Presumption of Guilt

by Rachel Sinclair

  She went in the front door, and was immediately concerned. It was quiet, too quiet. “Mama, papa,” Esme called out to her mother and father.

  Then she saw it. Her mother and father were in the tiny living room, both of them dead. They had been shot in the head. She screamed, putting her hand over her mouth. It was an involuntary reaction, one that she immediately regretted. The killers could still be in the house. Against her better judgment, she went into the bedroom that she shared with her four brothers and sisters and found that all of them were in that bedroom. They had also been shot in the head.

  Shaking and in shock, she left the house and immediately saw Elena, the woman whose property abutted the property of the Gutierrez family. She motioned for Esme to come closer, while putting her finger over her mouth. Esme walked over to Elena, who grabbed Esme’s arm forcefully and dragged her into her own house.

  Once the two women were in Elena’s home, Elena started pacing the floor. “They were there. The Mara Salvatrucha. Your father, he was working with the 18th Street Gang. I don’t know why he was working with them, but that’s why the Mara Salvatrucha was there. At least, that’s what I overheard when the men were over at your house.”

  “What do you mean, my father was working with the 18th Street Gang?”

  “That’s what the men were saying. I heard one of them saying to your father that they found out that he was responsible for Jose knowing that his men were coming to his shop, and Jose was ready for them with semi-automatic weapons. Jose killed four of the Mara Salvatrucha. That man, the man who was saying that to your papa, said that there was a mole in his gang that was working for the 18th Street Gang, and that your papa was working with that mole.”

  Esme’s head was swimming and she felt like she was going to get sick. Her mind had not yet processed the gruesome scene that she saw back at her house, and she was having a hard time understanding what Elena was saying about her father. “I don’t understand.” She shook her head.

  “Jose is your papa’s friend. Your papa must have found out about the ambush that was planned on Jose’s shop by talking to the 18th Street mole. Jose had to have gotten his hands on the AR-15s because he knew what was going to happen because your father told him. That’s what I heard from the men in your house.”

  “So-“

  “So they killed everybody in the house. They wanted to make an example of what would happen if people started talking about what they were up to. They’re going to kill you next, Esme. I heard them talking. They said that they knew that you also lived in that house, but that you weren’t there, and that they’re going to come back for you. That’s what they said.”

  Esme’s brain immediately went into fight or flight mode. She was going to have to grieve the loss of her entire family later. For now, she had to escape with her life. The survival instinct is a powerful force in the human brain, and when a person’s life is threatened, the brain can only function in one mode.

  “What do I do?” Esme asked her friend.

  “Get out of here. Go to America. Plead your case up there. I hear that they’re taking people from our country, people who are leaving violence and war behind. You can live there, Esme, find a better life than what you have here.”

  “America? How would I possibly get to America?” Esme asked.

  “I know a man. His name is Ernesto Rodriguez. He lives in town. Owns a shop there. Go and see him, he’ll help you. He has a son, Roberto, who helps people get out of town. He can guide you to a bus and then onto a train. You can make some friends on the way, friends who can stay with you when you have to get off the train and start going on foot.”

  Esme was nervous. She knew about the train ride. She had heard that the migrants rode that train on the roof, clinging on for dear life. Many of the migrants didn’t make it through. The train would come to a sudden stop, and people would fly off the top of the train to their deaths. The bus would go through miles of mountain roads that weren’t paved. It was hot, in the middle of August, and the bus would be sweltering. Once she had to start making the journey on foot, there would be other life-threatening challenges that Esme would have to face. She knew about La Arrocera, the part of the migrant trail in Mexico where migrants were beaten, murdered and raped.

  She had heard the stories from the migrants who were forcibly returned to their town after having made the trek from their town to America. She knew about the horrors.

  “If I stay here, what will happen to me?” Esme asked Elena.

  “They’re going to kill you. That’s what they said. They know about you. They know that you are a part of your papa’s family, and they will kill you. That is what they do. They kill the entire family of their enemies. If your family had a dog, they would kill the dog, too. You have to get away. You cannot just go to a different town and hope that they won’t find you, because they will always find you. Always.”

  Esme looked at her hands, which were shaking and trembling. Her family was gone. All of them. She was next. Her best friend, Elena, was telling her that her only way out would be to somehow get to America and plead her case in front of a court.

  “How am I going to prove to the American court that I should be protected by their government?” Esme asked Elena.

  “You tell them that your entire family was murdered by the Mara,” she said. “You tell them the truth.”

  “That’s it? I just have to tell them what happened to my family?” Esme was skeptical. It didn’t seem possible that she would be admitted to go to America and stay just on her word. Who was she to them? She was a nobody. She knew that she would probably get to America and be turned away, and then what? This town was the only place she had ever known. Her friends were here. Her family was here, but they were no more. She was going to have to risk everything, absolutely everything, to make the 3,000 kilometer trek to America. She might not live through the journey. In fact, the odds were against her surviving long enough to make her claim about asylum to the American courts.

  Yet, she couldn’t stay there in her town, waiting to die. The Mara was powerful, too powerful, and she was the only Gutierrez left alive. She knew that the Mara never left any member of a targeted family alive. She would be dead by sundown if she didn’t move and move quickly.

  “I will go and see Ernesto,” she said with a heavy heart.

  At this point, she had nothing to lose.

  Chapter 4

  Avery

  I stared at the letter from the Steve in disbelief. I knew why it was that he had thought of me for this case. He was right – there weren’t many attorneys who would take an enormous death penalty case pro bono. Plus, I had tried death penalty cases before. I was associate counsel on one six months prior, so I was the second-chair. We lost that case and our client was currently on death row, filing one appeal after another. I had also tried quite a few murder cases in my short legal career. When I was at Harvard, I had worked in the Capital Punishment Clinic, helping to represent clients facing the death penalty in Alabama.

  I knew that I could handle a large case like this, especially if I could rope somebody into being my second-chair. But I was slightly nervous about just how high-profile this particular case was. Aria Whitmore’s case was on the front page of just about every magazine on the newsstand. Aria’s beautiful blonde face stared out from the most recent People magazine, as that publication featured a six-page spread on her life and death, including a small story about Esme as well. She was also on the cover of all the lesser tabloids in the supermarket, the ones that were much more lurid than People and much sleazier in their reporting as well.

  What made me even more apprehensive about this one was just how the case was being portrayed in the media. I was aware that the anti-immigrant forces in this country had seized on Esme’s case and were beating the war drums about it. Esme was the poster child for refugees. There was a large push to limit the number of refugees coming to this country as it was. This was particularly true of the refugees that were comi
ng from Latin American countries and the Middle East. The virulent anti-immigrant factions had been looking for years for a case that would justify their desire to keep Latin Americans and Middle Easterners out of this country for good.

  Esme was that person. She was tailor-made for their cause. Aria Whitmore was not only a wealthy child, but she was also a piano prodigy and was apparently very talented in music composition. She was beautiful and popular and was, by all accounts, a generous and kind person. I remembered reading the People article about her, and that article talked about how many people were devastated by her death.

  I got on the phone with Steve, looking at the clock. It was 8:30 AM, so he probably wasn’t in any kind of court just yet. He picked up on the third ring.

  “Hey kid,” he said to me affectionately. Steve was a 60ish man, having been in criminal defense for the past 35 years. He was one of the first members of the San Diego bar who took me under his wing when I was a baby lawyer and trying to find my way around the system. I met him at an ABA reception for a retiring Superior Court judge and liked him immediately.

  “Hey yourself,” I said. “Listen, I wanted to talk to you about the case that you…” I wanted to use the words dumped on me but decided to be a bit more circumspect. “Gave me.”

  “Yeah and you’re welcome. This is going to make your career there, kid, believe me. You want this case.”

  “Steve, I appreciate your confidence in me, but-“

  “But what? Listen, I know you. This is the case for you. I’ve seen you in action. There ain’t nobody who cares about clients more than you do. This woman has no lawyer. She can’t afford a lawyer. You’re her only hope here.”

  I rolled my eyes. “With a case like this, I’m quite sure that there are plenty of other attorneys who would be salivating to take her on, whether or not she has the money to pay for her case. There are plenty of lawyers who are show-boaters who have to know that a case like this would make their career. It’s a chance for some show-off to get his mug in front of every camera in the country. It’s really a false choice to say that it’s either me or some rando appointed counsel.”

  “True enough, kid, but here’s the thing. This woman doesn’t deserve some jackass who’s only on her case because he wants the publicity. Those publicity whores really don’t care if they win or lose as long as they’re playing the game. And that’s all her case would be to them – a game. She deserves somebody with a passion for justice, and that’s you. So, yes, it is only a choice between you and a rando who would be appointed by the State of California. Sorry to have to dump this on you, but I have faith that you’ll do a fantastic job.”

  I twirled my dark hair around my finger as I spoke to him. Looks like my insomnia issue isn’t going to be getting any better anytime soon. “So, I take it you think that this woman didn’t do it?” I asked him.

  “I don’t know if she did or didn’t. I haven’t spoken to her, only to her cellmate. Her cellmate thinks that she’s being railroaded, though, that I know.”

  “Does she speak English?” I asked him.

  “Yeah, she speaks English. She’s been here for six years. She took as many English classes as she could afford to when she got here. I asked that, too, of her cellmate, whose name is Amelia Reid. Amelia is as white as it comes and doesn’t speak a word of Spanish, and she told me that Esme speaks as well as she does. So you don’t have to worry about hiring a translator to figure out what she’s saying to you.”

  I didn’t really know what else to say. I wasn’t going to turn down the case before I even met the woman. “Okay. I’ll go down and see her and, if she hasn’t already been assigned an attorney from the State of California, I’ll think about representing her. I just hope that I don’t regret this. I’ve never done a case with such a bright light shining on me.”

  “You can handle the bright light,” Steve said. “Trust me on this. You walked down a prison sentence. You can handle anything. Listen, I have to go. The court beckons me.”

  I hung up the phone and sighed. I called Regina first thing. “Well, you were right,” I told her. “My ass is in the fire.”

  “I told you,” she said, laughing.

  “How did you know?”

  “You’re going to be pissed at me, but I went down and saw her cellmate. I’m doing work on Amelia Reid’s case. When I found out that Amelia was cellmates with Esme, I told her about you and how you were the shit, so Amelia talked to her lawyer, Steve, and I guess that Steve dumped the case on you.”

  “Oh, that’s just great. I guess that you have your own ulterior motive for my taking this case, then?”

  “You got that right. I’ve been dying to take a bite out of this case ever since I found out about it. A young girl with a platinum stick up her butt bites it in her own mansion? That shit is solid gold. Those Coronado hoefessional treasure trolls with their first world problems and their yachts can kiss my candy ass as far as I’m concerned.”

  “So, why is it exactly that you want to take this case?”

  “Because, dude, here’s the thing. This chick didn’t do it. It’s the stupidest set of facts imaginable. I mean, come on now, this lowly maid is going to get access to a $10 million bling? Really? You mean that chick just had that shit lying around on top of her chest of drawers? She don’t have that shit in a safe somewhere?” Regina snorted on the phone. “Sounds like a set-up to me. Chick is being railroaded, plain and simple. I think that one of the other hoefessionals did her and made it look like Esme did it.”

  “Oh? You already have it figured out, do you?”

  “Bet your ass. I mean, I don’t know who it was that did her in, but, trust me, it was somebody. You can’t let that woman get her ass railroaded into the chair.”

  “Well, they don’t have the chair in California. They have lethal injection.”

  “Even worse. You ever go and see one of those executions? I have. It’s not pretty and it’s not fun.”

  That was news to me. I didn’t know that Regina had seen an execution. “You went to an execution?” I asked her.

  “Yeah,” she said matter-of-factly. “My father was shot in cold blood by this tweaking guy named Danny Bowles. Bowles was high on PCP or some shit and killed my dad while he was changing a tire on the side of the road. He was put to death for it, and I watched him die. I went into that chamber thinking that that prick could burn to death for all I care. I left it feeling sick to my stomach and thinking that the state killing people is the most barbaric thing in the world. Trust me, you don’t want your client dying because some wealthy jerk-off needed a scapegoat for killing that poor girl.”

  I cocked my head. “Regina, how is it that you never told me about your dad and how he died?” Regina had always talked about her father with a great deal of affection, and I knew that he had died, but I didn’t know the story of just how he died.

  Not until now, anyhow.

  “Guess it never came up. Listen, I was raw about that for years. Messed up in the head. My old lady, she treated me like dog shit after my father died. That’s why I ended up running away and getting with that worthless Michael. I just figured that my dad was dead, my mom didn’t want me, Michael did and that was that. I don’t know why we never discussed this before. It was just hard for me to talk about, I guess.” I could hear that she was on the verge of getting choked up on the other end, so I decided that it was best that we just drop it.

  Regina, for all her bravado, really was a marshmallow inside. I had learned that early on – her tough-girl act was just that. An act. If she didn’t feel like talking about it with me before, it was her right.

  “Well, I guess I need to at least go and see this woman before I turn her down. See her, hear her story, gauge whether or not I think that she did it.”

  “Hey, listen, even if she did do it, so what? You in a habit of only taking innocent clients these days? I mean, I never got the memo that you ain’t taking guilty people anymore, Avery.”

  Truer words were never
spoken. Most of my clients were guilty as the day is long. I still took them, though, because I really did believe that everybody had a right to counsel. It was a right that was guaranteed by our Constitution. The Sixth Amendment. Mostly, though, if I had a guilty client, I simply tried to get the best deal I could. I didn’t feel comfortable trying cases where I had a good idea that the person did it. Not just because I didn’t like to lose, which was true enough. But also because I didn’t want to particularly win these cases. I didn’t want to be the one who was responsible for a murderer or rapist going free.

  Besides, my passion in this life was for those unjustly accused. I was that person, and when I was the one on trial for my life, nobody was there for me. My court-appointed attorney, Gloria Flores, was overworked and underpaid and didn’t even want to try my case. She made that clear from the start. She came at me with one plea offer after another and, at one point, she threatened to withdraw from my case if I didn’t do what she said and take an offer for 30 years in prison, plead to Man One. She thought that that was the best offer she could get, and, when I said that I wanted to take my chances, she threw her file across the room and flatly proclaimed that she couldn’t work with me.

  I didn’t care. I knew the truth, and that was that I was innocent. I also knew that she had been assigned my case, so I knew for a fact that she couldn’t withdraw from it. I knew enough in talking to some of the women in the jail to understand that court-appointed attorneys always going threaten to walk, but they can’t. They’re stuck with us no matter what.

  Of course, at trial, I got the book thrown at me. Life in prison without the possibility of parole. After the jury found me guilty, Gloria had a told you so smirk on her face. I wanted to slap that smug smile right off of her, and it was tempting to do just that. I would have even risked a contempt of court charge to attack her in the courtroom. But the bailiff put the handcuffs on me before I could even think about spitting in her eye.