James Sheehan - The Law of Second Chances

Two hours later, Jack was in the prison hospital with Henry when Henry woke up. It took him a few minutes to focus and a few more to realize he wasn’t dead. Although he was still quite groggy, he clearly saw Jack.

“How did you beat me here? And where’s my mother?” he asked.

Jack smiled and put his hand on Henry’s shoulder. “The judge signed the order, Henry, but not before they gave you a little juice.”

“I guess that’s as close as you come,” Henry said before again closing his eyes.

Henry didn’t fall right back to sleep. He lay there thinking about what had transpired in the preceding hours. He had started on a journey that had been aborted at the absolute last minute. Something, however, had irrevocably changed. He could feel it in his core. Even though the reprieve might only be temporary, Henry knew that from the moment this journey began, he had embarked on a new life.

Benny was escorted from the cell block by two guards. They walked for several minutes down long, narrow corridors. Eventually the guards placed him in a small room and told him to sit in a chair facing a rectangular opening with bars across it. One of the guards stayed in the room with him and stood against the back wall. My own little private visiting room with a butler , Benny thought. I wonder if they have carpeting on death row .

I’m wisecracking to myself , he decided. I must be going crazy!

Moments later a short, stocky Latino man came into the part of the room on the opposite side of the barred window and sat down facing Benny. Benny had never seen him before.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Luis Melendez,” the man answered.

Benny struggled for a few minutes to remember where he had heard the name before. Then it came to him from deep in the recesses of his brain, behind closed doors. As he remembered, he stiffened. His stomach started to churn. Rage began to swell. Part of him wanted to leap through the bars and grab the man by the throat. Another part wanted to bolt from the chair and run like lightning as far away from this man as he could.

Benny caught his rage before it got out. He struggled with it for several moments, acutely aware of the guard behind him. He finally concluded he had two options: ask the guard to take him back to his cell, or quietly ask Luis Melendez what he wanted. He chose the latter.

“What do you want?” he said quietly.

“I want to help.”

Once again the rage began to build and once again Benny fought it down. This needs to be said , he told himself. He bit his lip and waited for the beast within to subside. Then he began to speak, again in a low voice so the guard would not hear.

“Where were you when I was four years old and I was taken from my mother because she was strung out on drugs? Where were you when I was dumped in a foster home with two animals who beat me every day and locked me in the closet when I cried? I called out to you every day for help. I wanted you to rescue me, to tell me everything was going to be all right. But neither of you ever came.”

“I tried to find you, Benny, I did.”

“Oh yeah, it’s pretty hard to find foster kids, especially when you’re the real parent.”

“I wasn’t thinking straight back then,” his father protested. “I didn’t think to look right away in the foster care program for you. When I finally did, you were gone.”

“Whatever. You’re too late now. You know, back when I was a kid, I went from fear to terror to ‘I don’t give a shit’ to being so angry I could scream. I took it and took it and stuffed it in every day and it built and built. Eventually I dreamed of killing those two animals and then finding you and killing you and her.” Benny was struggling to keep his voice low. “I never went near a gun my whole life, but I thought about it plenty-about putting one right between your eyes. That man stood over me and I had a gun. I killed him and now you’re too late.”

Luis just kept looking at his son. Then, as quietly as Benny, he said, “I’m not going to give up. I can’t do anything about what’s already happened, but I’ve found you now and I’m going to do everything I can to help you.”

“Fine, you do that. You spend every fuckin’ dime you have. I hope it kills you, ’cause it ain’t gonna save me.” Benny turned to the guard. “I’m ready,” he said and stood up to leave.

The day after Henry’s stay of execution, Jack called Wofford. It was mid-morning, so Wofford was already at work.

“Wofford, you worked a miracle. How the hell did you do it?” Jack asked.

“Well, Jack, I simply walked into Judge Fletcher’s courtroom in the middle of a hearing, introduced myself, and asked her in open court, in front of a full house, what she was doing about that motion on her desk regarding the man who was scheduled to die that day.”

“I’ll bet that got everybody’s attention.”

“It did. She was pissed. She called a recess right away.”

“How did she get from being pissed at you to giving us an evidentiary hearing?”

“Like I told you, she’s a good judge when she puts her mind to something. We just had to get her focused. She gets a lot of credit in my book. She could have taken the easy way out and gone along with Artie Hendrick. People aren’t going to like what she did, and she’s going to hear about it. She knows it, too. That’s why she’s one of the people who actually should be a judge.”

“And so are you, Wofford. So are you.”

“I may not be for long, Jack. If the Judicial Qualifications Commission gets wind of half of what I’ve done, I’m toast.”

“I’ll represent you, Wofford. Count on it.”

“I appreciate that, Jack, but you know, I haven’t felt so good since God knows when. Knowing that I’m helping to rectify a wrong that I was part of is all I need to sleep at night. By the way, Judge Fletcher set the evidentiary hearing for two weeks from today.”

“We’ll be ready. I’ll get my subpoenas out right away. And you can also count on me telling Henry all about your efforts on his behalf.”

“Thanks, Jack. I appreciate that too.”

Henry’s circumstances had certainly changed since the day before-and not all to the good. He was no longer facing imminent death-so he was back in chains, and the couch and chairs were gone. He and Jack were returned to the sterile room where everything was bolted to the ground. Jack could tell Henry was still a little groggy from the injection and still a little shocked by the turn of events.

“I was in a good place yesterday, Jack. I was ready to die-with dignity. But when they strapped me on that gurney and pressed that needle into my skin, I felt degraded, like some sort of guinea pig. Now I’m back in my little cell until they decide to do this again. What the hell do they think I am? I’ll tell you this, Jack-the next time they strap me in will be the last. Everything is different now.”

“I’m with you, Henry. We’re going to have a hearing before Judge Fletcher in two weeks, and she’s going to decide whether there’s enough evidence to grant you a new trial or not. If the answer is yes, you probably won’t be retried, since the state’s only witnesses are dead. If the answer is no, there will be no more appeals. No more stays. The next time they strap you in will definitely be the last.”

“Geez, Jack, don’t sugarcoat it like that.”

For a second Jack didn’t know how to take Henry’s last comment. It wasn’t until the big man started to laugh that he followed suit.

“By the way, Henry, this reprieve was all Wofford Benton’s doing.” Jack told him blow-by-blow about Wofford’s encounter with Judge Fletcher.