The Shadow of Justice.

The Shadow of Justice by Milton Hirsch Reviewed by Jan Pudlow

Sage advice from experienced criminal defense attorneys to novices: "You must never ask the client why."

Make sure their constitutional rights are protected. Keep the prosecutors and cops honest. Try to get your client off. But never ask why.

Milton Hirsch, a former prosecutor and seasoned Miami criminal defense lawyer, dares to explore that taboo question in his first novel he describes as not only a "whodunnit, but a whydunnit."

"I finally decided, look, we are all in the story of the emperor's new clothes. People come into the system and we help keep them moving along the conveyor belt, never asking the question that might stop the conveyor belt," Hirsch told the Journal. "I wrote this to oblige the system to confront the why question."

That philosophical dare is deftly carried out with a seamy, cocaine-laced murder mystery that unfolds at the Richard E. Gerstein Metro-Justice Building in Miami and the cafe-lined streets of Coconut Grove.

The story's ethical undercurrent is driven by the two main characters: the protagonist, 11th Circuit Judge Clark N. Addison, caught between the law and the truth, and flamboyant criminal defense lawyer John Wentworth "Blackjack" Sheridan IV, who "owned a small sailboat named The Blackjack, an on-again-off-again Southern accent, and a liver that a cat wouldn't eat."

Woven throughout an intriguing plot line that bends the truth and blurs guilt and innocence to shades of gray are snippets detailing the criminal trial process. Those descriptions--from jury selection to cross-examination techniques to sentencing--are so realistically rendered that the American Bar Association chose to publish The Shadow of Justice as the first in a new series called "Great Stories by Great Lawyers." As the ABA says in its release: "Part of the ABA's mission in establishing the series is to educate the public about the criminal justice system by illustrating the way it really works."

And the way it really works, day-by-day on crowded dockets, is a far cry from the lofty ideals taught in law school.

Here's how Judge Addison describes the goings-on in his courtroom:

"Behind me are the flags, American and Florida, and on the wall high above me a placard with the motto, 'We who labor here seek only Truth.' In truth, we who labor here seek many things. Truth is a luxury. Defendants seek a break; prosecutors seek a conviction; defense attorneys seek an acquittal and, if they are very lucky, a legal fee. Jurors seek relief from boredom; visitors seek entertainment; victims and family members seek closure. I have no leisure to consider what it is I seek. Miami has America's busiest criminal courts. The caseload of a judge in Miami is, on average, three times that of a judge in Manhattan. I seek not to drown."

What Hirsch was seeking when he went to the office early each day for a year to write this novel (only to leave it sitting in a desk drawer for three years) was a therapeutic purging during a midlife crisis.

"The traditional options when confronted with a midlife crisis are to buy a Ferrari, have an affair with an underage woman, or I could write a novel. I might have gotten my wife's permission for the affair. The Ferrari was out of the question. So I went with the book," Hirsch said with a hearty laugh.

Hirsch's wry sense of humor bubbles up throughout this quick-read, 205 pages, that leaves you wanting more. The judge has no gavel because they steal them in Miami. In an inside joke to readers who know the author, the judge tosses a well-thumbed copy of Hirsch's Florida Criminal Trial Procedure into his briefcase (yes, the real-life publication of the new novelist). Blackjack, the bourbon-swigging criminal defense lawyer, describes business-as-usual as "innocent until proven indigent."

But scratch a cynic and you often find a disillusioned idealist underneath. Pointed criticism of assembly-line justice reads more like an urgent plea to remember and embrace the moral ideals of the legal profession before it's too late.

No one triggering event inspired Hirsch to seek refuge from his daily grind and delve into fiction-writing. Rather, he said, it was year after year of criminal defense work that caused him "to wonder and question my faith in the edifice of justice and my ability to add my grain of sand to that edifice if it exists."

(Interestingly, during the time he worked on the novel, Hirsch was in the midst of six years of working with the Innocence Project to free from prison Wilton Dedge, the man who spent 22 years behind bars for a rape he did not commit, finally cleared by DNA evidence in August 2004.)

The book's title comes from the Cuban expression: "La ley es apenas la sombra de la justicia"--"The law is but the shadow of justice."

In one scene, recounting one of his first cases as a prosecutor when his first reflex at law-and-order decisions seemed so much more certain, Judge Addison reflects: "The law is what we live by. Justice is what we live for. It was the law school answer, but it wasn't much of an answer. The law is what we live by. Sometimes justice is what we live without."

The Shadow of Justice is an entertaining read, especially fun for regulars of Miami's circuit criminal court and for those who know the city. But the novel goes beyond light reading by digging deeper into questioning why. Just by asking that forbidden question, Hirsch brings us that much closer to an answer.

By ABA Publishing, The Shadow of Justice is available to order online and is available in bookstores nationwide.

Jan Pudlow is associate editor of The Florida Bar News.