I’m paraphrasing there, just to be clear. The actual statement, from Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small’s lawyer referring to his client and his client’s wife being charged with child abuse, was this head-blower:

“In fact, since elected mayor, Mayor Small has faithfully discharged all the duties, responsibilities and obligations of his office. So there is no public element to this indictment. It is all about private family affairs within the Small household.”

You are wrong, Zealous Representation Breath, but nice try anyway. Small’s lawyer, Edwin Jacobs, was stressing that the indictment did not accuse Small of official misconduct in his role as mayor, as he tried to assist his client in avoiding the political backlash from the charges (which Small denies, of course). This is arguably justifiable nit-picking in defense of a client, but it is also the kind of technical lawyer-speak that makes the whole profession look slimy.

Yeah, it would be really bad if the mayor beat his own daughter as an official act. However, the elected leader of a city is always mayor 24 hours a day, and if he breaks the law, he is still mayor while breaking it. Elected leaders cannot break any laws without there being a very large “public element.” Would Jacobs make the same claim if Small had been arrested for drunk driving? Probably, which tells me that he isn’t very bright. Even Marion Barry’s lawyer had the sense not to tell the D.C. media (in 1990) that they should remember that while the D.C. Mayor was caught smoking crack (Leading to Barry’s immortal quote, “Bitch set me up!”), there was no public element to the crime.

Small, 50and his wife, the city’s superintendent of public schools, were indicted this week for the alleged abuse of their teenage daughter and charged with endangering the welfare of a child in the second degree. The mayor was also charged with third-degree aggravated assault and “making terroristic threats.”

Atlantic City’s First Couple had been first accused of physically and emotionally abusing their daughter five months ago, with the alleged crimes occurring when she was 15 and 16 years old. The indictment describes a pattern of violence by both parents over a two-month period ending at the beginning of this year. Prosecutors say the mayor hit his daughter over her head with a broom until she lost consciousness on one occasion. (You know: tough love.) In another episode, he punched the girl repeatedly in the legs. His wife, the superintendent of public schools, dragged the daughter by her hair and hit her with a belt, according to the indictment.

I’m sure it is just a coincidence that the principal of Atlantic City High School, Constance Days-Chapman, was also indicted last week on a charge of endangering the welfare of a child, several counts of official misconduct and one count of hindering apprehension. According to a news release from the Atlantic County prosecutor’s office, an “unnamed 15-year-old female student” told Ms. Days-Chapman in December that she was being physically abused by her parents, and the principal took no action, perhaps because one of the abusers was her superior—I’m just spit-balling here. The belief is that the 15-year-old in question was in fact the Small girl; if not, Atlantic City is a rough place for teenage girls.

Oh, I almost forgot….Small, who took office in 2019, is the fifth Atlantic City mayor to face criminal charges since the 1980s. I’ll have to go back and check to see how many of those charges “had no public element.”

Here’s my view of a public element: if the voters of Atlantic City keep electing mayors who can’t avoid committing crimes, that public doesn’t understand the responsibilities of citizenship in a democracy, and needs to do better.