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GET THE BASICS
About Devils’ Angels
The World of Devils’ Angels
Telling the Truth
The Public Defender Paradox
On the Case
The Devils' In the Details
The Great Divide
Slippery Justice
Production
Source Materials
An Original Voice In a Crowded Field
ABOUT DEVILS’ ANGELS
Devils’ Angels is a gritty, realistic one-hour drama set in the epicenter of Baltimore City’s criminal justice system: the Public Defender’s office. According to the people they represent, a Public Defender is assigned to your case when you can’t afford a “real” lawyer, one you have to pay for. They do this thankless work because they are selfless, caring, and believe, above all, in their clients’ innocence. Yeah, right.
Public Defenders engage in the bare-knuckled fight to preserve the rights of murderers, rapists, robbers, pedophiles and other accused felons. 90% of criminal cases in the U.S. are tried by Public Defenders: they are the last line of defense against America’s dehumanizing, racist, lock-em-up-and-throw-away-the-key approach to justice. But that doesn’t make them saints.
Some are true believers, some are political strivers, some are non-conformists, and some are just too lazy to land a cushy corporate job. Despite their differences, most PDs are addicted to their work: to the strategy and gamesmanship of building a case, the adrenalin rush of the courtroom, the high stakes game of sentencing, the thrill of the fight. Burnout is inevitable – it’s just a question of when.
No TV series has accurately revealed the chaotic and arbitrary nature of the American criminal justice system or the spectrum of flawed people who collide in that arena. Devils’ Angels takes a candid and controversially honest look at this world – from the uniquely conflicted and complex point of view of the Public Defender.
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THE WORLD OF DEVILS’ ANGELS
Devils’ Angels is anchored by Chris Kelly, a talented, savvy and often outrageously inappropriate former prosecutor who lives for the battle – at the expense of everything else in his life. The other PDs include Bill Smith, a cynical veteran whose only goal is to cover his own ass; Amy Miller, a hard-as-nails princess who chose “doing good over making money,” much to her family’s chagrin; idealistic newcomer Mike Robinson, who’s in for a rude awakening, and hotshot Chief Investigator Harold D’Angelo, who hasn’t always been on the straight and narrow. The attorneys are an irreverent crew who work hard, play hard, and struggle to defend people they are pretty sure committed the heinous crimes they are accused of.
The courthouse is majestic, all white marble and stained glass; its courtrooms are grandiose settings for the grim stories within. In its basement is the Bull Pen, the hellish holding tank for defendants bussed over from the jail. The penitentiary is foreboding, a medieval castle on the outside; inside it’s a high-tech lockdown. Carved into a filthy booth where the PDs interview their clients is graffiti that reads, “Oh God, please give me the strength to deal with these schmucks.”
Against an unrelenting backdrop of violence, surrounded by dangerous criminals charged with gruesome crimes, the PDs look for every release from the emotional pressure cooker of their work. They love to bullshit and their humor is pitch black, but jokes are not enough - the work takes its toll on their personal lives and leads to drinking, drugs, adultery, and divorce.
Devils’ Angels is not a clean, procedural TV version of justice, but the real deal, inspired by characters and cases from one lawyer’s 35-year career in the Baltimore criminal justice system. Here, as in reality, the Public Defenders navigate a schizophrenic and chaotic system rife with error, where the definition of justice is as slippery as their clients’ alibis. Devils’ Angels is about their struggle to stay sane despite the evidence of human failings they witness every day.
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TELLING THE TRUTH
In law school, there is no course that teaches a young lawyer how to deal with psychotic, sociopathic murderers and rapists. There is no discussion of how to interact with clients whose anti-social pathology has landed them in the position of needing your services.
There’s also no acknowledgement of the fact that most people who need a Public Defender (or, one could argue, a defense attorney of any kind) are guilty of the crimes they’ve been accused of. It is the elephant in the living room, a huge lie of omission at the heart of the legal system. Devils’ Angels will confront this lie head on, and strive to understand the cost of this denial and the rationalizations and strategies used to cope with acknowledging the truth.
In reality, dangerous and angry defendants don’t just line up in a row like schoolboys for years of confinement or the ride to the death chamber. They fight in their cells, they struggle in court, they yell at their attorneys and they tell judges to “get fucked.”
Even the most even-tempered and considerate judge will at times improperly over-react under the volume of cases and the serious nature of decisions to be made. Some judges have serious personality disorders: some are petty; some are bullies; some know how to use their great power wisely and other should never have been on the bench.
Devils’ Angels will tell the truth of how the system works – and doesn’t – through the eyes and lives of a core group of Public Defenders, Judges and courthouse staff, the cases they try and the people they are charged to defend.
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THE PUBLIC DEFENDER PARADOX
In the United States, there are currently 2,000,000 people in prison. There are 3,500 on death row waiting to be executed and countless others on probation and parole.
In Baltimore, Maryland, one of the most dangerous cities in the USA and in the world, 250 people are murdered annually. With a population of 650,000, that amounts to 40 murders per 100,000 people. While many of these crimes are unsolved, many others are prosecuted in court, the defendants represented by Public Defenders.
Public Defenders in Baltimore represent both adults and juveniles, in addition to parents whose parental rights are being threatened by the State. One the one hand, the Public Defender system stands as the critical counter-force to the government’s unofficial policy of incarcerating or executing as many products of society’s ills – poverty, racism, mental disorders – as possible.
On the other hand, Public Defenders, employed by every state and present in nearly in every political subdivision in the country, are required to strive and win their cases, knowing that in all likelihood their client, upon being freed, will rape, murder, rob or otherwise victimize the most helpless and defenseless in our community once again.
This is the strangest government job ever, and it’s mandated by The Constitution.
Thousands of the most talented and passionate lawyers in the United States are Public Defenders, and they go to court every day determined to get their guilty clients off. They zealously represent dangerous criminals, knowing that these people are guilty of some heinous, vicious and violent act.
They focus their efforts and energy toward total victory – exoneration and freedom, even an apology from the State (why not go for the gold?) – regardless of the truth, morality and public good. Whether or not they’re willing to admit it, most know that the odds are strong that more damage will be done as a result of their excellent lawyering.
To achieve the goal of “winning,” these advocates delay, introduce technical details, make legal arguments and motions, falsely accuse all of wrongdoing and unfairness, impeach truthful witnesses and persuade judges or jurors that while not expressing personal opinion, he really believes what he is saying.
Aligned against them are the prosecutors whose goal it is to fairly discover and present the truth and seek a just resolution on behalf of the people. In movies and on TV, prosecutors are seen as the good guys. To a Public Defender, during the course of a trial, they are the enemy.
The truth usually stands between the defense attorney and success. To win, “The Truth,” as the State sees it, must be eliminated, concealed or distorted significantly. In other words, the Public Defender will obfuscate side-track, distract, trick and deceive all within the rules in order to get his clients off.
This, of course, is why lawyers have such a bad reputation.
For a Public Defender, a great day in the office is helping to free a person who has committed some awful deed, who represents a real threat, who is obviously guilty and against whom there is overwhelming evidence. The worse the crime, the sweeter the victory.
Some of these lawyers could apply their competitive drive, talent and energy to other areas of the law and be rewarded financially (while they’re not underpaid, no one gets rich being a Public Defender). Instead, they choose this.
Why would they want this thankless, complicated, soul-challenging job?
There are lots of good rationalizations for being a Public Defender:
- Strong faith in the rights mandated by the Constitution.
- The heartfelt belief that if someone doesn’t protect the rights of defendants the system will dole out a form of Draconian justice that looks more like Fascism than Democracy.
- The idea that in America, everyone deserves an equal chance despite their race or education level or economic circumstances
But the true motivation is that winning someone’s freedom produces an intoxicating dopamine effect unparalleled except perhaps by orgasm, child-birth or winning a fist fight. These lawyers are conflict junkies, and however they rationalize their passion for the position, it’s the actual high-stakes struggle that turns them on.
Even if your client is a rotten murdering son of a bitch, he’s still your son of a bitch, and at the moment you’re trying a case, he’s your only client and you’re all he’s got. For these lawyers, the next best thing to playing and winning is playing and losing – at least they’re in the game.
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ON THE CASE
Each fast-paced episode will be packed with cases in all the phases of the legal process, capturing nuances of the law that go far beyond the traditional stuffy courtroom scene.
Often juggling several cases in a day, the PDs run from one courtroom to another for depositions, arraignments, jury selections, trials and sentencing. They hold legal strategy sessions with co-counsel, review evidence, and meet with prosecutors for discovery. They interview their clients in jail and in the Bull Pen. They bullshit with the courtroom staff before the judge arrives and the atmosphere turns serious. And they try cases, make brilliant (and terrible) arguments, legitimate (and specious) objections, ruthlessly cross-examine witnesses, and fight as hard as they can to win. Afterwards, they console or congratulate their clients’ families, while barely having time for their own.
In Devils’ Angels, all pretense is stripped bare. We know exactly how the PDs feel about their clients, whether they’re psychos, morons, wrongly accused, or just scared children caught in a terrible circumstance. We know what they know about the judge, whether he’s a banger or a novice, a racist bully or a stickler for the letter of the law. We know when the State has a weak case or a political motive. We also know if they slept with the Prosecutor, and what she likes to do in bed.
PDs barely have time for meetings, disdain office procedure, and work every possible angle to get their clients off. There is no time for hesitation, and in contrast with their irreverence, the decisions they make (recommending a guilty plea, bargaining for a sentence) have life-long repercussions for their clients, their clients’ families, and the city itself. They do not take “time” lightly – unlike the prosecution, they empathize with how slow life goes when you’re locked in a cell 23 hours a day.
In every episode there will be cases that go according to procedure, and then there will be the fuck-ups: when the jail sends over the wrong Hector Rodriguez, when the evidence is lost or the key witness has moved to California, when the air conditioning is broken so the judge declares it a “no jury trial day,” when clients demand to represent themselves, when defendants are stoned or psychotic. The best PDs finesse every angle to turn the system’s failures into their clients’ gains. But sometimes they lose their perspective, make fools out of themselves, or are found in contempt of court.
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THE DEVIL’S IN THE DETAILS
Devils’ Angels will avoid the conventional crime scene visit. Back-stories will be revealed through quick-cut re-enactments of crimes as they happened, giving viewers their only glimpse into the truth - a high contrast to the spin that the defense puts on a case.
Verdicts will be revealed in unconventional ways – we may hear a jury’s verdict through the ears of a defendant’s mother, sitting far back in the courtroom, or read a line on the docket, or hear a slamming gate or a brag in the van on the way back to prison. Sentencing, a practice that is often completely arbitrary, will be shown as the spin of a roulette wheel.
Devils’ Angels will be rich with authentic visceral details: the clang of the Bull Pen door; the light streaming through stained glass in the magnificent courthouse; the stifling air of the city jail; the sheriff clicking a pair of handcuffs as the court awaits a conviction; the scrape of ankle chains on the marble courthouse floor.
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THE GREAT DIVIDE
The Public Defenders and the people they represent come from radically different worlds. Whatever their race, PDs send their kids to private schools, work out in fancy gyms and live in nice neighborhoods. They’re well educated, decently paid, and looked up to in their communities. Their personal lives may be a mess, but society allows them their vices (be it Prozac or cocaine). No one’s calling the cops in the middle of the night, most of the time.
Their clients, on the other hand, are 90% black, live in Baltimore’s infamous ghettos, and are poor and uneducated. Drugs are everywhere, and criminality, vilified in the middle class, is a badge of honor for many defendants, who high-five friends when they pass, shackled, in the courthouse halls.
PDs and their clients barely speak the same English (though some repeat offenders have a surprisingly good grasp of legalese – they might have been lawyers had fate handed them a different hand…). It is a radical divide that the show will consistently explore.
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SLIPPERY JUSTICE
The moral questions engaged by Devils’ Angels are often ambiguous, because justice is not as clear-cut as Law & Order and CSI make it out to be.
If the PD gets a guilty and dangerous criminal off, he has done his job, but has he helped society? When he fails and a vicious predator gets his just deserts, does he secretly celebrate? When his client is a juvenile charged with a violent crime that has a mandatory sentence of life in prison; when he’s charged to defend an abusive parent in a custody battle with the state; when his client is black and the judge is a notorious white racist, how does he cope?
When the innocent are jailed, or a sentence is unfair, justice has not been served. If the system is inherently flawed, how often is the verdict or the sentence appropriate and just? Does the punishment fit the crime?
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PRODUCTION
Maryland has proven itself a film-friendly community and Baltimore is a favorite locale for many productions due to its wide variety of unique locations in a small geographical area. Baltimore has a top-notch crew base and experienced support services, and the excellent Maryland Film Office works hard to meet the needs of any visiting film crews.
In addition, Maryland offers a 5% state sales tax exemption on sales, rentals and services related to productions, as well as a rebate on wages paid per production employee.
Baltimore is a familiar setting for crime shows – Homicide made its home there for seven seasons, as did The Corner and The Wire (both three seasons) and the film Justice for All. These award-winning shows have intrigued and entertained audiences for years, with Baltimore as a powerful visceral backdrop. Views of Baltimore and the Clarence Mitchell Courthouse are recognized around the world, and colorfully represent the criminal justice challenges of urban America.
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SOURCE MATERIALS
The creators of Devils’ Angels have an archive of source materials accumulated over four decades in the Baltimore criminal justice system that will be of great use to the writers, designers and show production staff. It contains hundreds of:
- Crime scene photographs
- Event diagrams
- Written confessions
- Police reports
- Trial and deposition transcripts
- Trial notes
- And more…
These materials can be used as the basis of location, design and story ideas for the show.
AN ORIGINAL VOICE IN A CROWDED FIELD
Crime is a perennially popular genre, and there are countless crime shows on television, along with hundreds of books and movies about crime. Most, like the Law and Order franchise and even character-rich cop shows like The Shield concern themselves with the apprehension and punishment of guilty offenders. If the show takes the defense point of view, it’s usually comedic in form, like Boston Legal or Ally McBeal, the better to mock the machinations of the attorneys’ manipulation and deceit.
Politically and on the global stage, we live in a black and white, Law and Order, “Mission Accomplished” universe – but in reality, and in Devils’ Angels – the quest for justice is far more gray.
Devils’ Angels concerns itself with those attorneys who fight for and zealously represent the same dangerous offenders that other shows see only as “bad guys”. It is the flip side of Law and Order, and the inherent conflicts in representing these offenders are far more complex and compelling.
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