LITERARY COURTHOUSE, May 28 – "You better get over here, Michael. There's a defendant talking crazy and Federal Defenders don't want to take the case."

Michael Randall Long was half way through a motion for acquittal or in the alternative for a new trial for one of his other clients, who had insisted he was not guilty and still did, now awaiting sentencing.

So a new case in the SDNY Magistrates Court sounded better than rehashing the same old, same old.

"I'll be right over." It was easy enough. Long's office was just down Worth Street from the courthouse, on the second floor over the Ali Baba fruit stand.

It was late May and the flowers were in bloom in front of the Columbus park playground, where the basketball courts had been taken over by skateboards. Didn't these kids go to school?

Long used his hard pass to swipe in, and commented about the weather to the Court Security Officer, who'd used to work up in the Mag Court. Not to hot, not to cold, they both agreed.

Long took the elevator up to the 8th floor, past Probation and the Press Room where he felt sure Kurt Wheelock was working, hunched over the PACER terminal.

On the eighth floor he walked past the painting of Justice Sotomayor, alumna SDNY was proud of, and looked out over Chatham Green and the two bridges. He used to smoke...