False Convictions Read online

  “You should see him run with that thing.”

  The door swung open, but instead of a prisoner, a bald man in glasses with an ill-fitting black suit came through and extended his hand to Casey.

  “Ms. Jordan?” the man said. “Collin Mallard. I’m the assistant warden and I heard you were in. Actually, there are a couple of us who are big fans, but we run a tight ship, so you won’t see anyone except me glad-handing you. I just loved your movie. My wife’s a fan, too. Being in somewhat the same field-putting the bad guys away and keeping them away-I feel like I almost know you.”

  Casey’s cheeks felt warm as she gently pulled her hand away from Mallard’s never-ending handshake. Graham’s grin wasn’t lost on her.

  “Thank you. It’s been a long time since I worked as a prosecutor, though. Uh, this is Mr. Graham. He’s on the board of the Freedom Project.”

  “Oh,” Mallard said, barely noticing the scruffy guy in flannel and jeans. “Hi.”

  Graham nodded.

  Mallard took a card from his suit coat pocket and put it into Casey’s hand before covering it with his other. “Anything I can do, Ms. Jordan. We’ve got a fine staff cafeteria here if you get hungry. Do you like chicken-fried steak? You just let me know. And don’t worry about working against the law on this one. I know deep down you’re all about justice. Would you mind signing this? My wife and I heard they made a DVD of the movie and we found it on eBay.”

  Casey took the marker he offered and signed the DVD case right over Susan Lucci’s determined face pointing at the jury box. Mallard thanked her several times, then disappeared.

  “See?” Graham said. “You’re helping already. The power of celebrity.”

  “Shut up, Graham,” she said.

  The next time the door opened, a guard appeared with his prisoner. Dwayne Hubbard clanked across the floor in manacles that bound both hands and feet and were connected by a drooping chain. Dwayne’s round, gold-rimmed glasses, neatly cut short hair, and wiry frame gave the impression of an accountant or school-teacher. And yes, a lot like that kid on Family Matters. She half-expected him to speak in that high, nerdy tone.

  “Flight risk?” Casey asked the stern-faced guard, incredulous.

  “Whatever the file says,” the guard answered with a shrug before stepping back through the door. “I’ll be right outside.”

  Casey and Graham stood. Hubbard looked at them placidly.

  “I’m Casey Jordan,” Casey said, extending her hand.

  Hubbard stared at it, then sighed and sat down across from them with his legs splayed as wide as the chains would allow. He studied the dirty window and rolled his tongue around the inside of his mouth.

  Graham said, “Dwayne, we’re with the Freedom Project. I’ve been talking with your mother.”

  “This is a waste of time,” Hubbard said, his eyes burning into them from behind the professorial lenses. He wore a green jumpsuit so faded that patches of thread shone white at the knees. Several scars, smooth and shiny as melted plastic, marred his arms, neck, and face like chocolate eruptions in his honey brown skin.

  “Can you tell us what really happened?” Casey asked after an uncomfortable silence.

  Hubbard’s eyes nearly disappeared in a world of bitter wrinkles. “You know what happened. A white woman is murdered and a black man needs to take the fall. Real interesting, isn’t it?”

  “I know,” Casey said. “I fight what you’re talking about every day, but I’m talking about that night. I read the transcripts, but I want to hear your side, from your mouth, then I’ll try to prove it.”

  “What’s this all about?” Hubbard said, smiling derisively. “I mean, really? It’s been twenty years. Let it go. I know I have. This won’t get you on television. This story doesn’t turn out so good.”

  Casey looked at Graham, who shrugged.

  “Mr. Hubbard, you’re bitter and I don’t blame you, but I’m trying to help you,” Casey said. “I need to create a story that I can combine with the DNA evidence that allows a judge to turn over your conviction. That’s my job. I don’t need to sit here with you to do it and I will do it. So if you’re not going to help, just tell me now and I can save us both some time. A lot has changed in twenty years.”

  “I doubt it,” Hubbard said, rolling his eyes to the ceiling as if pondering the meaning of life. “You come in here talking about the truth and you want me to thank you? No. You don’t get that, not you or any of you. You say you’ll get me out? You’re bringing me justice? All this time, now I’m getting out? My life is gone, you understand? It’s over.”

  “It’s not gone,” Graham said.

  “Who would you be?”

  “Robert Graham; I’m on the board of the Project. You could have a lot of years outside this place. A lot of good years.”

  “I just can’t wait to get out and start a life of cleaning toilets or stocking grocery shelves. At least in here, I’m safe.”

  “From whom?” Casey asked.

  Hubbard stared without blinking for a long time and Graham held his gaze. Finally, Hubbard sighed and dropped his stare.

  “Katania was my girl. She got into some things, nothing bad. Dealing weed. They sent her up here to the girls’ home. I went to see her because she wanted me to,” Hubbard said, his eyes now on the table. “She sent me the money for the bus ticket. Simple. I took the bus up here and went out there to see her. We almost got caught and I had to break a window with my hand to get away.”

  “Then what?” Casey asked.

  Hubbard sat for a moment, scowling before he said, “Then, nothing. I walked back to town with my hand bleeding and some hillbillies jumped me outside of their hayseed bar. I cut one of them, but they got me good, four on one, then I tossed the knife, and before I knew it I’m down on the floor in the bus station with some cop calling me a murderer and a rapist. The rest is the joke you all know about better than me, all that bullshit about a murdered prom queen, and I was the closest black man they could find. That’s it.”

  “You knew the girl, though?”

  “The dead girl?” Hubbard asked, raising an eyebrow. “I knew who she was. Everyone did. The queen bee of the East Siders. Country club kids. Not that her family belonged-the dad flipped burgers at Mickey D’s. You wanted to wipe that smile off her face and watch her freckles turn purple? All you had to do was sing the Big Mac song: ‘Two all-beef patties special sauce lettuce cheese pickles onions on a sesame seed bun.’ Rich boys didn’t care about that, though. She was VIP. Tall and blonde and built for speed. Dude had to have a fat roll of cash and a sweet ride before he even thought about running with her.”

  “Did you think about it?” Casey asked.

  “What?”

  “Running with her?”

  Dwayne snorted softly and nodded at his own arm. “But I couldn’t have her and like every black man I wanted the white woman so bad I took what I couldn’t get and went Freddy Krueger on her. Is that where you’re at? You asked if I knew her. Lady, I’m good being black. Katania, my girl? She was black, so don’t give me that Mandingo shit.”

  “Did you know where she lived?” Casey asked.

  “After all the diagrams and maps at my trial, I did,” Hubbard said.

  “You said yourself that you went right past the place.”

  “It’s on the way to the bus station,” Hubbard said. “So, yeah, I went right past it. And I’m doing life for it.”

  “Anyone ever ask you if you saw anyone else?” Casey asked. “Or anything else?”

  Hubbard puckered and twisted his lips, scowling. “Like they wanted to know the truth? Girl was like a bitch in heat. Coulda been anyone.”

  “Did you see anything that night?”

  “Long time ago, lady.”

  “You must remember something.”

  “A lot of rain,” he said.

  “It was raining?”

  “Hard,” he said. “Then it let up. I know because I was wet to the bone.”

  “Nothing else?”
Casey said. “No people? No cars?”

  Hubbard gently sucked on his lower lip, staring at the tabletop before he said, “A BMW.”

  “A car?” Casey asked.

  Hubbard nodded slowly.

  “Color?”

  “White,” he said. “In fact, it almost hit me.”

  “That’s something. Maybe.”

  “She’s for real?” Hubbard said, wrinkling his brow at Graham.

  “She is.”

  6

  HE’D DO WELL on the stand,” Casey said. “The hatred, though, that’s tough to hide. But we could work on that.”

  The rain had ended and the clouds began to show patches of blue sky beyond the glistening concrete walls. As they approached the corner of the block, Casey studied the guard tower, a glass and metal turret where the shadows of men with rifles stood watching whatever went on inside the walls. Behind them on the street, Ralph crept along in the Lexus, its tires popping over stones and chips of concrete from the broken sidewalk.

  “It looked to me like that doesn’t matter to you,” Graham said.

  “It doesn’t,” she said. “Who wouldn’t be bitter?”

  “I’m glad he didn’t turn you off,” Graham said, opening the door to a storefront deli.

  “It’s like physics with me,” Casey said.

  “Meaning?”

  “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction,” she said. “When something pushes me away, I tend to push back.”

  Graham smiled, offering her a chair at the corner table next to the window. “I had you figured that way.”

  “I’ll tell you what Ralph can do,” Casey said, nodding at the car. “Have him go back twenty years and find out how many people owned white BMWs in this town and who they were. I can’t imagine there were a lot,” Casey said, looking around at the squalid buildings and decrepit narrow homes beside the prison. “How about having him track down this Katania, the girlfriend. That might help us, too.”

  Graham nodded and walked out to the car before giving Casey a thumbs-up and returning to their table. A waitress gave them menus along with a basket of chips and salsa, and they were soon joined by a lanky young man in a gray suit with skin as pale as skim milk and blotches that matched his raspberry tie. Graham introduced him as Marty Barrone, patting the young man on the shoulder.

  “Marty’s firm has done some tax work of sorts for me,” Graham said. “Sometimes you need to get another set of eyes on things from afar.”

  “I’ve seen you on Nancy Grace,” Barrone said. His red-rimmed eyes were weepy and only the hint of a mustache shaded his upper lip. His dark hair hung limp across a wide brow and he stuck a pinkie into his ear, working it around for a moment before dropping his hand to his side.

  “He won’t ask,” Graham said, grinning, “but before this is over you’ll have to give him an autograph.”

  Barrone’s pale blue eyes went to the floor, and his cheeks blazed as he shook Casey’s hand then took the seat across from her.

  “Our motion for a new trial and your pro hac vice admission with Judge Kollar is set for this afternoon,” Barrone said, beaming as if he’d performed a miracle. Casey would need to be admitted pro hac vice into the state of New York to try the case, if there was one. First they’d need to succeed in their motion for a new trial based on undiscovered DNA evidence.

  “You’re a lawyer?” Casey asked, trying not to sound too incredulous.

  Barrone nodded and dug into his ear again with that same pinkie. “And a CPA.”

  “How long have you been practicing?” Casey asked.

  Barrone’s face went from pink to red. “I graduated in May.”

  Casey crimped her lips and gave Graham a look.

  “Things around here usually move like molasses on ice,” Graham said, dipping a chip in some salsa and waving it at Barrone. “But Marty’s a fourth-generation lawyer in this town and his uncle ran Judge Kollar’s first campaign. It’s not a silver bullet, but he’ll be able to push things along for us. In a small town like this everyone likes to help each other, as long as you’re from here.”

  “Why not get the uncle, then?” Casey asked. “Who wrote the motions?”

  “I had some of the staff lawyers from the Project put all that together,” Graham said. “They can do these in their sleep, but Marty filed them.”

  “Okay,” Casey said slowly to Marty, “how much do you know about procedure?”

  “I got a B in Civil Procedure,” Marty said, raising his head up.

  “Okay. This is criminal, though.”

  Marty dropped his head.

  “We’ll work through it,” Casey said to him before turning her sights on Graham. “You’ve got everything all laid out: Local counsel with connections. An investigator who doubles as a bodyguard.”

  “It’s my curse,” Graham said, crunching a chip. “I’m thinking ten, twelve moves ahead. I can’t help it.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re one of those guys who uses a sports analogy for everything. I live in Dallas. Do you know how many judges think they’re Tom Landry?”

  “I think of you as a player, too.” Graham said.

  “So, what’s our next move?” Casey asked.

  Graham shrugged and smiled through a mouthful of food. “You tell me.”

  “After I get admitted by the court to be Hubbard’s lawyer,” Casey said, “how about the police chief?”

  “Set for three-thirty,” Marty said, beaming again.

  Casey regarded him, then asked, “How about the DA? We’ll need to let him know our theory of the killer driving a white BMW-and a racially motivated case-as a courtesy. Not his case, I presume?”

  “No,” Graham said. “He’s been around about twenty years, but he missed this one. Who was the DA back then, Marty? Any idea?”

  “I was pretty young,” Marty said.

  “Were you born then?” Casey asked, flashing Graham another look.

  “I think it was Judge Rivers,” Marty said. “She started out as the DA, I know.”

  “Rivers?” Graham said, raising his eyebrows, waiting for more.

  “She’s an appellate judge now for the Fourth District out of Rochester,” Marty said. “I think she still keeps her place on the lake, though.”

  “If she’s an appellate judge,” Graham said, “she should be long past getting excited about us overturning a conviction from twenty years ago, don’t you think, Casey?”

  “Why would it matter what she thinks?” Casey asked.

  Graham shrugged, glanced at Marty, and said, “Just the small-town angle is all. It’s better that we’re not stepping directly on the DA’s toes. I’m new to this, but I can’t imagine it would go over that well.”

  “But she’s not the DA anymore,” Casey said.

  Graham only shrugged.

  After lunch, Casey took Graham aside before he could escape to the airport in the Town Car that had arrived. She told Marty she’d be with him in a moment and watched him climb into the back of the waiting car.

  “You give me a kid?” she said. “I don’t get it.”

  “It’s the connections,” Graham said. “I told you.”

  “You said he’s a fourth-generation lawyer. What happened to the uncle or the grandfather?” Casey asked. “Someone who knows a courtroom and all the cronies. This kid hasn’t even passed the bar. You see the way he looks at me?”

  “He’s harmless.”

  “I know that. He’s also useless,” Casey said. “I thought this was serious work. Why does he keep digging in his ear?”

  “It is serious,” Graham said, slipping into the Town Car and grinning out at her. “And he’s got a wax buildup. Oh, also, I forgot to mention this, but I’ve set up a little interview for you at the hotel tonight with American Sunday. They’re doing a profile on me, and the producer was interested in my new venture with the Project. Seven o’clock. You don’t mind?”

  “I’m used to the media,” Casey said.

  “Thanks,” Graham said.
“Listen, you’ve got everything you need with Marty Barrone. I want this to be a success as much as you. Trust me.”

  “I trusted you enough to fly halfway across the country,” Casey said. “Now I’m starting to wonder.”

  “Smile,” Robert Graham said. “Freeing an innocent man is a hell of a rush.”

  7

  POLICE HEADQUARTERS WAS a two-story brick building built in the colonial style with a grand cupola whose peeling white paint was offset by a small golden dome. Police cars nearly filled the parking lot between the building and the Owasco River, which wound through the center of town ten feet below street level and was hemmed in by concrete banks.

  Chief Zarnazzi with his thinning gray hair and wire-rimmed glasses reminded Casey of a plucked chicken. He wore the tired look of someone used to the night shift but greeted them with a warm handshake and a hand surprisingly strong and smooth for a man his age. He asked them to sit down before taking up his position like a rigid schoolteacher behind his small oak desk.

  “So, the Freedom Project?” the chief said, scratching his chin. “Turning loose the bad guys.”

  “That’s an incorrect generalization,” Casey said. “The Project has been able to correct a lot of mistakes made by the courts. These people are innocent.”

  “A man’s not innocent after twenty years in jail,” the chief said with an expression Casey couldn’t read.

  “This will be my first case for the Project, Chief Zarnazzi,” Casey said, “but I know that it doesn’t pursue just any case, only where there’s a high likelihood that concrete DNA evidence can exculpate our clients.”

  “Skull plate, what?” the chief asked.

  “Exculpate,” Casey said, “prove they’re innocent.”

  “Right.”

  “I can get court orders for the evidence if you need that,” Casey said. “As you probably know, it’s a statutory right in New York State, but it’s my understanding that most police forces work pretty cooperatively with the Project, based on its reputation.”

  “Oh, of course,” the chief said. “You don’t need anything more than Marty here to vouch for you.”