Upstairs I look for the municipal court prosecutor to deter mine the possibility of a bond hearing this afternoon. A bailiff advises me he is winding up a trial and should be available in half an hour, and I walk across the street to the county courthouse and take the world’s slowest elevator to the third floor.

The Blackwell County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office has undergone a major change since my entry into private practice. About six months ago, Phil Harper, who had been the head PA during my brief legal career (I didn’t go to law school until the ripe old age of thirty-seven), accepted an appointment to fill an unexpected vacancy on the Arkansas Court of Appeals, and a woman from his staff was appointed to fill his place. A woman for this traditionally male job initially seemed a dubious selection, but the choice has proved astute in these days of voter sensitivity to family is sues. Jill Mary mount has turned the office into a crusade against domestic violence, a favorite concern of the media, since the Supreme Court struck down a statute giving civil courts broad powers to punish husbands who abused their wives.

I know Jill only slightly. While I was at the PD’s Office, she was assigned to juvenile court. Outer Mongolia for an ambitious assistant prosecuting attorney with political aspirations. After Phil finally allowed her to begin handling felonies, she quickly made her reputation with a string of highly publicized child-abuse prosecutions. And when he resigned, Jill, only two years ago virtually unknown, became the obvious choice to break the male stranglehold on the position of prosecutor.