On April 29, 1992, the Los Angeles riots began. I was a new public defender working in downtown Los Angeles. I remember the announcement that the jury had acquitted the four police officers caught on tape brutally beating Rodney King. The riots started that evening, but I, like most in Los Angeles, thought it would last just one night. I was wrong. It turned into the most deadly and damaging urban unrest this country has ever experienced. But, what was it like for a new public defender in the heart of the storm?

The second day of the riots started out as a normal work day. I drove to work and started handling arraignments, my assignment that day, at the downtown Traffic Court. Mid-morning, the judge suddenly took the bench, and said, “I order everyone in this courtroom to leave this court, to leave this building, and to not return until Monday morning.” It was Thursday morning. For me, the riots began at that moment.

I went back to the public defender’s office where my colleagues and I tried to figure out what was going on. We had all been ordered out of the courts we were working in, but our boss was not in the office. At one point the second-in-command stammered that we should all stay at our desks until we heard from the boss. As you might expect from a group of new, but already hardened defense lawyers, our response was “no way.” Our particular courthouse was designed in the 1970s to be impenetrable to demonstrations. This meant there were virtually no windows and we had no idea what was going on outside. We decided to go to the underground parking lot together and drive out in caravans. We were all quickly on the freeway, the artery of life in Los Angeles, and that is when I saw the extent of the problem. My commute brought me from downtown to the west—and all along the freeway I saw the smoke rising from countless buildings on fire. I went home, after trying to stop at a video store (remember those?) reasoning that my pre-cable TV would be full of news and I might want a fun movie to watch that evening. I thought better of it when I realized that my local video shop was surrounded by young men who didn’t look like they were there to find a comedy for the evening. I learned the next day that the store burned down.

That night I watched the news, listened to sirens and helicopters in my west Los Angeles neighborhood, and had no clue what to make of it. Remember, this was before the internet, and the only source of news was the local networks. The next morning I went to get my newspaper, and when I opened the front door of my apartment building the smell was overwhelming. It smelled like the entire neighborhood had burned down. The cars parked outside were covered in ash. A short while later I got a call from the boss who had been absent the day before. We were all “ordered to report” to the Men’s Central Jail, which included arraignment courts. A colleague of mine lived a few blocks from me. We decided it would be better to drive together, as we had no idea what we would face. We saw that virtually no one was on the road as almost everything in Los Angeles closed for the day. We passed a few National Guard armored cars and trucks and otherwise it felt like we were driving through a scene from the Twilight Zone.

The Men’s Central Jail was no architectural gem and also lacked windows and easy access. The Los Angeles County Sherriff had called in their newest recruits to handle security outside the building. Barricades were erected in the blocks around the jail as if they expected a mass jail break from the outside. To get to work we had to get past the Jr. Deputy Sheriffs. The problem was that no one had told them to expect defense lawyers. After some conversation with a visibly nervous young man in what looked like a brand new uniform, we managed to talk our way in. I guess we didn’t look like the advance team for that feared mass jail break.

Forgetting about defense lawyers would turn out to be a common in the days to come. A curfew law made it a crime to be outside from sunset to sunrise. The exceptions were for law enforcement, emergency personal, judicial officers, and prosecutors. Defense lawyers were not exempted. The National Guard was called out to police the streets, and as the curfew was enforced, the criminal justice system moved into high gear. In just a few days over 20,000 people were arrested, mostly for curfew violations. The courts went into twenty-four hour operations. This meant that I was often on the road after sunset and before sunrise—driving to and from work. But, as a white woman, I quickly learned I wasn’t in a high risk group for arrest.

On that Friday, we had virtually no cases to handle. Thousands of people had been arrested, but the system couldn’t process their cases quickly enough. The jail was overwhelmed. The District Attorney was overwhelmed. The courts declared a judicial emergency—waiving the time requirements for arraignments. This meant that many people spent days in the chaos of the Los Angeles County Jail without seeing a judge and without knowing the charge. Once we started seeing clients I saw the pattern. If you were dark, and poor, and/or homeless, you were arrested during the Los Angeles riots. There were also those arrested who had clearly been involved in looting and destruction. But, the easy pickings were the homeless. The broad wording of the curfew ordinance allowed this. An appellate court later found the ordinance void for vagueness and all those convicted under it could have their cases dismissed.

I saw how the professionals in the system adjusted to the “new normal” and how we all quickly fell into place and did our jobs in the midst of the madness. A standard part of any arraignment, if the defendant is not going to plead guilty, is to make a motion to set bail, reduce bail or release on the defendants’ own recognizance (OR). As a defense lawyer the standard arguments are that the defendant has sufficient community ties (family, job, …etc) that he won’t flee, and that the circumstances are such that it is unlikely he will repeat the offense. I remember arguing on behalf of one of my clients that he should be released on OR because he had a job, family, and couldn’t possibly repeat the charge of looting that 7-11 as it no longer existed (it had burned down). The judge laughed and denied my motion. It was business as usual.

It took the court system a few months to dig out from under the crush of new cases from the riots. But, what was the impact on those of us who worked there during that time? For me, the riots were a defining moment. I learned that we are not safe from having our communities dissolve in violence around us. I learned that what happens in our justice system matters to those who aren’t in the courtroom or directly involved in the case. I saw how easy it is for professionals to adapt to new situations, and that this adaptation is not always a good thing as it sometimes means we don’t make changes we should make. I also saw how easily we waive rights in the face of “emergencies.”

What lessons do the riots have for dispute resolution professionals? After the first day of the riots, when it was clear that things were heating up and not cooling down, Rodney King made his impassioned plea: “Can’t we all just get along?” And, that remains the key question after the riots. This means for me, can we have a criminal justice system that inspires trust in all our communities, not just those that have little actual contact with it? This country is not immune from violent unrest. If we ignore clear warning signs, we do so at our peril. How we administer justice makes a difference. Procedural justice is a key element to building and/or maintaining trust in our legal system. When I practiced law in Los Angeles all those many years ago, it was clear that few people coming into the criminal justice system, as a victim or a defendant, thought they had a voice or were heard. And, there was virtually no effort to make the criminal justice system reflect a system where we could “all just get along.” Twenty years later, that should be the lesson from the riots: we can do better.