The courthouse looms before us, a mountain of stone and judgment I can feel rather than see. My cane sweeps the pavement in careful arcs, each tap broadcasting information back to me like sonar. Behind the clinical scent of concrete and metal lurks something more volatile—the sour sweat of nervous reporters, the oily residue of camera equipment, the collective breath of a crowd hungry for justice or spectacle, they don't much care which.

"There she is!" Someone shouts, and a wave of ...