Read Online Unintended Consequences by Marti Green - Free Book Online
Authors: Marti Green
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match the details of the crime, so they fed her a story. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time that happened.”
They sipped their drinks silently for a moment. Before flying to Indianapolis, Dani had held on to a slim hope that they’d know after interviewing Sallie whether her version of the events was real or a delusion. Instead, the truth seemed even more distant.
The clouds had drifted away and Dani rummaged through her pocketbook for her sunglasses. They headed north on Interstate 65 to Michigan City, less than three hours away. Melanie drove while Tommy continued to track down leads with his cell phone and Dani studied the file. They hadn’t advanced any further in their understanding of the case since finishing dinner last night. Today they’d meet first with Warden Coates and then with their client. They traveled in silence, all of them aware of the limited time and the stakes at hand.
As they drove, the realization struck Dani that never before had she met with a death-row inmate in a case where the decision for HIPP to represent him resided with her. She must decide whether she believed in his innocence. She must decide whether he got one more chance to try to escape the sentence he’d lived with for seventeen years. The heaviness of this responsibility weighed on her, and she wondered if she’d made the right choice in her career path. As an associate editor of the Harvard Law Review , graduating with honors, she could have gone anywhere. She’d been handed offers on silver platters, from obscenely well-paying positions with white-glove Wall Street firms to federal judicial clerkships with some of the brightest legal minds on the bench. She’d chosen the US Attorney’s Office. Assistant US attorney for the Southern District of New York. That’s where she met Doug. Those were heady days while they lasted, but then Jonah came along. They could have turned him over to day care and kept going in the fast lane, but really, they couldn’t. Not after his diagnosis. Jonah deserved his chance in life, whatever that might be, and they both wanted to make sure he got it. Dani dropped out of law for about seven years, and Doug accepted an associate-professor position at Columbia Law School. And four years ago she’d signed on with HIPP. Now that Doug taught criminal law, specializing in death-penalty law, she guessed you could say she practiced and he preached. A bad lecture didn’t condemn a prisoner to a lethal injection, but she didn’t have it so easy. If she couldn’t sort through the facts and figure out what really happened, her client would die. And that scared her.
The state’s case relied on two witnesses. If Sallie’s confession could be discredited, there was still the gas station owner’s identification of George and his car. Although eyewitness testimony often made jurors comfortable with returning a guilty verdict, it was notoriously unreliable. Dani leafed through the trial transcript again, looking for errors to form the basis for appeal. She knew she’d find them. Ineffective assistance of counsel would top the list. Bob Wilson could have been asleep at trial and he’d have done a better job. And because he represented George on his appeals, he certainly hadn’t raised his own inadequacy as a reason to overturn the jury verdict. Until four or five years ago, they wouldn’t have been able to attack the verdict and sentence on grounds of ineffective counsel. Unless raised in the first appeal, that defense was gone. Thankfully, the Supreme Court had recognized that when the trial lawyer handled the direct appeal, he wouldn’t claim he’d been ineffective.
Dani turned toward the backseat and saw Tommy, lost in his laptop. “Hey, can you add to your to-do list a checkup of George’s lawyer? Let’s see if there’s any dirt on him.” Tommy nodded without looking up from his screen.
They spent the rest of the trip in silence.
“Thank you for meeting with us, Warden Coates.”
They sipped their drinks silently for a moment. Before flying to Indianapolis, Dani had held on to a slim hope that they’d know after interviewing Sallie whether her version of the events was real or a delusion. Instead, the truth seemed even more distant.
The clouds had drifted away and Dani rummaged through her pocketbook for her sunglasses. They headed north on Interstate 65 to Michigan City, less than three hours away. Melanie drove while Tommy continued to track down leads with his cell phone and Dani studied the file. They hadn’t advanced any further in their understanding of the case since finishing dinner last night. Today they’d meet first with Warden Coates and then with their client. They traveled in silence, all of them aware of the limited time and the stakes at hand.
As they drove, the realization struck Dani that never before had she met with a death-row inmate in a case where the decision for HIPP to represent him resided with her. She must decide whether she believed in his innocence. She must decide whether he got one more chance to try to escape the sentence he’d lived with for seventeen years. The heaviness of this responsibility weighed on her, and she wondered if she’d made the right choice in her career path. As an associate editor of the Harvard Law Review , graduating with honors, she could have gone anywhere. She’d been handed offers on silver platters, from obscenely well-paying positions with white-glove Wall Street firms to federal judicial clerkships with some of the brightest legal minds on the bench. She’d chosen the US Attorney’s Office. Assistant US attorney for the Southern District of New York. That’s where she met Doug. Those were heady days while they lasted, but then Jonah came along. They could have turned him over to day care and kept going in the fast lane, but really, they couldn’t. Not after his diagnosis. Jonah deserved his chance in life, whatever that might be, and they both wanted to make sure he got it. Dani dropped out of law for about seven years, and Doug accepted an associate-professor position at Columbia Law School. And four years ago she’d signed on with HIPP. Now that Doug taught criminal law, specializing in death-penalty law, she guessed you could say she practiced and he preached. A bad lecture didn’t condemn a prisoner to a lethal injection, but she didn’t have it so easy. If she couldn’t sort through the facts and figure out what really happened, her client would die. And that scared her.
The state’s case relied on two witnesses. If Sallie’s confession could be discredited, there was still the gas station owner’s identification of George and his car. Although eyewitness testimony often made jurors comfortable with returning a guilty verdict, it was notoriously unreliable. Dani leafed through the trial transcript again, looking for errors to form the basis for appeal. She knew she’d find them. Ineffective assistance of counsel would top the list. Bob Wilson could have been asleep at trial and he’d have done a better job. And because he represented George on his appeals, he certainly hadn’t raised his own inadequacy as a reason to overturn the jury verdict. Until four or five years ago, they wouldn’t have been able to attack the verdict and sentence on grounds of ineffective counsel. Unless raised in the first appeal, that defense was gone. Thankfully, the Supreme Court had recognized that when the trial lawyer handled the direct appeal, he wouldn’t claim he’d been ineffective.
Dani turned toward the backseat and saw Tommy, lost in his laptop. “Hey, can you add to your to-do list a checkup of George’s lawyer? Let’s see if there’s any dirt on him.” Tommy nodded without looking up from his screen.
They spent the rest of the trip in silence.
“Thank you for meeting with us, Warden Coates.”
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