Quote:
“Jesse looked around the table at his laughing friends. They reminded him of his fellow soldiers in Vietnam. They had to laugh now and then and it was good that they did. Criminal defense is the emergency room of the law, and the constant pressure had to be relieved somehow. Grunts of the law, he thought, field medics performing triage in the crowded jails and holding cells behind the staid courtrooms. We tend the wounded, he thought, those who were wounded by life, by testosterone, by poverty. In this business, everyone gets wounded. Every lawyer at the table had suffered for his or her clients.” (Vea, 37)
Explanation:
This passage is significant because Jesse is describing the importance of laughter in both war. He also describes how war man are similar to being a defense attorney. Laughter is important in war because it shows that you are still human even though the soldiers have experienced traumatic events, like killing a person or seeing another soldier that they know die in front of them. It doesn't necessarily mean that they forgot about the trauma, but shows that you are still capable of enjoyment. Jesse then describes how “criminal defense is the emergency room of the law”(Vea, 37) because they help the people who have been “wounded by life.”(Vea, 37) The passage is meaningful because it expresses Jesse's thoughts about being a defense lawyer and how important he thinks it is.
Questions:
(1) Why are all the defense attorneys sitting around the table? Which story do you think is the funniest? Explain why?
(2) What is Jesse's definition of a “life makeover”? What is your definition of a life makeover?
Response:
ReplyDelete(1)-The defense attorney are all sitting around the table because they are having a meeting reviewing their cases. I think that the funniest case was the one with the burgler that think he had everything perfect but at the end he ends up with a big tiger in front of him when he sneaks in through the top window on the building.
(2)-Jesses's definition of "life makeoever" was that he had to go through
serious time and put a part of him to understand the case and study his clients. My difinition to life makeover is for some one to change their way of being in their life.
I think the funniest one is the case where the client was wearing things he stole to court -- only to have himself stripped neraly naked item by item. I suppose it's funniest to me because the crimes (while awful) weren't as terrifying to me (like the rape one). The sad part, however, came later, with the client's mother blaming the outcome on Jesse, and Jesse's ethnicity.
ReplyDeleteLUIS and OSCAR: I'm glad that both of you are taking this seriously, as this can seriously help your grades. Good for you.