A Knock at Midnight(59)
“I need to be up front with you,” I said, leaning forward over the table. “Clemency is a long shot. Maybe a really long shot. But we can never make the shot we don’t take.”
We talked about ways to make his clemency petition stand out. Following Sam’s advice, I wanted to reach out to prosecutor Jennifer Bolen to see if she would write a letter supporting clemency. Donel winced at the mention of her name. “That’s a bold move,” he said. “That woman was relentless.”
“I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get you free. I’m going to let her know about all the classes you’ve taken in here. And your disciplinary record is spotless.” Donel had gone two decades without a single disciplinary infraction, an almost unheard-of feat in prison, where guards handed out infractions for any perceived act of insubordination, large or small.
“I just try to stay busy. Keep my head down and concentrate on my faith,” he said. “Is she still at the U.S. Attorney’s Office?”
“You won’t believe this. She’s not a prosecutor anymore. She works as a consultant for opioid pharmaceutical companies.”
“So she’s a drug dealer now.” Donel leaned back in his folding chair and put his arms behind his head, eyebrows raised, before letting loose a deep, low chuckle.
As our visit came to a close, Donel and I discussed more casual topics—my corporate law career, the work he was doing editing a book for his cellmate, our families. He was still devotedly married to Ceyita. His sons were now adults with children of their own, but they still made the twenty-five-minute drive from Dallas to visit their dad as often as possible.
As I left the prison, I thought about how familiar Donel had seemed, how easily he could have been my dad or one of my uncles. His humble intelligence, his gentle manner and confidence—these were the antithesis of the endless negative images and messages about so-called drug dealers, about all Black men, really, that we’re forced to consume daily. Donel refused to be defeated by his suffering. The same was true for all of my clients. Each of them might be trapped in the same heinous system, but every life was unique, valuable, singular. Every person had their own distinctive heartbeat.
* * *
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MY OWN LIFE at this point couldn’t have been more removed from the repressive and inhuman conditions under which my clients bore out their days. Winstead had recently relocated from downtown to their own building with stunning new offices: rich, dark wood floors, white leather Bauhaus chairs, conversation nooks accented with stunning art, and a sleek conference room with floor-to-ceiling views of the Dallas skyline.
By day I wore a power suit and heels, dined with partners, got high on the thrill of the deal. But at night I hunched over my laptop on my couch, surrounded by cardboard boxes stacked full with legal documents, and worked to put together clemency petitions for Sharanda and Donel.
First, I had to humanize their story, to be sure that decision makers would not be able to ignore the living, breathing person whose life was at stake behind the legal document before them. I had to construct briefs that pointed out all of the ways Donel and Sharanda would have been eligible for sentence reductions had changes in the law been made retroactive. I wrote lengthy reports on their rehabilitation efforts in prison and on the unlikelihood of recidivism. This meant ensuring they had jobs lined up upon their release, as well as letters of support from the community at large.
Sharanda used to joke that we were both “doing our time”—me at Winstead, and her in prison. In truth, the fast-paced and lucrative lifestyle of corporate law could make it very difficult to conceive of doing anything else. And there I was finding success. In 2013, one of my colleagues, Robert Ivey, a senior associate, nominated me for the prestigious Texas Outstanding Young Lawyer Award. Partners at the firm and even my clients themselves wrote letters on my behalf, praising my work ethic, my abilities, and my efforts in my clients’ cases, my efforts to make a way out of no way. I felt humbled to receive so much praise. And yet I felt ashamed, too. Sharanda was still in prison. So were the rest of my clients. How good a lawyer could I be?
In the end it was my mom who helped me see the bigger picture. “These awards aren’t even about you, Britt,” she told me in her matter-of-fact way. “This is way bigger than you. Winning just gives you a bigger platform to share your clients’ stories, to tell the truth about what’s going on in the criminal justice system. And to shine the light on GEM, so you can get the resources those women and girls need. You need to take yourself out of it.”
I knew Mama was right. Her words gave me the encouragement to push myself even further outside my comfort zone in an effort to garner support for Sharanda’s and Donel’s clemency petitions.
Through my almost daily contact with my clients’ family members, I soon realized that they were desperate to help their loved ones in prison—they just didn’t know how to. So part of my plan became figuring out ways to help activate them. Clenesha took charge of gathering letters of support for Sharanda, and Donel’s sister Barbara led the efforts on his side. Soon we were flooded with loving, supportive, and deeply personal letters from friends, cousins, in-laws, uncles, aunts, sisters, brothers, former employers, sons, daughters, friends of sons and daughters—all of them pleading to President Obama to have mercy and grant clemency to Sharanda and Donel.