In a modest hotel room, Bobby
Esposito and Cynthia Bennington, two young assistant district attorneys, have
just made love for the first time. For the high-toned Bennington, the occasion is
a breakthrough. "I've never had an orgasm before," she tells Esposito. He's
pleased, but his mind is elsewhere. He's worried about inequities in the system.

"I've always been aware that there's a difference between the law and
justice," he says. "You know, it's not anybody's fault. There's no heavies here.
They can be very different, very far apart, and I'm hoping somewhere in my life
to bring the two closer together."

Past summer the George family traveled to the nation's capital from their northern California reservation with a clear agenda: to raise awareness of the Hupas' battle to protect their land and culture from environmental threats.

"America has been educated from a colonial, oppressive perspective, and then Disney has come along and colored who we are," said Laura Lee George, an assistant school superintendent whose husband, Merv George, Sr., is the tribe's ceremonial leader. Laura Lee said she hoped the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI)--which paid for their trip--would help alter those perceptions.