10 questions. Career win

• Pages: 15-16

ABA JOURNAL | SEPTEMBER–OCTOBER 2019

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Inter Alia | 10 QUESTIONS

my partner, Jeffrey, and I decided to

travel to Jacksonville to see the will for

ourselves. We drove 5½ hours from the

conference in Marco Island to Jackson-

ville, committing to counting the lynch-

ings documented by Bryan Stevenson

and the Equal Justice Initiative in the

counties we’d be driving through. We

counted 125.

When we arrived in the basement

of the Jacksonville courthouse, I was

handed a  le the size of a lady’s clutch

purse, and Jeffrey videotaped me as I

took the band off the  le and removed

four dozen folded pages—the probate

 le of John Sutton.

The  rst thing I saw was that red wax

seal that I had  rst seen in the image from

the paralegal. I picked up the two-page

will. I put my  nger on the “X” that John

Sutton had made, as I came to understand

that I had been on this journey since be-

fore I stumbled into a career in trusts and

estates, way back to when I’d been a little

kid. I begged my dad to buy me a set of

calligraphy pens and ink, and a wax letter

sealing set. I thought it would be cool to

seal letters with red hot wax.

But I was confused: What were the

four dozen pages besides the will?

I realized there was a petition to in-

validate the will—a will contest! Just as I

had imagined, John Sutton had a brother

who claimed that John lacked capacity,

had been unduly in uenced and been

plied with “ardent spirits” (alcohol), and

that the laws of Florida prohibited eman-

cipation. The only difference was the

old-timey name Eustice that I had made

up was really Shadrack, right from the

Old Testament!

The  le included the will contest trial

transcript—the handwritten notes of the

judge, William F. Crabtree, who tran-

scribed the testimony of lawyer Gregory

Yale, who stated that he came to the

house because John was too ill to come

into town, that Yale was welcomed by

John’s “family” not his “slaves,” who

also explained to Yale that the family

had moved to Florida from Georgia,

because John thought he could emanci-

pate them there.

The transcript revealed that Lucy

had come in and said she would have

been happy to stay in Florida, but

Shadrack had threatened to beat her

family if he ever came to own them.

Lucy’s own testimony would likely have

been excluded since she was a mixed-

race woman challenging a white man.

But Yale could testify, and he summed

Lucy up as a “wise old negro.”

The  le included a  nal decree

issued by Judge Crabtree on March 10,

1847, upholding the will and ordering

Shadrack to pay $28.08 in court costs!

Since discovering the will, I have

shared my story with trusts and estates

lawyers across the country. When I end

my talks, I reference a notion that I  rst

heard paraphrased by my fellow Har-

vard Law School alum Barack Obama,

attributable to a Unitarian minister and

abolitionist in a sermon from 1853 :

“The moral arc of the universe is long,

but it bends toward justice.”

As I end my talks, I say that I used

to think history was what happened to

famous people or to ordinary people

who did extraordinary things. But

my journey revealed that we are all

living in the midst of history every day.

My ancestors did what they could to

guarantee freedom and safe passage for

their children. I stand on the same arc

of history with them. At the other end

of that arc are my descendants who

have yet to be born. They’ll call me to

account, to answer: “What am I doing,

day-to-day, to help bend the arc of

history toward justice?”

To help bend the arc, I share the sto-

ry of my ancestors as a complement to

my trusts and estates litigation practice.

I encourage underrepresented groups to

consider trusts and estates, and in my

spare time I work on various creative

projects to share the story of John and

Lucy Sutton. Q

Terrence Franklin is a partner in the Los

Angeles trusts and estates litigation  rm

of Sacks Glazier Franklin & Lodise who

serves as the chair of the Diversity and

Inclusion Committee of the American

College of Trust and Estate Counsel. He

was recently included among the Most In-

 uential Minority Attorneys in Los Angeles

by the Los Angeles Business Journal.

10 QUESTIONS

Career

Win

This North Carolina litigator

reigns as Miss USA

In May, Cheslie Kryst received a

verdict from a panel of judges that

changed the course of her life. The

verdict was much more than a win

for Kryst, who practices complex civil

litigation as an associate with Poyner

Spruill in Charlotte, North Carolina.

It carried with it a crown, a reign and

the title of Miss USA 2019. For Kryst,

it was the realization of a dream she’d

held since high school when she entered

her  rst pageant. She’s been on a quest

for crowns ever since, competing in

pageants in addition to earning her BS

from the University of South Carolina

and her MBA and JD from Wake Forest

University. She competed while clerking

for her  rm as a summer associate, in-

terning at General Motors Co., launch-

ing a fashion blog and working on cases

pro bono to reduce prison sentences

for nonviolent offenders. After winning

the Miss USA title, Kryst took a leave

of absence from her  rm and moved

to New York City, the pageant’s home

base, to ful ll the duties of her yearlong

position and simultaneously prep for

the ultimate trial: the Miss Universe

pageant.

Congratulations on becoming Miss

USA! What is your life like now? Is

there ever a typical day for you?

No—my schedule is always changing.

There’s a lot that pops up without a

lot of notice. Last week, I was back in

North Carolina, where I spoke brie y

on the  oor of the General Assembly. I

met with the chief justice of the North

Carolina Supreme Court and got the

key to the city of High Point. The week

before, I was in Boston at the Best Bud-

dies Challenge bene t, where I got to

play  ag football with Tom Brady.