“I don’t remember—”
“Seat-belt violation,” he says.
“That? That was total bull—.”
“That’s on you. You broke the agreement of the bond. We’re going to have to take you into custody.”
“Are you serious? The night before the trial? I’m going to jail?”
“You can bond back out.”
I look at my aunties, who have now formed a semicircle around me. They’ve overheard the officer. They look stunned, devastated, impotent.
“How much would this bond be?” Sugar asks.
“Ten.”
“Ten thousand?”
Someone loses it. One of my aunts, Bill, I don’t remember. They see red. They raise their voices. They don’t curse, but they yell. Someone shouts, “That’s just another way for you to suck money out of people who don’t have it.”
“I’m sorry,” the officer says to me. “You’ll have to stay in County until you bond out. Or—”
“Or?”
“Until the trial is concluded. Until you get sent back home or you get sent, you know, away.”
* * *
—
The second trial begins. I take my seat next to my attorney and shiver.
“It’s so cold in here,” I say, but nobody hears me.
The cold brings a feeling of icy inevitably. A litany of clichés rushes through my head: the fix is in, it’s rigged, and most of all the all-white jury will inevitably convict a Black boy if a white girl claims he raped her—every single time. Clichés are born from the inevitable.
You think this is about the truth?
I hear my mother’s voice. I see her face—anguished, shattered, the ridges in her forehead gouged into gullies, her eyes dark, hopeless.
I’m on trial.
The realization slaps me.
This is it. Determining my innocence or guilt.
* * *
—
Looking around, I’m struck by how much a courtroom resembles a church. Attendees sit in pews. Witnesses, accusers, and the accused swear on a Bible. The judge wears a robe. Everyone in attendance follows rules of decorum—speaking to each other reverently, in whispers, bearing witness. In so many ways, a trial feels like a religious service.
Then why do I have such an unholy feeling?
* * *
—
The second trial progresses at two contradictory speeds—breakneck and achingly slow. I sit through another jury selection and watch the defense attorneys and the prosecutor select another all-white jury—seven men, five women. A new prosecutor has been brought in for this trial, a heavy hitter, a man with major political aspirations. Stylish and well-groomed, a loud and proud proponent of law and order, he will eventually go on to be a judge. I can imagine his campaign slogan on TV screens throughout the state: Vote for me. I close cases. I put criminals behind bars.
Before the jury comes in, the prosecutor approaches the judge, a white woman, impatient, hard looking, severe. She reminds me of a high school vice-principal.
“Your Honor,” the prosecutor says. “We want to go with second degree.”
The judge flattens her hands on her table and says, “Well, did you get over some of the obstacles the previous prosecutor faced? Did you fill in those holes?”
“I did, yes, Your Honor.”
“I want you to be sure. I’m not going to stop this trial.”
“You won’t have to.”
“You don’t want third or fourth degree?”
“No.” He bends back a finger, ticking off the charge, showing his certainty. “We have force, Your Honor. From her testimony, she says she was trying to leave, she was trying to go out the hallway exit, but someone escorted her back into her room. That’s force right there.”
“Okay. Second degree. That’s what you’re going with in front of the jury?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“You’re ready to go?”
“More than ready, Your Honor.”
The bailiff leads in the jury. They barely glance in our direction. Their attention seems fixated on the floor as they take their spots in the jury box. Our lawyers make their opening arguments. Their words sail by me. I cannot escape the feeling of doom that continues to roll in my stomach. Then the prosecutor digs in. He calls the same people to the stand that we heard from six months ago—Sergeant Scout, the young woman, the roommate, the friend who called on the phone. Their accounts of the night, while similar to what we heard in the first trial, have been embellished, dramatized with color and lurid detail. The young woman describes one or two of the Black men coming out of the stairwell, bringing her into the room, holding her down, one grabbing an arm, another, a leg.
None of this happened. All lies. But my attorney doesn’t object, doesn’t challenge her, doesn’t point out that she has changed her testimony from the first trial.
I feel desperate. I grab the legal pad and scribble a series of questions. I slide the pad in front of my lawyer, jab my finger at what I’ve written. He ignores me, looks away, appearing to concentrate deeply on the young woman’s testimony. Still, he says nothing. Oh, right, I remember. That’s his strategy—the do-nothing defense. Do nothing, say nothing.
How can this possibly work?
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the jury sees through all the lies, all the inconsistencies. I look over at them, try to make eye contact with—anyone. Nobody looks at me. I am invisible.
Next the roommate testifies, and then the friend who called on the phone comes to the stand. Because my attorney has ignored all the questions I’ve written, I tap him on the shoulder and whisper urgently, “Ask her about the phone call. Get details.”
He does cross-examine her; he does ask her about that call.
But that’s it. He asks two or three more irrelevant questions before sitting down.
I can’t watch this. I close my eyes and slump in my chair, dejected.
My lawyer is inept. Unprepared. Useless. Incompetent.
I thought you had to be intelligent to go to law school.
The young woman’s lies pulse red, blinking as if in a neon sign—“I’m not sure if it was two or three. They each held me down. I was scared. I was so scared.”
The dread drips over me, clings to me. I lower my head and I shiver.
It’s so cold in here.
So very, very cold.
* * *
—
The trial spills into day two. On the second day, my father comes to the courtroom, coiled, angry, restless, and possibly drunk. He sits by himself, muttering, enraged at the way the trial proceeds and angry, I believe, at himself for not being able to afford a good attorney. I can hear his voice behind me, offering a running commentary of outrage—“This is crap”—first speaking low, then abruptly raising his voice so everyone in the courtroom can hear. Once or twice, court officers remind him to keep his voice down or he will be expelled from the courtroom.
The prosecution rests, and the judge asks our attorneys if they want to present a closing argument. My attorney rises at my side and says, “No, Your Honor, we’re going to rest.” I look at him—his rumpled suit, stained tie, one shoe with the laces undone, and I want to scream. Then I want to laugh. This can’t be real. This cannot be happening.
The judge calls on the prosecutor to present his closing argument. He approaches the jury. He seems cool and confident, bordering on cocky. Why wouldn’t he feel that way? He must feel like a politician whose opponent has dropped out of the race. He’s running unopposed.
The prosecutor begins his closing. He doesn’t even attempt to hide an undertone of racism.
“She was so scared,” he says to the jury, enunciating the final word. “These three Black cologne salesmen from Chicago had no business being at that party. They drove all the wa
y up here to stalk their prey. And they found their prey that night. This girl. This innocent college student. They found their prey, went up to her room, and sealed the deal.”
Stalked their prey.
The jury looks at me.
I know that I’m not going home that day.
* * *
—
The jury deliberates for less than two hours.
As they file back into the jury box, I try to read their faces, but no one, not one person, will even look in my direction.
The judge calls on the foreman.
“Foreman, has the jury reached a decision?”
The foreman stands and says, “Yes, Your Honor.”
I lean forward. I stare at one juror, then another and another, trying to make eye contact with someone, trying to connect, one human being to another, but no one will look at me.
The foreman reads the verdict.
“Guilty on all five charges.”
The room detonates.
My aunts and godfather and Dimitri’s family howl and scream and sob.
Dimitri collapses, goes facedown onto the table in front of him, his shoulders convulsing as he cries uncontrollably.
My father shouts over all of this, his voice roaring, “This is BULL—,” hollering the phrase over and over, leaping up, waving his arms, thrusting his fists into the air until two security officers corral him, tell him to leave, threatening to throw him in jail. He barrels toward the door, punching the air, screaming over his shoulder.
I can’t speak. I sit frozen in my seat. I refuse to cry. Then a ball of rage rises within me. I whirl around to my aunts and my godfather, who are all crying, and I say, “I’m sorry. I’m very sorry. I want to apologize for bringing this on you, on my mother, on our family, but I will not apologize for a rape I didn’t commit. I will not do that. I will not apologize for that.”
The judge, glaring at me, slams her gavel, dismisses the jury, orders the bailiff to clear the court. Then she ducks into her chambers, disappearing through a small, secret door behind her.
Through the din, I hear someone say—my lawyer perhaps—that Dimitri and I will be sentenced in a few weeks. I hear myself apologize again to my family, and I feel my chest heaving, fighting back tears of my own, and then I find myself sitting across from my lawyer in a small windowless room with peeling paint.
“I want to talk to you about sentencing,” my lawyer says.
“Guilty on all five counts,” I mumble.
The words—the realization—ice me.
“We can talk about the notice of appeal, but for now she’s preparing to drop the sentence on you and let me tell you, you really don’t want to piss off this judge.”
“Piss her off?”
“Look, things got a little raw there at the end, you know, when you spoke to your aunts.”
He pauses to clear his throat. His face reddens.
“I seriously think you should apologize to the judge. Show some remorse. Could go a long way.”
“Show some remorse? For what? I didn’t do anything.”
“She’s a tough judge. No-nonsense. If you apologized—”
“I did apologize—to my family. I hurt them. I didn’t hurt anybody else.”
“I’m just saying.”
I sigh so deeply it sounds like a shout.
Finally, after an endless and painful silence, I say, “What do you think the sentence will be?”
My lawyer adjusts his sitting position. His size overwhelms the chair.
“I think you get twenty years.”
“Twenty years?”
I gag on the words.
“You might get her to go for less, if you apologize.”
I ignore that.
“What about Rovaughn and his appeal?” I say.
“Waiting for the decision to come down.”
I lean my elbows on the table and stare at him. “Why didn’t you join in on his motion?”
He attempts to shrug.
“Easy to second-guess that now. Monday-morning quarterback. We’d be having a different conversation if we’d won, right? Well, anyway, if he wins the appeal, you guys will be released right away.”
I stare into him. He can’t look at me directly.
“Are you sure?”
“Oh, yeah, that was always our safety net.”
I don’t believe him. I don’t believe a word that comes out of his mouth.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” I say.
Another brutal, uncomfortable pause. And then my lawyer peers at his watch, grunts, and pushes himself away from the table.
“Well, I have to run,” he says. “It’s Miller Time for me.”
* * *
—
I don’t sleep the night before my sentencing. I allow time to pass, counting the minutes in my head. Nothing seems real. None of it. In the morning, I move in slow motion. I pick at my food, push it around with my fork. I can’t eat. I can barely walk into the courtroom. I feel numb. Then, as the minutes tick by, I feel—dead. I have not been shot, or stabbed, or hit by a car. But as I sit in the courtroom, waiting to hear a judge assign how much time I will be confined inside a box with bars for a crime that never happened, I feel as if I were not me, that I no longer exist.
People mill about the courtroom as we wait for the judge to walk in. I see my family huddled in a corner. Gloom lines their faces. My father, silent, dejected, listens in on my aunts’ and stepfather’s conversation, an observer, a bystander. He seems broken. He seems ashamed, not of me, but of himself.
A man suddenly appears in front of me. I recognize him as one of the girl’s relatives, maybe an uncle.
“I want to tell you something,” he says to someone near him. “My wife and I are givers. We try to open our hearts to the less fortunate. We adopted two colored kids. They’re in middle school now.”
He lowers his voice.
“I’m afraid to leave them at home with my wife,” he says.
He walks away.
My mouth opens, closes.
Colored kids.
What year is this?
Where are we?
A murmur ripples through the courtroom, the bailiff instructs everyone to return to their seats, and then he says, “All rise,” as the judge enters through her tiny, magic door. She takes her seat and peers at me and Dimitri.
She asks us to stand.
“I’ve carefully considered your sentences. Initially, I decided to give you each twenty years.”
She looks at Dimitri.
“I’m giving you twenty years.”
She looks at me.
“Mr. Adams, I overheard a conversation you had after the verdict. When given the opportunity to express remorse, you showed none. Since you feel no remorse, I’m giving you an additional eight years.”
Her gavel slams like a gunshot.
Twenty-eight years.
I drop my head into my hands.
Officers surround me.
Handcuffs, rings of ice, bite my wrists.
Behind me, I hear my aunts and my godfather wailing. I hear my father screaming. I don’t turn, but in my mind’s eye I see my mother’s face, stricken. Her pain fills my field of vision. I fear suddenly that I will pass out. Then somebody grabs my elbow, lifts me to my feet. My entire body trembles. I’m so cold. I want to cry. I refuse. I will not cry. Someone nudges me. I take a step. My eyesight blurs. Filmy faces swim before me—the young woman, Dimitri, Rovaughn, Sugar, Honey, my godfather, my mother—
Another nudge. Another step—
Twenty-eight years.
Colored kids.
It’s Miller Time.
I’m so cold.
Metal doors clang, jolting me, the sound burrowing into my brain.
7.
Pawns
We walk, Dimitri and I, handcuffed, chained, and silent, through a passageway below the courthouse to Jefferson County Jail. We have been convicted. We have been sentenced. We will soon learn where we will be sent to prison.
Guards lead us inside County and inmates greet us. They know we have gone to court. They, too, have ridden in the van from County to courthouse and back again, waiting now to be transferred to their next stop, their institution. Prison purgatory. They question us like gossipy neighbors thirsting for news.
“What happened? What’d y’all get?”
“I got twenty. He got twenty-eight.”
“What? No way. Y’all said you didn’t have no record before.”
“We don’t.”
A solemn silence, then a disembodied voice—
“Wisconsin prisons, man.”
* * *
—
Less than human.
That’s how they make you feel.
How they made folks feel on slave ships, in cotton fields, in camps. We have no names. Guards identify us by our numbers. We are faceless. Ciphers.
“You!” a woman guard shrieks at me during booking. “Move it. You’re not moving fast enough.”
I sneak a look at her, confused, frightened. She glares back at me.
“Is that reckless eyeballing? Are you reckless eyeballing me?”
“No, ma’am.”
“I will write you up.”
In Wisconsin prisons, you can be charged with reckless eyeballing. That is a real infraction. You can go down for that. You can go down for anything.
* * *
—
I call my mother. She hears my voice and begins sobbing.
“You knew, Mom,” I say. “You knew what would happen. You were right.”
“I couldn’t go up there,” she says. “I couldn’t watch that happen to you.”
“Mom,” I say, her crying ripping at my heart.
I want so desperately to calm her, but I don’t know how. All I know is that I did this to her.
Redeeming Justice Page 9