A semi-true story

"The price of freedom of religion, or of speech, or of the press, is that we must put up with a good deal of rubbish."

Robert Jackson

First, I must give you a disclaimer. When and if I ever tell stories about my clients, rest assured I will never give any identifying info, I will not call them by name, and I will never, ever disclose something that is not already a part of public record. But some things are just so funny, I cannot keep them to myself.

I had this client, who shall henceforth be referred to as "Our Hero", who was convicted of murder. I think he even pled guilty, I don't remember since it has been a while. I will be the first person to tell you that there are lots of good reasons to plead guilty, and only one of them is that you are in fact guilty. That being said, sometimes incarcerated folk start believing the voices in their head. This fella is surely serving a long sentence, but since I don't remember the details of it all, I will hazard a guess that it is 60 years or so, since that is a popular sentence here for killing other citizens (especially white ones).

Since Our Hero has been locked up, he has obtained some high poweredr legal advice from the most unlikely of sources---other inmates. I understand this, they have a lot of time on their hands, and some are actually quite bright (not bright enough to recognize that I probably know better since I am out here and they are in there, but there you go) Our Hero has shared their wisdom with me via multiple letters which also detail what I need to do about his case, and the most significant thing is to have the conviction reduced to manslaughter. Manslaughter, in this state at least, is committed in one of two ways, but the hallmark is that the killing was UNINTENTIONAL.

The facts I recall about this case is that the unfortunately deceased was stabbed many times, tumped out a window, and dragged off into the woods where I believe he was dismembered for concealment. Or something to that effect. I have no idea if any of these things happened, but I believe this was the gist of the State's allegations and evidence.

Where the unintentional part of this episode comes into effect, I am not sure, but I am confident Our Hero has some good ideas on it.

There are several comical things about the requests--one is that I am not a miracle worker, nor am I powerful enough to call the prison and tell them I have decided the jury or judge was wrong and to let ol. boy out because it is in fact, just manslaughter and not murder after all. Hell, I cannot even get my employer to cut me a paycheck lately, I sure cannot be running DOC as well.

The capper though is that Our Hero is willing to pay me good money ($10,000) to get this done, which he can do as he is a skilled laborer with a good job. He does not have that job right now, because of his unfortunate incarceration, but as soon as I get him out on this manslaughter deal, he will start paying me, with the total to be paid off in one year. The very best part is that during the time he owes me money, he will cease smoking dope. The dedication is impressive, eh?

Now he has moved on to wondering why he was fined for this offense. I think that would be a great public service announcement for Saturday morning TV---crime is not free, and murder sure is not. You not only will go to prison eventually, but they will fine your happy butt. Why he is concerned about this, I cannot imagine, as he will surely be very old when or if he is released from prison and will not have to pay his fine until then.....maybe he has more faith in me about this manslaughter deal than I do?

Let this be the lesson of the day--not only does crime not pay (usually), it can cost a whole lot. Write that down, kids.