It was a hot, humid morning In late July, 1968, when I turned off the Harbor Freeway and drove in an easterly direction toward the city of Solina. After several miles I entered its outskirts, then slowed the car to take my first glimpse of what had been described to me as the hellhole of Southern California. And while at that particular moment I did not have in mind a precise conception of what hell looked like, what I saw slowly stirred my imagination in that direction.
For several blocks, I passed through a business district composed of a myriad of differently sized shop buildings, often separated at random by a church. They were, for the most part, old and dilapidated. Broken windows, some of which had been boarded over, appeared frequently, and several of the largest storerooms, their interiors having been entirely gutted by fire, were without roofs and stood hollow with the blackened remnants of their charred intestines bared to the rising sun.
Occasionally, a fast-food restaurant, housed in a clean and brightly colored habitat, would gleam into view and contrast garishly against the surrounding forest of lone- ly-looking companions. And outside, beneath this grotesquely configured jigsaw puzzle, the sidewalks lay dirty with fragments of glass from broken bottles, scraps of torn paper, and empty beer cans.
Feeling somewhat more comfortable when I reached Hester Street and turned north into a residential area, after three short blocks brought me to the courthouse, I parked, then eased my lean, five-foot- nine frame out onto the pavement.
For a moment, I just stared at the large, off-white frame-and-stucco structure. Then, after noting that the gold letters which spelled out JUSTICE high over the entrance were chipped and faded, I turned and walked across the street in search of the Public Defender’s Office.
Finding it open, I entered and approached a counter framed by steel bars that rose to the ceiling every four inches or so from its top.