by Peggy Pinder
At the time Peggy Pinder made the following remarks at a convention of the National Federation of the Blind she was an assistant county attorney in Sioux City, Iowa. Today she has her own private law practice in Grinnell, Iowa, where she has served on the city council and is otherwise active in political and community affairs. She has reduced her blindness to nothing more than a minor annoyance, but it was not always like that. When I first knew her, she was lacking in self-confidence and agonizing over what she might be and become. Like countless others in the National Federation of the Blind she has drawn strength from and found role models in the organization and also like countless others, she has given (and continues to give) strength and encouragement in her turn and to serve as a model for others. Here is how she tells of her work as a county prosecutor.
"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. As the judge has already told you, my name is Peggy Pinder, and I represent the State of Iowa in this case. As you have already noticed, I am blind."
These are the first words that I speak to every panel of potential jurors that a defense attorney and I are questioning before we select those twelve persons who will render a verdict in the criminal prosecution at trial. My employer, Woodbury County Attorney Patrick C. McCormick, is an elected official with the power to hire, supervise, and fire assistants, whose positions have been authorized by the county board of supervisors. Nine other assistant county attorneys and I occupy the entire third floor of a beautiful and historic courthouse in Sioux City, Iowa. We handle criminal prosecutions and other statutory duties under the Code of Iowa for a county of about one hundred thousand persons in extreme northwest Iowa where the states of Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota meet. I have held this position for over four years.
I love the work that I do. I like working closely with my colleagues, and I enjoy a good argument with the defense attorney in a jury trial that is a hard-fought and a well-fought case on both sides. I am regularly astonished, distressed, and uplifted by the things that people will do to each other and to themselves. There are always variety and novelty in a prosecutor's office. I begin each morning by walking into the police station, threading my way amongst the citizens who are present to plead guilty or not guilty at nine o'clock arraignments, and amongst the citizens who are present trying to bond an arrested relative out of jail. I walk into my office and pick up the phone. I have often startled an early visitor by singing out cheerfully into the phone, "Who's in jail today?" I check the jail to be sure that everybody arrested since office hours the day before will be charged or released by noon. I also pick up all the drunk driving charges from the night before, which must be filled out and presented to a judge to whom I swear that the information thus displayed is true and correct.
I then begin to interview the witnesses for morning trial. This is the first time that I have met my morning witnesses or have heard of the facts of the individual cases. What I have just described is the first half hour of my job, and it can get pretty hectic. The other attorney assigned to the police station and I then go into court and begin trials of simple misdemeanors to which the defendants have chosen to plead not guilty or which the State of Iowa (that is me) is not willing to plea bargain. Simple misdemeanor cases are primarily tried by a judge rather than by a jury, and the judge begins the case by saying, "Miss Pinder, call your first witness." I stand up and say, "The State would call Trooper Swanson," and then begin to try the particular case. Simple misdemeanors include, in Iowa, most traffic offenses; simple assault cases where injury is not very grave; thefts under fifty dollars, which usually are shoplifting cases; public intoxication; and other assorted minor violations.
I do believe that I have heard most of the excuses people have for doing what it is that they do. There was the man who told the judge that the reason he was speeding at ninety-five miles per hour in a fifty-five mile per hour zone was because a bee had gotten between his right leg and the drive shaft, and that he was trying to crush the bee against the drive shaft before the bee stung him—during which he inadvertently floored the accelerator. During cross examination I asked the defendant if he had told this rather remarkable tale to the state trooper, and he said, well, no, he hadn't done that. The gentleman was found guilty.
I prosecuted a blind man once. It was for smashing out a windshield of a neighbor's car with a hammer, then running off down the street but not quickly enough to avoid being seen and identified by the neighbor, who pressed charges. The blind defendant was sworn in and walked up to the witness stand, which has one step up along the way. The blind defendant was not carrying a white cane or using a dog guide. The defendant tripped on the step. His lawyer then mentioned this tripping and asked if there was a reason why the defendant had tripped.
This blind defendant then replied that he was blind and stated under oath that he had not smashed the windshield and, moreover, could not have done so. He could not have been the culprit because, after all, he was blind, and therefore could not run away. Well, I'm a patient person, and I waited until this blind defendant's wife got onto the witness stand. She testified, and the blind defendant's wife and I had ourselves quite a discussion about the normality and competence and the ability of her blind husband, the defendant. The verdict was guilty.
We never know what will happen in a police station. When conservation officers persons who enforce Iowa's Fish and Game laws bring violations of the fishing laws into court for trial, they invariably show up with the actual fish (carefully frozen and tagged) to wave in front of the judge's face. And last month in a courtroom filled with police officers and other persons waiting to testify, we had an assault. The relatives of a victim, so incensed at the simple seeing of the defendant, jumped him in the back of the courtroom and beat him unconscious. When simple misdemeanors are over for the morning and everyone in jail is either charged or has been released on my signature, stating that the person will be charged later, I then return to the courthouse and begin working on the more serious misdemeanor charges.
More serious misdemeanor charges come into the office in the form of police reports, which I must review on a daily basis. I review all the reports submitted to determine if the facts there recounted constitute a crime and, if so, which specific offense. If the facts do constitute an offense, the correct charge is then specified and recorded as "charge approved." If no offense is alleged, or if more work must be done on the case, the charge is denied; and the reasons for the denial are recorded. I never know what may be sitting on my desk when I get back.
One time I had a cat murder in which a five-year-old girl saw a man-she had no idea who the man was drive by in a car and simply blow her pet cat to bits with a large hand gun. There was the case of the good neighbor, who simply gave shelter to a nearby resident when her boyfriend started to beat her unmercifully. Now, this good neighbor (in turn) was felled by a blow from a tire iron for his pains by the irate boyfriend.
Once a case is approved, the case is assigned to one of the attorneys in the office for all further handling. The next step in handling is preparation of the actual criminal charge. This involves choosing the precise language by which the defendant will be charged and writing the minutes of testimony. The minutes are full and fair statement this is what the Iowa law saysþof the testimony which each witness will give, and other evidence to be presented by the state against the defendant. This requires that I go through the reports and prepare a full and fair statement of each witness's minutes.
The minutes are required by Iowa law to inform the defendant of the precise nature and circumstances of the charges brought against him or her, and they also serve for prosecutors as a kind of mandatory preparation technique. We must think through the case as though we were trying it before it is even filed, and write out a summary of the evidence that will be given against the witness. In the years that I have been employed at the county attorney's office, the misdemeanor caseload has doubled each year; and the staff has stayed exactly the same size. How do I write all those minutes? Well, circumstances have forced me to find more and more efficient ways of doing the things that I must do under the law.
Today, I file an average of two to three charges a day. When there is a case in which the defendant will not plead guilty and
about which I feel so strongly that I think there must be a trial, I go to court. I begin every jury trial by reading to the jury the exact criminal charge.
After I read the charge, the other attorney and I present our case to the jury, and then a conviction or dismissal occurs. In addition to trying cases, I also do a number of other functions in the Woodbury County Attorney's office including the handling of extraditions, the teaching of police officers how to do their jobs better, and (I think this is the most important thing of all) changing what it means to be blind.
I live in a community of eighty thousand, and I know that the fact that I am a blind lawyer has changed people's attitudes in Sioux City about blindness. Someone comes into my office. They want my help, and they don't really care whether I'm blind or not. Someone comes into the courtroom and sits across the defense table from me. They don't care whether I'm blind or not. They just wish I wasn't as effective an attorney as I am.
The most important thing of all, though, is that whatever I do in my job, I have found ways of doing it. People often ask me how I can do this or that given task, and usually I have answers. And the reason I can find an answer is because of what I have gained from the National Federation of the Blind and especially from Dr. Jernigan. I have the confidence in myself to know that I can walk into that courtroom and find a way of convicting that defendant. It doesn't matter whether I can see or not. The truth isn't discovered by whether you can see or not. Dr. Jernigan was the first person in this world who ever showed confidence and trust in me; and, I hope that I have lived up to his expectations.