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3 Prologue The Making of a Career Prosecutor For years, it never really occurred to me why I enjoyed being a prosecutor so much, but I knew I did. In my office, we used to say, “If I didn’t need the money, I would do this job for free.” What we all enjoyed most were the jury trials, which were like sports, full of intense competition performed before an audience of jurors. Our Anglo-Saxon system is clearly a modern form of deadly combat, mental and moral, with the underlying motives of violence and revenge focused and controlled. My daughter Allison, now a medical doctor, caused me to think seriously about my subconscious motivations for enjoying trials so much. When she was fifteen and going through a period of adolescent rebellion, she did not think very highly of me. One day she introduced me to a teenage friend with the comment, “This is my father. He puts people in prison for a living.” Looking at it that way caused me to ponder. Most federal prosecutors take the job to gain experience, then move on after two or three years to more lucrative careers in private practice. Most find the job too stressful to consider long term for the modest salary it pays. A recent survey called the job one of the five most stressful jobs in the American workplace, up there with air traffic controller and pro quarterback. Yet a handful of us have made careers of it. Over time, as my daughter’s words sank in, I began a sort of Freudian review of my motives. I vividly recall my first encounter with law enforcement—the police officers who would later be my career partners. When I was little, my father was on the road all the time. One weekend we were playing in the backyard when a big, strange-looking dog approached, swaying from side to side. His mouth was covered with white foam. Just after my father said, “He is sick,” there came the biggest explosions I had ever heard. 4 Prologue: The Making of a Career Prosecutor There were red and yellow flashes and blue smoke, and the dog collapsed. Two officers walked up to the dead dog and started to carry him away. The officers apologized to my father for my having seen them shoot the dog. My father explained to me that they were helping the dog because he was too sick to live and suffering a lot of pain. It was a good explanation and gave me a positive image of officers that has never left me—even though I’ve had to prosecute a few. Maybe my love of cops-and-robbers was partly genetic and partly family history also. My father’s favorite uncle was a Pinkerton detective and used to regale us with stories about cases he’d had. In retrospect, there was another event that impacted me even more strongly. When I was in second grade, our school had two bathrooms (one for boys, one for girls) in the basement for all twelve grades. A couple of sixthgrade boys had a favorite sport: holding us little boys upside down by our ankles and dunking our heads in the toilet. We would put our little hands on the seat and push back with our little arms as hard as we could, but always ended up sucking toilet water. One day a heroic rescuer appeared, a high school athlete named Larry Payton. When he saw me getting dunked, he grabbed the sixthgrader who was doing it, slammed him against the wall, and choked him till his eyes bugged out. He told him in front of the other evil-doers that if he ever caught the little felon or anyone else dunking us, he would hold their heads under water in the toilet until they drowned. My feeling of relief is still palpable. Years later, Marty Russell of the Tupelo Daily Journal asked me why I liked prosecuting. The dunking story suddenly came back to me, and I blurted out, “Prosecutors are there to remove the bullies from the playground .” There is now a movement to combat bullying, but back then no one talked about it. We were expected to look out for ourselves as part of becoming men. Later, sports were a huge influence. The camaraderie of the team soothed our painful adolescent egos and our need to be accepted as part...

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