Dominic - The Public Defender's Demise
Dominic McDevitt, a former Irish priest turned public interest lawyer, never lost his core goal of fighting for those in need of an ethical, moral voice even after leaving the clergy. For decades he championed the marginalized, believing deeply in justice, due process and rehabilitation over punishment alone. Dominic saw providing legal counsel as a way to still transform lives positively even after losing his own faith.
But in recent years, funding cuts left Dominic struggling to keep his small firm afloat and its docket of deserving cases active. Desperate times led Dominic to accept more clients of uncertain character referred from influential circles in 2017 London to pay the bills. He rationalized it as a chance to reform such lost souls through compassionate counsel and keep the lights on for other vital advocacy.
At first these petty criminals, vandals and thieves posed little threat while allowing his firm to continue operating. But soon more troubling referrals began arriving from an unknown employer – public nuisance cases escalating to assault changes, drug distribution, prostitution rings and worse. Still idealistic, Dominic hoped he could steer these broken people down better paths even if aligning with unsavoury elements.
Late one fall night, a smartly dressed woman escorted by two hulking guards entered Dominic’s office unannounced, introducing herself as Madame Broklehurst – the true source of his more troubling referrals. As she talked obliquely of ensuring her clients' best interests, an ominous picture took shape... Broklehurst was grooming Dominic as legal counsel for London's emergent Beresford Syndicate mafia.
With dread, Dominic realized Broklehurst manipulated his indebted firm into becoming servants of her organized crime apparatus. She left him files for new disturbing cases that made even this former priest’s stomach turn. He sat stunned, his ideals corrupted into becoming mob lawyer to monsters destroying vulnerable lives constantly.
Dominic refused to enable Broklehurst’s plans any longer. He would shed these vile client obligations like a snake's skin to restore ethical order again. But mere thought of double-crossing the cunning mob madame turned his blood to ice...
The next week as Christmas lights twinkled across London, Dominic received news that Martyn “Butcher” Wallace – Beresford Syndicate’s fearsome enforcer and loyal client for years – was arrested on murder charges thanks to eyewitness testimony. He awaited transport from jail to Crown Court for his preliminary hearing – where his defence counsel was expected to utilize any legal tricks to ensure freedom.
Dominic steeled himself for Madame Broklehurst’s imminent icy call demanding he represent her star assassin Wallace no matter how airtight the charges. All Dominic need do was introduce sufficient doubt somehow and Butcher would walk free to kill again. The thought sickened Dominic to his core – he now stared into the abyss of his eroding morality.
When the fateful call came from the vipers’ nest, Dominic refused outright to represent Wallace despite Broklehurst’s threats of lethal consequences. He would reclaim what was left of his righteousness by allowing the justice system to simply run its course. There could be no more compromises with darkness while living with his own conscience.
A week after the dramatic refusal, Dominic was found in a bleak alley as 2018 rang in – shot point blank execution style. Authorities wrote it off as gangland retaliation. But Dominic died reconciled with the moral justice greater than any mortal legal system could ensure. He chose death before utterly compromising his convictions - a final stand for righteousness against corrosion from serving sinister forces.
Yet legends around London’s courthouses, police stations, and seedy underworld gatherings suggest Dominic’s devotion to exposing truth and forcing accountability did not cease with his pulse.
Whispers spread of a gaunt phantom in lawyerly garb sighted drifting amidst the accused peering into case files, reading evidence over bailiffs’ shoulders, hovering near witnesses under breath as if guiding their recollection towards damning facts.
Suspects awaiting trial sometimes wake shrieking from dreams of a vengeful spirit revealing the anguished faces of their victims. The most recalcitrant, defiant offenders are said to witness spectral hands clawing confessions from their trembling lips during proceedings.
Some cynical detectives even confess to glimpsing flickering forms through one-way mirrors swaying jurors towards delivering guilty verdicts after otherwise inconclusive cases. Could it be Dominic's restless soul still striking blows for justice behind the scenes?
Whether ectoplasmic mirage or intuitive tremor of guilt, all recognize something otherworldly afoot driving the wheels of the courts now. Years later Dominic remains an unseen instrument of moral order - the patron solicitor for the dead and defenceless he fights for still. The light endures in death through work unfinished in life.
