August Crowe

The lead prosecutor in State v. Johnson, a courtroom veteran who's survived at least one heart attack to make it to the age of 65 - a rarity in a world where lawyers often end up dead or convicted. Though intent on doing his job, he appears unwilling to convict when avenues remain unexplored. As a last-minute stand-in for a prior prosecutor, he's requested many, MANY pieces of evidence to "fill in holes" in the Prosecution's case... sometimes to the advantage of the defense. Currently acting as mentor to M. T. Ledger and offering macadamia nuts to just about everyone.

Appearance
''Crowe is gaunt and sunken-eyed, with a vulture's stooping posture and a fringe of gray hair around a bald dome. His left eye is afflicted with chronic ptosis, making him always seem to half-squint. A thin scar runs up the left side of his face, and he sometimes strokes it in moments of deep thought with his long, lean fingertips. His dress sense is... colorful, to say the least. Freesia, blue, yellow, and orange collide freely, capped with a cowboy hat and a disconcertingly mellow smile.''

Personality
''In court, August Crowe is generally low-key in his speech and tactics, throwing out the occasional rhetorical or sarcastic jab, but never being quite as venomous as many on his side of the courtroom. He believes in methodical reasoning over wild leaps of intuition or logic, and will always demand evidence to back up a claim, but is himself sometimes prone to elaborate, circuitous arguments - taking the "scenic route" to the truth, as it were.''

''While he doesn't see the defense as an enemy, he's quick to defend the reliability and value of good policework; the truth matters to him, but so does doing the job he is being paid for. He doesn't believe in browbeating witnesses and suspects, but he'll apply pressure as needed.''

''Out of court, Crowe loves adventuring to new locales, whether they're half-explored jungles or tourist traps. As he never married, he needs to spend his money on something. His office is lined with tiki memorabilia and kitschy German glass figurines, and he has a habit of always wearing a souvenir from his latest vacation in court. Early on, this was generally regarded as a little unprofessional, but seemed like a minor quirk in comparison to the prosecutors who performed aggravated assault in the courtroom. Nowadays, the judge hardly notices.''

Aside from that peccadillo, however, Crowe simply doesn't allow his personal life to interfere with his role in the courtroom.

Background
''Do you remember when you actually had to know law to be a lawyer? Like, stuff about "evidence procedure" and "chains of custody" and "hearsay?"''

August Crowe remembers.

''Born to middle-class parents who owned a small organic farm in Sonoma County, California, August graduated from a small, but prestigious, law school in California, where he specialized in defense law and made a name for himself with his rigor and care. Style of dress aside, he wasn't the most theatrical defense attorney, preferring to work methodically from beginning to end, play it safe, and not take too many risks with the freedom of his clients. He never made unilateral plea decisions or overrode a client's wishes. If a plea bargain was a good idea, it would have been unethical to fail to take one out of pride or a desire to gamble on the truth.''

But after twenty years in defense, once his student loans were well paid off, he had a sudden and painful realization: If all the clients he'd ever defended had been summarily thrown in jail for life, the crime rate in this place would have been halved.

''Yes, he defended the innocent, but his job had demanded that he defend the guilty zealously. And while everyone deserved a criminal defense, he found it harder and harder to look the families of the victimized in the eye. Eventually, for the sake of his conscience and the greater good, he became a prosecutor. While it took a while for him to rise in the ranks, he'd been diplomatic enough with the police in his prior career, so he hadn't burned too many bridges.''

''Now, at 65, Crowe is a seasoned prosecutor, always ready to help newcomers learn how to fight to protect the innocent from crime, bring closure to the victims, and defend the reputation and competence of the police force. Though standards in that department have been dropping for some time... well, he's not about to compromise his principles. Especially not with another, younger prosecutor on the same side of the bench as him.''