There's a lot of bitterness going around these days, and everyone can understand it. Years ago, I knew very few people out of work, now it sometimes feels like I'm one of the few people who has a job. Everyone's world has contracted in some way by our economic smack-down. But it's my hope that we fight that bitterness if at all possible. Bitterness starts a swirl, a bad one, that can only lead to other negative emotions and negative events.
How do we do that, though? When I'm fighting some kind of bitterness, I think of the people I know who've managed theirs. And there is no one better than Life After Innocence client, Jerry Miller.
In 1981, Jerry, a 22-year old former Army cook, was arrested and charged with kidnapping, raping and robbing a woman in downtown Chicago. He was convicted in 1982 and served 24 years in prison. His prison record, which numbers nearly 1000 pages, is replete with the statement, Will not admit guilt. He was required to attend sex offender classes and grew increasingly lonely as many family members and friends no longer visited him. "I missed joy," he later told Maurice Possley of the Chicago Tribune. "I missed happiness. It was very painful, being locked up every night."
Jerry (like so many people today) found him self asking, 'Why me?' But he says he finally decided that he had to find a way to gain hope every day. "You open your eyes and you can see there's something here that's more than just me." He says that as he matured, "I came to understand life is to be lived no matter where you are."
A few years ago, when Jerry was 48, he was released on parole as a registered sex offender, requiring him to wear an electronic monitoring device at all times and prohibiting him from answering his door on Halloween or leaving his job for lunch. He continued to attend required sex offender classes, and every time when introducing himself he stated, "My name is Jerry Miller, and I am innocent of the crime of which I am accused."
Miller was fortunate to have the Innocence Project of New York learn about his case. With their help, DNA testing on semen from the rape proved conclusively that Miller did not commit the crime – and instead implicated another man, Robert Weeks, as the actual perpetrator.
Jerry was one of the first clients of the Life After Innocence Project, which we formed at Loyola University Chicago School of Law, in 2009. The project is designed to help innocent people like Jerry to begin their lives over again after a wrongful conviction (or a not-guilty at the trial level). During the time we've worked together, Jerry has become an amazing friend to me and all of the students. He continually inspires us with his constantly positive outlook. "Look, Laura," he has often said to me. "When it comes down to it, I'm blessed." Life, he has told me, is all in the way you look at it. (To see Jerry's elegance and grace, please check out his appearance on the Colbert Report.)
Jerry filed a lawsuit against the Illinois Crime Lab who wrongfully reported so many years ago that Jerry's DNA was inconclusive. On Friday, the lawsuit was settled, putting an end to Jerry's long, long, long battle. The delightful thing about Jerry, however, is that we all knew he would flourish, we knew he would continue to be an inspiration to us, no matter what situation he found himself in. We congratulate him and we celebrate him. And whenever I'm feeling bitter, Jerry is the face who appears in my mind.
(Post Script-an unofficial celebration will be held for Jerry tonight, February 25, at The District (170 West Ontario), starting at 6. For those in Chicago, join us!)
Showing posts with label Life After Innocence Project. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Life After Innocence Project. Show all posts
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Thursday, October 08, 2009
by Laura Caldwell
Last week I toured Stateville Correctional Center, a maximum security men's penitentiary in Joliet, Iillinois. I went with my law students so we could better understand our Life After Innocence clients who have been wrongfully convicted, many of whom were imprisoned at Stateville for decades before proving their innocence. As a writer, there was an added bonus for me because the background of a minor character in my new book includes imprisonment and execution at Stateville.
The long debated question, "Should you write what you know?" has been by batted around authors forever. I have always been firm in my answer: certainly, it helps to write what you know, but when you can't? Do the research. It's a close second. I've written books about Russia based on talking to locals and studying maps and guidebooks. I've written about a member of a covert op in Vietnam after reading books and interviewing men in the same position.
Now that I've spent five hours in Stateville, many of those hours in the general population of prisoners, I could write what I know, I suppose. I can tell you what it looked like to stand in a room painted powderish green with 4 floors of cages (or "cells" if you want a nicer, cleaner word). I could tell you what it would look like to watch one man in his cell urinate while we stood a foot outside and our guard/guide spoke about prison procedure. I can tell you what it looked like to watch another man do sit ups, to hear another prisoner hurl insults at my law students (surely those weren't meant for me). I can tell you what it looked like when one of my law students waved at someone on the fourth tier, and what it sounded like when a chorus of shouts, hoots and lewd screams erupted.
We can tell you what we saw when we walked in the "round house", the only round house prison left in the world. The room was cement and steel gray; 5 floors of cages, circling around a guard station in the middle, shotguns at the ready. Prisoners threw themselves against the bars of their cells or the plastic that had been put there to protect guards from urination or spitting. I can describe the madness in the eyes of some as they watched us, free, standing and observing them as if in a zoo.
I can tell you what it was like to walk into the death chamber - the kleig lights making it look like a tiny stage, the exhaust fan with mint green paint chips hanging from it, remnants of days when executions were done by electrocution. Silver brackets hung on the wall, ready to be adorned with IVs and used for lethal injections. Despite a moratorium on executions in Illinois, the red phone was still on the wall, awaiting a call from the governor to halt everything. And a few steps down and visible through a Plexiglas wall was the gallery. Where people could watch someone else be killed.
I can describe all these things in more detail. I will in my future book. But I don't know if I will ever be able to describe the energy of the place, the feeling of being in that round house, the vibrations that coursed through our bodies as we stood in the death chamber. How do you write those feelings? I suppose I "know" them now. But I can't find the words. "Jumping out of my skin" is way overused. So I need some suggestions. Got any? To use another cliche, I'm all ears.
Last week I toured Stateville Correctional Center, a maximum security men's penitentiary in Joliet, Iillinois. I went with my law students so we could better understand our Life After Innocence clients who have been wrongfully convicted, many of whom were imprisoned at Stateville for decades before proving their innocence. As a writer, there was an added bonus for me because the background of a minor character in my new book includes imprisonment and execution at Stateville.
The long debated question, "Should you write what you know?" has been by batted around authors forever. I have always been firm in my answer: certainly, it helps to write what you know, but when you can't? Do the research. It's a close second. I've written books about Russia based on talking to locals and studying maps and guidebooks. I've written about a member of a covert op in Vietnam after reading books and interviewing men in the same position.
Now that I've spent five hours in Stateville, many of those hours in the general population of prisoners, I could write what I know, I suppose. I can tell you what it looked like to stand in a room painted powderish green with 4 floors of cages (or "cells" if you want a nicer, cleaner word). I could tell you what it would look like to watch one man in his cell urinate while we stood a foot outside and our guard/guide spoke about prison procedure. I can tell you what it looked like to watch another man do sit ups, to hear another prisoner hurl insults at my law students (surely those weren't meant for me). I can tell you what it looked like when one of my law students waved at someone on the fourth tier, and what it sounded like when a chorus of shouts, hoots and lewd screams erupted.
We can tell you what we saw when we walked in the "round house", the only round house prison left in the world. The room was cement and steel gray; 5 floors of cages, circling around a guard station in the middle, shotguns at the ready. Prisoners threw themselves against the bars of their cells or the plastic that had been put there to protect guards from urination or spitting. I can describe the madness in the eyes of some as they watched us, free, standing and observing them as if in a zoo.
I can tell you what it was like to walk into the death chamber - the kleig lights making it look like a tiny stage, the exhaust fan with mint green paint chips hanging from it, remnants of days when executions were done by electrocution. Silver brackets hung on the wall, ready to be adorned with IVs and used for lethal injections. Despite a moratorium on executions in Illinois, the red phone was still on the wall, awaiting a call from the governor to halt everything. And a few steps down and visible through a Plexiglas wall was the gallery. Where people could watch someone else be killed.
I can describe all these things in more detail. I will in my future book. But I don't know if I will ever be able to describe the energy of the place, the feeling of being in that round house, the vibrations that coursed through our bodies as we stood in the death chamber. How do you write those feelings? I suppose I "know" them now. But I can't find the words. "Jumping out of my skin" is way overused. So I need some suggestions. Got any? To use another cliche, I'm all ears.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Update on a fascinating Chicago case
By Laura Caldwell
I wanted to provide a personal update on a Chicago situation reported on this year by our own Sara Paretsky. Briefly the story is this—Alton Logan (now one of my clients at Loyola’s Life After Innocence Project) was convicted of being an accessory to the killing a security guard on the south side of Chicago, and he did twenty-six years in jail before he was freed. We hear often of DNA evidence which exonerates someone. This was not the case with Alton. Instead, lawyers for a man named Andrew Wilson knew that their client (who they were representing on an unrelated cop-killing case) was the real perpetrator of the crime. Andrew Wilson had confessed to them almost immediately. What were they to do?
The attorney-client privilege in our country, for some very good reasons, provides that an attorney may not disclose anything a client has told him, unless under extreme circumstances, such as if the client discloses an intent to kill someone in the near future. In this case, their client had told them that he had helped killed someone in the past. In looking into it, they realized that another man was in jail for that crime. The attorneys couldn’t convince their client to come forward, so they had him sign an affidavit stating that upon his death they could disclose his confession. So many years later, when Wilson died, that’s exactly what happened, and Alton Logan was exonerated.
When I first saw Alton speak at Loyola University Chicago School of Law, I was struck, as I have been by so many other exonerees, at his lack of bitterness. He was speaking on a panel and sitting immediately next to the attorney who, because of the attorney-client privilege, felt he was forced to wait all those years to disclose his client’s confession, and yet Alton did not seem to harbor any resentment toward the man. Much debate has been had about the attorneys and what they should have done. Many experts I’ve asked have indicated that it is a trickier situation than most people think. By breaking the attorney-client privilege, the lawyers could, hypothetically, have lost their law licenses. But many of those experts think they should have hired outside counsel to find a way to disclose the confession within the ethics rules and the laws.
But coming back to Alton. As I mentioned, he is now a client of the Life After Innocence Project, of which I’m the director. At our project, we aid exonerees, after they’ve been found innocent to reclaim their lives—get their records expunged, help find state money, locate jobs and housing, obtain counseling if necessary and a lot more. In Alton’s case, we’re helping to get him some much-needed medical attention, ensuring that his conviction doesn’t keep showing up on his record, getting him some financial counseling, and working with the state to obtain the relatively small amount of funds he will eventually receive.
But when I think of his case, I keep returning to Alton himself. He is employed and is in a relationship. He is working hard to learn the ways of the world—Google, email, cell phones, automated everything—and he is succeeding. In large part that success is due to that lack of bitterness. We see this same thing in all our clients. They tell us that they choose, every day, sometimes many times a day, not to be bitter, not to be angry, because somewhere along their journey they realized that those emotions will hurt no one but themselves. I often wonder if I could do the same thing. Could you?
I wanted to provide a personal update on a Chicago situation reported on this year by our own Sara Paretsky. Briefly the story is this—Alton Logan (now one of my clients at Loyola’s Life After Innocence Project) was convicted of being an accessory to the killing a security guard on the south side of Chicago, and he did twenty-six years in jail before he was freed. We hear often of DNA evidence which exonerates someone. This was not the case with Alton. Instead, lawyers for a man named Andrew Wilson knew that their client (who they were representing on an unrelated cop-killing case) was the real perpetrator of the crime. Andrew Wilson had confessed to them almost immediately. What were they to do?
The attorney-client privilege in our country, for some very good reasons, provides that an attorney may not disclose anything a client has told him, unless under extreme circumstances, such as if the client discloses an intent to kill someone in the near future. In this case, their client had told them that he had helped killed someone in the past. In looking into it, they realized that another man was in jail for that crime. The attorneys couldn’t convince their client to come forward, so they had him sign an affidavit stating that upon his death they could disclose his confession. So many years later, when Wilson died, that’s exactly what happened, and Alton Logan was exonerated.
When I first saw Alton speak at Loyola University Chicago School of Law, I was struck, as I have been by so many other exonerees, at his lack of bitterness. He was speaking on a panel and sitting immediately next to the attorney who, because of the attorney-client privilege, felt he was forced to wait all those years to disclose his client’s confession, and yet Alton did not seem to harbor any resentment toward the man. Much debate has been had about the attorneys and what they should have done. Many experts I’ve asked have indicated that it is a trickier situation than most people think. By breaking the attorney-client privilege, the lawyers could, hypothetically, have lost their law licenses. But many of those experts think they should have hired outside counsel to find a way to disclose the confession within the ethics rules and the laws.
But coming back to Alton. As I mentioned, he is now a client of the Life After Innocence Project, of which I’m the director. At our project, we aid exonerees, after they’ve been found innocent to reclaim their lives—get their records expunged, help find state money, locate jobs and housing, obtain counseling if necessary and a lot more. In Alton’s case, we’re helping to get him some much-needed medical attention, ensuring that his conviction doesn’t keep showing up on his record, getting him some financial counseling, and working with the state to obtain the relatively small amount of funds he will eventually receive.
But when I think of his case, I keep returning to Alton himself. He is employed and is in a relationship. He is working hard to learn the ways of the world—Google, email, cell phones, automated everything—and he is succeeding. In large part that success is due to that lack of bitterness. We see this same thing in all our clients. They tell us that they choose, every day, sometimes many times a day, not to be bitter, not to be angry, because somewhere along their journey they realized that those emotions will hurt no one but themselves. I often wonder if I could do the same thing. Could you?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
