Best American Crime Writing 2006 - Mark Bowden [15]
For Hardwicke, Hanson’s taunts were infuriating, but they were nothing compared to the sustained silence of the New Jersey Supreme Court—which continued, inexplicably, for months. While awaiting the ruling, Hardwicke redoubled his efforts to amend the Charitable Immunity Act. Although the amendment had the support of many members of the New Jersey legislature, its progress was stalled by the determined opposition of the Catholic Church. But in the fall of 2005, owing largely to the publicity surrounding Hardwicke’s case, the amendment acquired irresistible momentum, passing both the state assembly and the state senate. On January 5, 2006, Acting Governor Richard Codey signed it into law: No longer would charitable institutions be immune from being sued for negligence in cases of child sexual abuse.
A few days later, the state supreme court requested briefs from both sides in Hardwicke v. American Boychoir School on the implications of the amendment for the case at hand. In their brief, Lessig and Keith Smith made the logical argument: that if charities were not immune from negligence claims in child sex-abuse cases, “it would be bizarre,” as Lessig put it elsewhere, “to imagine them immune from liability for intentional torts.” The school’s brief, predictably if contortedly, argued just the opposite: that because the legislature referred specifically only to negligence, then charities were still immunized from other types of claims, including the type being made by Hardwicke.
For Lessig, the interminable wait for a decision was nearly as excruciating as it was for Hardwicke. Yet no matter how the court ultimately ruled, Lessig had no doubt that the case was a turning point for him. No longer was this aspect of his past a secret from his family. Indeed, he was planning to write a book in which his experiences at the school would be a fulcrum on which a broader legal and moral meditation would pivot. To many denizens of the Web, Lessig was now even more of an icon than he’d been before; in countless posts, he was hailed for his “heroism” and “bravery” in revealing his abuse and taking up Hardwicke’s cause.
His response was perfectly in character. “[F]irst, a plea: that we drop the H-word and B-word from commentary about this,” Lessig wrote on his blog. “This is an important social issue because of how ordinary it is in fact; and we need it to be understood to be ordinary, so as to respond in ways that can check and prevent it.”
Jimmy Breslin
THE END OF THE MOB
The Mafia’s Worst Enemy Was Part of the Family
FROM Playboy
LATE AT NIGHT I am watching Bobby De Niro in some Analyze movie, and I feel sorry for him because these Mafia parts, at which he is so superb and which he could do for the next thirty years, soon will no longer exist. Simultaneously he could be forced into new subjects. Al Pacino, too. Which is marvelous because both are American treasures and should be remembered for great roles, not for playing cheap punks who are unworthy of getting their autographs. I would much prefer De Niro or Pacino to Sir Laurence Olivier in anything.
Now, watching the late movie, I am remembering where I saw it start for De Niro. It was on a hot summer afternoon when the producer of a movie being made from a book I wrote, The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight, asked me to meet De Niro because he was replacing Pacino in a big part. Pacino was going into some movie called The Godfather. De Niro was looking for his first major movie role.
We talked briefly in a bar, the old Johnny Joyce’s on Second Avenue. De Niro looked like he was homeless. It was a Friday. On Sunday morning my wife came upstairs in our home in Queens and said one of the actors from the movie was downstairs. I flinched. Freak them. Downstairs, however, was De Niro. He was going to Italy on his own to catch the