Christine Horowitz

Concept: Public Defender

AKA: Known to her sorority sisters as “Spex” SOMEHOW it managed to get around her office. Thanks, Tiffy!

Desc: On the short side, Keeps trying to get to the gym fairly regular but her work schedule fights her tooth and nail. She’s still got some good muscle definition but her job entails a lot of study, and she eats too much fast food. Wears sneakers in the office, heels for court. Long black hair and a nice smile. Her eyes still have a bit of fire in them, but she’s starting to feel a little worn around the edges. Tiny gold star of David that used to belong to her mother.

History: Christine is the only child and it appears that she inherited her father’s unerring moral compass. In fact, she flirted with the idea of becoming a Rabbi just like dad, but it turned out to not be such a good fit for her. The idea though of putting her intelligence and her natural bookishness to work for her was still a strong one and she sort of fell in love with the idea of becoming a public defender. Righting wrongs. Defending the defenseless. There was a rightness to the idea. She went to law school and while she had the kind of grades that normally would have put her on track to be a judge, she ended up signing up to become a PD as soon as she had passed the bar.

The romance of being a public defender wore off very quickly. She knew that there would be long hours. She knew that her case load would be...non-trivial.  She even knew that there would be clients who were plainly guilty of all manner of things and that she would have to defend them. She was prepared for that.  What she wasn’t prepared for, the raw number of people caught in the gears of the Justice system and ground right the fuck down. She wasn’t prepared for how badly it would hurt. I mean, Christine is a damn good lawyer, most of her colleagues say so. But many times her clients are caught with precious few actual choices, and almost none of them good.  When the best you can do for someone who is innocent is a guilty plea for less time and THAT seems like the best the client can expect...it takes a little piece of your heart. It takes a little piece of you each time.   

If you’re someone who cares.  

Christine cares. 

It’s leading to a certain amount of “compassion fatigue” for her, and a certain amount of having to compartmentalize her feelings. About once a week, she finds herself sobbing uncontrollably in her car after court.  She’s worried that she’s going to have some kind of breakdown, and her parents see through the act she puts on when she goes to visit. They’re worried for her too.  Maybe if she got on with a firm defending people, but people with real money...Would that be so bad?

  And Christine knows...No. It wouldn’t be so bad. But what would all the really poor people, who need a good lawyer, do?

Attitude: “Look. You have no good options here. You can try to peddle that weak sauce story in front of a jury, and then the D.A. will go to work on you like there’s a three day weekend coming up, or you take the deal and you take protective custody and you’re out in 6 months. Assuming, of course, you can keep your nose clean.”

Skills: Academics4+ with a specialty in Law naturally, and the status to go with being licensed and working for the PD office. She’ll kill you on facts in court. She’s damn good at research. But she also has a gift for making complex facts pretty simple and not sleep- inducing to a jury. (Give her some dots of Expression. and her socials are pretty decent too)  Also, since members of the PD’s office occasionally find themselves in tense or violent situations with tense or violent clients, they’ve actually chipped loose some budget for some self-defense courses and target range time.  As a result. Christine has a couple of dots in firearms and Brawl. with dots in Krav Maga as a style. (A cousin of hers runs a school.)  It’s come in handy.  They look at her diminutive frame and think they can come on all heavy...and then suddenly they are on the floor with their testicles kicked clear up into their sinus cavity. Speaks fluent, almost idiomatic Spanish and on those rare occasions when she has a real honest night off, she likes to blow off steam dancing, and she’s a pretty good dancer.

Gear: Her laptop bag is a tiny arsenal. She owns a Glock, Has a can of pepper spray, and one of those pointy key-chain deals. She also has a black belt in iPhone. She has certain law books loaded onto her phone for quick reference.

Home: She’s got a fairly nice apartment. She’s taken to purchasing foreign appliances, not because she’s a snob about buying American, but because Scandinavians manufacture stuff that takes up very little space. And frankly, so much of her apartment is taken up with books, that space has to come from somewhere.  She’s thought about getting a pet of some sort, but she’s home so seldom, that she’s afraid that they’d die of loneliness.

Circle:Known to judges and fellow lawyers as a decent sport and fairly good at her work. Has a few friends in low places based on people she’s defended in court. But by that same token, has a few enemies. (Yeah, never mind that you kept sticking up gas n’ go’s, it’s all HER fault you’re in the state pen... Asshole.)  The bulk of her close friends come from people she went to college with, and a few folks at Temple.

(For a while there, she went through a serious folk dancing phase...She mostly over it now. Mostly.)

Story Uses:

“Look. You let me do the talking and don’t volunteer a single bit of information and you might be okay.”

Into every character's life, a little rain must fall, and occasionally, after doing wildly criminal stuff, occasionally characters get arrested. If it happens that your character is poor, then the gods have smiled if you happen to draw Ms. Horowitz.

“Did my mother send you? Look I really don’t time for...”

The poor girl is stretched a little thin and she really isn’t giving herself much of an opportunity for any kind of social life. She’s bookish and a little shy (She puts on a very convincing mask in court.) So she doesn’t have a special person in her life. (Guy or girl)  Maybe you could be that special person. Although if you aren’t able to produce grandchildren for her mother...Well. it won’t be pretty. There may be some high pitched keening.

Connections:

*Has defended certain girls from The Caboose who have been arrested for possession. Has never been in the place, though.

*Once got Dolores Hernandez from Caligari's off on an aggravated assault beef. Has been telling everyone in her hood that Christine is the shit.  It's why the Spanish speakers have been asking for her.

* Once ripped Officer Honus Brightwater to shreds on the stand. He hasn't forgotten that.

* Has had occasional dealings with Detective Bela Janofski. She likes that he's polite and knows his stuff.

* Has defended a few of Tyronne "Tiberius" Glover's boys in court. If she ever went out on her own or joined a defense firm. He'd put her on retainer immediately.

* Successfully defended Teflon John Galloway and still can't believe she screwed him afterward. I mean, "What in the hell was I thinking?"

* Law firms keep an eye on one another, So there's no way that a talented girl like Christine would have escaped the notice Holmes, Gillis, Baker, Savage, North, and Dean. But Roderick Holmes divines, (correctly) that she has a lot of inconvenient morals and ethics and might not deal well with their clientele.

* Has deposed Norman Cayce on the stand. Knows his stuff and doesn't rattle easily.

* Got a friend off a bullshit beef. Clavo Hernandez has let her know that she can claim a favor from him anytime she wants.

* Has defended numerous members of Rory O'Halloran's family. Especially that maniac sister of his.

* Counts Patricia "Carnie" Pitt as one of her dearest friends from college. Carnie is loud and extroverted in the way that Christine is absolutely not.  They try to catch lunch once a week and they have more success at this than trying to go to the gym together.

* Has defended Ezekiel Stubbs and some of the members of the Gallowsbait MC.  As a result, her little Toyota runs like a top even though it's ten years old. Don't tell anyone, but Zeke figures heavily into certain fantasies that Christine has.

* On occasion, if it's an act she's heard of, she'll go down to The Witness and dance her ass off. Never takes anyone home, though.

*Dated Dr. Paul Bickford briefly. The card tricks were cute and all, but MAN was he dull.