God'll Cut You Down : The Tangled Tale of a White Supremacist, a Black Hustler, Amurder, and How I Lost a Year in Mississippi (9780698170537)

by Safran, John

  It’s one a.m., and Earnest says we should crash at his sister’s in Northern Jackson so we don’t have to drive all the way back downtown. This is the second time I’ll be sleeping over in his sister’s guest room. She lives in a big suburban home. It seems that on every mantelpiece, cabinet top, and table there’s a Bible or book of prayers. There’s even one atop the toilet.

  It’s four days until the trial starts. I’m curious as to how it’s going to show Richard. Vince Thornton, Joe McNamee, Precious the Otter, even Richard’s sister, Geraldine—I’m hoping they’ll all show up in the courtroom.

  Every time I feel I’ve got a hold of Richard, he slides off again. I haven’t been able to get any sort of consensus on whether Richard might have made a pass at Vincent, and an aggressive one at that. I wonder whether the people who think Richard was gay are using “gay” as another word for “just suspicious.” He was queer, bent, but was he literally homosexual? He was a racist, but was he aggressive enough to threaten Vincent? If Vincent’s going to have a defense, Precious and Chokwe need to find the leads I haven’t found yet—they need to find other young men whom Richard propositioned. But so far in my journey, it’s gay people and those who knew Richard as young men who don’t think Richard was gay.

  I fall asleep in a puffy pink bed next to a teddy bear, reading God’s Promises for Your Every Need.

  6.

  THE TRIAL

  Homework

  Richard is flesh and blood to me. He doesn’t creep me out because I read about him and his murder; he creeps me out because I met him, because I was there. That murdered man put his hand on my shoulder.

  But who’s Vincent? The McGees have cut me off, so I’ll need to start my homework elsewhere. Vincent wasn’t a public figure like Richard, but he had his archive, too.

  The Criminal History of Vincent McGee

  The Rankin County circuit clerk’s office is a peaceful place to spend some time. The staff members, all female, glide around gracefully and quietly, like it’s a nunnery. Leather-bound marriage records, winding back to the early 1800s, fill up one wall of the office.

  A black guy in a prison jumpsuit wanders through. None of the office nuns bat an eyelash, so I assume he’s not on the lam, it’s some rehabilitation thing.

  Open in front of me is a red folder that contains the criminal history of Vincent McGee.

  This particular Ballad of Vincent McGee begins six years ago. Seventeen-year-old Vincent has just been arrested and pulled in front of a grand jury. A grand jury is a bunch of locals who are phoned up whenever the DA wants and told to drive down to the courthouse to decide if the facts of a case, as presented by the DA, merit a trial. The defendant doesn’t get a lawyer to argue back, nor can he argue back himself. So these are the facts of the case according to one side.

  RANKIN COUNTY GRAND JURY SUMMARY SHEET

  Vincent McGee is charged with: two counts, simple assault on law enforcement officers.

  Facts of the case: While on duty at Rankin County Juvenile Detention Center, two officers had reason to approach the cell of McGee. This was because of McGee’s behavior inside the cell. McGee understood that he was to be released on this day and no one had come to pick him up. Upon being told that his mother had been notified to pick him up but had failed to do so, McGee became very unruly. Upon opening the cell door, McGee came out of the cell and began to hit both officers with his fist. Because of this behavior, McGee was placed under arrest and charged with two counts of assault on a police officer. During this time McGee threatened both officers and promised them a shot to the head upon his release from jail. He was then transported from the Juvenile Detention Center to Rankin County Jail.

  The grand jury agrees with the DA: Vincent needs to go to trial.

  Why was Vincent in the juvenile detention center in the first place? The file does not say. Vincent secures an appearance bond of ten thousand dollars from the AAA Bonding Company and walks out on bail. When Vincent doesn’t show up for his trial, the court issues a warrant for his arrest and an order for the AAA Bonding Company to cough up ten thousand dollars.

  One month later, Vincent has been found. He stands before the judge in the Rankin County Courthouse and pleads guilty to striking the officers. The district attorney asks for, and the judge accepts: Five years in penitentiary. Four years suspended. One year to serve. Vincent is pulled into a van and driven to the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility.

  For some reason not in the file, Vincent doesn’t serve even a year. I know this because eleven months after that van drove him off to prison, Vincent is a free enough man to be driving a truck when arrested again.

  ARREST DOCKET

  Offender was arrested and charged with grand larceny, giving false information, careless driving, public drunkenness, no driver’s license, and no insurance.

  Despite these multiple charges, by the time Vincent, now nineteen, is pulled before the judge in the courthouse again, the only charge the district attorney’s office is pursuing is the grand larceny.

  CHARGE SHEET

  Vincent McGee did willfully, unlawfully, and feloniously violate the State Laws to wit: did take, steal, and carry away $300 in Mexican Pesos, $200 in Mexican Paper Dollars, and one silver ring with a value of $300, property of Jamie Reyes.

  So this is the Mexican money Tina mentioned, which she denied Vincent stole. I write down Jamie Reyes. Rankin County is a small world, I think to myself, eyeing the signatures on the court documents. The lawyer, Vicky Williams, who defended Vincent in the assault case two years before, is now assistant district attorney and prosecuting Vincent.

  The judge hits Vincent with ten years in jail, nine years suspended. But the four years for the assault that were suspended before are reinstated, so Vincent is condemned to five years in jail.

  Vincent is pulled into a van and driven to the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility.

  Vincent doesn’t serve five years. I know this because three years later he had a knife drawn on Richard Barrett.

  How the World Works, According to Me

  I blabbed to a science reporter friend about Vincent McGee. She instinctively pulled together what she knew of the human brain and chemical imbalances to explain why Vincent killed.

  Science is not where my mind instinctively goes to explain how the world works. This is where I go: Family is everything.

  Without my family, I would have been lost. In high school, I was an awful, tangle-headed student. I would have dropped out of school had my mum and dad not forced me to stay. Later, my dad told me he thought I’d end up like the weird homeless guy in the Seven Up! documentaries. Hell, even after I completed Year Twelve, my mother had to remind me, “Don’t you have the journalism entrance exam tomorrow?” If she hadn’t said that sentence, I would have forgotten to turn up and all the good things that tumbled from that would never have happened.

  When I chatted up girls at university, I had a near perfect strike rate of guessing whether the girl grew up with her father or not. I remember my non-Jewish friends coming to my family’s Friday night Shabbos dinners. They’d watch my family light the candles, cut the challah, say the prayers, and eat together. Most would respond with a version of: Why doesn’t my family do something like this? Why do I go out drinking on Fridays?

  When I was thirty-one, my mother died out of the blue from a heart attack. It left me disoriented for years. I became obsessed with the writing of prison doctor Theodore Dalrymple, who convinced me the collapse of the family is the collapse of the person.

  This is what I brought in my bag to Mississippi. This is the prism I look at this crime through. My brain pulls in everything that confirms this is the story of how the world works.

  That’s why I keep looking for Richard’s sister. That’s why my mind keeps rolling back to the facts of the case on the Grand Jury Summary Sheet, describing Vincent in juvenile detention. No one had come
to pick him up. Upon being told that his mother had been notified to pick him up but had failed to do so, McGee became very unruly. What would be different now if Tina McGee had picked up Vincent that day? Upset that his mother hadn’t come to pick him up, he assaulted the officers. And striking the officers rolled him out of juvenile detention into the adult prison system. And from there things kept tumbling down the hill. If Tina had picked Vincent up that day, would Richard be alive? What would the story be if Vincent hadn’t had an absent father?

  My fingers peel over another page in the red folder and arrive at the killing of Richard Barrett.

  Richard Barrett

  Precious the Otter becomes present in the paperwork four months after Vincent’s arrest, when he takes over the case from the white public defender. Precious files a document telling the court Vincent will be pleading not guilty to the murder of Richard Barrett.

  Two months later, another document is filed with the court. But this one has not been typed up by Precious Martin’s law firm. This one has been written by hand, with childish strokes and sprinkled with capital N ’s where there should be little N ’s and a’s where there should be an’s. This one demands from the DA:

  All forensic evidence and laboratory results

  All DNA and fingerprint results

  All expert witness statements

  Any evidence that is in the favorable light of the defendant

  The signature squiggled below is not that of Precious Martin, but that of Vincent McGee.

  The hand continues on its way for ten more pages and, among other things, wants Mr. McGee’s criminal history to be suppressed.

  Surely Vincent can’t have come up with this himself. Could Precious have dictated it to him? Or written it himself? Why is it not typed?

  My fingertips come to the last sheet of paper in the red folder, and I let out a gasp so sharp, the office nuns turn and look.

  Two days ago Precious Martin quit. And Vincent is due in court three days from now.

  MOTION TO WITHDRAW AS COUNSEL OF RECORD

  That Precious Martin wishes to withdraw as counsel.

  That Defendant disagrees with Precious Martin’s legal advice.

  That the crime alleged is of the nature that the death penalty may be applied. Precious Martin has never defended anyone in a matter where the death penalty was applicable, nonetheless where the death penalty was sought, and as such, he does not employ the requisite knowledge, complexity, nor specialization to adequately represent Defendant to that end.

  That it would be in the best interest of Defendant if Precious Martin was released as Defendant’s attorney of record in this matter.

  I skid out of the clerk’s office, crouch by a potted plant in the hall, and phone Chokwe.

  “I was going through the Vincent McGee file,” I tell him, “and two days ago Precious filed a motion to withdraw as counsel.”

  Chokwe says nothing. The potted plant is making more noise than Chokwe.

  “Hello?” I say.

  “Precious has filed a motion to withdraw?” Chokwe asks, confused. “Okay, all right, well, that’s something you have to talk to Precious about. He has not told me anything about that. I don’t know anything about that.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Look, let me be real clear!” he shouts, like I’m out to get him. “I was asked to do this because it’s the kind of case I usually try to help people with. I’m more than willing to help. But at the same time, I made it real clear at the time I was asked to come on this case that I could not handle it by myself. Mr. McGee, he don’t have a lot of money at all. So our commitment to the case was with the help of another lawyer. If another lawyer is not on the case, then we’re going to have to reconsider that.”

  I fumble through my little black address book for Vallena Greer’s number. This is the first the head of the Vincent McGee Defense Fund has heard of Precious Martin’s withdrawal, too.

  “Oh, boy!” she says. “Well, as long as Chokwe is on the case it’ll be okay.”

  I suck in a wince.

  “Maybe Precious did not like Chokwe’s style,” Vallena says. “Because Chokwe is the best. There is no better. O. J. Simpson wanted Chokwe, but he was busy on another case with one of the Rodney King kids. Chokwe could have made a lot of money from OJ. But it’s not about the money. For him, it’s about giving poor the same opportunity as rich people.”

  I tickle the lump in my throat and mutter the news.

  “Chokwe said he only agreed to do the case because he thought he’d have resources,” I tell her. “And with Precious leaving, that’s the main resource gone. So he’ll have to rethink his involvement.”

  “Oh, boy!” Vallena says. “I’ll have to see what’s going on. With the Scott sisters’ case, we’ve been keeping a low profile, but we might have to go full steam ahead. I was meant to be on a civil rights call this morning with Chokwe, but I was at my Bible reading and forgot!”

  Maybe the case then goes back to the original white lawyer appointed by the court, a man named Mike Scott. Last time I called Mike, he’d pretty much washed his hands of the whole affair. This time, I ask him why Vincent might have disagreed with Precious’s legal advice, but Mike is not telling me what he knows. He tells me if Vincent has lost his lawyers, it is indeed likely the court will flick the case back to him. And that the trial will be delayed several months. I ring the DA, Michael Guest, but he’s as elusive as Mike Scott.

  A couple of days later Jerry Mitchell rubs in my face that he can get what I cannot, with an update on the case in the Clarion-Ledger. He has squeezed two crucial developments from the men I called. Michael Guest tells Jerry he will no longer pursue the death penalty. Instead he will go for life without parole, which means Vincent will die behind bars. He doesn’t offer a reason for his change of heart/strategy. And Mike Scott hints that Vincent may claim self-defense at trial.

  Mississippi Burnout

  Three days later—when the trial was meant to begin—everyone’s still in lockdown, and I’m out in the cold.

  Eddie Thompson, the Rankin County jailer, agrees to meet me outside the Rankin County Jail. The jail is connected to the courthouse by a caged walkway. Straightaway Eddie winces at my shirt. It’s cream and patterned with tiny green Don Quixotes and windmills. No one would blink on a Melbourne tram, but here I might as well have minced in wearing suspenders and a corset. I ask Eddie if I can tag along when the McGees come visit Vincent. “No,” he says, and shivers at my shirt like it’s going to pinch his bottom. He walks off.

  Had Eddie said yes, I would still have had to hustle, with Tina cutting me off, too.

  I call Vicky Williams, who represented Vincent in court after he thumped the officers at the juvenile detention center. I want to find out what Vincent did to be dragged into juvenile detention in the first place. But she says that juvenile records are sealed and she’s not allowed to tell me.

  One of the investigators in the case says I can drop by for a chat. Then he calls back and says the sheriff found out, and now he’s not allowed to see me.

  No one, and no search directory, will tell me where Vincent’s dad is hidden, and I’m out of ideas on how to find Richard’s sister. I’ve gotten nowhere with Vince Thornton and I haven’t even tried Joe McNamee again.

  Even Jim Giles e-mails me, telling me his mother doesn’t want me coming by the house.

  Jedis & Juggalos

  With the trial now officially delayed for several months, I move on to other work due. I skip town to film a short documentary, Jedis & Juggalos. I hunt down Americans who fuse religion to pop culture. Mahmoud lives in an octagonal home in Oregon and sees Muslim messages in Star Wars. Jason built a church in Maryland bonding God with the teachings of the Insane Clown Posse. Bill runs an exorcism ministry in Arizona that expels devils brought on by reading Harry Potter and Twilight.

  I tell all the
se men about my true crime adventure. With just the mention of “black man” and “Mississippi,” all assume Vincent has been unfairly incarcerated by a bunch of racist yahoos. Mississippi really has quite the reputation. The Sufi Jedi, the Juggalo priest, and the exorcist agree there’s something strange about those Mississippians.

  Months Later, Two and a Half Weeks Before the Trial

  Four days ago, I moved back to Mississippi. I’m not at the motel in Jackson anymore. I’ve moved into a gated apartment complex in Rankin County to be closer to the trial. I’m stretched out on a lounge chair under the gazebo by the pool. The white columns that prop up Southern mansions have been shrunk and prop up this gazebo, too. The humid summer is now in full swing. My eyes sting from the sweat and sunscreen.

  I drove past that billboard at the airport again. YES, WE CAN READ. A FEW OF US CAN EVEN WRITE. Last time, I didn’t know what to make of it, I hadn’t been here long enough. Now I know it speaks of the state’s defensive worldview. I try to think of another place that would greet tourists with a paranoid and passive-aggressive accusation. You think we’re stupid? Is that what you’re thinking? Screw you! I can’t. Oh, and I checked. Mississippi has the lowest literacy rate in the United States.

  The Clarion-Ledger is inking up my hands once more and telling me what I missed while off chasing Jedis. James Ford Seale, finally jailed in 2007 for the 1964 killings of two black teenagers, has died in prison. The Scott sisters, with a release conditioned on Gladys donating her kidney to Jamie, have found out they’re too fat for the operation.

  A small child in a bathing suit walks by and laughs at my face. His mother tells me I have a Clarion-Ledger ink mustache streaked under my nose. I wipe my face with a towel, and my phone trembles on my thigh.