Visits

For all prisoners at Central Prison, death row and general population, visitation is non-contact. We squint through cloudy, scratched-up reinforced safety glass and jostle our heads side to side like boxers in an attempt to frame our visitors faces between two of the seven vertical steel bars. The bar and glass barrier put in place to no doubt protect somebody from something and prevent some terrible contraband from entering the prison. A contraband that even the guards refrain from smuggling… whatever that could possibly be.

Thankfully, those barriers can’t filter out the hope I experience during a visit, nor prevent me from sharing in the joy of a friend’s good news. Occasionally the small grandchild of a fellow prisoner escapes from their side of the visitation booth to stop and wave at my visitors. But just as those heartwarming moments seep through, so also do the ones that break hearts.

For years, I received and looked forward to nearly weekly visits with my mother, so when she didn’t show up for several weeks in 2010, I grew worried. Further fueling my concern was the fact I hadn’t been receiving her half of our weekly exchange of letters. With no telephone access, I wrote her daily, panicked letters and begged the chaplain to try her number. Clearly not understanding my anguish, he told me day after day “Be patient, you’ll probably hear from her in a few days”

He spoke like she was someone he had known his entire life and whom I’d only just met.

After several excruciatingly long days, the scratchy PA system informed me to report to the chaplain’s office. My heart dropped. Being summoned to see the chaplain is almost always bad news and often it means a death in the family. A dreadful walk led me to his door, where he told me my sister had called — cancer was the culprit that kept mom from our visits.

He droned on quoting prison policy, saying how, since I had an immediate family member in the hospital, I was eligible to make a phone call. I swallowed a lump of frustration and chased it with anger while I waited for him to dial the room number and pass me the phone.

In a weak whisper, mom filled me in on the surgery. The surgeon removed a section of her colon and found some lymph nodes at the site. She needs weeks to recover and then would begin chemo. It was hell hearing her pain, while relieving to finally know the truth. I assured her I would continue writing and she promised to respond when she felt up to it and visit when she could.

Months later, I anxiously sat on a steel stool, squinted through foggy glass and waited to catch a first glimpse of her. Thankfully, I’d been assigned one of the coveted visitation booths that allowed a full view of the lobby and both elevators.

Elevators whose doors would open emitting a gush of family and friends at the start of visits and whose gaping maws they reluctantly filed into at the conclusion. I wanted to see her first and have time for my initial reaction to wear off before she saw me.

She emerged from the elevator and made her way to the check-in desk to collect a visitors badge. I noticed the loose fabric of a stocking cap limply hanging from her head. As she stepped into the visit booth, I quickly pulled a smile over my sadness. In an effort to comfort her child by appearing unfazed by her ordeal, she met my smile with her own. But cancer being a formidable opponent, she couldn’t hide the look of a battle-weary soldier who knew there’d be more to come.

Unnecessarily, she told me she had lost a few pounds — along with cancer cells, chemo destroys appetites. She caught me eyeing her Isotoner gloves and explained that her hands stayed cold, hurt even, especially when she grabbed something from the fridge or freezer. Finally, she removed the stocking cap and joked that, in an effort to mimic my shiny head, she had my sister take clippers to hers. Instead of submitting to chemo snatching her hair out in clumps, it was easier to mourn its loss all at once.

We wrestled back and forth. I tried getting answers to every question I could think of while she worked to flip the conversation to how I’d been doing, what was the latest news from the lawyer and had I been getting some fresh air.

A recognized tactic, she’d done it for as long as I could remember: conceal or at least mitigate her own suffering in favor of those she loved. As we talked, I snuck glances at my watch. Visits are for two hours, no matter if they’re friends you’ve recently seen, or family you haven’t seen in years.

I took in all I could and heaped on her all the “I love you Mom’s” her frail frame could carry. There was a strong doubt as to whether I would ever see her again. A guard’s impatient knock interrupted our goodbyes and signaled the end of our visit. I wonder why my mother’s obvious condition didn’t elicit some mercy and a few extra minutes, but he stood by the open door, proud in his uniform with some hurry up, let’s go, body language.

Forced to leave, she looked back to wave and smile every few feet on her way to the elevator. I waved back, craning my neck to catch a last glimpse of her as the doors slid closed.

*****

Attorney visits take place in the same non-contact booths as family visits, though on different days. Some weeks, only one or two people have a visit, but then there are times when a group moves en masse toward a scheduled meeting with their attorneys. The long walk through the tunnel to visitation affords a few minutes to polish a legal argument or formulate questions we wish to present to our lawyers. Sometimes those minutes are used to steel ourselves for the yeah or nay of an anticipated ruling from the court. A study of faces on the return trip makes it clear whether or not guys received the news they hoped for.

Once my Motion for Appropriate Relief (MAR) was denied in the trial court, the strongest issue I had remaining to carry into federal court was a jury misconduct claim. The type of relief a court can grant is determined by where the issue took place during the trial, the guilt/innocence, or the sentencing phase. The juror misconduct in my trial happened during the sentencing phase, so the best “relief” I could hope for was to have my sentence overturned and be resentenced to life without parole (LWOP). Since a North Carolina district court denied my motion, my appeal was pending in the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia.

In June 2014 my name was announced for an attorney visit. I thought it had to be news from the 4th Circuit, for nearly a year I’d been waiting on a ruling from them. That’s all I had left. After a nervous walk, I entered the visit booth to find my attorney, Rob, flipping yellow pages in a legal pad on the free side of the glass. I noticed long ago that lawyers always brought a pad of paper and diligently took notes throughout our conversations. Even when the visit was social, they would periodically drop their heads and scribble. Self-consciously, I began to sensor myself, worried what I said would play a part in someone’s future memoir. I had also taken to bringing my own pen and paper to every attorney visit and making a show of jotting down a note here and there. I hoped to make them as uncomfortable and guarded as they made me.

I wrote the date and Rob’s name at the top of my paper as he stood and began stepping back and forth in the small visit space. That was his habit, fidgeting and gesturing wildly as he talked, so much so that I would chuckle, thinking that a tight set of handcuffs would render him mute.

  Finally, he spoke. “Have you heard of Martinez counsel?”

  “Yep”. He had my attention.

Martinez counsel originated from an Arizona prisoners appeal requesting the federal court to appoint an attorney to review the work of his post-conviction counsel. Work which he believed was ineffective. Though the Martinez ruling was already two years old, it was difficult to access the law on Death Row, so I had only read it weeks prior to the visit. Due to the conflict of interest, I figure there was no way Rob would ever file that motion for me. Up until that point, he never struck me as someone who would be willing to have his work product scrutinized and possibly criticized, much less ask the court to appoint someone to do just that. Nevertheless, I’d been thinking that, since Rob was my only lawyer, it would be good to have a fresh set of eyes reviewing my case. My life could very well depend on it.

Perhaps something had been missed, that if brought to light, could warrant a new trial, instead of only the resentencing hearing that Rob was so passionately pursuing. Even a chance at being sentenced to football numbers (numbers on a jersey) was more appealing than being resentenced to death, or at best, LWOP.

I told him I’d recently read the case and had wanted to discuss it with him. He explained that he would file the motion requesting Martinez counsel for me, but it was my decision to make. I hurriedly made the decision with an emphatic “Yes, file it!”. After some more fidgeting and swinging of arms, he announced that he was leaving and would begin drafting the motion that afternoon.

With a better kind of hope, I made my way up the tunnel toward Death Row. A letter to mom was first priority. I hoped positive news about my situation would allow her a more narrowed focus on the battle she was fighting.

Two weeks later, Rob returned with what he called ” great news”. The 4th Circuit ruled in my favor, remanding my case back to the district court for an evidentiary hearing on the juror misconduct claim, the claim that could possibly “win” me a life sentence.

“That was good news before our last visit, but what about the Martinez motion you filed?” I asked.

  Straight faced, he answered, “I decide not to file it”.

I was stunned! The state of North Carolina deemed me competent to stand trial and assist in my own defense but never provided me any instruction or access to law books. Instead, I was appointed an attorney to represent my best interests and there he was, telling me it was in my best interest to die in prison as opposed to having someone review his work. A review that may have led to a new trial.

Suddenly, the reinforced glass and steel bars made sense. They were there to remind me of my lowly position; that the outcome of my life lies greatly in the hands of others.

In late 2015, another attorney was appointed to assist Rob in my upcoming evidentiary hearing. When I explained to her what happened, she filed the Martinez motion for me. Months later, the responding judge ruled that I waited too long to file.