A 64 year old attorney is making his way slowly up the concrete steps of the courthouse in Modesto, California.
His body is wracked with pain.
His heavy shoulders are hunched forward over the cane he carries in his right hand.
From his left hand swings a cracked black leather satchel stuffed with his legal files.
He's here at 830 on a Monday morning in June 2019 to do the unpopular work of defending the wrongly accused, the thoroughly guilty and clients at every point in between.
He's made this trip thousands of times.
In better days, he swaggered, the flamboyant terror of cops and prosecutors and judges.
I haven't had any qualms about going after law enforcement for lying.
If they fudge, once they fudge, it's open season.
This is Frank Carson, the most combative and controversial criminal defense lawyer in Stanislaus county.
His kidneys are failing, his sciatic nerve is aflame, and his morning Vicodin hasn't kicked in.
The effort to get up the steps makes him wince, but he hates to give any satisfaction to his enemies.
He has many.
For decades, he's defeated his law enforcement adversaries in court and raged against them in unapologetically venomous terms.
He names names in a central valley legal community where the cast of characters is small and the memory is long.
You know, they say, mister Carson, you're personal.
You know what?
It can't be any more personal to the guy that I'm representing.
And even if I had a doubt about my client's innocence, by the time we started the trial, usually by the end of it, I was absolutely convinced.
I've had attorneys, God rest their soul.