’s indulgence please - 5 minutes?” The judge, half exasperated, half understanding at Dinah’s predicament, nodded with annoyance. 

“We are off the record and will return in 10 minutes - sharp.” The judge lightly banged his gavel and rose from the bench, returning to the door to enter his chambers. From the corner of her eye, standing between the bench and her supervisor like a human shield, Dinah could see opposing counsel and the plaintiff receding in the court pews, heading towards the public exit of the courtroom.  

“Can we go sit, Gregory?!” Dinah was furious; she was stuck, certainly, but she was also in the flow of examination. There was nothing worse than being interrupted in that flow. Some opined that was the primary purpose of objections - to throw off the flow of a lawyer in their groove. Annoying, yes, but that was to be expected from opposing counsel. It was not, however, to be expected from within your own house; from one’s own idiotic supervisor who had never practiced federal law, let alone conducted his own evidentiary hearing, bench trial, or jury trial, from start to finish. Dinah would put money on the side that the man couldn’t even name five objections if he was given five minutes to come up with them. 

Huffing, twitching almost, Gregory walked back to the government’s table. “Jesus, I thought you told me this judge was favorable to our position - he’s on a fucking control bender in this courtroom. We’ll need to tell leadership that the executive should revoke his appointment.” 

“You can’t do that, Gregory - ”

“Oh yeah, says who?” he huffed. 

“The Constitution, Gregory. It doesn’t get much clearer than that.”

“Well, that’s dead anyway, so we’ll see about that when we get the chance to rewrite it.”

Well, that’s dead anyway. The words echoed in her mind, as she watched Gregory place his laptop on counsel’s table. He was trying to show her something in a piece of evidence that he reviewed while she was examining the witness. 

Well, that’s dead anyway. Those words consumed her so much that she almost missed it, as Gregory was flying through different tabs and applications on his laptop. It wasn’t the desktop image of himself, posing with the DOJ Seal, or the fact that he had a barstool sports tab open on his work computer, that disturbed Dinah. It was the Teams Messaging App that he forgot to minimize. He had a chat file open in the app, a thread named “DOGE BROS.”

“Dinah, it’s in Exhibit A-72. Look at this reporting from the Military Times,” Gregory was rambling on as the chat images burned themselves into Dinah’s corneas. She was sure there was water cooler talk about her - there always had been. Title IX was a beautiful thing in spirit, but a pitiful thing to enforce in practice. But this - this was the textbook example of sexual harassment and unadulterated hatred. She wasn’t sure this kind of thing actually still existed in the world; the unicorn of employment law and civil rights violations. 

“Dinah, are you even fucking here on earth right now? We are about to lose this case because - ”

“Because I should just fuck you and get you a file, right?” Dinah said it in a tempered tone; she couldn’t believe the words escaped her mouth. She slowly turned, peeling her eyes away from the chat window he left open, and made direct eye contact with Gregory. “Uh-uch- excuse me?” Gregory choked in response. 

Dinah took the laptop from Gregory and slowly slid it across the counsel's table. With a couple of quick gestures of her hands, the DOGE BROS chat was right in front of them both, zoomed in at 200%, so it was clear to both of them. Hands trembling, she took her cellphone out of her pocket, quickly closing out of the apps of the morning’s cellphone routine. She opened her camera app and snapped a photo, and Gregory sat there, looking on in abject horror. 

“Well maybe - no, not maybe. Definitively, fuck yourself Gregory.” 

Somewhere in the background, she could have sworn she heard the stapler of the courtroom clerk drop on the floor, and the silent swooshing sounds a the courtroom deputy fist bumping in the air. 

Read Part II: The Jurists.