• • • •
Loraine knocked on the door to the Judge’s office which was standing open. The Judge turned from a book he was holding near his small law library, “Yes ma’am?” His reading glasses were up on his forehead and he seemed quiet in thought.
“I hate to bother you, but Mr. Claude is here to see you.”
“Send him in. I have some writings for him to file with the records anyway.”
The Clerk strode in behind her, “Morning Judge, I hate to keep bothering you lately but wanted to share some news with you.”
“Sure come on in. I’m just doing a little research on some case law about insanity as a defense.”
“That’s sort of why I’m here. I received a letter this morning from Mr. Sparkman, the attorney for the Defense in the murder trial.”
“So what did he have to say?”
“It was a very nice letter and very polite. He withdrew his motion for a new trial.” He placed the document on the Judge’s desk. “He also entered a Wayside Bill of Exceptions to preserve the record.”
“I expected the Wayside Bill but I didn’t expect him not to file for a new trial. That’s very odd.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” He said as he closed the office door. “Can we talk just you and me – you step aside from being a Judge for a moment?”
“Yes, of course, as long as it’s not a conflict.” He agreed, removing his glasses from his forehead and sitting in a chair beside his friend.
“I’m not skilled in the law like some, but I’m astute when it comes to people. I have a hard time understanding some of the particulars of this case, especially when things like this come about.”
The Judge understood his concern. “I know what you’re talking about. I didn’t ask Mr. Sparkman directly but I gathered a lot from his pretrial motions and his attitude toward his client.”
Mr. Claude crossed his legs and steepled his fingers under his chin. “I’m listening.”
“That young man’s goal was to save that colored boy’s life. We all knew he was guilty, including his attorney. He as much as said so in his motions to dismiss. He gave a perfectly legal confession before a crowd of upstanding citizens and it was recorded on paper and signed.”
The Judge continued. “I’m not saying there was anything inappropriate, at all, about how he handled his case. I think he was considering the long term effects of what could happen. What would happen if there was a retrial and all of a sudden Hardin was found guilty again with a different jury, but this time they affirmed the death sentence?”
The Clerk nodded, gaining a grasp on what the Judge was saying. “So what you’re saying is they got the death sentence off of the table and were glad to take what they could get.”
“I’m not saying that, you are.” The Judge gives a wry smile. “I think he was protecting his client the best way he knew how; by keeping him somewhere where he was supervised constantly and out of harm’s way. He’s also protecting a life-time of yet un-victimized victims.”
“So he didn’t botch the case looking for an acquittal, he actually accomplished the goals that best served his client.”
“In my personal opinion only, I would like to think so.”
Slapping his hands down on his thighs, the Clerk stood. “I really liked the fellow and was hoping for something like this to be the case, but what about the Wayside Bill?”
“He had to do that as a matter of Ethics. There are some questions raised, that had he not raised them and filed them in the bill, would put his reputation and probably his license in jeopardy. It’s the same reason I declined to rule so that a higher court could address them should they feel compelled to do so.”
The Clerk nodded and reached for the bound stack of files on the desk, “Are these for me to file?”
“Yes, go ahead and take them, please. Thank you.”
He nodded again and patted the Judge on the shoulder, “You have a good day.”
“You too, my friend.”
• • • •
“I bet there were some upset people in that town!”
“You have no idea. People were expecting there to be a death row prisoner headed to Nashville to be electrocuted.”
“From what I learned in my studies of the trial and the period leading up to it, and from the people of the town as well, it changed into something very ugly.”
“What do you mean?”
“At first, they were angry that the Doctor was killed.”
“Of course, anyone would be.”
“But then it turned out that the suspected murderer was a local boy that the Doctor had been taking care of since he was an infant.”
“Again, that’s reasonable.”
“It’s very reasonable but after that things just changed. First, there were some articles that ran in the newspaper that described the robbery-homicide in detail and the motive. There were a few small vigilante groups that wanted to do him harm and there was even a drummed-up bigot group that wanted to lynch him “just because.”
“Just because?”
“Yes, just because he was black. It had nothing to do with the victim, who was also black. It wasn’t about a perceived sense of justice or injustice. They just wanted to string someone up in a tree.”
“What happened?”
“The Sheriff happened. Look, he was a really good man in a really hard time. He even deputized a couple of volunteers just to guard Hardin at the Jail House so his deputies could rest every few days. He held these angry people at bay, without anyone getting hurt and without anyone going to jail because of some out-of-control emotions.”
“We see that today still,” I say knowing that the news broadcasts every morning and every evening showed the same kind of out of control emotion, around the world. “Those times weren’t so different than from what they are now.”
“No they are not. You’re very astute. I may just have to reconsider my initial opinion of you.”
I suppose I looked at him with an open mouth. He just smiled and winked at me.
“Hardin didn’t go straight to prison. They weren’t ready for him. He spent nearly a week in the local jailer’s house before they delivered him to Nashville. That was the most difficult time for everyone because by then, he was found guilty of the murder and he didn’t seem to express any remorse at all for it.
“He stayed at the Jailer’s house? You keep saying that but I don’t understand. Why didn’t he just stay in the jail?”
The old lawyer laughed. I suppose my age has crept up on me again. Back in those days, the counties didn’t all have jails as we do now, overseen by the Sheriff. Many of them had county work farms and county prisons, but not local jails. The Jailer’s House was a take-off of an old system where a house was fortified in part to hold prisoners and the Jailer would live there, even with his wife and family. They took care of feeding the prisoners and minding after them.
“Wasn’t that dangerous?”
“It could be, but again, back then, people didn’t tolerate much foolishness either. Repercussions, unofficially, could be harsh.”
“I don’t know if I could live in a house with cells in it.”
“It wasn’t an altogether bad job for many, but with trials like this one and people being so worked up and angry, it got exciting.”
“He got sentenced to 99 years though! I can’t believe people couldn’t accept that. Sure some wanted vengeance, but for the most part, that sentence is the same thing.”
“Remember also, when the murder took place, we were deep into World War II. Germany had captured the Greek Isles. V2 rockets were smashing into Britain. We were attacking Tokyo with B-29s. The aircraft carrier Lexington had even sustained heavy dam
age from Kamikazes in the Pacific. Passions were running high.”
“Did a ninety-nine year sentence not seem just?”
“To some, it certainly did. I remember plainly the remarks about the Jury Foreman smiling. I never got the opportunity to ask him about it though. Was he smiling because of the First Degree Murder conviction, or was he smiling because of the commuted death sentence?”
That reminded me of the small newspaper headline about the farmer breaks a leg while rescuing the mule from the hole and I related that to him.
“Exactly,” he agreed. These riddles of human nature, and of journalism I’ll add, tend to make me a little crazy at times!
“Totally understandable,” I agree, having felt a little derived craziness from time to time myself.
“Let me tell you about the real crazy thing. The pun is absolutely intended although there is nothing funny about it.”
• • • •
“That’s all I need for now Officer, just him. Wait outside please.”
“I’ll be right outside if you need anything.”
Eldred watched the correctional officer, who he’d already learned to call “Screw” or “Bull” quietly behind their backs, leave the room and close the door. There was nothing correctional about them unless you count getting swatted with a wooden night stick in the backs of the thighs when you disregard a prison rule. That was even if you didn’t know what the rule was to start with. They corrected that lack of knowledge quickly! He understood why it was so quiet in the prison when the guards were on the floor.
To their faces, they were Mister so-and-so or Boss so-and-so if you were on a work crew. Eldred couldn’t expect a work crew for a while. He was too new and that was something you earned, or bought if you could afford it.
He slowly allowed his gaze to leave the guard exiting and move to the man sitting in the chair across from him. He wore a pressed shirt and pants and a white coat with a pen in the pocket. Eldred wondered how long that coat would be if the man stood up. It looked like it fit like a woman’s dress, it was so long. Eldred knew this man to be a doctor but this wasn’t a doctor’s room. There were no medical supplies or instruments. Eldred was looking because of the potential to steal something and take it back to his cell for himself.
The doctor was looking through a manila file folder in his lap. He apparently wasn’t afraid of Eldred and Eldred wondered if he should be. He was here for killing a doctor wasn’t he?
“Have a seat Mister Hardin,” the doctor told him in an unusual accent, pointing to the chair across from him. Eldred did as he was told. He didn’t see a billy club but that didn’t mean he didn’t have one.
The doctor looked him over for a few seconds and then continued to read in the file with an occasional “yes” or an “aha” or “I see” coming out quietly.
“Well then,” he said as he closed the folder with a flourish and put it on a table behind him, again with that accent. It caused Eldred to stare. “You have been here about a week. How are you getting along?”
Eldred stared at him, enjoying the accent that was slowly becoming funny to him.
“Why are you staring at me so queerly?”
Eldred recognized that word. “I don’t like men that way.”
“What way would that be?”
“Like you said, queer. I’m a man and I like women.”
“Liked is the more appropriate word it seems. Judging from your sentence a woman seems to be forever out of your grasp.”
Eldred blinked.
“Again, how are you getting along?”
“I’m here. Why do you talk so funny?”
So it went, for a number of hours over a couple of days; the doctor asking questions and Eldred being evasive, non-responsive, elusive or utterly direct in comment but not answer.
• • • •
The telephone rings on the desk of the prison warden’s secretary. She tries to ignore it and lets it ring at least five times. Dreading another complaint, she answers it, “Warden Fore’s office, this is Jess.”
She listens for a moment. “Yes Doctor. Give me a bit to see if he is available. I believe he is still in his office. She keys the speaker box on her desk to alert the Warden.
“Warden, Dr. McCale is on the telephone for you. He seems rather upset.”
“What does that old stuffed shirt want now,” Returned the voice over the box on the desk.
“He just asked to talk to you.”
“This is the Warden,” he says as he picks up the telephone.
“Warden Fore, this is Dr. McCale. I need to speak to you about one of the new inmates, an Eldred Hardin.”
“Do you have his number? I don’t have files with names for the new inmates yet, just their numbers.”
“Yes, just a moment.” The warden can hear the doctor looking through papers, “Yes here it is. It is number 38295.”
“Hold on, he just got here last week, right?”
“That is correct.”
The Warden thumbs through his inbox and withdraws a narrow file and opens it glancing over the top sheet. “I have his file now. Murder conviction, ninety nine years it looks like.”
“The boy doesn’t belong here.”
“So you are overturning the jury verdict?” The Warden laughs.
“No, it’s not that at all. I’m quite sure he was capable of murder and still is. He’s just verifiably insane. One moment he is as lucid as you or I and the next moment I would swear I’m talking to a woman, if not another man all together.”
“Is he play-acting with you?”
“To what end? He’s already convicted.”
“To get better treatment while he’s here?”
“It’s doubtful. He has all of the hallmark signs of a mentally unbalanced individual. He does not answer questions, except when it suits him. He sucks his thumb constantly and he is extremely apathetic.”
“What about him being another person, like you just mentioned?”
“He says he has a ‘girl in his head’ to whom he seems to have responded several times during our meetings.”
“What are you saying about him?”
“He clearly has praecox.”
“What, pray tell, is praecox?”
“It’s a premature dementia.”
“He’s turning senile, at his young age?”
“No, it’s not the same thing. This is a chronic disease that is characterized by cognitive disintegration. He’s going to have progressive decreases in mental functioning such as memory loss, problem solving, and for now, attention span.” The Doctor takes a breath and is encouraged to continue by the Warden.
“I dare say his controls over aggression and submission will be greatly inhibited. He has already exhibited manic behaviors in my exam room. I don’t know the long term effects specific to him individually but as we’ve seen, he’s capable of homicide.”
“Yes, of a doctor.”
“Excuse me, did you say doctor?”
“Yes the man he killed was his doctor.” He heard the doctor swallow hard on the other end of the line.
“Well, he is going to need to be kept away from the general population. I fear with his impairment, he’ll kill someone else or get himself killed.”
“Is he dangerous?”
“He’s a killer already!” The Doctor exclaimed, his voice rising with his alarm.
“Very well, we’ll take precautions with him, although he’s a lifer. At the very least he’s looking at thirty three years before the parole board will even consider him and I’d be willing to bet that a few of the members of that parole board haven’t even been born yet.
“I am sure.
”
“Is there anything else you need to report to me, Doctor?”
“He has lesions on his genitals.”
“Lesions?”
“Yes, a sexually transmitted disease.”
“Wonderful,” the Warden said, sarcasm dripping from the word. “Get him treated and put your report in his file.”
• • • •
November 26, 1964
The popcorn hits Eldred on the chest. “Take this back stupe, fetch me some fresh corn.” The guard was really trusting that Eldred wouldn’t defile his popcorn for his demeaning behavior. Eldred, on the other hand had already defiled the first batch, of which the guard ate most of already. He smiled quietly to himself.
The Warden, in a show of hospitality for the Thanksgiving season, had provided a chance for all of the inmates, not in lockdown, to see a Gregory Peck movie called “To Kill a Mockingbird.” All the prisoners had to do was stay out of trouble for the month beforehand and then pay $1 to get in. A bag of popcorn was handed to each one as he walked in the door, by Eldred Hardin of course.
Eldred was every bit as unbalanced as his attorney, his doctor, and his cell mates over the last twenty years believed. He would become someone else when the mood hit him, but usually when he was angry about something. He did stay out of trouble with only the occasional complaint that something would turn up missing from someone on his cell block.
They all blamed him because he came and went from the cells as he pleased. He didn’t hold to any conventions such as a man’s cell being his domain and to stay out. He took more than a few beatings for it as well, but still he persisted in wandering and pilfering at will, and sometimes unaware he was even doing it.
Once he pulled the billy club off of the belt of a guard without the guard noticing. He carried it around all day, shoved in his pants like he was a guard. Everyone but the guards noticed until toward the end of the shift, he was tapping on the bars with it. Once the guards did notice what he had and where it had come from, he suffered another of his readily occurring lifelong head injuries.
Now, however, his job was to hand out small nickel bags of popcorn to everyone watching the movie as they came in. His getting to do this replaced the need to pay $1 to get in. The other prisoners didn’t get refills, which was just as well. None of them were interested in it anyway because they wanted to see the movie without distraction, a rarity in the prison. They would have stared amazed at the birth of fruit flies on the screen if it was presented.
The movie rolled and the opening credits scrolled, not that it mattered to Eldred. He just enjoyed listening to the music before it started. He handed the guard a fresh bag of corn, complete with spittle from a dozen or so other prisoners and more salt than any one man should eat. The guard would take it and eat it for if he didn’t, it would appear a weakness and the cons got one over on him.
Eldred finally got the chance to sit down, in the very back row and watch the movie. He was very engaged with the characters and the story line. He could easily see himself being in the story.
“I’m Tom Robinson,” he said quietly to himself. The movie progressed and the trial of Tom Robinson climaxed. Atticus Finch gave a marvelous speech to the court.
Eldred started to become animated when he began realizing how similar his trial was to that of Tom Robinson in the movie. Sure, Eldred thought, I kill the doctor but my jury was all white too. I remember my lawyer saying something about that.
He stood up, “I am Tom.”
He was immediately shushed and ignored them as he walked toward the screen, “I am Tom.”
“Shut up and sit down,” some of the other inmates yelled at him. Some threw popcorn.
He kept walking toward the screen, now showing a close-up of Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch. He touched the screen and turned to face the crowd in the dark room with the projector light flickering over him, casting a dark shadow on the screen.
“I am Tom Robinson!” he yelled.
“Move out of the way Tom!” a voice yelled.
“Yeah Tom; move out of the way!” Another voice yelled just as a billy club struck him across the calves making him fall to the floor. The crowd cheered that the dimwit was away from the movie screen so they could watch the ending.
“I am Tom,” Eldred said to no one in particular as he lay on the dusty floor in the darkened auditorium, “I am Tom.”
• • • •
“So how are your legs Mr. Hardin? Do you feel any better today?”
The doctor examined the backs of Eldred’s calves where the billy club had struck him. During the years that Eldred first came to the prison, club beatings weren’t uncommon. Prisoners were not treated lightly and rule infractions led to physical punishment. Twenty years later, the sixties were ushering in a “kinder and gentler” form of prison reform. Beatings still took place, but not as frequently and now you were given the chance to see a doctor when they did happen.
“I can walk without limping as much today.”
“That’s good. I’m glad that left leg wasn’t broken again. It was hard enough healing the last time.”
“Yeah, I won’t fall down the stairs like that anymore, no matter how many cigarettes I can get for walking a rail.”
“So I heard you were fixated on calling yourself Tom Robinson when you got hit. Do you want to talk about it?”
“I am Tom Robinson. I am him.”
“But Tom Robinson was innocent and falsely charged. Are you saying you were falsely charged?”
“No, but I’m him.”
“Explain.”
“The white men.”
“What does that mean?”
“The jury was all white at my trial. My lawyer got really mad about it.”
“Did he do anything about it?”
“I like cookies, if you’ll let me have a cookie.” Eldred’s attention had drifted suddenly. The doctor snapped his fingers in front of Eldred’s eyes.
“Draw it back in for a few moments.”
“I killed my doctor.” Eldred confessed.
Stunned at first, the doctor sat upright, leaning not so close to Eldred.
“Oh, did you now,” His Irish brogue becoming a little more pronounced.
“I am Tom Robinson and you talk funny.”
Seeing that he’d lost his attention for the time being, the doctor had the guard escort Eldred back to his cell. “He’ll be ok, just no more blows to the backs of his calves if you don’t mind.” The guard nodded and moved Eldred away.
• • • •
Eldred sat alone at his table, looking at the pictures in a farming magazine. He was contemplating planting pumpkins in the summer if he could scrounge the seeds. He hoped that next time they cooked with pumpkins in the kitchen, his friend Aldo would save a few seeds for him. He had some dirt in a shoe box that he would put small food scraps in and mix it up. One of the older inmates told him it was called composting. It turned to fertilizer and helped plants grow.
He had been nurturing his shoe box of dirt for a few months. The guards would heckle him, asking if his dirt had grown anything. He wouldn’t answer because he knew there was nothing planted in there yet. One day, one of the guards saw him put a piece of boiled egg in the dirt and just had to stop.
“You trying to grow a chicken there son?”
Eldred just looked toward him, eyes to the ground, “No sir, just making the dirt good.”
The next day, when Eldred returned from the yard where he’d been sweeping up paper trash, he found his box of dirt on top of his bunk with a friend chicken leg sitting on it. He laughed a little, blew the dirt off of the chicken leg and ate it as he looked out of the cell window. The guard would walk by from time to time
and make clucking noises like a chicken.
In the library, however, a shadow fell and crossed his magazine as an older white man came and sat down beside him. Eldred didn’t know him and was alarmed and suspicious of him as he spoke.
“Are you Hardin?”
“What if I am?”
“Are you Hardin?” he asked with a little more energy.
“Who are you first?”
“I’m Ahab. Are you Hardin?”
“That’s a strange name.”
“I’ll ask you one last time and them I’m gone like the wind. Are you Hardin?”
Relenting, he told Ahab that he is.
“Yes I’m Hardin, Eldred Hardin. Why do you want to know?”
“The Doc sent me -- said you may need my help.”
“How can a bald, fat, white man help me?”
Looking somewhat offended and even a bit overly theatrical in his expression he relented. “I used to be a lawyer in Chattanooga til I ran over a man with my car. Now I’m stuck in this hole in the wall.”
“Yeah, so?”
“The Doc told me you may have a case to get out of here. He mentioned Tom Robinson from the movie we watched at Thanksgiving.”
“I am Tom Robinson.”
“That’s what he told me. Let’s you and I talk for a little while.”
“Why would Doc want to help me out? He don’t owe me nothin.” Eldred eyed him, “ What’s it going to cost me?”
“Absolutely nothing; it’s just my way of saying thank you to the state and giving them the finger at the same time. Doc tells me about people in bad situations and lets me try to help them. Hang the state with its own discrepancies, I always say.”
“Why me?”
“The Doc doesn’t need a reason. He likes you and thinks you got a bum deal. He doesn’t like seeing you picked on all the time and not standing up for yourself.”
“I’m listening,” Hardin said, all the while thinking about exactly how guilty he really is in his crimes. He couldn’t help it if they treated him wrong now and during his trial. He also didn’t consider that a different jury may have had him executed twenty years earlier.
“No, I’m listening to you Tom Rob. Tell me what you know.”
Eldred started talking and the more he talked the more the jailed lawyer nodded his head. They talked well through dinner and up to the time the guards called for return to cells and lights out. They talked several more times, with Ahab taking notes and giving suggestions to Eldred. He called himself Ahab after the novel in which Ahab sought to slay the white whale. His white whale was the government – all of it.
• • • •
The punch came from out of nowhere and it rocked Eldred so hard that he flew from his chair at the desk and landed in a heap beside the waste basket. He grabbed at the waste basket to steady himself and start to pull himself up, but the stars and hummingbirds circling his vision and his throbbing temple kept him on the floor.
Ahab leapt up and stood over Eldred, glaring down at him and his ham sized fist shaking in Eldred’s face. Bracing for another punch, Eldred squeezed his eyes tight, only to see fireworks behind the lids.
“Don’t you ever cuss me again! Do you hear me? I’ll help you with your case but you cuss me again and I’ll snap your scrawny neck.”
“What are you talking about?” Eldred croaked, I didn’t call you nothing.”
“You used profanity toward me. I won’t tolerate it. Do it again and I’ll snap your neck.”
It took a few minutes for Eldred to shake the cobwebs from his head and remember that he did use profanity with the jailed attorney as he was trying to tell him what a writ of habeas corpus was used for. It confused Eldred and he must have blurted something out, without thinking about it. That was common place in the prison, especially when it was just the cons talking. You didn’t dare curse at or around a guard. It would get you a real beating. Apparently Ahab was just as sensitive about it.
“I’m sorry Ahab, I didn’t mean to. It just slipped out.”
Ahab thought about this for a few breaths and then decided to accept the apology. His idea of repayment for doing the legal work for the convicts was that they would revere him and the foul language of the yard ruined that. He reached out his hand and lifted Eldred back to his feet and sat his chair straight for him.
“Not bad for an old, white, fat man huh?”
Eldred rubbed the goose egg rising on his temple, “Not bad at all.”
“I grew up in the sticks and struggled through school and then struggled through law school. I used to fight in barns on the weekends to make money before I made my way as a lawyer.”
Still rubbing his aching head, “You must have made a lot of money fighting.”
“I did. Now let’s fight for you. You have to file a writ of habeas corpus with the courts. Basically you’re going to have to ask the state for permission to sue them for your freedom.”
“Sue it? You mean I’ll get money out of this?”
“No, you will get your freedom if it all works out. You’re going to file the writ with the State Courts and basically you’re going to sue the warden of this prison for proof that he has the legal right to detain you.”
“Sue the Warden, but what if I lose? He’ll make my life hell in here – worse than it already is.”
“No, it’s not a personal thing. He’s a figure head in the suit, representing the Department of Prisons and the State. He’s just a name on the top of the paper. He’ll never walk into the court room.”
“As long as he don’t get mad at me. I’ve worked hard to stay on his good side.”
“He won’t be mad, but he may hate to see you go. See, everyone knows you’re guilty of killing that doctor twenty years ago. That’s the rub. You’re guilty and you know it. You’ll probably get out, whereas there are truly innocent men in here right now that will die here.” Ahab scratched his chin for a moment considering something.
“What’s wrong?”
“You may want to watch your back. There are people in here who will open your throat out of spite if they think you’re really going to get out, just to keep you from being free. If I were you, I wouldn’t talk at all, not to anyone.”
Eldred laughed.
“What’s so funny? I’m being serious.”
“The last time someone told me not to talk, for my own good, I ended up in prison.”
“Hopefully this time it will get you out of prison and the last time did keep you from the ‘lectric chair.”
“Yep.”
“Do you know how to read and write? There’s no shame in not knowing how, lots of people don’t.”
“I do, good enough. I learned some as a kid and more the last twenty years locked up here.”
“That’s good. You’ll need to write this in your hand and your signature. It’ll mean more when they get it.”
“What do I need to do?”
• • • •
“Let’s take a look at what we have so far.” Ahab lifts the paper from the desk and puts his pencil to it. “You’ve named the Warden as the respondent and yourself as the damaged party.”
He continues to read through the document making marks and editing the text. “You need to make sure you put on here that you’re a Negro male so they’ll understand why your complaint has merit. I’ll write it in for you since I drafted this anyway.”
“We’ve shown that you’ve been convicted twenty years and eight months and that you plead not guilty to the crimes you were accused of and sentenced to ninety-nine years for.”
“Do you think we need to do anything else to make them like us?”
“Not right now. We j
ust need to make sure they understand your case and are willing to hear it.”
“So this isn’t like my court when I was supposed to have them like me?”
“No. This is about the color of your skin and your civil rights.”
“Oh.”
“The first item in the brief is that you did have effective counsel but that broke down and your attorney didn’t file an appeal for you. That is ineffective counsel in your defense and rights. He never appealed your case to the higher courts as he promised.”
“That’s right.”
“The second item in the brief is that he didn’t file a motion for a new trial as he advised that he wanted to do. He withdrew that motion.”
“Yes.”
“The third item is that the Judge, who is now deceased, allowed the trial to move forward and even seek the death penalty based on circumstantial evidence. Fourth, no witness was ever produced to testify that they witnessed you killing the victim or even stating to anyone that you did. Fifth, you were refused a medical examination.”
“Well that’s not absolutely true...” He was cut off by Ahab. “It is true. No psychiatrist ever examined you to make sure you were of your right mind.”
“That part is true enough.”
“Sixth, you were put to trial for your very life without a court reporter present. No transcript was ever submitted of the trial but an affidavit from the local Court Clerk is offered that demonstrates everything said so far.”
“Seventh, you were refused the opportunity to present two witnesses on your behalf, even after the court allowed you to call them in from another city. This was a violation of your civil rights.”
“That’s true too but I don’t remember who they were. My lawyer may have them.”
“Right, after twenty years? I hope you don’t believe that.”
“We could try.”
“We’ll add in here that you have been trying to find justice since you were incarcerated but haven’t had the money to hire an attorney to represent you and that you even had to draft this document yourself because you couldn’t hire an attorney.”
“What are you then?”
“I’m a convict just like you. I just happened to be a lawyer once, long ago.” He taps his index finger to the side of his head, grinning, “They took my law license away a long time ago, but they can’t ever take away what I know.”
Eldred smiles along with him, although he’s not sure why.
“You write this out in your own hand just like we have it written here and then we’ll go see the prison notary to file it for you. After that, it’s going to be a long time of waiting and seeing what will happen. The court will have to agree that you need a new trial so we may have to appeal to them several times.”
“I got nothing but time.”
“That’s good because I don’t either.”
• • • •
Eldred ran down the corridor with the white paper fluttering in his hands. He was so focused on the letter he’d just received that he bounced off of the arm of a guard and fell to the floor. He was lucky; it was one of the more humane and nicer bulls at the prison. “Hey watch out there Hardin! You trying for solitary time?”
Out of breath, “I’m so sorry boss; I wasn’t paying attention to you. I didn’t mean nothing, I swear.”
“Alright, slow it down then. Next time we’ll have some words.”
Eldred climbed to his feet and yelled back over his shoulder as he ran, “Yes boss.”
He ran around the corner, up the two flights of stairs and right into Ahab’s cell. He found Ahab reclined on his bed with another, much younger looking convict sitting there with his hand on Ahab’s stomach. He was taken by surprise to encounter this.
“What in the world?” he was startled and confused.
“Get on out of here. We’ll talk about your appeal later.” Ahab said gruffly to the boy who got up and left without saying a word to Eldred. “What do you want Hardin?”
“I got a letter from the court!”
“Give it here.” He snatches the letter from Eldred’s hands. “Did they turn you down already?”
He reads the brief letter, which he now learns is a copy. “This is a court order for your case to be forwarded to be considered by the Tennessee Supreme Court. It looks like someone took attention to your case.”
“Does this mean I’ll be let free from here?”
“It looks like it may be a possibility. They’ll appoint you a lawyer and start the process.”
“You won’t be my lawyer?”
“Remember, I’m not a lawyer anymore. The State took away my…” He never got to finish the sentence. Hardin punched him in the mouth with all of the strength his skinny arms could muster. He hit him hard enough to send him flying off of his bunk to land on his back against the steel sink. He stood over the bleeding convict.
“Don’t you ever think you can hit me and get away with it! And, you leave that boy alone!” Hardin grabbed up his letter and marched out of the cell back toward his own.
Turnbull: Based on a True Story Page 8
