Frederic Block is the author of the new novel Race to Judgment. He was appointed United States District Judge
for the Eastern District of New York in 1994 and assumed senior status in 2005.
He also has written the book Disrobed: An Inside Look at the Life and Workof a Federal Trial Judge, and co-authored Professionally Speaking, an Off-Broadway musical.
Q: You based your main character, Ken Williams, on the
real-life lawyer Ken Thompson. Why did you decide to write about him?
A: Ken Thompson tried what might have been his first trial
before me back in the mid 1990s in the Brooklyn federal courthouse when I was a
new federal district judge and he was a young Assistant United States Attorney.
A few years later he left the U.S. Attorney’s office for private practice and
soon became a successful high-profile civil rights attorney.
Years later I drew the Jabbar Collins case. Collins had been
in jail for 16 years for a murder he did not commit. He sued the long-term
Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes, his chief prosecutor, Michael Vecchione, and the
City of New York for millions of dollars after he was released from jail for
being wrongfully convicted on trumped-up evidence.
After I wrote a lengthy decision denying the City’s motion
to dismiss the case, it was settled for 13 million dollars. Ken Thompson then
ran against Hynes - who had been the unchallenged DA for over 20 years - and
upset him in the decisive Democratic 2013 primary to become the first
African-American Brooklyn District Attorney.
The centerpiece of Thompson’s campaign was the Collins case,
and a bunch of other wrongful convictions by the DA’s office against
African-Americans which had thereafter surfaced. When Thompson took office he
appointed a special investigative committee which to date has uncovered 23
other wrongful convictions of blacks who had been in jail for many years.
Tragically, the new DA died from colon cancer - at the age
of 50 - just two years after getting elected. In the short time he was DA
Thompson initiated significant reforms and was hailed as a true breath of fresh
air.
When I found out that Ken Thompson was dying, I decided to
dedicate the book to him. He was told that by his former law partner the day
before he died and Ken asked him to “thank the judge.” It makes the book extra
special to me, and I’m glad I fashioned the Ken Williams character after Ken
Thompson’s meteoric rise as a civil rights advocate to unseat the reigning DA.
Q: Your book also was inspired by many cases in which you
were involved as a federal judge. What did you see as the right balance between
reality and fiction as you wrote the novel?
A: In addition to the Collins case, the book plays off of
two other major cases I presided over: One was the trial of Lemrick Nelson for
killing Yankel Rosenbaum during the infamous Crown Heights riots in the 90s.
The other were the trials of a young African-American, who
had been leading a law-abiding life, for allegedly killing someone six years
earlier; if convicted I would have to have sentenced him to life without
parole. He was tried twice. The first trial ended in a hung jury, with 8 jurors
voting for conviction; he was acquitted on the second trial.
I was fascinated by this human drama and it gave me the idea
for the character Troy Jackson - a happily married 23-year-old star guidance
counselor, expecting his first child - who Ken Thompson represents after Troy
is charged with murdering a Hasidic rabbi’s son seven years ago.
Thus, the idea of “reality-fiction” popped into my head, and
I realized that I could tell a good story by taking literary license with these
- and other - real-life experiences as a judge to develop the plot lines of my
novel.
As for your specific question, I really never thought about
the right balance between the reality part and the fictionalized part, and the
reader will not know which is truth and which is fiction as they read the book;
that is exactly the point.
In the epilogue I explain what is reality and what is
fiction but caution the reader to resist the temptation to read it before the
end of the book “since I think it might spoil what I think is a good read.”
Q: Did you plot out the book before you started writing, or
did you make many changes along the way?
A: I jotted down the basic story line on my laptop in a
handful of pages a couple of summers ago on a beautiful island in Greece, and I
started to write it when I returned to New York in September.
I’m always asked “how long did it take you to write the
book? But the writing part for me was the end of the line; the story was
already written in my head (most of the best parts came to me at 3 in the
morning when I was sleeping). When I tell people it took me just six months to
actually write it, they are surprised. But once I know where I’m going, the
writing for me comes pretty easily and the story just flows. Anyway, I tell
everyone that at my age you have to write faster.
I did make some changes along the way, but not too many. For
example, I had a great car chase across the Brooklyn Bridge which, upon reflection,
l thought was too commonplace (I’ll save it for the movie - hopefully). The
drama now takes place in a church, and it’s much better.
Q: The book focuses on racial tensions in Brooklyn. Why was
that one of the themes you chose to include, and what do you hope readers take
away from the story?
A: In addition to the Crown Heights riots, Brooklyn has had
its share of racial tensions between the police and its minority communities
(think Abner Louima). While I think the book standing alone is a gripping crime
story (no one I know has guessed the ending yet), it is much more.
I speak through Ken to raise issues which are important
today to give the book a lot of substantive content: the importance of judicial
independence; Black Lives Matter; stop-and-frisks, death threats to the
judiciary, and, of course, the spate of wrongful convictions against
African-Americans because of egregious prosecutorial misconduct. Ken Thompson’s
election has gone a long way to assuaging racial tensions.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: Terrorism. The Brooklyn federal court has had more
terrorism cases than any other court in the country. I have one right now of a
young radicalized American-Muslim who was caught trying to leave the country to
learn how to make “jihad” here, and a few years ago I sentenced one of the
defendants in the aborted plot to blow up the City’s subways.
It’s a perfect opportunity for another “reality-fiction”
story. It starts with a packed courtroom being blown up during a sentence; 275
perished, 156 survived (thank God this is the fiction part). The reader will
have to read the rest of the book to find out who died and who did it.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I wanted to also make Race to Judgment a fun read so Ken
Williams has a hobby; he’s a jazz musician with a love for country music, and
spread throughout the book are eight songs that he has written which are
performed by him and his musical buddies at Arturo’s in Greenwich Village.
He gets the hooks from things that the characters say, like
when his private eye, Mickey, says “boss, there ain’t no fun I’ve had when I
was good instead of bad.” I wrote the songs and actually sing three of
them. They can all be streamed on any platform, and the charts are at the end
of the book. They can also be accessed through my website.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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