FINDING LIGHT - PART III

How we treat the anawim

James McDermott '91
wants Texas to stand up for the defenseless

The state prosecutor refused to turn and acknowledge the defendant whom he had charged with assault with a deadly weapon.

It must have been difficult. The defendant's violent seizures had stolen the attention of everyone else in the Del Rio courtroom.

The public defender in this case, James McDermott '91, reminded the court that he had pleaded with the state to recognize his client's condition and that every doctor and hospital that had treated him found that it rendered him unfit to stand trial.

But now that his client was here in the courtroom, McDermott wanted them to see him and to judge for themselves whether anyone with his tragic affliction could commit an assault.

"It is a privilege to stand with my clients," McDermott said recently. "Some are not very popular or savory people. But having access to the most vulnerable corners of their lives is humbling."

While these words could have been written for a primetime TV lawyer, McDermott does not play on such stages.

Long before he became a public defender, McDermott joined the Jesuit Volunteer Corps (JVC).

In his first year, he was assigned to Sacramento, where he drove a van for the homeless and mentally ill so they could get to the Social Security office and attend their AA meetings.

"I went out there thinking how smart I was," recalled the Davidson graduate. "After a short time, I learned to listen. They needed to be heard."

In the JVC, young people don't just work on behalf of the homeless, the unemployed, refugees, people with AIDS, the elderly, street youth, abused women and children, the mentally ill, and the developmentally disabled.

They live with them.