"ADA Mackey. Please give this court one good reason why we shouldn't end this argument and recommend your immediate disbarment."
My jaw dropped. Next to me, Sam's jaw dropped. Somebody in the press box dropped their pen.
That… was not what I expected.
Ho. Ly. Shit.
I've mentioned a time or two some things that wouldn't have been thought of or considered until recent events occurred. But this, beyond the obvious blown away initial reaction, makes perfect sense for the time period when I think about it.
Young and Andrews pulled Comic Book Bullshit. The Old System abhors people who get cavalier with the rules they've made. After the insanity of the 70s and before the 2010s, you
very rarely saw people mess with the legal system like that. Creative Exploitation Shenanigans was what the executive branch existed for, as just about any event in the Reagan admin would tell. The judicial system is still viewed and quasi-operated by its members like it's a bastion of objectivity meant to provide clarity when two parties need something resolved. The law has some swing, room for people to find ways to win, so you're supposed to win by the deliberately broad book, not break it. I know the opening arc's inspired by a classic novel, but if the head judge for this appeal wasn't a member of the Freedom Riders, I doubt the closest real-life case to what St. John experienced would have been brought up. It's the only reason I can think of for why the court is progressing straight to threatening disciplinary action.
The last guy who pulled a stunt like this from the bench never got disciplined. The only thing worse to these old-school justices than the contamination-by-association of a judge being slapped is to have the general public think there's a precedent for a judge and DA working to put the screws to a political target.
"In most cases wherein the issues raised require separate standards of reviews, the Court would offer each of them their own respective standard, offering deference where appropriate, and stricter scrutiny where warranted. This entire case, however, was such an utter disgrace to good jurisprudence that this court undertook the entire review de novo. That is to say, we took all of Phillip Andrews' rulings from the bench, threw them in the trash, and started over. With fresh eyes, the impropriety from all governmental parties was plain to see, and while no amount of apologies or restitution can make whole what was lost, we can at least make a start."
This is almost certainly why Andrews post-retirement departure involved driving off so damn fast
he ran over his partner-in-crime. Andrews got told to either quit right then and there, and maybe they'd consider not dragging him through the mud. With a disgraced judge shunned by all his legal peers and sitting in jail for murder, the appeal panel can treat Andrews however they want.
"The First Department hereby finds in favor of the Petitioner, S.J. Allerdyce," he declared. "Petitioner's conviction has been overturned, and his sentence has been vacated. As of this moment, Mr. Allerdyce is as he should always have been: a free man."
Justice Smith began to bring the gavel down on the podium – and then stopped.
"Furthermore!" His voice boomed, finally causing the first bit of feedback from the microphone. I couldn't help the wince, both at the volume of his speech, but also at the excruciating sound. "This Court orders that a new trial be held, to give the Office of the District Attorney a chance to show the People of this fine City that it can, in fact, make the right decision. So ordered!"
... Maybe playing your hand a bit there Smith, but given this case has already been politicized I don't think it's all that much of an escalation. Although I do wonder what kind of precedent this new case is going to try and set. Unless the drunk jerk who got picked up walks into the court day one and says he wants to withdraw the charges, this is still trying St. John for allegedly setting a guy on fire. The DA can't throw the guy under the bus, especially with how much of a public eye is on this.
District Attorney Max Collins, the successor to Lou Young, took his place at the podium.
"Counsel for Mr. Allerdyce has already confirmed to me that they can produce him whenever necessary for such a retrial," DA Collins said, voice flat and toneless as compared to Justice Smith's. Without the microphones, it wouldn't have carried. "As of this moment, the trial has been scheduled for Monday, November 19. It shall be televised by exactly one party, and we will distribute more information closer to the date.
"Neither the press nor the public at large shall be allowed in the courtroom," he stressed. "This young man's life has already been made difficult enough by the disastrous choices of my predecessor. And if I hear that anybody attempts to give this young man or his family any grief, police in all five boroughs are ready and waiting to bring down the hammer."
I was with Collins for the first half, not gonna lie, but that comment about the police wanting to step in? I call
Cap. Sure, there's over twenty five thousand people with a badge and a gun in there, you can probably find a few people willing to bust heads for a wrongly convicted kid. But the lot of them, especially when asked in public surrounded by their peers? Nah. They're not into this sort of thing, and might even get union pushback.
This is, in its own way, quite unfair to St. John because he's basically having to suffer through the significant time cost of a new trial, even if everyone knows that this new trial is going to be relatively fast, as far as criminal trials go, rather than just getting his conviction overturned and not having to worry about anything anymore, and this is largely because the New York legal system wants to defend its own integrity. I don't think
@October Daye deliberately failed to notice this, though.
I suspect it might come up as a point of tension in the near future.
Pardon me for stealing this as an excuse to continue an earlier point: I think what the DA is going to do is twofold: One, establish that the office walks the line. The case has to fail on its nonexistent merits, as cathartic as it would be this can't go full Al Pacino. Two, for both in-universe and narrative reasons execute and expand on what Noa was talking about earlier with the kids at the Xavier Institute. How superpowers being used to commit a crime, especially a power you're born with and can't just 'turn off', affects legal issues. The New York legal system isn't just cleaning up the mess, I think they want to set down ironclad rules to stop the next Andrews who thinks they can pull a stunt like this. How well that works in practice, I'm also skeptical, but think of it like that saying about safety regulations. Only less blood but a kid having to essentially live on the run.
