Law Man: My Story of Robbing Banks, Winning Supreme Court Cases, and Finding Redemption

by Hopwood, Shon

  Her smile said she didn’t believe me—maybe she didn’t think she would be alive. Or maybe she thought that men, even ones who are locked up, just don’t have an eight-year attention span. So she shrugged it off.

  After her visit, the word spread that for some strange reason a supermodel had come to visit the legal nerd, Shon.

  “Why would that be strange?” I said to a guy on the yard. But inside I knew it was beyond strange.

  After the visit, while we were in line at the chow hall, Bobbie asked me about Annie being in a Sports Illustrated story. Someone heard him talking to me and assumed that Annie was in the swimsuit edition. News spread quickly. Without knowing it I was earning some juice; a visit from a beautiful woman earns you respect outside and in.

  Each letter from Annie lifted me—each like a tiny pardon, a temporary reprieve from my day-to-day surroundings. She gave me confidence to push forward harder with my schoolwork and the law.

  I took on a new batch of habeas cases that Ryan was intent on giving me grief about. “If you need to do that, take it to your cell tonight, Shon. Take all the stuff you want, but for now get back to shelving books and updating the records.”

  He was right that I was spending most of my time reading books like Federal Habeas Corpus Practice and Procedure instead of doing the grunt work. But he was primarily upset because people were asking me legal questions and not him. And he didn’t like it that I was sometimes missing his weed sessions in his cell, which served as his office meetings. He insisted that I come to his cell for the meeting that evening because something was up.

  “So who do you think is snitching on us?” he asked. Several of us had been called for pee tests that always coincided with the days after we had smoked. Fortunately those drug tests could be evaded by drinking lots of water because it dilulted the urine.

  “I don’t know who it is, but I would pay to find out!” Milan said.

  Roger, a junkie from Minnesota, had already been busted twice—once for weed, once for heroin. His favorite form of entertainment was taunting known snitches.

  “I’d love to catch the rat that got me,” he said. “I would take off his face with a cup of good stuff.” What he meant by “good stuff” was a prison concoction of baby oil and Magic Shave, the gel used by the black guys to remove stubble. The mixture was heated in a microwave and then thrown on someone’s face, producing disfiguring burns. But Roger was only talking big; he never really did anything like that.

  The meeting went downhill from there, reduced to rumors about who was scheming with whom. I split early; I just didn’t have the time or the inclination to be stoned all the time. Not anymore.

  Sometimes Bobbie would come over so we could go smoke with Ryan. After one of these meetings Ryan decided to hit us with it.

  “We have a snag,” Ryan announced. “The thing is …” he stumbled. “The thing is, we kinda smoked up all the weed, and, you know, it kinda belonged to the Crips.”

  “Then ask them for some more,” Bobbie said.

  “You don’t understand,” Ryan continued. “We done smoked up my ounce, and we done smoked up all the weed the Crips had stashed in the library. We smoked it all up. They are going to be coming for their regular pickup in a day or two, and there ain’t nothing left but some worthless stems and seeds.”

  The more Ryan talked, the more he used the pronoun “we.” But it wasn’t we who had deliberately smoked up all the Crips’ weed. But the Crips knew we spent time smoking it in Ryan’s cell, so he was right, we would all pay.

  I had to convince Bobbie not to beat Ryan, even though I wanted to do just the same. Bobbie knew the drug business, knew the Crips, and knew this was serious. They would have to make an example of us. We would be hurt, and maybe one of us would be killed. Our vote, if we had one, would be for Ryan to be the guy.

  Bobbie knew a lot of the black drug dealers in Pekin, and I knew black guys through the ball teams, but not many Crips; they weren’t much on sports because they were too busy doing business. I could, of course, nod to them on the yard and they would nod back because they had seen me play, but they were not my friends. If Bobbie and I took it to our white friends, they would have our backs, because that’s the deal, but that would just start a war. I wasn’t going to do that, nor was Bobbie. This had the potential to seriously hurt too many people if we made it a group-versus-group thing.

  The Crips were different from other gangs. They were always the hungry sharks in the water, the kind who didn’t mind conflict.

  We kept everything to ourselves for a day, until Ryan had time to scheme. I knew I could count on his slippery mind—if he could slip it in gear soon enough.

  That evening it seemed like some of the Crips were looking at me in the chow line. Maybe they always returned glances that way, but it seemed different, like they were wondering if it would be better to skewer my liver from the front or the back.

  I am not prone to paranoia, but I thought we should move with whatever it was we were going to do in the way of a plan.

  “We gotta be smarter, that’s all,” Bobbie told me as we were working out the next morning and nobody was nearby. We tried thinking of a plan, but Ryan beat us to it.

  Ryan was chummy with the staff in the library, and he told one of the women guards that a gang was stashing contraband in the law library.

  When I arrived at the library the door was blocked by two guards. The place was being ripped apart.

  “You can’t go in, Hopwood,” one of the guards said.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Seems your little Walgreens is going out of business.”

  “Where you going to get your Depends?” I replied. He didn’t understand. I walked away.

  They found a few empty bags of weed shake—mostly sticks and stems—plus some heroin, a dozen well-made shanks, and two new boxes of syringes that could only have come from the prison medical facility. The amount of drugs and the syringes suggested something the guards didn’t want to think about: at least one of them was dirty.

  If you went to the wrong staff person to snitch about the stash, it could all go wrong very quickly. Ryan was lucky, we were lucky. But we still had to worry about the Crips thinking we were to blame.

  The guards were sneaky. They knew Ryan had dropped the dime, but to make it look good and to gather more information, they called everyone who worked in the law library to the lieutenant’s office. They questioned all of us about where that stuff had come from. When I suggested that the boxes of syringes weren’t made in the prison, the lieutenant nearly came unglued.

  “What are you trying to say?” he said.

  “Nothing, I am trying to say nothing about nothing,” I said.

  “Do you know if my staff is giving this stuff to prisoners?” he asked. We both already knew the answer.

  “Nope, I was just saying that boxes of syringes aren’t made here.”

  “That’s all you know, smart mouth?”

  “That’s all I know, Lieutenant.”

  The fallout came without delay.

  Ryan lost his job and was sent to the hole for two weeks. Little did the guards know that he had the remainder of the weed keistered up his behind, along with some matches. Anytime he needed a smoke in solitary, he just reached up, pulled the bag out, and rolled some “butt weed.”

  I lost my job, as did everyone else who worked in the law library, but we weren’t sent to the hole.

  I worried that without the law library my legal career would stall. It would be much harder to study law if I returned to work in the kitchen.

  And I didn’t know how the Crips were taking all this. The funny looks from them continued. My paranoia spiked. Maybe some staffer had found out from other staffers that there had been no weed in the haul and had found out that somebody had snitched, costing the Crips all the rest of their stuff. The Crips seemed to be still measuring me with cold stares.

  I received a couple of brief respites from the Crips mess. The first was a
letter from Tom, who was finishing out his four-year term in a low-security prison in Minnesota. It seemed like the kind of letter you might receive before dying, if God wanted to help wrap things up for you. I had always felt guilty for not laughing off Tom’s bank idea. That’s what a friend should have done.

  Wood,

  It’s been a long time, I know. I got your pictures the other day of you and Ann. Only you, Wood, could pull something like that off. On top of that it happens while you’re doing a twelve piece for the Feds. I’m happy for you bro—I really am. Ann’s the kind of woman who might be able to pull this off and stick with you all the way to the door. Even if she doesn’t—she’s still a five-star general for having the courage to swim upstream and go after something she wants, despite what anyone thinks. That’s so cool—that’s movie stuff.

  I hope you understand why I haven’t stayed in better touch. Kind of like race car drivers who don’t go to funerals, it’s just hard right now considering the circumstances. The exciting news for me is this is my year. The way things are looking I should be in Council Bluffs by June!! And just to make sure we’re clear, things between you and me are the same as they’ve been since fourth grade. We’re boys—period. Within a year I’ll be back in a position where I can help you. I realize there isn’t much I can do, but at the same time I know there are many little things that can be done—somebody you can rely on to get those little things done. I know many of our friends, even the boys have “moved on” and just left you hanging.

  I’m going to do whatever I can to have your back through this thing. There’s no cure-all—no easy way out—and it kills me to think how high your hill still is for you—it’s going to be hard. But one thing I know you’re not looking for is pity—it’s something we just got to ride out—one day at a time. Just know that you and I have never been better.

  I send you the best bro—take care of that girl, you got the one you wanted and you know she’s worth it—get yourself right.

  Tom

  Tom’s letter boosted my mood, as did Annie’s second visit.

  The visiting room rules say you are allowed a hug and kiss when you first meet your visitor, and then again when your visitor leaves. I pushed that rule to its boundary, because when Annie entered I gave her a kiss lasting about two minutes. I figured, legally, if our lips continued to touch it was still one kiss.

  “I have some good news,” Annie said afterward. “I applied to Bastyr University in Seattle. They have the largest natural health arts school in the country.”

  “What are natural health arts?” This sounded kind of hokey, but I didn’t say that.

  “Like acupuncture, naturopathic medicine, and nutrition. I applied for the nutrition program. I had to write essays and go through a number of interviews. It is really hard to get in there.”

  “But you did?”

  “I did.”

  I gave her a congratulatory kiss, which certainly shouldn’t be counted. I saw the guard McDonald walking our way. McDonald was famous for two things: for tormenting inmates and for screwing up.

  One night he was manning the fence controls when two Mexican prisoners snuck out of their unit and started throwing rocks at the fence. The fence sensors went off, and he radioed the trucks that circle the perimeter to check it out. They drove by but saw nothing. Once they left, the Mexicans threw rocks again. It was a windy night, and after a while McDonald assumed that the wind was playing havoc with the sensors on the fence. He shut the sensors off, and the Mexicans climbed the fence and escaped. McDonald was the laughingstock of the compound, which only made him less pleasant.

  “Do you not understand the rules, Hopwood? No kissing.”

  As Annie and I talked, McDonald stared us down from behind the desk. I looked around the visiting room. People were groping each other and some were making out.

  Annie came back the next day, too. We were sitting next to each other when McDonald came over to our table.

  “Hopwood you’re done,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I warned you yesterday. Your visit’s over.”

  Annie started crying. She had driven eight hours and stayed overnight in the hotel so we could visit for the entire weekend.

  “Can you at least tell me what we did?”

  “You know. She had her hand on your knee.”

  “Is this a joke?”

  “No joke. Say your good-byes because this visit is over.”

  Annie was crying more. I tried to calm her down. It didn’t work. I envisioned grabbing McDonald by his scrawny neck and twirling him around the way a hunter puts a pheasant out of its misery.

  “Don’t worry, Annie, someday this will all be over.”

  I didn’t understand why he kicked her out until I was back in the unit explaining it to Bobbie.

  “Well, that’s easy to see,” he said. “McDonald is a hater. You think he likes seeing a beautiful girl visiting you in prison when he can’t even get a date in the trailer park?”

  Bobbie went on to say that I should expect more of it, that some guards would treat us differently precisely because Annie was who she was.

  On a Monday I was waiting for news about a new job. I had no plans after the law library meltdown, so I worked out and ran on the track for hours. I wanted to isolate myself, and the track was a good place to avoid interruptions. When I returned to the unit, C-Dog, the leader of the Crips and the guy whose stuff had been hidden in the library, pulled me aside before I could reach my cell door. He had a bad stutter, which got worse when he was angry.

  “Sh-sh-sh-shon, can we talk?”

  I had no choice.

  “I need to know what the k-k-cops were asking you about, man. Tell me how the, the, that all went down.”

  “What can I say? It was bad. I lost my job. Now I don’t know if I can continue with the legal work I’m doing for people.”

  “And th-th-the other stuff, our stuff?”

  Another Crip, Bubba, walked up next to C-Dog. He is about six three with a tattooed money symbol on his neck.

  “What up, Shon?”

  “Not much,” I said. “We’re talking about the law library.”

  Now Bubba did the talking.

  “You like to work the cops with all your bull. Everybody knows that. You’re good at it. They buyin’ what you’re telling them. But you don’t like to work us, do you? So you need to tell us straight, so we know what’s coming down. Either way you answer is all right, as long as it’s the troof.” He lied.

  “D-d-did you tell them where the stuff came from?”

  “No. I told them nothing. I told them I didn’t even know it was in there.”

  “What about R-Ryan?” Bubba asked.

  “Ryan didn’t tell them anything. That’s why he’s in the hole. I wouldn’t worry about him. If anything he’s probably going to want to figure out how to put some new deal together with you.”

  “What deal?” Bubba asked.

  “Nothing, never mind,” I said.

  “Y-y-you saw them taking stuff out? The guards?”

  I still worried that maybe they knew, so I didn’t want to ensnare myself in a trap.

  “I didn’t see them take anything out. I just heard it was a lot of weed. Guys were saying it was a lot, and the cops who interrogated me said it was a lot.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “I said I really had no idea where it came from and didn’t even know it was in there until the bust.”

  “They believe you?”

  “They don’t believe anybody.”

  C-Dog stepped back a little. He put his hand into his pocket. I thought I had done pretty well, but this didn’t look good. Maybe he was reaching for a shank.

  The muscles in my arms tensed for combat. C-Dog cupped his hand and put it out to shake mine. As I grabbed his hand, he slipped me a piece of paper wrapped into a tight triangle.

  “Y-y-you done the right thing, dog,” he said, pounding his fist against mine.
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  Folded in the triangle was a healthy chunk of weed. I called Bobbie over and we smoked our worries away. The crisis was over.

  I thought about that moment when I was worried they might kill me. I realized that I really didn’t want to die anymore. For a long time, that’s all I wanted, but not anymore. It was a change that had been brewing. It was one more thing to mark the whittling away of that mountain of time. I had finished the doesn’t care if he lives or dies years. Annie and the law had done that.

  Annie would drive eight hours to Pekin, visit eight hours, and drive back eight hours, all in one day when she didn’t have time to do it any other way. That was dangerous, but she wouldn’t stop. She considered moving to an apartment in Pekin for a year—until she started school at Bastyr—because then she could work at home, designing catalogs for her father’s business and visit me often. All of a sudden I felt truly responsible for her, and I lost confidence. What on earth was a girl like that doing with a guy like me? It was like I had just woken up. Maybe the stress of the Crips situation had shifted my gears and reminded me who I was.

  What I kept thinking was that the worst thing I could do was to place her life on hold for eight years, after which she could expect a future in which I would probably work in car washes—I mean, get real, that’s what it would be. I knew I was doing my self-destruct thing again, but the thought of wasting her time got me the most. I had stolen enough things of value in my life; I didn’t need to do this to her, or to anyone so kind and innocent. So I decided to act out and to push her off a little. Maybe she would wise up and find a more suitable guy. But first I would need some liquid courage to do it.

  If you take a few quarts of fruit juice, mix it with water and sugar, and let it set somewhere warm, in a week or two you will have homemade wine. In prison it’s called hooch. It tastes like I imagine Drano does, and isn’t much healthier.

  Bobbie purchased a whole gallon. I called Annie after two glasses and slurred a tale about a girl I had once dated whom I said could never be replaced. And I told her not to take all my big talk too seriously, because I was who I was.