And of course, I think about Joi. I make a decision. I’ll put her out of my mind, concentrate completely on my classes. I do, mostly. I text her once in a while. She texts me back. That’s all I need. For now.
A couple months into first year, I learn that I have been accepted to a program that spends part of the summer on the Loyola campus—in Rome. I tell Carol the news.
“Good thing I banked those vacation days,” I say.
“You’ll never use them all up. I have a crazy idea. Why don’t you take a vacation?”
“Nah,” I say. “Saving up for next year’s program abroad.”
“Where’s that going to be?”
“China.”
“You’re going to need a passport.”
I go to the main post office downtown, fill out the paperwork, and prepare to pose for my passport photo. The post office clerk instructs me to take off my glasses and look serious. I nod and close my eyes. For a moment, I see myself as a seventeen-year-old inmate in Cook County Jail, posing for another photo. My mug shot. I blink furiously.
“Sir? You ready?”
I snap back to the present, to this post office.
Here I am, I think, in law school, getting my first passport so in a few months I can travel to Rome.
“Sir?” the clerk says.
“Yeah?”
“You’re not supposed to smile.”
* * *
—
“I want you on this,” MiAngel says, plopping a bulging file folder onto my desk. “Unless you don’t have time.”
“I got nothing but time,” I say. “First year of law school is a breeze.”
“Good.” She smiles. “Then you can be the lead investigator. You’ve been on a roll.”
“I got lucky,” I say. “Who do we have here?”
I read the client’s name on the file’s tab.
“Reynolds Wintersmith.”
“He’s doing life for dealing crack and cocaine,” MiAngel says.
I open the file and I read aloud, “First time offender. Conspiracy to sell drugs.” I look up. “Life in prison?”
“President Obama has gotten into this. He wants to commute these egregious sentences. I think we can get Reynolds clemency.”
“I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around this,” I say. “A first-time offender gets life for dealing drugs?”
“He’s already done nineteen years.”
“This is some racist bull—.”
“Dig in,” MiAngel says.
* * *
—
As I leaf through Reynolds’s file, I think about the case before this, resulting in a win for a client. The feds arrested our client as part of a sting operation known as a fake stash house.
The sting works this way: A federal informant infiltrates a group of people who have recently been released from prison. The ex-cons, struggling to reenter society, find few jobs available to them, almost all of them through temp agencies. I know these jobs well—minimum wage, inhumane working conditions. The federal informant, working next to the ex-cons, looks for a suspect. He’s a hunter stalking prey. He identifies the most vulnerable person and makes his move. In this case, our client’s brother.
“Hey, man,” the informant says. “I’m sick of this temp agency work. It’s brutal.”
“I know, man, but what’s our choice?”
“Well, I heard something.”
“Yeah? What?”
“You have to be a certain type. Someone willing to take a risk.”
“You got my attention.”
“Okay, there’s this stash house run by a bunch of strung-out drug dealers. We hit them. Fast, easy. Take the money and run. What do you think?”
“It’s tempting.”
“Think about it.”
“I thought about it. I’m in.”
“Good. But.”
“Always a ‘but.’ ”
“You have to put together your own crew and use your own guns.”
“That’s a lot.”
“No risk, no reward.”
“A onetime deal?”
“One time. That’s it. You give me the word, I’ll set it up.”
Our client’s brother puts together a group of guys and gets some guns. The informant tells him the address of the fake stash house, usually a vacant apartment building or warehouse. Our client, sixteen years old, a kid who looks up to his brother, begs him to go along. His brother relents, allows him to drive the car to the spot of the fake drug stash house.
“Stay in the car and don’t move,” the brother tells our client, and he and his gang hit the stash house. They charge in, guns drawn, and find themselves facing an army of federal agents—and no drugs. Ghost dope, we call it. The feds arrest everyone, including our client, the kid brother who is sitting in the car. He has no weapon, no involvement in the stickup, has no idea what’s going on. Doesn’t matter that he has no record. Nothing matters. The kid brother gets fifteen years in federal prison for being part of a drug-dealing conspiracy, even though there are no drugs. We claim that our client is collateral damage of the fake stash house sting operation. We prove that there were no drugs, that he was literally along for the ride. He’s not a criminal, we argue. He’s a victim. A disposable young Black man.
Prey.
A lenient judge goes easy on him.
He gives our client only five years.
I have trouble calling that a win.
* * *
—
I read Reynolds Wintersmith’s file for hours, scribbling notes on a legal pad, rubbing the bridge of my nose, stretching, getting up to pace when I need a break or when I need a moment to absorb the unbelievable account of his story. I feel as if I were reading an offbeat, twisted, sad crime novel.
Reynolds’s conviction came in 1994 as part of our country’s notorious “war on drugs,” a faulty belief that this so-called war would result in safer communities. Reynolds, then seventeen years old, was named as part of a gang conspiracy and received a life sentence for dealing crack. At the time, he lived with his family in Rockford, a small, depressed city in the far northern part of Illinois. Reynolds grew up in a world of crime and drug dealing. His grandmother ran a house of prostitution and dealt drugs. His sister had a relationship and kids with the main drug dealer in Rockford. Most upsetting and harrowing of all, Reynolds’s mother died of a heroin overdose one night as he and his family spread out in their living room watching movies. In the police report, the first responder reported that he found a woman lying dead on the floor, surrounded by her kids, who had been asleep next to her.
Reynolds didn’t deny that gangs and drugs were all around him. He couldn’t deny that he lived on the periphery of the drug world. He even admitted that he dabbled in selling drugs. On occasion, he took a phone call for his sister’s boyfriend or drove his flashy car around town. But he stayed on the sidelines.
In 1994, the feds hit Rockford hard and disassembled the drug dealer’s operation. They took Reynolds down with them. He happened to be there, barely inside the circle of the conspiracy, a bit player. But based on the sentencing guidelines, the judge gave Reynolds the harshest penalty. He had no choice. He had to follow the rules.
“There ought to be some latitude when you have a seventeen-year-old who gets involved,” the judge said before sentencing our client to life in prison. “It gives me pause to think this was the intent of Congress to put somebody away for the rest of their life, but in any event it’s there.”
Gavel slammed down. Reynolds gets life.
* * *
—
I wake up early one morning, chug a cup of coffee, and start my drive up to Rockford, a good two hours from Chicago. To prepare our defense, I have to tell the Reynolds Wintersmith story in detail, using documents, p
athologists’ reports, death certificates, my job to create a narrative that will resonate, that will set him free. I go directly to the Winnebago County Coroner’s Office, located in a lumpy-looking building in downtown Rockford. I introduce myself to the receptionist, who sends me to a different floor to talk to another receptionist, who sends me back to the first receptionist.
Worse than the DMV, I think, but I smile at the receptionist and shake my head. “Y’all whacking me back and forth like a tennis ball.”
She tries not to laugh, but I see through her. She’s someone’s mom, or grandma. I relate to that type, and she relates to me.
“What do you need?” she asks me.
“A file,” I say, and I tell her the documentation I’m looking for.
“That’s old. I’m sure they transferred those records to an electronic system, probably stored it away somewhere in the basement.”
“Meaning?”
“It would be nearly impossible to find.”
She emphasizes the word, indicating that she has ended the conversation and I have been dismissed.
I don’t move.
I smile, adjust my glasses.
“In other words, the file exists—somewhere in the basement,” I say.
“Possibly. I don’t know for sure.”
I tilt my head, glance at the nameplate in front of her.
“Martha.”
“I’m picking up something in your voice, Martha. Are you from Chicago?”
“You have a good ear,” she says, grinning. “South Side.”
“Where about? I’m from the South Side originally.”
We play the geography game, name a certain park, a certain street, a market, places we both know.
“How long you been up here?” I ask.
She waves the thought away with her hand. “Too long.”
“Well, it’s different, I can see that.”
“Oh, yeah.” She pauses, smiles, remembering. “You know what I miss? Garrett’s popcorn.”
“The best,” I say.
“Nothing like it,” she says. “Oprah called it her favorite food a while back.”
“I don’t doubt that. I watched every Cubs game on TV sitting on my granddad’s lap, both of us eating from a tin of Garrett’s.”
“Now you got me craving some Garrett’s.”
“Me, too.” We laugh, and I say, “Martha, you wouldn’t want to double-check and see if you could find that file?”
“Charmer,” she says.
She picks up a phone and makes a call. I hear a loud, annoyed voice crackling through on the other end. Martha rolls her eyes, shakes her head, murmurs, “Thank you,” and hangs up.
“Yeah,” she says, “they couldn’t find it.” She drops her eyes, pretends to file a paper.
They didn’t look.
Martha and I both know that.
* * *
—
A month later, I go back to Rockford. I block out a whole day. I talk to Reynolds’s family and interview his sister. Then I go to the Rockford Public Library and spend hours scrolling through microfiche, reading and copying news articles about Reynolds Wintersmith, his family, their history, and Rockford in the 1990s. I create a profile of Reynolds—a young man who was born into a world of drugs, a world he didn’t choose. He knew nothing else yet managed to keep his involvement in that world minimal. At the end of the day, I return to the county coroner’s office and pay another visit to Martha.
“Just checking back,” I say to her. “Remember me?”
“Mr. South Side. How you doing?”
“Not bad. Yourself?”
“Can’t complain. Well, I could—”
“I hear you. Hey, I thought I’d take a chance that you might have found that file.”
“No,” she says. “No luck. Haven’t found it.”
Again, we both know she hasn’t looked.
“I figured,” I say. “Those files can be tricky to find. They play hide-and-seek on you. Oh, I almost forgot.”
I reach into my bag and bring out a blue tin and place it on her desk.
“Garrett’s popcorn.” Martha’s mouth drops open in shock. “You didn’t.”
“I thought that since I was making the trip back up here, I wanted to give you this. You spent all that time with me before. I wanted to say thanks.”
“So unnecessary,” she says. “I wish I could open it up now and share it but, you know, work rules—”
“No worries,” I say. “More for you.”
“Thank you,” Martha says. She looks as if she might cry.
“Let me know if it’s as good as you remembered. Nice seeing you again.”
I start to leave, stop at the door, turn, and take a few steps back in. “If by some chance, you happen to decide to take another look for that file—”
“I’ll let you know,” she says.
“My card,” I say, snapping it down in front of her.
“I have it from the last time,” Martha says.
I smile and wave.
I’ve also taped a card to the outside of the Garrett’s tin and placed another one inside the cellophane.
She definitely has my number.
* * *
—
Two weeks later, Martha calls.
“That Garrett’s,” she says. “To die. I did share it with my niece. Not all of it, though, not all of it.”
“I bought some for myself,” I say. “I couldn’t resist.”
“Well, okay, I happened to be down in the basement, and I looked for the file you asked for.”
“You did?”
“I found it. It was in a big three-drawer file cabinet, way back in the far corner of the basement.”
I switch the phone to my other ear and start pacing as I talk.
“So, you found the file?”
“Yeah. In that cabinet.”
“That is really good news.”
“One small problem. The file cabinet was locked.”
No.
I stop pacing, pull up in the corner, lower my head into my free hand.
“I had the key, though,” she adds.
“Martha,” I say, pacing frantically. “You’re torturing me. Did you find that file?”
“I did. It’s all here. Pretty sure I got everything you need.”
“I’ll be there in the morning,” I say.
“Is Garrett’s still in business?”
I almost want to sing. “Martha, I got you covered.”
* * *
—
MiAngel submits the request for Reynolds’s clemency, a petition containing the argument and all the background information, documentation, and the narrative I’ve constructed. We tell Reynolds Wintersmith’s story.
The week before Christmas 2013 at a news conference, President Obama commutes our client’s sentence along with seven others’. He says, “Commuting the sentences of these eight Americans is an important step toward restoring fundamental ideals of justice and fairness.”
After serving twenty years in federal prison, Reynolds Wintersmith will be coming home.
Merry Christmas.
I feel validated.
More so, I feel as if I have played a part in righting a wrong.
Reynolds committed a crime. Barely. He was caught and convicted. But the judge admitted, on the record, he was sentenced brutally, unfairly. Rightly convicted; wrongfully—egregiously—sentenced. For too many in the Black community, that has become the way of life.
* * *
—
That Christmas break, I drive four and a half hours to visit Reynolds at the federal prison in Greenville, Illinois. The Bureau of Prisons is preparing his release, which will occur in three months. Moving justice along, especia
lly within the prison bureaucracy, always takes longer than you think.
Reynolds and I sit in a visiting room and we talk, keeping our voices low. We don’t discuss his case. We talk about our prison experiences. We talk about how each of us survived. And we talk about his return, how he will reenter society. His eyes glisten as he swats at the tears that course down his cheeks.
He says prison has hardened him, changed him, but I recognize the determined look in his eye. I know he has had battles inside, a few literal ones for sure, but I’m certain he has fought some that were emotional and psychological. Those battles will continue.
“So, what are you going to do?” I ask.
Reynolds bites his lip and with conviction says, “I’m going to go to school. I’m going to get a degree. I’m going to make something of myself.”
“Never lose sight of that goal. Grab it. Hold on to it.”
Reynolds keeps his word. He keeps his promise to himself.
When he gets out of prison, he goes to school, and he begins mentoring kids. He works with kids who live in areas overrun with drugs, those who are vulnerable and naive the way he was. The next time we talk I learn that he’s on his way to achieving his goal, earning a college degree.
So many young Black men like Reynolds Wintersmith have been ripped from their families and their neighborhoods and thrown away for no good reason, or no reason at all. They are now gone, lost, rotting in prisons. I was fortunate. I fought my way to a second chance. Sadly, that rarely happens. We don’t know whom we’re throwing away. Of the 2.3 million people who are incarcerated, 750,000 are Black men. The numbers are so disproportionate they scream. That has to change.
Redeeming Justice Page 27
