James Sheehan - The Law of Second Chances

The plan worked. Mary never did card Johnny, probably because she was too distracted by the makeup of the group and the reaction it was receiving from the other patrons. Even though the whole team didn’t show up, there were still three blacks and a Puerto Rican in an Irish bar. The regular patrons didn’t take kindly to that, and there were some grumblings down the bar soon after the boys arrived. Johnny watched as Frankie O’Connor took over. He walked up and down the bar telling everybody about how the Lexingtons, the neighborhood team, had just won their first game and how they were going to make the neighborhood proud by winning the city championship .

Pretty soon the whole bar was laughing and toasting the Lexingtons. The Carlow East had gone color-blind .

Hope was not something that flourished in the dim gray atmosphere of Florida’s death row. Hope could be as painful as execution itself. But that was exactly what Jack brought to Henry Wilson as they sat across from each other in the same room where they first met with the two guards in the corners behind Henry. Hope came in the form of a rough draft of a motion for a new trial and copies of the affidavits of Wofford Benton, Ted Griffin, and Anthony Webster. Henry pored over the documents, leaving Jack to sit, wait, and wonder if Henry was going to grab that last ray of hope that he was offering. Finally Henry spoke.

“This is very good work, Counselor. In no time, you have uncovered evidence that nobody else could find-in seventeen years. But there are problems, aren’t there?”

“Yes,” Jack replied. He felt that Henry was baiting him a little.

“Let’s talk about the problems,” Henry began. “You’re not going to win on ineffective assistance of counsel. Nor are you going to win on newly discovered evidence.”

Jack wasn’t totally shocked. He knew death-row inmates had a lot of time on their hands, and many of them read court cases. It was the analysis-the direct, incisive pinpointing of the problems-that was surprising. “You’re right,” he replied. “We’re not going to win on ineffective assistance of counsel because-”

Henry interrupted him. “Because the case law is against you. This kind of mistake by defense counsel isn’t going to do it.”

“That’s right. And it’s probably not newly discovered evidence because-”

“-because my attorney could have found all of this evidence seventeen years ago if he had done his job correctly.”

Jack reluctantly had to agree. “You’re right again. So what we have left is. .” Jack paused to see if Henry Wilson could answer the most important question.

“A Brady violation,” Henry said without hesitation. Jack looked at him in disbelief. In 1963, the Supreme Court of the United States had decided the case of Brady v. Maryland , which held that the state had a duty to disclose evidence favorable to the accused, and if the failure to disclose such evidence deprived the accused of a fair trial, then the accused was entitled to a new trial. It had taken Jack days of research to find the Brady decision and to realize it was Henry’s only realistic hope.

“What?” Henry finally asked Jack. “You’re speechless? What do you think I’ve been doing here for the last seventeen years, twiddling my thumbs? I knew the prosecutor held back stuff. I just needed somebody to find that evidence. I’ve read Brady so many times the ink on the pages is worn. I knew as the years rolled by that a Brady violation was going to be my only shot.”

“It’s still a long shot,” Jack warned. “A judge has to determine that you were deprived of a fair trial, and that’s a subjective evaluation.”

“Well, I guess we’ll just have to get the right judge,” he replied, and Jack knew that Henry had grabbed onto that tiny strand of hope with both hands.

On Wednesday afternoon, Jack and Pat were in Dr. Erica Gardner’s empty waiting room.

“Jack, why don’t you just leave me here and go do something? Check in at the hotel. Visit your friends. Anything,” Pat said.

“We can’t check in at the hotel until four o’clock and there is nobody I want to see in this town. Besides, I want to be here with you.”

“I know, honey, but they’re just going to examine me today and take tests. They won’t talk about the results until tomorrow. You can be with me tomorrow.”

Reinforcements for Pat came in the form of Dr. Gardner, who appeared in the waiting room a few minutes later. She greeted Jack first, kissing him on the cheek. “It’s good to see you again, Jack.” She waited while he introduced Pat, then turned her attention back to him. “Jack, your wife and I need to get acquainted. It’s going to take some time to chat, do an examination, and have these diagnostic tests performed. Why don’t you go do what you men do with your free time and check back here in about three hours?”

Pat was standing behind Dr. Gardner looking at Jack with a big smile on her face. “All right, I can see I’m outnumbered,” he muttered and retreated toward the front door. “I’ll go check us in at the hotel and be back at five.”

They were staying at the Windmar Hotel in South Beach. Anxious and unable to settle down, Jack spent the next couple of hours walking the beach and sightseeing. He made a reservation for them that evening at a restaurant on the main drag, specifically telling the maitre d’ that he wanted a table on the patio overlooking the street.

Pat was waiting when he arrived back at Dr. Gardner’s office at five.

“How was it?” he asked.

“Great. Dr. Gardner is very nice and very professional. She had somebody from her staff drive me to the hospital for the CT scan and the ultrasound, and I didn’t have to wait at all. Everything was all arranged beforehand. She’s going to read the reports tonight.”

“Good,” Jack replied. “I got us all set up at the hotel and I made us dinner reservations.”

“Oh, where are we going?”

“Right on Ocean Avenue. We can watch the show while we eat.”

The show was the other people who walked up and down Ocean Avenue to see and be seen and the exotic cars that took their turn driving up and down the same runway.

“This is quite a scene,” Pat marveled after they’d settled in at their table.

“It never changes,” Jack told her. “Some of the buildings around here get redone and the styles change a bit, but the people are as wacky as ever.”

They went dancing after dinner at the Windmar nightclub. The music was a little loud, but after a few drinks they didn’t notice.

“I think this is the first time you’ve ever taken me dancing,” Pat shouted to him over the music. “You’re pretty good.”

The liquor had removed Jack’s usual inhibitions on the dance floor. He was flailing his arms and gyrating and laughing and having a grand old time. “It’s not the first time,” he shouted back. “I danced with you at one of Father O’Pray’s dances when you were fourteen.”

“I remember,” she laughed. “You stepped on my foot.” Later, in their room, they opened the sliding glass doors and made love to the continuous roar of the ocean smashing up against the shore. Their lovemaking was slow and sweet, and Pat didn’t have any pain this time. When it was over they lay there silently, listening to the waves and thinking about the news they would receive the next day.

At 10:00 a.m., they were back in Erica Gardner’s waiting room holding hands. Finally the receptionist ushered them into the doctor’s office.

Erica motioned them to sit. “I’m afraid I have bad news,” she said, leaning forward on her desk.

Pat spoke first. “How bad is it?”