Book Reviews to send him to Georgetown University for a BRACETE $10.95 DROPS OF REMEMBRANCE preparatory, graduate-level immigration law BY Juan M. Bracete course taught by Charles Gordon. Bracete Vantage Press, New York, NY, 2012. 66 pages, $10.95. grabbed the opportunityDrops of Remembrance ,and the bracing soon new memoir com from- author Juan Bracete, recounts his years as a U.S. Immigration Judge, menced work withand the the following Board period whenof Immigrationhe worked as a U.S. Foreign Service officer. Mr. Bracete relates some of the many incidents Reviewed by R. Mark Frey Appeals. Later, hebecause observed, and ofsupplies his poignant grandfather’s anecdotes regarding his terminal illness,work, he as quit well as biographicalhis job notesand about returned the nature of his job and how it profoundly shaped his career. In writing his memoir, OF DROPS A career in the United States Foreign to Puerto Rico.Bracete Bracete acts on his long-heldinitially desire to despairedshare with his readers the R totality of his life experience, and his search for ways continu- E M E Service—the allure of exotic locales, climes, about his employmentally to improve hisprospects journey through life.in Puerto MB RANCE OF cultures, and peoples, has caused many of Rico, but, as he notes, “God provides for DROPS us to consider it. It can be a great way to see madmen, children and fools,” and, not long JUAN BRACETE was born and raised in Puerto Rico. Having earned REMEMBRANCE the world and possibly play a role in world after returning,his he B.A. atwas Georgetown hired University, by he returneda local home to lawtake his J.D. at REMEMBRANCE the University of Puerto Rico. He practiced law for a number of years, before being appointed a United States Immigration Judge. Following this, events, while also having the honor of rep- firm, where heMr. Braceteworked decided to fulfillfor his sixlongtime years.wish to see moreBy of the world JUAN M. BRACETE and became a U.S. Foreign Service officer, a profession he followed for six resenting our country. How does one pursue then, his grandfatheryears. Currently, had he has resumedpassed his law career.away In addition and to his legal work, Mr. Bracete is a philatelist who also enjoys reading the works of such a career? How does one go about join- he developed anFranz Kafkaitch and Nassimto Taleb.seek government ing this elite group of people? What skills service on the mainland. Contacting former VANTAGEPress and talents does the Department of State supervisors at the 419Department Park Ave. South of Justice, New York, NY 10016 seek for the position? What may one expect he was hired to be anvantagepress.com immigration judge in VANTAGEPress from such a career path? Miami. He remained in that position for four These questions and more form the basis and a half years and then followed it with years until December 30, 2009, when he of Juan Bracete’s account of his life and three and a half years of private practice. resigned and returned to the United States. career. Born and raised by his grandpar- Finally, he was appointed to the Foreign Drops of Remembrance is enjoy- ents in Puerto Rico, Bracete led a solitary Service. He considered it a dream come true, able, and Bracete’s account of his days in childhood marked by many hours read- but he also felt apprehensive about starting a Venezuela are especially insightful. But I ing books borrowed from his grandfather’s new career and moving to Washington, D.C., found myself desiring more from his autobi- library while dreaming of a life in another after eight years in the Miami area. ography—more discussion of his formative land far away from his small isolated island. Following training at the Foreign Service years with his grandparents, more discus- These dreams were encouraged by the fact Institute, Bracete served his first assign- sion of his varied education in both Puerto that his grandfather’s prominence exposed ment in Caracas, Venezuela, where he car- Rico and the United States, and more dis- Bracete to a stream of high-ranking island ried out such none-too-pleasant tasks as cussion of his work in immigration law, as people and visitors from Europe. A trip to visits to the morgue and to U.S. citizens in he has a unique perspective forged during Europe at age 10 with his grandparents prison, while he wended his way through his years as an attorney with the Board of contributed even more to his desire to live a political minefield of coworkers, local Immigration Appeals, an immigration judge, abroad: “The desire to achieve, grow up citizens, and government officials in both and an attorney in private practice. I wanted and rush into the world outside the balmy Washington, D.C., and Venezuela. to hear more about his career in the Foreign Caribbean was overpowering. That mustard Bracete’s second assignment took him to Service—both its good and bad aspects. seed was exploding within me.” his wife’s homeland of El Salvador, but then Lastly, I would have been interested in Although Bracete’s grandfather discour- he resigned his Foreign Service employ- his impressions, as someone from Puerto aged him from attending school abroad, he ment in order to pursue local opportuni- Rico, of life in the United States, both in pursued studies at Georgetown University, ties that unfortunately failed to materialize. Washington, D.C., and Miami. soaking up the culture in and around After a couple of other steps that I’ll skip, I hope that Bracete will revisit and Washington, D.C. Unable to find a job after he opened a law practice in El Salvador, expand upon this book to give the reader a graduation, he returned to Puerto Rico to and, after a year, he was appointed to the more comprehensive view of his life. He has work as a junior credit officer at a local savings unpaid position of Minister Counselor of the lived a unique and fascinating one and has and loan association. He moved on some six Embassy of the Sovereign Military Order many insights to offer readers, especially months later to a bank, then to law school and, of Malta to the Republic of El Salvador; young people on the cusp of making deci- during the summer preceding his last semes- he took this post because of his inter- sions about their own career paths. ter, did an internship with the Department of est in the Order’s humanitarian projects Justice’s Tax Division, in Washington, D.C. in El Salvador. This was followed by an R. Mark Frey is an attorney based in St. Bracete hoped for post-graduation appointment to Ambassador Extraordinary Paul, Minn. He has practiced immigration employment with the Tax Division but, as and Plenipotentiary of the Sovereign law for almost 25 years with an emphasis luck would have it, the Board of Immigration Military Order of Malta to the Republic of on political asylum, family immigration, Appeals had an opening. The Board offered El Salvador—a position he held for nine removal defense, and naturalization. 84 • THE FEDERAL LAWYER • APRIL 2013 any number of “anatomies”—examinations/ background of deprivation and abuse. When delvings/investigations—have been written, she takes his case pro bono, “she had been including a “true crime” book, Michigan a lawyer for less than 100 days,” and has judge John Voelker’s bestselling Anatomy to “convince the judge that ... three juries of a Murder (1959), whence Raymond at three trials—had gotten it wrong.” Like Bonner’s title surely derives. Elmore, she had received few breaks in Bonner’s subtitle, A Murder Case her early life, so he and his family under- Gone Wrong, confirms this, though “gone stand and trust this neophyte white lawyer, wrong” is a howling understatement: the despite her inexperience. case involved the palpably erroneous—and The chapter that introduces her to us manifestly racist—repeated murder con- (and to Elmore) is by far the best in a good victions in South Carolina of an innocent book. Bonner’s prose comes alive there, black man, the marginally literate handyman describing how Holt fought her way up from Edward Lee Elmore. After being imprisoned a background of sexual abuse by a stepfa- for more than 30 years, most of it on death ther, extensive drug use, truancy and poor row, Elmore, in a plea-bargaining irony, had, grades, and, as a hitchhiking runaway teen, finally, to plead guilty to the state’s murder to use the intelligence she has always had charge to gain his freedom. to graduate summa cum laude from Texas Ironies abound in the book, as in the State University before entering law school. ANATOMY OF INJUSTICE: A case. Greenwood, S.C.—where the murder But she does not yet know that for much MURDER CASE GONE WRONG of an elderly widow, Dorothy Edwards, of her life Edward Lee Elmore has been on BY RAYMOND BONNER took place—calls itself “Emerald City,” death row. Soon she will find out, and both Alfred A. Knopf, New York, NY, 2012. 298 pages, $26.95 though any wizard therein is surely malign. their lives will change. (cloth), $16.00 (paper). Edwards’ next-door neighbor, “Jimmy” Holloway, who had an extended sexual Epilogue Reviewed by Thomas Holbrook relationship with her (“‘hooty pooty’ around As the book ends Edward Elmore is off ... with her,” a neighbor described it), had death row but still in prison. It is a rare “Justice delayed is justice denied.” been trained as a meat cutter (the widow reviewing pleasure to note that on March —Legal maxim with attributions had been stabbed 52 times), and claimed 2, 2012—after the book under review had dating back to the Magna Carta publicly, “I am the only one who could kill gone to press—he was set free.