The rest of the story

I guess I am a little melancholy. My prison visit yesterday was actually one of the most enjoyable ones ever. It did not start out that way though.

I was to arrive at 10 am. I got caught behind an accident on the highway and did not arrive until 10:10, so they told me I was late and could not see her. Huh. That was not what I was expecting. I was expecting to have trouble with a different thing altogether. My client was in segregation -and thus, was sure we would only be able to have a no-contact visit. I do not believe in no-contact attorney-client visits, because it destroys attorney- client privilege. Plus it is just stupid. I needed to establish a rapport with her and that is dang near impossible to do via TV monitor. I had not driven 250 miles to do that.

I was all ready to have that fight. But I did not get it for some reason. Instead I got grief over being 10 minutes late. I did not have a stinking appointment at a certain time, and there was only one other couple there to visit, so this did not need to be a big deal. We managed to get past that and moved on to the next problem. The CO –who we will call Grumpy- had to log me into the computer and cross-check all these lists, etc, to let me in. She had my license and my bar card to work from, but evidently this is a much larger task than you would think. Even having my confirmation letter from the warden approving my visit was not helping. Finally she hit the jackpot and found me–under NINE different names. NINE. I was not aware I had nine aliases. Oddly enough, not a single one of them is my actual name under which I have entered every prison I have ever entered—somehow, there were NINE others. Some were even hyphenated–and I have never hyphenated my name in my life. It was very peculiar.

We got that settled and they decided that I could not take my notebook and pen into the visit. WTF? What kind of lawyer would I be if I did not write down everything that went on? That was the stupidest thing I ever heard. Officer Sticking his Nose where It Does not Belong said that my authorization from the warden’s office did not say I could take anything in, so I could not. I spent ten minutes explaining why that was stupid and convincing him to call the warden–who agreed it was stupid and said I could. That is what I thought.

Next big hurdle–the lockers. You are not allowed to take most things in, such as your car keys etc. Some facilities have lockers to put stuff in, some expect you to leave them in the car, some lockers require quarters and in some places you cannot bring money in to put in the lockers. Of course, this place had lockers that take quarters, and I did not bring any anyway. Ol Grumpy said I could put my keys in a locker and not lock it, if I was willing to take the risk. I was, so I did.

Then came what turned out to be Grumpy’s favorite part–the frisk of me. She was far more thorough than any frisk I have ever had–and I have had a few, thank you very much. That is all I have to say about that.

While I was waiting to be let into the visiting area, an older couple came in to see their daughter, or I assume it was their daughter. The man was well-dressed, the wife was in a sweat suit. Grumpy asked who they were visiting, and mom reeled off her inmate number. For some reason, that hit me hard. Why any parent should know their child’s inmate number like it was her birthday almost made me cry. That is no frame of mind to be in when I am headed in to be a bad ass attorney.

But that is what happened. Off I went to sit in the class cube to wait on my client. This gave me time to watch the other people visiting there. There were three different older men, waiting on their inmates to arrive. They all looked like successful confident people, all well-dressed, but seemed comfortable being there–it was not their first visits, I do not think. There was one woman that looked like a nun, as she sat with an inmate and read their bibles. There was a good mixture of white people, black people, Asians and hispanics—that is not something I have ever noticed before. The general population is about 60% African-American in all prisons, but I do not know if that number holds true in women’s prisons.

Finally, my client arrived. She has been there for almost a year and I was her first visitor. How bout that for sad? She is only 22 or 23, and she is going to be in this prison until she is 67, unless something intervenes. You would think that she would be miserable, but she is not. She would rather not be in prison, but she is happy–she has friends, and a “wife” and is not so different from me. She wasted all the money she started with in her commissary account on shoes and clothes, just like I did when I was a kid. She wants a TV so she does not have to watch A & E on her neighbor’s TV–I love A & E. We have even read some of the same books and other experiences

I had asked her to bring notes she made from her trial transcripts, but she did not. Great, I thought, she won’t have anything to contribute and then will feel like she was not a part of it. Man was I wrong. She was so on top of things and immediately pointed out most of the things that I wanted to talk to her about. That was a nice surprise.

We talked for almost four hours–90% about her case, then about what really happened, and about regular things like what she would do with her life if she could, where she think it all went wrong, which part she would change...I do not think that I have ever had a conversation like that with a client. Frankly, I do not normally want to hear all that. I do not need to know extra info, as I cannot use it in the case anyway and it quite often just confuses the issues for the client. This time, we just somehow ended up in this conversation where I learned some fascinating things. I wish I could tell it all, but obviously I cannot, so it is hard to explain how interesting it was to me.


While I enjoyed myself, I am sad about how one more kid is lost. If something does not change, this kid is going to be in prison for the rest of her life, never have a family, never make anything of herself–because she was a dumb girl who thought she was in love. She knows now, but what good does that do? Her mistakes started long before this one, but the were basic kid stuff that a lot of us did. For her, it was a vicious cycle where one mistake led to another, and little things like whether to stay broken up with a boyfriend let to one more disaster, when for me and you, all that meant was a nite crying and eating ice cream. How did we end up so different? I know I have done some dumb things that seemed to make sense at the time–but it sure never led to this kind of mess.

And while I am glad it is not me, I am still sad that it happens to anyone.