John Grisham - The Confession

The Visitors’ Room is a loud and busy place on weekends, but on weekdays there is little traffic. Wednesdays are set aside as “Media Days,” and a man “with a date” is typically interviewed by a couple of reporters from the town where the murder took place. Donté had declined all requests for interviews.

When the family entered the visiting area at 8:00 a.m., the only other person there was a female guard named Ruth. They knew her well. She was a thoughtful soul who liked Donté. Ruth welcomed them and said how sorry she was.

Donté was already in the attorney’s booth when Roberta and Cedric entered. A guard could be seen through the window of a door behind him. As always, he placed the palm of his left hand flat on the Plexiglas, and Roberta did the same from the other side. Though the touch was never completed, it was a long, warm embrace in their minds. Donté had not touched his mother since the last day of his trial, in October 1999, when a guard allowed them a quick hug as he was being led from the courtroom.

He held the phone with his right hand and said with a smile, “Hi, Momma. Thanks for coming. I love you.” Their hands were still together, pressed against the glass. Roberta said, “And I love you right back, Donté. How are you today?”

“The same. I’ve already had my shower and a shave. Everybody’s real nice to me. Got fresh clothes on, a new pair of boxers. This is a lovely place. They get real nice around here right before they kill you.”

“You look great, Donté.”

“And so do you, Momma. You’re as beautiful as always.”

During one of her first visits, Roberta had wept and had been unable to stop herself. Afterward, Donté wrote to her and explained how upsetting it was to see her so distraught. In the solitude of his cell, he wept for hours, but he couldn’t bear to watch his mother do the same. He wanted her to visit him whenever possible, but the tears did more harm than good. There had been no more tears, not from Roberta, Andrea, Cedric, Marvin, or any other relative or friend. Roberta made this very clear with each visit. If you can’t control yourself, get out of the room.

“I talked to Robbie this morning,” she said. “He has one or two more plans for the final appeals, plus the governor has not ruled on your request for a reprieve. So there’s still hope, Donté.”

“There’s no hope, Momma, so don’t kid yourself.”

“We can’t give up, Donté.”

“Why not? There’s nothing we can do. When Texas wants to kill somebody, they’re gonna do it. Killed one last week. Got another planned later this month. It’s an assembly line around here, can’t nobody stop it. You might get lucky and get a stay every now and then, happened to me two years ago, but sooner or later your time is up. They don’t care about guilt or innocence, Momma, all they care about is showing the world how tough they are. Texas don’t fool around. Don’t mess with Texas. Ever heard that?”

Softly she said, “I don’t want you to be angry, Donté.”

“I’m sorry, Momma, I’m gonna die angry. I can’t help it. Some of these guys go peacefully, singing hymns, quoting scripture, begging for forgiveness. Dude last week said, ‘Father, unto you I commend my spirit.’ Some don’t say a word, just close their eyes and wait for the poison. A few go out kicking. Todd Willingham died three years ago, always claimed to be innocent. They said he started a house fire that burned up his three little girls. Yet he was in the house and got burned too. He was a fighter. He cussed ’em in his final statement.”

“Don’t do that, Donté.”

“I don’t know what I’ll do, Momma. Maybe nothing. Maybe I’ll just lie there with my eyes closed and start counting, and when I get to a hundred, I’ll just float away. But, Momma, you’re not gonna be there.”

“We’ve had this conversation, Donté.”

“Well, now we’re having it again. I don’t want you to witness this.”

“I don’t want to either, believe me. But I’ll be there.”

“I’m gonna talk to Robbie.”

“I’ve already talked to him, Donté. He knows how I feel.”

Donté slowly withdrew his left hand from the glass, and Roberta did the same. She placed the phone on the counter and removed a sheet of paper from her pocket. No purses were allowed past the front desk. She unfolded the paper, picked up the phone, and said, “Donté, this is a list of the folks who’ve called or stopped by to ask about you. I promised them I would pass along their thoughts.”

He nodded and tried to smile. Roberta went through the names—neighbors, old friends from down the street, classmates, beloved church members, and a few distant relatives. Donté listened without a word, but seemed to drift away. Roberta went on and on, and with each name she added a brief commentary about the person or an anecdote.

Andrea was next. The touching ritual was followed. She described the burning of the Baptist church, the tension in Slone, the fears that things would get worse. Donté seemed to like that—the thought of his people fighting back.

The family had learned years earlier that it was important to arrive at the Visitors’ Room with a pocketful of coins. Vending machines lined the walls, and the guards delivered the food and drinks to the inmates during the visits. Donté had lost serious weight in prison, but he craved a certain cinnamon bun coated with thick frosting. While Roberta and Andrea handled the first round of the visit, Marvin bought two of the buns, with a soft drink, and Ruth took them to Donté. The junk food helped his mood.

Cedric was reading a newspaper, not far from the attorney’s room, when the warden popped in for a friendly hello. He wanted to make sure all was well, everything in his prison running smooth.

“Anything I can do to help?” he asked as if he were running for office. He was trying hard to appear compassionate.

Cedric stood up, thought for a second, and then got angry. “Are you kidding me? You’re about to put my brother to death for something he didn’t do, and you pop in here with some happy horseshit about wanting to help.”

“We’re just doing our jobs, sir.” Ruth was walking over.

“No, you’re not, unless your job allows you to kill innocent people. You wanna help, stop the damned execution.”

Marvin stepped between them and said, “Let’s be cool here.” The warden backed away and said something to Ruth. They had a serious conversation as the warden walked to the door. He soon left.

———

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) has sole jurisdiction over capital murder cases and is the court of last resort in Texas before an inmate hits the federal circuit. It has nine members, all elected, all required to run statewide. In 2007, it still clung to the archaic rule that all pleadings, petitions, appeals, documents, and such had to be filed as hard copies. Nothing online. Black ink on white paper, and tons of it. Each filing had to include twelve copies, one for each justice, and one for the clerk, one for the secretary, and one for the official file.

It was a bizarre and cumbersome procedure. The federal court for the Western District of Texas, housed a few blocks from the TCCA, adopted electronic filing in the mid-1990s. By the turn of the century, paper filings were rapidly becoming obsolete as technology marched on. In law, both in courts and in offices, the electronic file became far more popular than the paper file.

At 9:00 a.m. on Thursday, the Flak firm and the Defender Group lawyers were notified that the insanity claim was denied by the TCCA. The court did not believe Donté was mentally ill. This was expected. Minutes after this denial was received, the identical petition was filed electronically in the federal court for the Eastern District of Texas in Tyler.