I don’t understand, nor could I possibly predict, the profound impact that Boyle’s questioning will ultimately have on me. But in that instant, as he and I exchange that fleeting look, I feel that power. I glance at the jury, and I see them all looking over at us, at Rovaughn, at Dimitri, and at me. They look concerned, and while I don’t dare allow myself to interpret their collective look with any certainty, I believe they’re looking at us with sympathy.
Boyle’s convinced them, I think. They believe him. They believe us.
We’ve won.
* * *
—
Two more people take the witness stand, the young woman’s roommate and the friend who called her on the phone. The roommate appears fidgety and speaks in a monotone. I believe that she has been coached. Her answers come out vague, minimal, and without expression, as if she were struggling to remember her lines in a play. Even though she previously indicated that she saw her roommate engaged in a sexual act when she walked into the room, she now says that it was too dark to see anything specific. She seems to be following the timeline the prosecutor proposed. Boyle doesn’t challenge the roommate. I get the sense that he doesn’t feel he has to.
Next, the friend who called on the phone testifies that the girl never said or even suggested that anything might be wrong during the phone call. She says only that the girl didn’t really want to talk.
“I thought maybe she was tired from too much partying,” the friend says.
The prosecution rests, and one by one our lawyers rest. The judge then invites the prosecution to present its closing argument. The prosecutor huddles at his table with the accuser and another lawyer he’s working with. After intense whispering and nodding, he asks the judge if he may approach the bench. The judge agrees, and the prosecutor, and Boyle, moving quickly to catch up, walk up to the judge.
“Your Honor,” the prosecutor says, “after consideration, we want to amend the charges from first degree down to third and fourth degree.”
“You’re certain about this?”
“Yes, Your Honor. We’re not going to go forward with first-degree charges.”
Boyle’s face burns. He stammers, then goes into a full-on rage.
“No, Your Honor, no. I vehemently oppose that. The prosecution knows that this girl has changed her testimony from what she said on the police report. They know they have not met their burden. Your Honor, I’m asking you to declare a mistrial with prejudice right now and let these young men go home and live their lives, because, Your Honor, respectfully, this whole thing is a complete and total sham.”
“Mr. Boyle, please calm down.”
Boyle dips his head, nods, appears to count to three, composes himself.
“Yes, Your Honor. I apologize.”
The judge pauses, looks at the prosecutor, at Boyle, at the jury, at us.
“Let me consider this,” she says.
She calls for a short recess. She practically catapults out of her chair and speed-walks into her chambers, her robe flapping behind her like a cape. After ten minutes, she returns, again walking briskly. She sits down, leans forward, folds her hands, and speaks somberly.
“I’ve heard the prosecution and I’ve heard the defense. Given the prosecution’s decision not to go ahead with the first-degree charges, I am declaring a mistrial—without prejudice.”
A massive exhalation of air—a monumental sigh—whooshes through the courtroom.
My mother, my aunts, and my godfather stand and hug each other, and my mother swipes at tears trickling down her face.
Mistrial without prejudice.
I need to know what this means. I start to ask my lawyer, but he’s standing, hands on hips, hovering over Dimitri’s lawyer, the two of them listening intently to Boyle. Boyle gestures wildly, and then turns toward the three of us.
“We need to meet. I have to explain what just happened,” he says.
Boyle and the two other attorneys arrange for an empty conference room. Escorted by a security guard, we enter the room and close the door.
I speak first. “What does mistrial without prejudice mean? We won, right? It’s over.”
“Yes and no,” Boyle says. “Yes, we won. No, it’s not over.”
He pauses, gathers his thoughts, and then continues.
“The judge declared a mistrial without prejudice. She didn’t declare a mistrial with prejudice, which is what we wanted.”
I narrow my eyes. “What’s the difference?”
“With prejudice means the charges are dismissed permanently. Without prejudice means you can be tried again.”
“But, oh, okay,” I say, stammering, “why would the judge do that? It was clear. She was lying. I could see that the jury was sympathetic—”
Boyle holds up his hand. “I know. But the judge has to play by the rules. She agreed to the prosecutor’s request and she amended the charges, but if they bring charges again, and they could, that has to be done in front of a new jury.”
“So, we could be right back here,” I say.
“They may drop it, but I wouldn’t count on it,” Boyle says.
“I thought—”
I stop. My throat feels dry. I swallow.
“I thought we won,” I say. “I was ready to celebrate.”
I look at Boyle and then stare at my attorney. He seems to have momentarily lost the ability to speak.
“I want to go home,” I say.
* * *
—
But I don’t. I return to Jefferson County Jail. My bond remains in place. Unless my family can scrape together the fifteen thousand dollars, I will stay locked up in here as long as I still have potential charges pending. My attorney suggests that I appeal the amount of the bond. Thirty days later, he motions the court to reduce it. Given the mistrial, the court agrees to lower the bond to ten thousand dollars. My mother draws from her retirement account, my aunties chip in, and together they raise the money for the bond. I’m released from jail.
I move back to Chicago, into my mother’s house. I spend my first day in the city wandering the neighborhood in a daze, getting my bearings. My life feels like a fever dream. Slowly, as the hours of the day tick away, I settle into a kind of comfort zone and I begin to breathe. I’m home, I think. This past year has been a crazy, nightmarish mistake. We won. The judge saw that the young woman lied. I know we didn’t get that “with prejudice” designation and that the prosecution can come back at us with new charges, but I can’t think about that. I have to move on with my life.
I pick up where I left off. I buy a car, a boxy burgundy Chevy Caprice with a rusted-out body but a good engine. A guy in the neighborhood sells it to me for thirteen hundred dollars, a fair price. I give him a five-hundred-dollar down payment and set up an affordable payment plan, but I can’t actually drive the car yet, because I can’t afford the insurance. To make sure I don’t succumb to temptation, my mother keeps the keys.
“You are not driving that car,” she says. “I’ll give you the keys when you get insurance.”
“Can’t I take the car on a short trip, to the store, or over to Sugar’s—?”
“Absolutely not. You get stopped by the police and you don’t have insurance? Jarrett, never give them a reason. You know that.”
I look into taking classes at the local community college. I get a job at Midway Airport as a baggage handler. I start seeing friends and begin dating, no one seriously, but I quickly create something of a social life. I pay off the car, purchase the insurance, and collect the keys from my mother.
One of the first days I have the car, I pick up a friend. As we head toward Ninety-Fifth Street and King Drive, a cop pulls us over—the way I see it, for driving while Black. My friend unrolls his window, and the cop smells marijuana. Anybody would. My friend smokes pot like Snoop Dogg. The cop notices a nub of a joint beh
ind my friend’s ear. He accuses us of driving under the influence, although neither of us has been smoking. He issues two citations: one for driving without a seat belt, the other for marijuana.
“Welcome home,” my friend says after the cop drives away.
“There is no escape from this crap,” I say.
“You got that right,” my friend says, pulling out a joint he has tucked behind his other ear. I stare at him.
“What?” my friend says. “I’m stressed.”
A month passes. Then another. I try not to think about that night in Wisconsin, the party, the trial. I especially try to blot out the horrific memories of Cook County Jail. I want to simply live my life. Pick up the pieces. I just want to be.
One day, as I walk down the street near my mother’s house, a car pulls over. I look at the driver and Dimitri smiles back.
“Dimitri,” I say. “Hey, man, what’s going on?”
I look around, concerned that someone might be spying on us. As part of our bonding-out agreement, the court instructed the three of us not to have any contact.
“Nothing much,” he says. “Staying out of trouble.”
“Me, too. I got a job at Midway, wrestling people’s luggage. Looking to start up with classes at community college.”
“I’ve been working, too. I made manager at UPS.”
“The big time. Now you don’t have to wear those shorts.”
We laugh.
“Hey, man,” Dimitri says. “That night? I swear—I will never put myself in a situation like that again.”
“Ever,” I say. “Just want all this to be concluded. Final.”
Dimitri nods, drums his fingers on the steering wheel. “Okay, well, we already broke the bonding-out agreement.”
“I know,” I say. “But, hey, it was great seeing you.”
“Same here, Jarrett. Keep your nose clean.”
“You as well,” I say. “You as well.”
* * *
—
A month later, a letter arrives at my mother’s house.
A summons to appear in court.
My hands shaking, I speed-read the letter once; then I read it slowly. I fold the letter carefully and force myself to sit at the kitchen table.
I have been charged with five counts of second-degree sexual assault.
In case I don’t understand the letter, my attorney calls next, detailing the charges and telling me when I have to appear in court.
A matter of days.
Aunt Honey, Aunt Sugar, and Bill drop everything and arrange to drive me to Wisconsin. My mother informs my father. I overhear her on the phone, her voice cold, distant, edgy. Because I had been staying at his house the night of the party, she blames him for what happened to me in Wisconsin. She blames him for allowing me to sneak out, for letting me go to parties. By now, I’ve confessed to going to parties everywhere, all summer, across state lines and in the most dangerous neighborhoods in the city.
“You can’t blame him,” I say. “You can’t blame anyone except me.”
And then I say to myself, “That’s not true.” I do blame myself, but I also blame everyone. Everything.
The young woman. The State of Wisconsin. The prosecutor. The police. Society. The criminal justice system. The media. Our country’s untold history. Bigotry.
And being Black.
That’s not my fault. I’m proud of being Black.
But it’s to blame.
My aunts, my godfather, and I prepare to make the five-hour drive to Jefferson County, Wisconsin, for my second trial. As we get set to leave, my mother pulls me to the side, away from everybody, and asks me to sit with her.
“Jarrett,” she says, “I can’t do it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t go back to Wisconsin. I can’t watch you go through that again. And I can’t go through that again. It’s too much for me.”
I take her hands.
“Mom, we won before; we’ll win again.”
She grips my hands so hard I feel she may tear my flesh.
“You don’t get it, do you?”
Her eyes glisten. I can practically feel her heartbreak.
“You seem to think that this is about truth. You think this is about what’s right? It’s not. It is not about what’s right. You’re Black.”
“I know, Mom—”
“You don’t.”
She shakes her head so slowly she looks as if she were moving in stop-action.
“You ever hear of Emmett Till? They teach about him in school?”
I search my brain.
“No.”
“I didn’t think so. Emmett Till was a fourteen-year-old Black boy from Chicago. He went to visit his family in Mississippi. He was in a grocery store and someone said he whistled at a married white woman. White girl. She was twenty-one years old. You know what her husband and some other white men did to this fourteen-year-old Black boy? They shot him. They mutilated him. Then they lynched him. The courts in Mississippi brought his killers to trial. You know what they did to those killers? Nothing.”
I want to object. I want to say, “I’m not Emmett Till. That was then.”
But I hold my tongue.
I look at my mother, see the tears drowning her cheeks, and I get up, put my arms around her, and hold her, using every ounce of my strength not to cry. I hold her, rock her gently. I know now what she’s thinking: I can’t go back to Wisconsin and watch my own version of a lynching. Your lynching.
My son’s lynching.
6.
Let Them Hang Themselves
The drive from Chicago to Jefferson County Courthouse in Wisconsin takes five hours but feels more like ten. I sit in the backseat, tucked into a corner, my face pressed to the window, watching the barren wintry countryside of Wisconsin float by—endless icy fields vanishing into snow-packed rolling hills. As we drive, nobody speaks. The silence underscores what I feel—an impending sense of dread.
Before we left, my aunts spoke to Dimitri’s parents. They’ve all booked a motel not far from the courthouse, which is where we will stay during the trial. We’ll check in there after Dimitri and I meet our attorneys at the courthouse. I can almost hear my lawyer’s lame catchphrase—“to strategize.” He wouldn’t know a strategy if it slapped him in the face.
Inside the courthouse, I see Dimitri, his parents, and his attorney. I look around, eager to see Rovaughn and Boyle, the only lawyer on our side who had a clue at the previous trial. He had more than a clue. He had a strategy.
I greet Dimitri and his folks. “Where’s Rovaughn at?” I ask.
Nobody answers.
“Let’s find a quiet place to talk,” my attorney says. “Let’s go out in the hall.”
“Here’s the thing,” my attorney says when we’ve found an empty part of the hallway. “We had an option—”
My attorney starts there, then slams his mouth shut.
“What option?” I ask.
“Rovaughn’s lawyer—Boyle—filed a motion in appellate court saying that he shouldn’t be tried because of double jeopardy.”
I recognize the term from watching Law & Order. I’m not sure what it means.
“What is that?” I say.
“Since the first judge called a mistrial, Boyle is saying that Rovaughn can’t be tried for the same thing again. He’s appealing this whole thing.”
I catch Dimitri’s eyes. He nods. We’re on the same page.
“That’s a good argument,” I say. “Why don’t we join in on that double jeopardy?”
“Well, here’s our thinking,” my lawyer says. “You guys are good kids. You’re out there, living your life, keeping your noses clean. We want to get this over with as soon as possible, right? No telling how long this double-jeopardy appeal will t
ake. And he might lose. Then he’s right back at the beginning. Square one. We’re getting a jump.”
“I know, but—”
He interrupts me. “This is a slam-dunk case,” he says. “We know the girl is lying. It’s obvious. The evidence supports you. The judge at the arraignment saw that, the judge in the first trial saw that.”
“So, we’re not going to join up with Rovaughn and his attorney in this double-jeopardy motion?” I say.
“No,” my lawyer says.
“Can we talk about it?”
“It’s too late to join his motion,” my attorney says.
“That ship has sailed,” Dimitri’s attorney adds.
My stomach flips. I feel a shadow of dread passing over me.
“What is our strategy?” I say, quietly.
My lawyer shifts his weight. Tucks in his pants. Absently rolls his palms over his belly.
“We think”—he looks at Dimitri’s lawyer for approval—“we’re sitting pretty here. Her story is so full of inconsistencies that the best strategy is to go with a no-defense strategy.”
“Let them hang themselves,” Dimitri’s attorney says.
I hear my mother’s words. Emmett Till. Lynching. In one second, I go from feeling dread to feeling petrified.
I start to argue with the attorneys. I want to tell them that their no-defense strategy sounds like a terrible idea, but before I say anything, an officer of the court descends on us, calls my name, and sweeps me away to a remote corner of the hallway.
“We’re revoking your bond,” he says.
“Why? For what?”
“You received a traffic ticket.”
I search my memory.
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