by Rick Bowers
No. No. No. Prisoner # 4 warns that escaping through a tunnel is “too risky.” He suggests following the rules to please the white jailers. This will gain their trust and forgiveness. “So c’mon brothers and sisters and unite behind me.”
Prisoner # 5 responds to that with two words: “Fuck you!.” Prisoner # 5 has a different escape plan. He wants the inmates to secure guns and shoot their way out.
“No,” interjects Prisoner #6. All of the plans, he declares, are flawed. Doomed to failure. Dead on arrival. Prisoner 6 explains the political dynamics behind their incarceration as well as the historical inevitably that justice will prevail. In time, he tells his comrades, “the bars will bend from their own inner rot.”
Prisoner #7 dismisses all of the previous notions and turns against the other inmates. You see, Prisoner # 7 has his own plan. He will save himself by “ratting” out his fellow inmates to the non-colored jailers. “That is the one way!”
The inmates argue. Trust in God. Dig a tunnel. Take up arms. They continue to argue to this day, squabbling amongst themselves while caged like vicious animals.
After reading Knight, Eddie thought more and more about race. He began to doubt his belief that race—black, brown, white—didn’t matter. As a kid, he’d tried to be colorblind. “Growing up,” he often recalled, “I stopped seeing color and just saw people.” Eddie used to believe that. He used to live by it. Back when he was running with the wild kids in Eden. Now, he saw that race and racism explained so much. It was no mistake that the vast majority of cons were black and brown. Knight’s words were all about blackness. The beauty. The history. The pride. The challenge. The exploitation. The pain. Plus, Knight’s damned stories made sense, and his poems rhymed.
Eddie knew he was no Etheridge Knight. He was just a con with a pen and paper and time to kill. He loved to write, anyway. Writing was an excellent time killer and he plenty of it to kill. Like the old man in A-Block had told him. “You kill time or time kills you.” Eddie had taken two creative writing classes in the prison education wing, and the instructor had read out his stuff in class. Plus, the inmate-run Attica Grapevine had published one of his poems, as well as an essay he’d penned about the banning of the death penalty.
“The new death penalty is life without parole,” he’d written. “It is a long, slow form of lethal torture. Cruel and unusual punishment administered by cruel and unusual people.”
Now, in his darkened cell, Eddie Nash tried to find words to sum up his feelings:
American justice.
A work of fiction
Bad arrest.
False conviction.
Eddie knew his poetry sucked. What the hell? Maybe his words would make better song lyrics. Maybe the brother with the guitar in B Block could put one of his poems to a blues tune. Maybe one of the young guys in A Block could turn one into a rap. Maybe. Eddie closed the notebook and shut his eyes. He bowed his head and prayed. “Please, God. Let this be real. Let me go home.”
Home. His current home was located in the heart of D-Block, with the prestigious address D-3-26. Cell Block D. Section 3. Cell 26. The dim space was lit by a cheap lamp he’d purchased in the prison commissary. A gray sweatshirt from one of his mother’s care packages hung on a hook at the head of the bunk. Family pictures were taped to the wall. Home, sweet home.
Eddie had no cellmate and savored the solitude; although, at times, the loneliness got to him. In the darkest of times, it seemed like loneliness was his one companion, and despair was his sole confidante.
Eddie held his homemade mirror, fashioned from a flattened Campbell’s soup can, beyond the bars of his cell door. He peered into the mirror and caught the reflection of men in the long row of cells. Murders, rapists, armed robbers, drug dealers, and a few innocent men. Sprawling on their bunks, pacing back and forth, or anticipating the next guard check.
Of course, Eddie hated prison, like all sane inmates. To him, prison was relentless boredom, interrupted by sudden terror. Prison was iron regimentation, exploding into total mayhem. Hope had left the building.
Eddie hated Attica. He called the grim citadel of New York’s most dangerous inmates “an efficient hate factory.”
Sitting at his desk, Eddie turned his notebook to a new page and picked up his rubber pen. He began to write in his journal, words flowing in a subconscious rant:
I want freedom from: The bars, buzzers, shanks, shivs, scars, skins, tats, Tasers, lifers, losers, posers, and perverts. The gangsters, gumps, dealers, dopers, Mexican Mafia, and Aryan Nation. Good riddance to choke sandwiches in the mess, chin checks in the yard, and shit shanks in the TV room.
I want freedom to: Hug my mom and hang with my friends. Chase hot women and down cold beer. Eat steak fresh off the grill and drink bourbon on the rocks. Getting it all back after losing it will make it all the sweeter. Taking it back after having it stolen will be my revenge.
Eddie had survived ten-and-a-half years of hell. Now, here he was, looking forward to the possibility of exoneration. His every move had to be calculated to keep himself alive—at least, until justice could be served. He had avoided the dry snitches, bad bugs, and shot callers who could fuck him up. He’d started each day doing two-hundred-and-fifty push-ups and four-hundred sit-ups on the concrete floor between his bunk and toilet. The workouts gave him the strength to fight off the bad jackets in the yard and the muscle-bound freaks in the weightlifting gym. The workouts gave his body the hard edge he needed to gain the respect of his fellow cons and hold his own in a fight. At the same time, his self-styled exercise regimen didn’t bulk him up into a strong man—the attention-seeking bulk would have made him a target for the real muscle, the prowlers seeking to add to their rep or just experience the thrill of inflicting pain on another human being.
Eddie took extra care in D-Yard, ever since a Latino gangster stabbed him with an “ice pick,” a long, metal rod sharpened to a point. His attacker—out to make a name for himself by murdering a murderer—had shoved the pick into his gut and angled it up toward his heart. It had taken Eddie two months in the infirmary to recover from that one. These days, Eddie spewed just the right amount of trash talk in the yard, aka “Central Park.” His shit shanks were sharp enough to let the other cons know he wasn’t afraid, and measured enough to never piss off the wrong shot caller. When working the slime line in the mess, he’d dole out larger servings of the decent food to keep certain inmates on his good side. It never hurt to have a little good karma coming back his way.
Eddie put the notebook back in the drawer and threw himself onto his bunk. He turned onto his side to face the cell door and scanned the grim confines. A cockroach crawled out from under the bed. Well, look at that. He resisted the urge to get up and stomp it into the concrete. He just watched. Truth be told, he envied its freedom. He craved that freedom. He smiled as it crawled across the floor and out of the cell.
18
Laura stood in front of a half-dozen attorneys, seated around the oval, racetrack conference table.
“State of New York v. Edward Thomas Nash,” Laura announced. “Let’s start by running through the facts.” She established eye contact with each colleague before continuing. “In July 2008, Edward Thomas Nash, twenty-eight, of Eden, New York, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder for the hanging death of Erin Lambert, twenty-eight, a longtime friend, and a dancer at the Bottoms Up Gentleman’s Club.”
Laura had just started, when Josh Linder—the charismatic founder and chairman of the Council Against Wrongful Convictions—interrupted. “Laura, remind me again, why is this case for us?”
“Nash was set up by the police, railroaded by the prosecutor, and sentenced to life without parole without due process,” she replied, just as she’d rehearsed it. Linder started all these case updates with his favorite question. “This is a classic miscarriage of justice. The confession was coerced, the evidence was tainted, and the testim
ony was bought and paid for. I mean, the cops even photoshopped his mugshot for a photo ID. It is the most outrageous frame-up I’ve ever seen. The most important thing is this: He’s innocent.”
“Got it.” Linder leaned back in his swivel chair. “Go ahead.” His rumpled, navy-blue sport coat hung on the back of his chair, his wrinkled, blue shirt was rolled up at the cuffs, and his shaggy, salt-and-pepper hair framed his handsome face. “You have our attention, Ms. Tobias.”
“Nash was grilled for fourteen hours at the police station. He broke down, signed a confession, and read it into a video camera. By the next morning, he’d been condemned by the sheriff, demonized by the mayor, and crucified by the media.”
Ken Leveson—a hotshot appellate attorney with chiseled features, chestnut-colored hair, and a bright future—cleared his throat. “Just one moment, please, Laura.” Ken’s tone fell somewhere between confidence and arrogance. “I have a point to make.”
Ken had been chilly to Laura ever since she’d turned down his third invite for after-work drinks. She hoped this was not payback.
“A fourteen-hour interrogation does not—repeat, not—equal a coerced confession.” Ken lowered his voice to underline the seriousness of his statement. “At least, it doesn’t show the level of coercion needed to prevail in a federal appellate court. You might want to consider leading with a better argument. I mean, police coercion is a non-starter. The courts are tired of hearing it. Everybody knows that.”
Laura glared in his direction. How she hated that smug smile.
Fuck you, Ken Doll.
She buried those words and chose better ones.
“It’s more than just the marathon interrogation and psychological pressure.” Now, she fought back the waver in her voice, unwilling to give Ken the pleasure of watching her squirm. “I mean, Nash was cuffed to a water pipe and beaten over the head with a phone book. The perfect implement; it doesn’t leave a mark. Then, the arresting officer slipped a plastic bag over his head.”
“You have proof of that?” Ken placed two hands on the table and glared back at her. “Do you have anything beyond your guy’s claim that he was tortured by the authorities? Believe me, in a federal appeal, the word of a convicted murderer against the word of a police officer is nothing. Your guy loses.”
“Give me time.” Laura felt like a boxer, ducking a series of jabs while knowing that the uppercut was coming. “I’m still laying out the facts here, Ken. The misconduct of the police and the prosecutor provides ample grounds for an appeal at the highest level. The trial was a farce.”
“How so?”
In her appellate brief to the federal court, Laura had argued that the Erie County Police Department had coerced the confession, presented false evidence, and lied on the stand. She’d also argued that the Erie County prosecutor had made false and prejudicial statements to the jury and failed to disclose to the court that a key prosecution witness had been paid to testify. Concerned that those arguments were not unusual enough to persuade the three-judge federal panel to revisit the case, Laura had dedicated much of the brief to a stun belt that Nash had been forced to wear in the courtroom. She’d argued that the jury’s knowledge of the belt—capable of delivering an eight-second, 50,000-volt electric shock that could send the wearer into convulsions—robbed Nash of the presumption of innocence.
“Okay, Ken,” she said with a fake smile. “Picture the defendant wearing an electronic belt, capable of delivering enough voltage to cause a seizure. Consider the pressure this places on the accused, and the prejudicial signal it sends to the jury. I believe federal courts are itching to strike down the use of these devices.”
Ken smirked in disbelief. “Stun belts are used as a precaution against sudden outbursts by defendants. To be honest, stun belts provide a more humane alternative to shackles. They’re less prejudicial, too. The device is placed under the defendant’s clothing, so the jury doesn’t see it.”
Linder shook his head, held up his hands, and raised his voice. “Time out. Let’s keep this moving. At this rate, our client will die of old age in prison while we’re still bickering over the facts.” The room hushed. Linder spoke again. “Did the prosecution have an eyewitness to put Nash at the scene? How credible were the eyewitnesses?”
“One witness came close.” Laura looked down at her court papers and scanned for the name. “Danny Boggs was a long-haul trucker from Eden. Boggs was returning home from a run to North Carolina in the early morning hours of July 2nd.”
“Around the time of the murder,” Linder interjected.
“Yes. Boggs testified that he saw Nash turn his red Silverado onto an isolated road off State Road 8. That service road led to one place: The pedestrian bridge where Erin Lambert was killed.”
“Hanged,” Ken interjected. “Hanged by the neck until dead.”
“Yes, hanged,” Laura replied. “It was a brutal murder. No denying that. It doesn’t mean Nash did it.”
Linder ignored the interruption from Ken. “Great eyesight for a long-distance trucker finishing a fourteen-hour run in the wee hours of the morning,” he commented. “Great memory, too. This eyewitness account is tenuous at best. I can’t believe that Nash was convicted on the basis of flimsy testimony like that.”
“Yep. Boggs claimed that Nash’s truck swerved in front of his eighteen-wheeler. Boggs claimed that he leaned on his horn, and Nash responded by giving him the finger. In court, Boggs identified Nash as the driver with one-hundred-percent certainty. He even described a red baseball cap that Nash was supposedly wearing that night. Prosecutors produced Nash’s hat, and photos of his pickup truck. The prosecutor also linked tire imprints from the scene to the tires of Nash’s Silverado.”
“We all know that tire tracks are inconclusive.” Linder ran a hand through his hair. “There are lots of pickups, and lots of tires. The imprints mean nothing. Where does Nash say he was?”
“Asleep at home,” Laura replied. “Alone. There’s more.” Laura picked up the pace. “The prosecutor never revealed that he paid Boggs—his star witness—twenty-five-hundred dollars to testify. On top of that, he dropped a pending DUI charge against Boggs two weeks before the murder trial. Danny Boggs could not afford to take a DUI hit. He would have lost his trucking license. Danny Boggs had all the reason in the world to lie about Eddie Nash on the stand.”
“Now, this is getting interesting,” Linder said. “Dropping charges in one case to get a witness to perjure himself in another is unethical, if not illegal. This prosecutor was treading on very thin ice. I agree with you, Laura. Reeks of a frame-up.”
19
As the meeting continued, Laura explained how the judge had paved the way for conviction with biased bench rulings and slanted jury instructions, and how the panel of twelve had conferred for an hour and fifteen minutes before passing judgement. How hair fibers, empty beer bottles, shards of glass, and DNA found at the scene were tested at a second-rate lab, known for inaccurate—if not outright falsified—results.
Laura sensed Linder’s growing interest. She wanted him on her side. No, she had to have him on her side. Linder could make or break her case and career. Linder’s admirers called him “The Vindicator,” pointing to the scores of incarcerated men and women he’d freed from wrongful imprisonment, and to his best-selling book, The Innocents. His detractors mocked him as the “Loophole Lawyer,” claiming he exploited legal technicalities to put guilty criminals back on the streets.
“What about the defense?” Linder asked the question in the deep, authoritative voice that had served him so well in the courtroom and on TV news shows. “Did our guy get a decent defense?”
“Paul Cox was the public defender,” Laura answered. “Cox was unprepared, disinterested, and one-hundred-percent incompetent. Cox failed to challenge bogus evidence, debunk phony forensics, cross-examine lying witnesses, and object to biased bench rulings. He also put Nash on the stand wit
h no preparation. Nash got creamed.”
“You can’t blame the defense counsel because his client choked on the stand.” This time, the challenge came from Leon James Melton, a former prosecutor in his fifties with a rotund build, oversized head, and an even larger ego. Melton wore the scars of twenty years of courtroom warfare like worn-out Boy Scout badges. He loved to brag about his big wins back in the day to anyone who would listen. He’d spent the past two years working to exonerate innocent inmates for the Counsel Against Wrongful Convictions without a single victory to show for his efforts. These days, Melton spent most of his time rehashing war stories for female interns and junior attorneys.
“There’s more.” Laura skewered Melton with her eyes. “Much more.” She explained how the cops had strung together a weak line of circumstantial evidence that came nowhere close to meeting the standards for a trial. She described how the prosecutor had unleashed a torrid, scorched-earth assault on the defense, demonizing the accused, his counsel, and his character witnesses.
“The prosecutor painted Nash’s character witnesses as ignorant black folk, whose faculties for truth-telling were compromised by generations of inbreeding.” She felt a sickening ooze in her stomach. “It was prejudicial, outrageous, and racist. You wouldn’t believe how the so-called ‘good people’ in these small towns treat their black neighbors. Hell, they still call them ‘colored.’”
“Let’s stick to the facts,” Linder advised. “What about the judge?”
“Superior Court Judge James P. Lorraine let those kind of characterizations stand. Lorraine sided with the prosecution on almost every objection. The judge might as well have been on the prosecution team. We’re talking small-town, good-old-boy justice. As we all know, certain places upstate can make the Deep South look downright progressive.”
Laura checked her watch. Time to change tactics. She picked up one of the folders Delilah had distributed before the meeting. “Take a look at Page Four of the prosecutor’s final argument.”