Brooklyn, NY – The death threats and hate mail, she says, have slowed, and she keeps her office door unlocked in defiance. There, Jennifer L. McCann sits behind her desk, wearing leopard print pumps, poised for an argument.
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Ms. McCann chose to defend Levi Aron, a hardware clerk from Brooklyn who is accused of a crime that gripped the city this summer: the kidnapping, killing and dismembering of Leiby Kletzky, 8, who got lost walking to meet his parents in July in the Hasidic Jewish enclave of Borough Park.
“People assume I’m O.K. with a young boy being murdered because I represent the defendant,” Ms. McCann, 30, said recently in her office in Garden City, N.Y., which she opened in March after four years of practicing criminal defense law for a local firm. “To me, that’s pretty vicious. They have to understand, I’m not all right with people being murdered or with crime. I’m all right with defending constitutional rights.
“If he’s guilty, he will be convicted. And that’s it. But my God,” she added with gritted teeth, “it’s going to be legally.”
Mr. Aron’s trial is months away, but already Ms. McCann has been defending herself as much as her client – to the press, on Facebook and, most recently, to the judge. Justice Neil J. Firetog of State Supreme Court, a veteran of homicide cases in Brooklyn, questioned her experience, and that of her co-counsel, Pierre Bazile, a former New York police officer who has also practiced law for four years.
Still, as Justice Firetog pointed out, Ms. McCann’s trial experience is limited. She handled a resentencing appeal for Nathan Powell, a film producer who killed his colleague in Long Island City, Queens, in 2001, and dismembered the body. Ms. McCann had the original, lower 20-year sentence restored.
Ms. McCann considers it her Catholic, as well as constitutional, duty to care for society’s castoffs. “You protect their rights,” she said, “even when society wants to turn on them.”
In her trial preparations, she has learned about the Hasidic community in Borough Park and has also learned a new word. “Shiska,” Ms. McCann said, mispronouncing the Yiddish word, shiksa, for a non-Jewish woman.
Ms. McCann does not apologize for what she does not know. Or the profession she chose.
“This is what I do,” she said. “You kill people, you call me.”
she is right — we hv to defend the constitution, otherwise we would all be democrats.
“This is what I do,” she said. “You kill people, you call me.”
So, if you get angry, go ahead and kill someone, you can always call me and I will get you off. What a perverted way of trying to do something good for society.
Right on, #1 . But what fascinates me is her statement
“If he’s guilty, he will be convicted.”
How often do you hear that from a criminal defense lawyer? 🙂
She a young attorney &is; looking to make a name for herself.
Hey atleast she’s working! 🙂
What an idiot….
“This is what I do,” she said. “You kill people, you call me.”
Isn’t it a shame that her first exposure to the frum oilam is to be called “shiksa.” Very nice. What a light unto the nations we are.
Here in america everyone is innocent until proven gulty. It don’t matter if you had seen it with your own eyes. Still you have to prove it before the dept. Of justice the same ls in the jewish law. So all the threats against anyone is uncalled for. don’t matter what your oppinion is. Nobody disaggrees that a crime was done and people are vary hurt. But still justice must be done in the right matter.
What do you want from the Shiksa, it’s no worse than all kinds of leftist lawyers in Israel who are allways ready to defend the worst of the worst Arab terrorists and are allways petioning the courts to rip down more Jewish houses in Yehuda and Shomron.
Constitutional rights constitutional shmights. We’re not talking about tax fraud or even a murder of passion. We’re talking about the torture, death, and dismemberment of an 8 year old child, to which Aron has confessed. There must be some moral boundaries even for criminal defense lawyers.
I don’t get why people have so many issues with this attorney? This country has a very fair and just judicial system. Everyone is entitled to be heard both from the prosecution and the defense.
We make a proper defense available to anyone because otherwise we would be Iran. This woman is an important part of what separates us from the savage, oppressed nations of the world.
Leave her alone to do her job. Levy confessed. This lawyer has to know that the case is lost, but our system is built around being as certain as possible. She knows that and will put on a proper defense, even if the effort is futile.
You can poke fun now, but maybe one day you will be the one in the witness chair and you’ll be thankful to have a proper advocate sitting next to you too.
Imagine if she would have said call me if you get shot she would have been busy all day today. Brooklyn ,NY is a great place to be lawyering around with so many people getting killed and shot while walking to the grocery store.
The lawyer is just doing her job. For the few injustices that happen every year in America we still have the fairest justice system int he world. Would you want to live in japan,China or some third world countries where they tie you up to a tree and burn you to death?
after the Boston massacre nobody wanted to defend the British soldiers besides one young attorney named john Adams future president of the USA to prove that the us was fair and just place unlike the British empire of the time every person has the right to a fair trail and a fair representation
She can defend herself all she wants but she is still a lowlife. She CHOSE to represent him. The only people I would not bash defending callous murders are unfortunate court appointed lawyers who have to take on the case. Any other lawyer DOES have the choice and this IS her choice.
Wow,
she would’ve had to pay hundreds of thousands to public relations firms to get her name out there. Now she has it made. A new Kunstler.
We all know he killed an innocent child, but maybe he really does have a temporary insanity defense. If he really is crazy, then I would rather he serve his time in a mental hospital, as opposed to a jail house filled with perverts. Lets not forget, he still has a Jewish Neshama in that body of a monster, regardless of his actions.
Everyone has a right to a legal defense, no matter how guilty. My only problem with her is that her incompetence may be used as a tool to overturn a guilty verdict at a later point, or to appeal a sentence. For the sake of justice, this murderer deserves a better lawyer and would be better off with a court appointed lawyer than this Heckle and Jeckle team.
I understand a lawyer would accept the case, as each case in the country as horrible as may be gets counsel, but I would object what the article mentions about “death threats” I do not believe she got even one death threat. She may have gotten a phony call or so, there are plenty disturbed and unstable ppl that feel she’s doing something wrong so they use their “freedom of speech” to bash it out on her, but death threats? Don’t believe so.
This animal should be given the death sentence–but we are all protected when due process is followed
I wonder what the Sanhedrin would have done with him–no witnesses, no warning, ….
Ms. Vega pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter, the most serious of three charges, and was sentenced one to three years in prison.
Kathleen Prisco, a Long Island woman who fatally stabbed her husband and pleaded not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. Doctors for the defense and the state accepted that plea, negating the need for a trial, and she was sent to an institution.
Nathan Powell, a film producer who killed his colleague in Long Island City, Queens, in 2001, and dismembered the body. Ms. McCann had the original, lower 20-year sentence restored.
You wanna kill? Go ahead. Knock yourself out! 2-20 years behind the bars should teach you a lesson and when you come out we have no reason to believe you might do it again.
But never and I repeat NEVER file any papers with information that is not 0 true. Because then we will come after you. And you will pay with your life.
Bernie – Sit 150 years!
Shalom Rubashkin – Sit for 27!
Kill all the people you want but never touch a dime that is not yours.
This country values money more than life. We need to fix our “justice” system
All you “open minded” fools would rather throw a Jew under the bus that shout “27!?”
you are an instigator who knows nothing of logic.
Because you can pull out two harsh sentences for financial crime, and a few light ones for murders does not in any way prove your case.
Many murderers get the death penalty in other states, and many white collar criminal get off with a warning or similar.
Your conclusions don’t even make sense!