Tim Green: False Convictions

“It’s not gone,” Graham said.

“Who would you be?”

“Robert Graham; I’m on the board of the Project. You could have a lot of years outside this place. A lot of good years.”

“I just can’t wait to get out and start a life of cleaning toilets or stocking grocery shelves. At least in here, I’m safe.”

“From whom?” Casey asked.

Hubbard stared without blinking for a long time and Graham held his gaze. Finally, Hubbard sighed and dropped his stare.

“Katania was my girl. She got into some things, nothing bad. Dealing weed. They sent her up here to the girls’ home. I went to see her because she wanted me to,” Hubbard said, his eyes now on the table. “She sent me the money for the bus ticket. Simple. I took the bus up here and went out there to see her. We almost got caught and I had to break a window with my hand to get away.”

“Then what?” Casey asked.

Hubbard sat for a moment, scowling before he said, “Then, nothing. I walked back to town with my hand bleeding and some hillbillies jumped me outside of their hayseed bar. I cut one of them, but they got me good, four on one, then I tossed the knife, and before I knew it I’m down on the floor in the bus station with some cop calling me a murderer and a rapist. The rest is the joke you all know about better than me, all that bullshit about a murdered prom queen, and I was the closest black man they could find. That’s it.”

“You knew the girl, though?”

“The dead girl?” Hubbard asked, raising an eyebrow. “I knew who she was. Everyone did. The queen bee of the East Siders. Country club kids. Not that her family belonged-the dad flipped burgers at Mickey D’s. You wanted to wipe that smile off her face and watch her freckles turn purple? All you had to do was sing the Big Mac song: ‘Two all-beef patties special sauce lettuce cheese pickles onions on a sesame seed bun.’ Rich boys didn’t care about that, though. She was VIP. Tall and blonde and built for speed. Dude had to have a fat roll of cash and a sweet ride before he even thought about running with her.”

“Did you think about it?” Casey asked.

“What?”

“Running with her?”

Dwayne snorted softly and nodded at his own arm. “But I couldn’t have her and like every black man I wanted the white woman so bad I took what I couldn’t get and went Freddy Krueger on her. Is that where you’re at? You asked if I knew her. Lady, I’m good being black. Katania, my girl? She was black, so don’t give me that Mandingo shit.”

“Did you know where she lived?” Casey asked.

“After all the diagrams and maps at my trial, I did,” Hubbard said.

“You said yourself that you went right past the place.”

“It’s on the way to the bus station,” Hubbard said. “So, yeah, I went right past it. And I’m doing life for it.”

“Anyone ever ask you if you saw anyone else?” Casey asked. “Or anything else?”

Hubbard puckered and twisted his lips, scowling. “Like they wanted to know the truth? Girl was like a bitch in heat. Coulda been anyone.”

“Did you see anything that night?”

“Long time ago, lady.”

“You must remember something.”

“A lot of rain,” he said.

“It was raining?”

“Hard,” he said. “Then it let up. I know because I was wet to the bone.”

“Nothing else?” Casey said. “No people? No cars?”

Hubbard gently sucked on his lower lip, staring at the tabletop before he said, “A BMW.”

“A car?” Casey asked.

Hubbard nodded slowly.

“Color?”

“White,” he said. “In fact, it almost hit me.”

“That’s something. Maybe.”

“She’s for real?” Hubbard said, wrinkling his brow at Graham.

“She is.”

HE’D DO WELL on the stand,” Casey said. “The hatred, though, that’s tough to hide. But we could work on that.”

The rain had ended and the clouds began to show patches of blue sky beyond the glistening concrete walls. As they approached the corner of the block, Casey studied the guard tower, a glass and metal turret where the shadows of men with rifles stood watching whatever went on inside the walls. Behind them on the street, Ralph crept along in the Lexus, its tires popping over stones and chips of concrete from the broken sidewalk.

“It looked to me like that doesn’t matter to you,” Graham said.

“It doesn’t,” she said. “Who wouldn’t be bitter?”

“I’m glad he didn’t turn you off,” Graham said, opening the door to a storefront deli.

“It’s like physics with me,” Casey said.

“Meaning?”

“Every action has an equal and opposite reaction,” she said. “When something pushes me away, I tend to push back.”

Graham smiled, offering her a chair at the corner table next to the window. “I had you figured that way.”

“I’ll tell you what Ralph can do,” Casey said, nodding at the car. “Have him go back twenty years and find out how many people owned white BMWs in this town and who they were. I can’t imagine there were a lot,” Casey said, looking around at the squalid buildings and decrepit narrow homes beside the prison. “How about having him track down this Katania, the girlfriend. That might help us, too.”

Graham nodded and walked out to the car before giving Casey a thumbs-up and returning to their table. A waitress gave them menus along with a basket of chips and salsa, and they were soon joined by a lanky young man in a gray suit with skin as pale as skim milk and blotches that matched his raspberry tie. Graham introduced him as Marty Barrone, patting the young man on the shoulder.

“Marty’s firm has done some tax work of sorts for me,” Graham said. “Sometimes you need to get another set of eyes on things from afar.”

“I’ve seen you on Nancy Grace,” Barrone said. His red-rimmed eyes were weepy and only the hint of a mustache shaded his upper lip. His dark hair hung limp across a wide brow and he stuck a pinkie into his ear, working it around for a moment before dropping his hand to his side.

“He won’t ask,” Graham said, grinning, “but before this is over you’ll have to give him an autograph.”

Barrone’s pale blue eyes went to the floor, and his cheeks blazed as he shook Casey’s hand then took the seat across from her.

“Our motion for a new trial and your pro hac vice admission with Judge Kollar is set for this afternoon,” Barrone said, beaming as if he’d performed a miracle. Casey would need to be admitted pro hac vice into the state of New York to try the case, if there was one. First they’d need to succeed in their motion for a new trial based on undiscovered DNA evidence.

“You’re a lawyer?” Casey asked, trying not to sound too incredulous.

Barrone nodded and dug into his ear again with that same pinkie. “And a CPA.”

“How long have you been practicing?” Casey asked.

Barrone’s face went from pink to red. “I graduated in May.”

Casey crimped her lips and gave Graham a look.

“Things around here usually move like molasses on ice,” Graham said, dipping a chip in some salsa and waving it at Barrone. “But Marty’s a fourth-generation lawyer in this town and his uncle ran Judge Kollar’s first campaign. It’s not a silver bullet, but he’ll be able to push things along for us. In a small town like this everyone likes to help each other, as long as you’re from here.”

“Why not get the uncle, then?” Casey asked. “Who wrote the motions?”

“I had some of the staff lawyers from the Project put all that together,” Graham said. “They can do these in their sleep, but Marty filed them.”

“Okay,” Casey said slowly to Marty, “how much do you know about procedure?”