Wrongful Conviction

by Rachel Sinclair

  “Hey, I don’t talk about that. But, I will say that we’re hanging out, and that’s as far as it’s going to go for right now.“ And then she paused. “OK, we’re dating, OK? Is that what you wanted to know? Not that that’s any of your business.”

  I had to have a laugh. She was so defensive, but she was more defensive about this subject than any other subject that I would ever ask her about. And I knew why, of course. She didn’t like people prying into her personal life.

  “Hey, I don’t really care, I was just curious. I know that he’s always had a thing for you, and I just wanted to know if that thing got off the ground yet.”

  “It did. And that’s all you need to know. So listen, give me a few days, and I’ll try to figure out what happened in this case.”

  “Thanks.“

  I took a deep breath, and decided I was going to go ahead and see what I could do as far as connecting with somebody who could do the legal research for me. So, I put a word in with the University of San Diego, which had the largest law school in the area, and I also decided to go ahead and put in a word with UCLA. Obviously, UCLA had a much bigger law school than the University of San Diego did, and they were more likely to have stellar students who would be willing to do research on this case for not too much money.

  Just then, I looked at the clock and realized that I was late for a hearing. It seemed that I was perpetually running late, because I was always going from one hearing to another. I didn’t have too many trials under my belt yet, mainly because most cases don’t go to trial. I had quite a few people who I was pleading out, because I had to face facts – most people that I represented were good for their crimes. I knew that the people that I represented were the ones who were getting arrested for crimes other people would not be arrested for. But it was what it was.

  Chapter 5

  Jamel

  Jamel was transferred to Victorville the day after he saw his new attorney. He was on the bus with the other guys who were going to prison, and he felt a sense of fear, maybe for the first time. Although he had come to terms with the fact that he was going to be spending the rest of his life behind bars, somehow the reality of being on the bus on the way to this place filled him with apprehension. He didn’t know what to expect, although he kind of did. His brother, his half-brother really, told him what to expect, and told him that he was going to have to get protection behind bars. It was going to be the first thing he was going to have to do. He was already somewhat famous, because the case of Felicity and her being raped was something that was in the news quite a bit over the course of the months that the trial went on. So, he knew that he was going to be well-known, but that didn’t really ease his fears that much.

  His mama had come to see him before he was put on the transfer bus, and she was crying. He was an only child for her. His half-brother had a different mother, but the same father. Jamel was regretting the fact that he was going to prison just because he didn’t want to let her down. It really wasn’t that fair, once he thought about it. He tried all of his life to keep his nose clean. It was something that he prided himself on. When everybody else around him was gang-banging and drug dealing and doing things like that in the neighborhood, he didn’t get into any of that. He didn’t get good grades in school, and he knew that he was not going to go to college, but he did have a strong interest in cars. It was his dream to become an auto mechanic. Which was not an easy thing to do, considering that the new cars were so high-tech and so computer-based. But now he was never going to get a chance to do that. He was never going to get a chance to do anything except look at the four walls of his prison cell, eat crappy food and try to stay out of trouble. That was the most important thing, his mama told him - he needed to try to keep his nose clean, even in prison. That wasn’t going to be easy to do. But, according to his half-brother, Nathan, he would be able to maybe survive if he joined one of the prison gangs.

  The guy who sat next to him on the bus was a white guy by the name of Charles Wyatt. He was covered in tattoos - both of his arms were, as was his chest. He had dark hair and very pale skin. He looked out the window as the bus bumped along, and then he finally engaged Jamel in conversation.

  “You know, I thought I recognized you. You’re that guy who got convicted for raping that actress, aren’t you?”

  Jamel felt embarrassed, as he always did. Still, he wondered what this guy did. “Yeah, that’s me. I mean, it wasn’t me. I had nothing to do with it, I just got convicted for it. What did you do?“

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Hey, I’m innocent too. We’re all innocent here, aren’t we?“ And then he smiled. “I popped a dude. He deserved it. I was on the highway, and he cut me off. So I chased him down, ran him off the road and shot him. I’m good for it. I’m good for it all day long.”

  For some reason, this guy scared the crap out of Jamel. The way he talked about killing a guy so nonchalantly, Jamel wondered if a guy like Charles would kill him for something minor as well.

  Jamel didn’t talk to Charles anymore on the way to the prison. He didn’t want to set this guy off, and he knew that he might possibly do something wrong that would do just that. He thought about his mama, crying, and how she was so devastated that her one and only child was going to prison. If there was any chance at all that he would be able to make it out, he was going to do it, which meant that he needed to steer clear of cold-blooded killers like this Charles.

  He was going to make it out for her.

  Chapter 6

  Christian

  I found a law student within a couple of days. I knew that I was going to probably have to rent an office up in Los Angeles at least temporarily, because I was starting to understand that there might be more court appearances than I had anticipated, and I also realized that most investigation was going to take place up in LA. It wasn’t that big of a deal to make a trip up to Los Angeles once or twice a week - I could work it all around my schedule pretty easily.

  The law student was named Sandy Granger. She was a third-year and had explained to me that she was looking for a part-time job, and she was not exactly top of her class, so she was really looking for the experience. “Also, I have to say that I think that this is a just cause. I’ve followed this case as well, and I really think that that guy got screwed.“

  “Everybody did,” I said. “That’s the reason why I think we have a good chance of getting his conviction overturned.”

  "Well, I hope you're right,” Sandy said.

  "Me too, me too. So, listen, I need for you to comb through the transcripts. That's what I've been doing as well. I also need for you to highlight for me any areas that you think might have been an error. I really am looking for something that the court did wrong as well, because, from the research I've done, I think it's more likely that the conviction will be overturned if the court did something wrong. Unfortunately, so far, I haven't really found anything. But maybe you could."

  "I'll do what I can."

  I looked around my temporary office which I rented in Los Angeles. I chose something that was facing the beach. I really missed the beach. At the moment, I was living in a condo in downtown San Diego, and it was facing the water, but it was facing the bay. I didn't get to the ocean as often as I liked, even though Avery lived in Coronado, and her condo was facing the sand. Avery was always telling me that I didn't want to live close to the water, because everything rusted out so quickly – cars, anything metal, cookware. Still, there was something about the water that called to me, so I knew that when I was going to get a temporary office in Los Angeles, I wanted it to be by the ocean.

  As usual, when I took a break from all the research I was doing, I looked up and I thought about Avery. I felt a little like Aidan, loving Regina from afar for so long. I felt the same way about Avery that Aidan felt about Regina. I felt the same way about her since the beginning. Of course, I never did anything about it. My office was two doors down from hers, and she was always busy with her cases and I was always busy
with mine. We were friends and we hung out. But that was about the extent of it.

  There were other girls in the office who were dying for me to take them out, but I had no interest in them. I loved that Avery was a social justice warrior, just like me. That was the reason why she got involved with the Esme Gutierrez case, which was the case that brought us together. Esme Gutierrez was an immigrant from El Salvador who was framed for the murder of a rich girl that she lived with. Boy, did that case take a turn, as it turned out that the girl who was murdered was not actually the person who everybody thought she was, but, rather, was an imposter. The real daughter had been killed years before. Avery was able to figure all that out, and I was impressed with her. Impressed as hell. She was also able to figure out that the father was somebody who was not a good guy.

  What impressed me the most was that she took that case for free, like I was taking this case for free. She did that because she believed in it. Of course, she had the money to do something like that, because she had been wrongfully convicted herself, and won a $10 million judgment from the state of Missouri. Because of that, she had the ability to take cases that she was passionate about, whether or not the defendant had any money to pay her. I loved that she did that – she was using her money as a force for good. I didn’t have the same amount of money in my account, so I was less able to take cases pro bono, but I was comfortable enough that I knew that I could take a case for free from time to time. After all, before I came to work with Avery, I was working for a big firm, making $200,000 a year. I socked away much of that money, so I wasn’t hurting for cash. That enabled me to have some latitude of freedom in taking a case, like Jamel’s, that I really believed in.

  Chapter 7

  I decided that I was going to go and see Jamel's mother. I knew that she would probably had some information for me, and maybe I could glean something from what she told me that could help me figure out exactly what had happened.

  Jamel's mother lived in east Los Angeles, the neighborhood where I grew up in. I knew the environment that he lived in, because I lived in that same environment. It was a place of desperation, where people didn't work, couldn't find a job, and a lot of people were on welfare. But not everybody - I knew that there were plenty of people who were working jobs for a very low wage. They were housekeepers in motels, cashiers at Walmart and fast food workers.

  Sometimes, several immigrant families lived in one unit.

  Jamel's mother was named Aisha Jackson. I talked to her over the phone, and I could tell by the tone of her voice that she was suffering. She couldn't speak to me about Jamel without breaking down, she explained to me over the phone.

  I didn't really know exactly why it was I wanted to see her so badly, except that I wanted to maybe give her just a little bit of hope.

  Just a tiny sliver of hope.

  The apartment where she lived was extremely run down and was part of a four-plex. Actually, it was a converted apartment that was in a large rambling home that was built around the turn-of-the-century. This home had been converted into four different apartments, each of them extremely small, I would imagine. The front yard was bounded by a fence, and the weeds in the front yard were 5 feet tall, easily. On the stoop of the house was a man who was baldheaded, and had a paunchy spare tire. He was drinking beer. He eyed me warily as I walked by. He was pale, white-haired and looked like he had lost all of his teeth.

  "Who you coming to see?" he asked me while he gulped his beer.

  "Aisha Jackson.”

  He nodded his head. He finished off his beer and then opened up another one. It was 11 o'clock in the morning. I wondered if that was all he had to do all day.

  I had a feeling that that's exactly what he did do all day.

  "She knows you’re coming?" he asked me.

  "Yes, she does.”

  “That's good. Aisha, she ain't seeing nobody. She rarely comes out of the house anymore. Well, except to go to her two jobs. Then again, maybe she won’t have to work two jobs anymore, now that…" He took another drink of his beer, and then looked away. The unfinished sentence was hanging in the air, but I knew what he was getting at. Now that her son was incarcerated, and she was no longer supporting him, maybe she could start working only one job.

  I knew that the two jobs were keeping her busy, to say the very least. She worked 30 hours a week as a Walmart cashier, and 30 hours a week working as a fry cook at a local Denny's. I felt privileged that she was able to actually take the time out to talk with me, considering her schedule was so tight.

  I walked up the steps, and knocked on her door.

  She opened up the door, and I was struck by how young she looked. Jamel was 18 years old, and this woman looked like she was in her early 30s, maybe mid 30s. She was about 5’5”, slender, but not skinny, with broad shoulders, small breasts, and large hips. Her hair was worn in a natural state - it was curly and held back by a red headband. She wasn't wearing any makeup, but she seemed to glow from within.

  All the same, I could see an enormous amount of pain in her eyes. She probably was experiencing more pain than anybody should have to. I could not imagine having my only child being incarcerated. Yet, I knew that it was a common story for the people in this neighborhood. I knew that, because I lived it. I lived through so many people having so many of their sons taken away, and their daughters too, but mainly their sons. This neighborhood, like my own neighborhood, felt like a ghost town, in a way. It was haunted by the spirits of so many young boys who were incarcerated in a box, never to come out again. And, the ones who were “lucky” enough to be released were released as a shell of their former selves. Like a war veteran, these young men had seen too much, had been subjected to too many tragedies. Their lives had been filled with pain, both before they went to prison and after, and there was just no way that they could ever live a normal life.

  They were too broken.

  Aisha nodded her head, and she stepped into her little tiny apartment, and I followed her in. Although the carpet was threadbare, and had seen better days, the place was not too bad. It was tiny, for she did not even have a dining room, just a living room and a galley kitchen. The furniture was well-maintained, although it did not match – she had a leather loveseat, and a floral couch. There were houseplants that were on various shelves. African violets, rhododendrons, that sort of thing. She seemed to have a green thumb, for they were thriving. In the corner of the apartment sang a parakeet, blue with a white head. An enormous black and white cat came up to greet me when I walked in the door, and then immediately went to the scratching posts, and leapt upon a kitty tower.

  I could tell that Aisha had been crying. Her eyes were red and bloodshot, and, on her coffee table, which was right in front of the loveseat, was a box of Kleenex. Around the box of Kleenex were some wads of used tissues. She discreetly went and picked them up and threw them in the trash.

  "Um," she said to me, and then she started to cry. She motioned to the loveseat, and I sat down, understanding what she was trying to get at. She nodded her head when I sat down on the love-seat, and then she sat down on the couch, which was cater-corner to the loveseat, and she sat back.

  "I'm so sorry, I'm really not that bad of a hostess usually, but –" she started to cry again. "Can I get you anything to drink? Water, anything?"

  I shook my head. I didn't want her to have to get up and try to entertain me. I mainly just wanted to be there to try to reassure her that there was a possibility that her son would be getting out, hopefully soon.

  "No, really, that's okay. I’m really sorry to be barging in on you like this,” I said.

  She shook her head. "Oh, no. Please don't say that. You’re taking my son's case and you're not asking any money for it. I feel like God sent you to Jamel, and to me. I've been praying on this every single night, ever since he was arrested. I've been praying on this and praying on this. You wouldn't believe how much I’ve been praying. And, here you are." She got another Kleenex, and then dabbed her eyes, and blew h
er nose. "I couldn't believe that he would have been convicted. I just couldn't believe it. My son is a good boy. He's a good boy. I know he would never do with anything like this. But, the jury convicted him. I don't understand. My son is not a violent boy. He's never been violent. He's never shown any connection to violence. He's always been very helpful to me around the house, he's always been my shining light. You know, I’ve never had the easiest time in life. I had him when I was only 15 years old." She took a deep breath. "He came about because of the rape. I was walking home from the bus, when a stranger pushed me into the bushes, and did it to me. I was a virgin. I didn't press charges against the person, because I didn't know who he was. He was a masked man. There was no way I could've ever identified him. I guess I was lucky that he was masked, because, maybe if he wasn't, I could have identified him, so he would have killed me. And I've been laying awake nights, wondering, that…” She shook her head and took a deep breath. “I'm afraid. I'm afraid that maybe Jamel did do this. Maybe he has his father's genes, and he was born violent. I don't want to ever believe that. I don't want to think that way. I know that I've raised him with the best values that I could. I've done the best I could, being all alone like this. But what if I didn't do enough? What if…" She shook her head. "What if he never had a chance?” Her voice was a hoarse whisper at this point. “I mean, I never even thought about having an abortion. Even though I was raped and I was pregnant because of the rape, I’ve never even thought about killing my child. Now I kind of wonder if maybe I should have. I mean, did I raise a monster? I mean, I thought he was a good boy, but what if he wasn't? I have these questions every single day.”