...When I read Seamus Heaney's "Whatever You Say, Say Nothing."
Heaney - one of the finest poets of all time - died today in Dublin, Ireland (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-13930435). The Republic was his nominal home, although he was from Northern Ireland's second-largest city, Londonderry (be warned: drop the "London" if you're ever hanging around republicans).
He wrote "Whatever You Say" about his country's mid-to-later-20th-century Troubles, but each new case that comes across my desk that involves a shooting in Oakland because one young man from 83rd Avenue was walking on another young man's block on 85th Avenue, and all of the gleefully sensationalistic Oakland Tribune and San Francisco Chronicle articles or editorials I read about new policing "strategies" being implemented to curb hard violence in "problem" areas of my hometown, and every fresh, much-too-common complaint of law enforcement brutality that petrifies an entire community's distrust and disdain for the officers and administration that ostensibly exist to protect it from crime bring me back to Heaney's searing words about the insidious quietness that is born of extreme violence and deprivation among people who, at base, are the same and in the same miserable situation.
The title of the poem could also be a stand-in for my most repeated refrain to those very clients accused of perpetrating criminal acts against their brethren from down the street: Whatever you say, say nothing...about your case, to anyone.
Heaney's physical presence on this planet will be missed by many, but his legacy of words should be embraced by all of us who seek to understand and say something - anything - of worth to each other.
www.ninoandmastro.com
Managing Partner
Mr. Mastro grew up around the Bay Area. He graduated from the Santa Clara University School of Law. He sat for and passed the California State Bar Examination on his first attempt.
Thereafter, Mr. Mastro became a Deputy Public Defender in San Joaquin County (Stockton, Tracy), representing indigent clients in all manner of criminal cases.
After opening his own criminal-defense law practice, Mr. Mastro partnered and teamed with Mr. Nino to bring clients as comprehensive and vigorous a representation as possible.
Mr. Mastro is a member of the Alameda County Bar Association Criminal Court Appointed Attorneys Program, through which he represents indigent clients in all of the criminal courts of Alameda County. He has represented thousands of clients, with exceedingly positive results.
He is licensed and insured to practice throughout California, as well as in the federal courts of the Northern District of California.
Mr. Mastro enjoys life enough to understand that it is his job to get his clients back to their lives as quickly as possible.
Areas of Practice
- 95% Criminal Defense
- 5% Family Law
Litigation Percentage
- 100% of Practice Devoted to Litigation
Bar Admissions
- California
- U.S. District Court Northern District of California
Education
- Santa Clara University School of Law, Santa Clara, California
- J.D.
- Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park
- B.A.
- Honors: Magna Cum Laude
- Major: Liberal Studies
Honors and Awards
- Katharine & George Alexander Community Law Center Pro Bono Award
Professional Associations and Memberships
- Alameda County Bar Association's Criminal Court Appointed Attorneys Program, Member
- Alameda County Bar Association (ACBA), Member
Past Employment Positions
- The Law Office of Joseph Odysseus Mastro, Solo Practitioner/Managing Attorney
- San Joaquin County Office of the Public Defender, Deputy Public Defender
Pro Bono Activities
- Pro bono legal representation through the ACBA's Volunteer Legal Services Corporation
- HIV/AIDS & STI prevention volunteer work with the Stop AIDS Project in San Francisco, CA