Redeeming Justice

by Jarrett Adams

  Love, Jarrett

  Three months after writing that letter to my mother, I sit in my cell and reread the letter from Rob Henak, an attorney I contacted in Milwaukee.

  It begins,

  Dear Mr. Adams,

  This letter is to inform you that I will be able to assist you in editing your pro se filing to the federal district court…

  I exhale slowly, my breath fluttering the paper in my hand.

  I remember Rob Henak well.

  Every day in the law library, I scour the local newspapers—the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the Wisconsin State Journal from Madison, and the Green Bay Press-Gazette. Most inmates look at the funnies or the sports, but I go right to the crime report, noting which lawyers are mentioned the most when it comes to winning appeals. The name Rob Henak appears more times than almost any other. I write him an impassioned letter, one of my best. I lead by telling him how much I admire his work. I point out that he is fighting battles and winning wars that few attorneys even attempt. I describe my case. I argue its validity, point by point, using Strickland v. Washington as a reference. My hope is that I have grabbed his attention and his interest. I close by saying I have been writing my habeas petition from the law library in prison and I hope he’ll consider helping me with my pro se filing in federal district court.

  “Pro se.”

  A legal term meaning that I am arguing the case on behalf of myself. At this point, I have no attorney. I am on my own.

  I’m stunned when Rob replies. But as I think about it, I’m not surprised. I wrote a strong letter. I have a valid case. I just need help. Rob has mailed me a lifeline.

  To this point, I’ve jumped through the legal hoops available to me.

  First, state appellate court.

  Two years ago, my court-appointed lawyer presented the reasons for appealing the verdict, listing everything that went wrong at the original trial. This became what’s called a de novo review—asking for a new trial. But. I can only appeal based on what has previously been introduced into the court record. If I have new evidence, I have to essentially start all over, beginning at the trial court.

  I have no new evidence.

  At least in the eyes of the court.

  I believe that Shawn Demain’s written statement should be considered new evidence.

  The court doesn’t agree.

  The court calls his statement derivative evidence.

  They claim that because they have his testimony on the record, they don’t need the full, three-page statement that he wrote.

  But they do need the statement. I’ve argued this, vehemently—in the confines of my cell, inside the dirty, peeling walls of the law library, in my head, and in my letters.

  “You don’t have Shawn’s full statement,” I argue. “You have a meager, partial response to questions the lawyers asked him. That’s not enough. You don’t have the details. You don’t have his narrative. You never got the eyewitness’s full story of what happened that night. The prosecution never brought that statement forward. The police officer buried Shawn Demain’s statement, claimed she’d misplaced it. The prosecutor dismissed Rovaughn’s case because he knew that Shawn Demain’s full written statement would blow his case out of the water—so he dropped the charges.”

  His name is in the record, the appellate court rules. His name is already known. We’re not going to consider his statement, or a new trial, because your lawyer chose a no-defense trial strategy.

  Not sufficient new evidence.

  The court defers to the original ruling.

  I lose.

  How can I go on?

  I have to go on.

  The next step. A formality. My lawyer presented my case to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. As expected, the supreme court refused to hear my case and rubber-stamped the appellate court’s decision. That formality—from filing to hearing the decision—takes a year. Now I have one year to file my final appeal in federal district court—without an attorney. At this point in the appeals process, the state will no longer provide me with an attorney, and I can’t afford to hire one. I will have to file pro se. I look up how often pro se litigants win their cases. I stare at the number. Two percent of the time. Two out of a hundred cases.

  If you can’t afford a lawyer, you lose. That’s not hyperbole. That’s math.

  * * *

  —

  Every day I wake up, stare at the bars of my cell, and play a trick on myself.

  I tell myself, “Today, I will work all day on my case because I am getting out of prison tomorrow.”

  I put myself into a sort of mind warp. I repeat this notion to myself so often that I believe it: “Working this case to the bone. Killing this case. You’re working it so hard, so convincingly, you’re getting out tomorrow.”

  I know how impossible and insane this sounds. I don’t care. In prison, you have to live in a fantasy world because the real world can kill you physically and destroy you mentally. I find hope in my fantasy. I know how close to the precipice I creep. I know I’m dancing on the edge. And I know that some people would say that hope is a fantasy. Especially in here.

  I don’t care.

  * * *

  —

  I live by a code, a code I create. I am locked in a cage, my body symbolically, if not literally, in shackles. But I refuse to allow my mind or spirit to be locked up in the same way. “Never tell yourself no,” I repeat. “Let someone else do it.” In other words, don’t fear failure. Try. Don’t give up. Try.

  * * *

  —

  My mother buys me a typewriter, a small, compact Brother electric. I have told her what I need, according to prison rules. The typewriter has to be quiet so as not to cause other inmates or guards to complain, especially because I type my letters late into the night. The prison cuts the lights at ten, so I type by the light of my small television. Even when the day’s programming ends, I continue to type in the shadowing glow of the TV’s blue light. I never learned to type, so I peck, furiously, and with surprising accuracy. If I do mess up, my Brother comes with erasing tape. I can back up a maximum of three spaces, place the eraser over the letter I want to correct, type, watch as a white blotch covers the mistake, then type the correct letter. I type so many letters, I nearly deplete my canteen account buying correcting tape and replacement cylinders.

  * * *

  —

  Five years in, I come to a near dead end. I have exhausted all of my state court remedies. I have one more tool I can use. Habeas petition. I can assert, in writing, that my constitutional rights have been violated and, as a result, I have the right to petition a federal court to review my case. I lean into Strickland v. Washington. The gold standard. As a citizen, I have been given the constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel. I have the right to a competent attorney, and this right has been violated.

  Now, by law, how do you define “competent”?

  Strickland v. Washington presents a two-pronged definition of ineffective counsel. Both prongs have to apply.

  Prong one. The tricky prong.

  Was your lawyer ineffective?

  Prong two. The trickier prong.

  Did that ineffectiveness affect the outcome of your case?

  As for prong one, I have heard astounding, upsetting stories. Beyond your typical run-of-the-mill lazy, unprepared, ignorant, overall awful lawyering, I’ve heard about lawyers who have fallen asleep in the courtroom while defending their clients. I’ve heard of lawyers who have been high on cocaine. I’ve heard of lawyers who had several drinks during the lunch recess and returned completely hammered. Incredibly, lawyers in these conditions don’t necessarily meet the standard deemed ineffective. You have to prove that second prong as well—that these egregious actions affected the outcome of your case.

  In Rovaughn’s case, when his at
torney discovered Shawn Demain’s written statement and brought it to the prosecutor’s attention prior to a potential third trial, the prosecutor saw that he would lose and dropped all the charges.

  My attorney never called Shawn Demain as a witness. That proves prong one.

  Prong two should be a slam dunk: same defendants, different attorneys, two completely different outcomes.

  Rovaughn’s attorney got all his charges dismissed, while my attorney got me twenty-eight years. What can you call that but blatant ineffectiveness, which resulted in a completely different outcome?

  But I face two obstacles.

  The first is protocol, the fact that the state will no longer provide me with a lawyer. I have to either go it alone—pro se—or hire an attorney. Not only do I not have the money to hire a private attorney, but I can’t find an attorney to hire. Nobody wants to take my case. Dozens of letters returned or unanswered continue to prove that to me, day after day after day.

  My second obstacle is time.

  I have a drop-dead deadline—one year to appeal for a new trial. One year to exhaust all remedies. One year. And the clock is ticking. I consult my calendar and see that three months have blown by.

  Then—I get the letter.

  * * *

  —

  I write Rob Henak back the same day I receive his reply. I know I can’t afford to retain his services for the entire case. To go the distance, to defend me all the way through trial, a lawyer like him would likely cost in the neighborhood of fifty thousand dollars. I tell Rob the truth. I tell him that I value his time and I know he’s worth every penny he charges his clients. But the five years I have been incarcerated have obliterated my family’s finances, driven us to the brink of bankruptcy. I ask if he’d be willing to accept payment for just helping me structure an airtight habeas petition. I mail this letter and hold my breath.

  Rob writes back. He explains his hourly rate. He says he will charge me half that and cap his hours. I feel so excited I nearly sprint around my cell. I call my mother. I can feel her heart skip over the phone. She’ll find the money somehow, she says. I’m not sure how she pulls it off, but she does. She sends Rob a check.

  * * *

  —

  I didn’t want to scare off Rob before he agreed to work with me, so I waited until we had an agreement to reveal that we’re facing a ticking clock. After our initial back-and-forth, we now have seven months to put together my habeas and file my final, last-chance appeal. Given that we will do all of our work by mail, I know we’ll be cutting it close. I tell him in my next letter that I’ve been working on my habeas myself for weeks and I think I have it in pretty good shape. I don’t tell him what I really feel—that I’ve in fact been working on it for months, and considering I’m not a lawyer, I’ve written, in my opinion, a professional, nearly flawless habeas. I have the same feeling I got back in high school after I’d studied hours for an exam. “I aced it,” I think. “I destroyed this habeas.”

  Another couple of weeks go by. Rob sends me back the habeas petition I’ve written. I pull it out of the envelope, and I see a blotch of indecipherable black words drowning in a sea of red. The page looks blood spattered. Rob has gutted my habeas, torn it apart, shredded it, red lined every word. The only two words he hasn’t red lined are “Jarrett Adams.”

  I thought I got an A on this test. This guy gave me a D. Maybe an F.

  Rob’s reaction throws me—for about five minutes. I come to feel, in the strangest way, that I have begun my own private law school and Rob Henak is my professor. I need to rewrite my habeas and fast. I lock myself in my cell. I go over Rob’s changes. I go to chow hall at 5:30 a.m., wolf down breakfast, then return to my cell and rework the draft. I skip lunch, don’t make it to dinner. My stomach growling, I stay up until three in the morning, working by the blue light of my tiny television, writing, rewriting, thinking, rethinking. I don’t know how long I hole up redoing my habeas—days, weeks—but finally I finish incorporating all of Rob’s changes and send the new version off to him. I breathe a sigh of relief, of satisfaction, of completion.

  A few weeks later, Rob sends back this version—red lined. Another river of red, though not quite as bloody as my first version. I look at it and laugh. We’re getting there, I think.

  I rewrite the habeas again, send it back to Rob, wait, pace, bleary-eyed, staring wide awake at the ceiling all night. Rob sends that one back. Red lined. Blood soaked. Though noticeably less. I write another version, send it to Rob. We go back and forth for weeks, our relationship conducted completely through our letters. Meanwhile, I keep my eye on the ticking clock. The deadline terrifies me, looming like an ax over my head. Five months away…four months. I lose track of time and revisions. I wait for Rob’s next revision—his revised version of my revision of his previously revised version of my third or fourth or is it fifth red-lined version of my original habeas petition? I wait. I turn to my enemy, the calendar, tear off another week.

  Three and a half months left.

  One day, I receive an envelope from Rob. I open it weakly. I can barely tear the paper. A letter flutters to the floor. I pick it up and read two words from Rob.

  “We’re good.”

  * * *

  —

  While working with Rob on the habeas petition, I’ve continued to write letters to individual lawyers and to organizations who might be willing to represent my appeal pro bono at the federal district court. I write to the ACLU, to the NAACP, to any group that seems appropriate and even some who seem like long shots. One night, I pause, check off the places I’ve written to, and remember that more than a year earlier I wrote to the Wisconsin Innocence Project. I’ve been intrigued by the WIP, located on the campus of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, ever since I saw a segment on the news about how they reversed the conviction of Christopher Ochoa, a man serving life in prison after being falsely convicted of murder. The organization exonerates innocent people by using DNA evidence. My case doesn’t involve using DNA, so I’ve considered the Innocence Project one of my longest long shots. I’d forgotten in the flurry of working on my habeas revisions and in the blur of time passing that someone from the Wisconsin Innocence Project had written me back and requested a copy of my transcripts. I made copies and sent them off but never received a response. As usual, I moved on.

  Now, getting the go-ahead from Rob, I mail out a new wave of letters, this time containing a punchy, very streamlined two-paragraph cover letter and attaching my habeas petition.

  * * *

  —

  I hear keys jangling, clicking into locks.

  The sound of guards delivering mail.

  I sit up, a Pavlovian response.

  Inmates don’t look forward to the mail. We live for the mail. Now there’s a key clinking outside my cell door. And then a letter.

  I tear into the envelope.

  I read the letter hungrily.

  The Wisconsin Innocence Project has sent me a confirmation. They have received my submission.

  My mouth goes dry.

  We have received your submission.

  That’s it. Nothing else.

  I squint at my calendar. My birthday approaches. Christmas and New Year’s loom. We are crawling toward 2005.

  I have one month left.

  I hold my breath.

  We don’t have enough time. Thirty days until the deadline drops onto my neck like a guillotine. I will be out of chances. Out of luck. I pace in my cell. I want to climb these bars. I make a fist and pound it into my forehead. Think, Jarrett. Think. What should I do? I’ll call them. I have to tell them we’re running out of time. I’ll call them, first thing tomorrow—

  Another clinking of keys.

  Another envelope.

  I tear it open.

  I have a legal visit the next day—tomorrow.

  It does
n’t say with whom.

  But—a legal visit?

  I have to be ready.

  Before going to sleep, I gather all my paperwork—letters, correspondences, memos to others, to myself, notes I’ve jotted down on pads, and my habeas petition. I crawl onto my cot, my body one buzzing nerve ending. I drum my fingers on the side of my cot, trying to force myself into unconsciousness by batting out a slow, easy rhythm. No dice. I don’t sleep at all. I practically hop out of bed at first light. I tear another day off my calendar. And then, late in the morning, or early in the afternoon, I can’t tell, my cell door pops open and a guard mutters, “Legal visit.”

  * * *

  —

  I come into the visitors’ area and see three people sitting at a table—a young Black woman and a young white man, college age, both dressed conservatively, and an older man, a professorial type, his blue eyes eager, focused as beacons. He offers up a smile inside a neatly trimmed goatee. I blink as I approach.

  “Jarrett?” the professor says.

  “Yes.” I want to be gracious, but I’m cautious. I have no idea who they are or what this is about.

  “Keith Findley,” the professor says, extending his hand. We shake and his smile broadens. I sit at the insistence of the guard, who backs away. Keith waits for him to settle into the shadows and then introduces the others, his students, Courtney Reed and Jim Miller.

  “We’re from the Wisconsin Innocence Project,” Keith says.

  I exhale so loudly, everyone in the room probably hears me.

  “From the University of Wisconsin,” I say.

  “Yes,” Keith says. “Jarrett, I know we’re facing a deadline so we need to work fast.”