Lesser Included Offenses

Lesser Included Offenses (Chapters 1 - 5)

Prologue

A Moon-faced Asian with less than five minutes left to live walked out of the all night party after the hostess discovered during the night that Chin Chu Chin Chu and a friend Tommy O’Mara had stolen a number of items and placed them in their car. When confronted about the burglary, Chin Chu pointed the finger at Christian Michael, police documents say.

A fight broke out.

Evidence would show that Christian threw one punch and hit Chin Chu on the right side of the face, according to his attorney
Chin Chu fell to the ground dying an hour later at Mercy Medical Center.

As Chin Chu lie on the gravel driveway, Cole Thomas kicked Chin Chu repeatedly about the head and torso, according to further reports.
Christian, facing a mandatory sentence of life in prison if convicted of first-degree murder, agreed to a plea bargain out of caution, according to his attorney. The 30-year sentence included no mandatory minimum, so he decided he'd rather do that, spend 10 years or so in prison and hopefully, come out of prison with a second chance.

Documents say Christian told police that it was Thomas who inflicted most of the injuries to Chin Chu that night.

Shouting overhead erupted. What sounded like bullet fire rang out.

Chapter One

Varying Hispanic and Asian cliques stopped by to party with Amber who was allowed to have a few friends over while her aunt and uncle were away for the night.

Things got out of hand after Amber discovered that pantry and household items were missing.
A mêlée followed as Adam exited the house, followed by her older brother Christian. Chin Chu first followed by Tommy, began to pummel Adam, about the face and body. Adam was in a black out drunk and was defenseless. He was sprayed with Mace and beat with a small club. He called out to Christian for help. That marked the beginning but not the end for the moon faced Asian man. Smelling blood, Thomas joined in after Chin Chu lay on his back having been dealt a single knock out punch by Christian. Thomas finished him off by kicking him in his head and chest until his breaths grew increasingly less perceptible. He too felt the blows of the club and the Mace as it permeated the mucous membranes of his flesh. His vision was blurry, but he managed to spit his own blood on Chin Chu while yelling “Gook” while he continued to kick him.

The fracas began in the truest sense of the word, when some young testosterone laden young men, without any real intent to maim or kill, set out to accomplish some good old fashioned “banging.” Somewhere in there swirled the wish to accomplish at least one other thing. One of which was the tenacious defense of a third party, namely Adam and in defense of self. Not self-defense as one would assume, rather the defense of oneself as someone who held him self out to be a thug of sorts, and to be certain no malfeasant who stole stupid as things like hotdogs and VHS tapes.

The “banging” was to be a little jaunt to instill some respect. That’s it. Nothing sophisticated like willfully and maliciously intending to do anything more than to smack down and recognize. A little gangland infighting. And when Christian’s brother got the living shit kicked out of him, there wasn’t a question about coming to his defense especially after he yelled his childhood name “Bear, Bear.”

The actual smack down started when the two Asian guys were taking turns knocking the shit out of Adam sometime around 6:00 a.m. in late August, outside the city of Des Moines. Oddly, a 9-foot chain link fence secured the house. The partygoers exited through the front door outside the security of the fence onto the gravel driveway where in defense of Adam, Christian executed one perfect blow to Chin Chu’s face.

As if in slow motion, he slid down the body of a parked car and proceeded to take contorted breaths. Christian turned him on his side and at one time took his pulse. As though this were not bad enough, Thomas, another of the partygoers, as though rabid began kicking and hitting Chin Chu while he lay on the ground defenseless. He continued to kick him in the head and trunk region until his ally Tommy was able to beat enough sense into him to get him off his friend.

Chin Chu was left on the ground drowning in his own blood periodically making gurgling or wheezing noises. Everyone was either too afraid or just too selfish to try to save him. Yes, Christian rolled him over to one side and attempted CPR, but the truth of the matter was, he wanted to, had to distance himself from the scene of the fight. Tommy tried everything in his power to control the scene and not let anyone leave.

After claiming to have administered CPR for several minutes, Tommy finally mustered up the wherewithal to dial 9-1-1. By this time everyone else, or nearly everyone else, had fled the scene. Cops and EMTs were immediately dispatched.

Waves of law enforcement arrived in order of rank. The neighbors were interviewed. Detectives took statements from the remaining witnesses, who for whatever reason decided to go into the house and barricade themselves in. The front door had to be kicked in by crime scene investigators.

The crime scene was pandemonium. From the onset, investigators were getting conflicted accounts of what actually took place late that night and into the early morning. One of the neighbors reported hearing shots fired. Crime scene detectives attempted to collaborate and reconstruct the crime scene with at best, shortsighted witnesses. When Tommy sat in a police cruiser for a cursory interview, he fell asleep. Identification of the parties responsible or even at the all night party proved difficult.

Crime scene techs flagged physical evidence such as droplets of blood, strewn clothing, shoes and the like. They contacted the homeowners while the semi- to un-conscious young man was trundled to the hospital.

Besides law enforcement, the Polk County Attorney was on the scene, along with the Juvenile County Attorney, and a horde of news media. This was a big week in the City of Des Moines.

Chin Chu’s father identified the 17-year-old body of his son in morgue. He told the authorities that his son’s wallet was missing as was a tennis shoe and his gold necklace.
By about 12:00 that day, after hearing that Chin Chu had died, the witnesses gave up the identity of the young males who had attended the party. Stop and holds were placed on each of them. While in route when to a domestic dispute from as it happened a material witness’ residence, instead of focusing on the verbal altercation taking place, the officer informed the mother that he was taking Adam in for questioning. She was to learn that he was a material witness to a homicide. By then, another patrol car arrived, this time, the officer asked for Christian. He was waiting for them to come. He didn’t have to be told that Chin Chu was dead.

Each of the brothers was Mirandized, cuffed and transported by sheriffs to be interrogated. Before this time, Christian was merely a material witness to the homicide but at the close of the four-hour interrogation, he was formerly charged with First Degree Murder. At which time, a call was placed to a defense attorney for Christian after he had earlier waived his rights and recounted the story nearly verbatim of one of the witnesses.

Adam, unlike Christian, was remanded back to the juvenile court. He spent his time at the youth detention facility putting puzzles together while his brother lay down in the county jail facing life behind bars without the possibility of parole.

Later the day of the arrests, a second suspect was questioned after he turned himself in and like his co-defendant, recounted the truth, as he knew it. He too, was charged with First-Degree Murder.

Chapter Two

There isn’t any such thing as justice—street or divine, when a seventeen-year-old boy is killed. And no comfort when two young men aged eighteen and nineteen are charged with First Degree Murder.

Race was brought into the instant case because one of the co-defendants Thomas, spewed racial epithets while spitting his own blood on the man as he lay dying. Both Adam and Christian were beat about their heads and upper bodies with an Asian stick. Christian had a gaping head wound that he did his very best to repair with strips of a bandage. In a fury of legs and arms Adam and Christian were blinded by Mace and blood.

***

The jailhouse population was replete with bobbing shaved heads in a sea of orange, lime green and black and white striped jump suits. The colors represented the level of the offense. First Degree Murder inmates wore orange jumpsuits with lime green undershirts.
The inmates seemed to one watching as Buddhist monks might appear. The detainees were there for a host of societal ills such as the sale of crack-cocaine or the distribution of marijuana or “weight” in the vernacular.

Mixes of black, Caucasian, Asian and Hispanic cliques made up the small to mid-size county jail populations. Second generation gangs as the off spring of the volatile first were represented. These are the urban foot soldiers enlisted to fight one another and police in a battle over drugs, turf and money.

The neighbors and onlookers in the instant case when approached wanted no part of the police’s interrogation. They preferred instead to close windows, lock the doors, and peer out of peek holes from the safety of their houses. To be sure, someone saw or heard something. Most noteworthy, was the individual presumably passed out in his car.

The car was parked in front of the house outside the fencing. He was the dead man’s cousin. He was less than forthcoming. In a jailhouse confession of sorts, he gave a blow-by-blow re-accounting of the events as they actually occurred known only to someone was there. The cousin told an inmate and the inmate in turn told Christian. Christian told his defense attorney about an unnamed Asian inmate with a tattooing of gang graffiti on his forearms. Incredibly, no one ever followed up on the description of the inmate. He was put on the shuffle. Without his collaboration, Christian’s story seemed ridiculous, so much so, that it was hard if not impossible to believe.

Pandemonium ensued after the fight. Chin Chu’s legs were moved so that Christian could drive out of the driveway. Tommy ran straight towards Christian’s moving car in an effort to stop him.

The two other passengers in Christian’s car were bloody. Eddie, in a police interview, recalled only seeing Christian and Adam washing the blood off themselves in his grandparent’s hose. He for whatever reason failed to mention that Al too was bloody. He may have inadvertently spoken to the fact that Al rinsed his eyes in the hose, but no mention was made about Al being covered in blood. It was clear that Eddie and Al were homeboys from way back.

Eddie first and later Al’s testimony ultimately sealed Christian’s fate.

First, collectively and later individually, each of the underage partiers was interviewed. For those unknowing, Christian and Adam were brothers from Winterset in Madison County, Iowa. The investigators made inquiries to the Madison County Sheriff to track them. Al, not wishing to be charged with a crime such, as he deserved, went on the run. Other of the partygoers described Christian as the “buff dude” either not knowing or wishing to intentionally mislead the investigators concerning his real name.

Christian gave a full statement to law enforcement without counsel present. First and most unfortunate was his remark to Al about how was going back to prison. This utterance made its way all the way to Christian’s stipulated bench trial when the judge, in full regalia, quoted Christian’s utterance verbatim.
Once arrested, Christian did not make a phone call. No call was necessary. Since it was Saturday, there was not anyone to call. He couldn’t call a bondsman since his parents were of average means and bond was set at $500,000 cash only.

Christian’s familial unit had since the age of four, deconstructed. His mother and father divorced. Following that upheaval, his parents independent of each other, became abusers of alcohol and the late-80’s, early-90’s craze, cocaine-derivatives. His mother, while primarily responsible for both he and his brother, spent a number of months rehabbing and swore off alcohol and chemicals. His mom married Mike when he was twelve.

Mike, always on the outside looking in, tried his best to parallel and position him to be the best he could possibly be. He especially tried to channel his athleticism into a college scholarship.

Three years prior to the instant offense, his father died an agonizing death from lung cancer. He was sixteen.

Christian’s misdeeds and propensity to find trouble were not something new. His youth was characterized as one misspent—playing pool, skipping school and hanging out smoking the wacky.

***

Christian’s family was not in attendance for his televised appearance. They were at his arraignment. He did not look directly into the camera. Instead, he chewed on his lower lip and the inside of his mouth. His head hung low.
At some level drugs are always involved when a 17-year old boy is killed at an all night party. The State’s Attorney had a hard-on for the defendant and at some point during plea negotiations suggested that he plead to drug charges in order to get to the appropriate number of years in which to adequately house him for his crime. His crime, if the truth was told, was to be stupid and ragingly chemically dependent.

The jailhouse courtroom amassed mountains of paperwork pertaining to the inmates and their instant offenses. There too was an assembly line of defense attorneys whom stood silently waiting for the inmates to complete their financial affidavits which gave rise to lotto attorneys. Broke-off ambulance chasers.
When the defendant approached the bench, the judge rubber stamped the proceeding and endorsed the testimony of the witnesses, asking Christian how he wished to plead to the charge of Murder in the First Degree? The words ”Murder in the First Degree” rang out in his ears. As the judge continued reading the record into evidence, certain of the observers looked on in admiration. The transporting deputies were noticeably bored and then simultaneously awed by the fact that Christian punched the decedent one time and no more.

Even with swelling charges of murder in the first or even second-degree as likely charges, the juvenile public defender’s office was appointed to defend Christian due to a congested court docket and a sting of unsolved murders.

The juvenile public defender appointed to represents him had represented Christian as a juvenile and proved to be an advocate in a good neighborly sort of way. Christian’s mother was forced to square off with the juvenile public defender, challenging him with a possible conflict in his office concerning a key witness, who as it happened was a juvenile and who for the record had been represented by his office.
It had been, after all, a busy week in the City of Des Moines. A string of indigent defendants were charged with felonies. The plea of not guilty was entered as an overcrowded viewing box looked on.

Christian broodingly exited from the jailhouse courtroom, which family and friends viewed via closed circuit TV. The brooding no doubt was an attempt to cover the overt fear of spending life behind bars and in the State of Iowa, life means life. The television stations were out en force. Clerks, court attendants and the like were crowding in the small space with which to watch the defendants on closed circuit TV. In attendance as well was an unnoticed man. An untold string of unsolved murders were demanding playtime which thankfully was taking airtime away from the under age partiers’ byline.

Chapter Three

If the office of the public defender wasn’t bad enough, the office of the juvenile public defender was even worse. They seemed to derive some satisfaction in losing. In humiliating themselves. Most of the attorneys seem to be in the public defender’s office as something transitory for the trial unlimited experience.

The budget of the public defender’s office is run frugally. The attorneys’ trial calendar is staggering. They are, to be sure, losing the war on crime. The trickle down effect is evident. The state, county and city are broke. As for the public defender’s office itself it is for all intents and purposes the end of the road for the defendant. No doubt it is the public defender who finds his or herself named in a Post-Conviction Relief Petition alleging ineffective assistance of counsel.

The juvenile public defender wanted Christian’s case because he is a little shit of man and he smelled blood. After literally going toe to toe, Christian’s mother prevailed in asserting a conflict since the chief material witness was represented by the juvenile public defender’s office. Luckily, the next name pulled from the hat yielded an defense attorney in private practice willing to take on Christian’s case for the meager sum the State paid. As a trump card, Christian’s father had a left a modest trust which if forced, the Trustee would sign over for legal representation. Thankfully, the court-appointed counsel had been practicing for 30 years or better, having worked on the other side of the table as a prosecuting attorney.
Defense attorneys, public defenders or otherwise, seem to derive some vicarious pleasure from defending the defenseless because they surely don’t do it for the money. It is interesting to hear the cross over from staunch professional to advocate to the [alleged] murderer. Careful diction becomes thug-speak flavored with a lot of “mans.” Not only do they lust for notoriety, their personal lives need some spicing up so they nobly elect to represent the underbelly of society in the name of justice. They thrive on the criminal element because they can express their very repressed ids.

At some point, after the retainer is paid out from trust, they become indifferent to the soldier’s plight. They become a bureaucratic talking head, an administrator to collect funds due and owing. Collect calls no longer get accepted. The romance is over. Guards, commanding officers, sheriffs and rent-a-cops are another story, but similarly so. These are the sexless nerds and geeks everyone grew up with. Guards too wield imagined power however misguided.

Christian’s attorney, while unable to pronounce fricatives such as the “s” in secretary, had a knock out record having never lost [at trial]. To be sure, this was a guy who understood the art of the deal. A negotiator. Hopefully an academic. Someone who knew the law and the guys on the other side of the table well enough dazzle them with brilliance and when that failed, b.s.

As a sole practitioner, another attorney and two secretaries shared closet sized cubes and worked themselves to death for a pittance. A pro bono paralegal signed on and went to work.

The paralegal quickly set out to do whatever she could to make herself useful. To ensure that Christian was afforded the best possible defense. She was accompanied to the crime scene by an investigator whereby they inspected the area, plotted out a schematic of the house, chain link fence, gravel driveway and position of the body in reference to the cars that were parked in the driveway. She was also curious about the veracity of Christian’s statements made during interrogation.

When Christian met with counsel while incarcerated at the county jail, they talked through marred Plexiglas on a phone line with far too much static.

The jailhouse was inefficiently constructed. An environmental nightmare replete with lead paint and asbestos. Windowless hells. County jails are known to violate every civil right allowable under the United States Constitution, this one was no exception.

A burgeoning criminal population full of non-violent offenders resulted in overcrowding, infighting and all that goes with putting too many people in quarters too close for comfort.
The guards roughly secure Christian using leg irons and cuffs. In order to be tough guys, they tighten the shackles on his extra large ankles so that he silently writhes in agony. Christian was in excellent physical health. His appearance was another matter. The left side of forehead was taped with makeshift butterfly band-aids. Christian is asked by a ranking commanding office if a doctor has seen him. He tells him that a doctor was consulted by not seen. He tells the guard that he was not the subject of police brutality nor had he been in a fight since his incarceration.

When he picked up the phone to speak, his attorney asked the pertinent questions about the night in question, although because the defendant gave a full confession, there didn’t seem to be much in question. The State’s attorneys, plural and yes they tag-teamed the single attorney appointed to defend Christian, made gamely suggestions and inferences about Christian’s previous violent criminal history.

Christian was at a party in direct violation of his parole. He was there because he was back on the broad path leading to destruction. In other words, there was no good reason for being there. Christian maintained vehement denials of any intent. He claimed then and still does that he was defending his brother first and when he was attacked, he defended himself matching force with force.

Christian was caught betwixt two elements of remorse and anger. He was guilty because someone was dead. And at the same time, angry because he was overcharged and as a result would be serving a 25 year sentence for assault.

The judicial system was, or so it seemed more focused on housing inmates than rehabilitating them. The jailhouse population consisted of those administratively segregated and general population gang members, tweakers strung out needing a fix, malfeasants with no one to co-sign their surety bond and any manner of illegal immigrant waiting for the Feds to extradite them back to their country of origin.

Christian made a simple request to the Champlain of the jail. He didn’t want a lesson in the world’s take on Christianity rather, he simply wanted a King James Version Bible. Meaning no disrespect, he did not want the Champlain to witness and testify to the “other” Jesus, the Jesus that can be had by calling him down from the right hand of God to “save” him. Rather, he wanted to read and mediate on God’s holy written word. The Champlain acquiesced and gave him the bible.

When the court-appointed defense attorney met with Christian, he of course, needed to lay the foundation for zealous representation—hope when there was no hope. Eventually, the details of night rehashed as was his background briefed.
When the defense attorney interviewed Christian’s parents, they told him of the tragedy of a misspent youth. A promising athlete who at 13 was distinguished as one of the top 25 baseball players in the United States. Out of prison just three months. The whole life without the possibility of parole weighed heavily on his mother. Iowa’s felony murder rule bespoke the worst that could happen.

There was no motive. The death was accidental.
Legally speaking the intent was the assault causing willful injury, which in and of itself does not qualify as murder in the first degree. Rather, it reeks of placating the family at all costs. Most would not argue that they wouldn’t want someone to pay in blood for killing one of their sons, but the institutionalization of a young man for a crime he did not have malice and aforethought to commit, was and is egregious.
The homeowner was a card-carrying civil libertarian. Earlier that same week he had placed a call to Christian’s mom to extend his thanks for her sons’ defense of his property rights. As a result of his steadfastness in his defense of Christian and his brother Adam, he received numerous death threats. The threats went so far that on the day of Chin Chu’s funeral, sheriffs asked them to leave their house in case of violence.

Christian was interviewed ad nauseam about his childhood, the fact that he was repeatedly suspended from school, how at around the age of 12, he began to use and later abuse marijuana and alcohol. His numerous stints in youth detention and adolescent chemical dependency treatment and alas, the trail of violence.

Chapter Four

Christian’s voice was raw and unrecognizable as tried to explain the events of the night. He was bereft. His memories of the night were at once jagged and chaotic…surreal like a dream sequence and at the same time horrifyingly vivid.

The news media was at full tilt making public
proclamations, judgments and denouncements about Christian, his age, the material witnesses and the accessories after the fact. Guilty before proven innocent.

Christian lay prostate on his steel flanked foam mattress pad reading scriptures, pondering a life behind bars for a crime he was not guilty of. He sat at county tormented from knowing full well that he did not willfully intend to kill anyone. His denials were clouded. He lacked the wisdom and maturity to articulate how he felt.

It was laughable to think about a trial with a criminal record like his—with one, two, three, four documented assaults in four years. A jury of his peers? Impossible unless they went to the hood and put young men and women with criminal records on the stand. He was capable of painting his own nightmare without the element of control over the juror’s whims or anxiety to convict and dispense justice. His senses were dulled as he turned the possibilities over in his mind. Those close to him could not help but to point out the obvious. He was a 6’ 4” brick shit house. He would perform poorly in front of a jury. A consultant began coaching him for the just in case scenario. This was the just in case his attorney won on the motion in limine which was for the purpose of excluding prior criminal conduct for consideration in the instant case.

The district court judge took the motion under advisement for just long enough for both sides to think he ruled in their favor. The defense had good reason to believe that he would do the right thing since he had just been dealt a pretty good ass kicking at the state appellate level. This of course was not the case. Rather, he thumbed his nose or even better yet, fingered the state supreme court and ruled against the defendant and more importantly against the criminal rules of evidence showing flagrant disregard for justice. This was just one of the many examples of a runaway judge. An eloquent orator who fancied his own long speaking and more important than his rhetoric was the fact that he was playing God.
The truth was never buried rather it is cunningly subjective dependent on the teller. When the cops spoke their brand of truth they rendered Christian’s statements as the intentional malicious act of a malfeasant.

The prosecutors regaled what they presumed was a slam dunk since Christian did not waive his 90 days, with any luck, they would try this case on December 22. Two days before the manmade day of Christ’s birth. In any case, Christian’s mother swore she would wear a wreathe on her head if that is what it would take for jurors to look at the man-child before them—not the violent felon portrayed by the State. As a trump card, and not really along the same vein, she also promised to parade the property owner in an American Flag. It would be Carnival at district court.

The attorney working on the case was determined to get the matter solved on paper. He was smart enough to know that Christian would be convicted of the felony murder rule if tried. That was, unless his mother and the property owner prevailed. The investigator working on the defense team did everything possible behind the scenes from keeping some dirty little secrets out of the discovery process, sealing records through back door methods, tampering with witnesses and collaborating heretofore un-collaborated testimony.

An indigent defendant has a hard enough time to mount a sustainable defense without the witnesses all going south. The chief material witness Al spent a great deal of time on the run. What was he running from? He claimed it was because one of his brothers was in the pen falsely accused. So when confronted by Christian’s mom, he was at first reluctant to speak at all. She prevailed upon him to tell the truth. She didn’t ask him to do anything illegal. She just begged him to tell the truth.

He agreed to turn himself in once he figured out what he was going to do. In any case, she went to visit Adam in juvenile lockup to warn him about Al’s likelihood to perjure himself. It just so happened that Al had turned himself in and was being held in the same juvenile detention center for an unrelated warrant for a weapons charge. He told Adam in confidence that he was cool and that one of his friends, not him, had talked with his mom. Since he was on the run, he was afraid to answer the phone or so he claimed.

Once he was deposed some thirty days later, this proved to be untrue. Contrary to the fact that he has a brother incarcerated for the rest of his natural life allegedly wrongfully, he failed to tell the truth about his role in the assault during his initial interview with private counsel or when he was deposed in front of Christian. He was nervous. Furtively looking around the room, scared nearly out of his mind. Still, he did not tell the public defender that he was told to get down or lay down. He got down. He had blood on his hands and got a walk for his role. His statements at his initial interview found themselves at Christian’s stipulated bench trial whereby Aristotle, or better yet Oz, presided, and haplessly incorporated Christian’s spontaneous utterances on the record.

No one ever denied that Christian was criminally responsible for the crime of willful injury or involuntary manslaughter. After all, he had only been out of prison of about three months when this happened. His previous incarceration was for assault causing bodily injury. When, at a party, he cracked a guy’s jaw in two places after he flexed on him.

It was however, contrary to legal theory, accidental that Chin Chu died. The intent to maim or kill just wasn’t there. Perception was everything in a case like his.

The dealmaker was the defendant’s court-appointed attorney. He was the one left standing when everyone else lay down. At trial, he and the defendant were yoked together. He promised to vehemently negotiate a plea based on the mitigating circumstances. That was the defense of the defendant’s unappreciative brother, who for the record, got a walk.

The legal system appeared as an inefficient machine to Christian. The clock was always ticking but it did not move ahead quick enough for it to be night so that he could begin the process of willing himself to sleep again. To him, it seems like a marketplace where goods are bought and sold.

The course of Christian’s life was forever altered due in large part to his lack of impulse control. The defense strategy was simply a bare-knuckled defense of a 19 year old ragingly chemically dependent young man.
Christian was being depicted in the media rather benignly given the gravity of the circumstances. A close up video feed of Christian in jail court at his appearance and bond hearing were played and replayed throughout the weekend on the local networks. Friends, family and acquaintances made calls to his parents’ house to get the goods first hand. Amongst themselves they rendered judgments from their glass houses. His mother’s side of the family was especially divisive in placing blame and recounting what a shitty job she did of raising him. Strangers were considerably more adept at encouragement.

Christian’s guts are lined with steel. All of his life he was the enforcer. Other guys wanted to parallel themselves with him because of his size. Small guys usually were the ones to challenge him. A junior high school principal had told his mother that this was because of the something called projection. In other words they had such a fear of Christian, and were so afraid that he would hit them they would just hit him and get it over with. She never really quite bought that line of thinking. The how or why a much smaller person would confront a giant escaped rational thinking.

Drugs and alcohol are relevant to Christian’s defense, but were considered in a cursory sort of way. One of the defenses asserted was the defense of lack of capacity due to alcohol. Obviously not the most viable defense, nonetheless a defense. With his life hanging in the balance, he was beset with fear and uncertainty. The balance of his day was spent figuring that if he was unfortunate enough to go to trial after having lost the motion in limine he would face at a minimum, second degree murder, or 85% of a 50 year sentence or about 42 years in a cell smaller than most half-baths, 23 out of 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year.

Chapter Five

Christian imagined that this was hell—the torrid Iowa humidity, the brackish air, his too-small jumpsuit clinging to his back and quadriceps. An ever-present sense of dread filled the pit of his stomach. Otherwise, he filled it with commissary foodstuffs like Snickers and Little Debbie’s. He was indignant about the fact that he was overcharged when he damn well knew that Thomas, the co-defendant to which he had been severed would get a “walk.” After all Salix Clay, the most noteworthy criminal defense attorney in the state represented him. It’s crazy, but Salix is legally blind, walks with one of those color-coded walking canes, and has a full-time assistant that does everything from being his eyes and ears to unnamed extracurricular activities. Salix is a wildcard.

Salix was badly deformed at birth. Something about some numbered chromosome going awry.

Nonetheless, Salix was the man.

Even if a criminal defendant was lucky enough to have some money to defend himself, he or she, as the case were, couldn’t hire Salix to represent him. He was a public defender. In order to qualify, one need not present a fat retainer, rather, a financial affidavit bespeaking little or no income and a class A felony wouldn’t hurt.

This wild card of a guy was a formidable opponent even though the state tried ineffectively to make light of his presence during depositions. He was wisecracking, and playing grab ass with just about everyone, but especially an old school court reporter, while Christian’s defense attorney took a good old-fashioned piggyback ride. Hey, who could blame him? He was busy and the pittance of $60 an hour barely keeps the doors open. Court appointments were like doing dissolutions. It sucked, but it was a necessary evil to keep the cash flow flowing.

Salix has a habit of tirelessly rubbing his head and eyes feigning exhaustion and/or boredom while cataloging, categorizing and compartmentalizing the facts, the witnesses, the experts and most of all, his opponent. His assistant does all of his reading aloud. He must have a photographic memory in order to possibly recall all of the facts. Facts not even Christian’s attorney had bothered to research. Research about the defendant’s brain aneurysm. Of course, he learned that aneurysm or not, you pretty much get stuck with the victim in whatever condition you find him in, which was exactly good news.

***

County Jail

Christian was devastated and not for the right reasons. He was most upset that he had lost his liberty and that certain of his “boys” didn’t stand up with him for him and his brother. He thought he might actually do life instead of dime. He was pissed that he had to do any time at all since the asshole Thomas was the one who killed Chin Chu by repeatedly kicking him in the head and chest, as he lay unconscious on the ground.

Cinderblock walls flanked with gunmetal gray electronic steel doors confined Christian like a caged animal. Just like the animal, he desperately wanted to run—to run and never turn back. But for the fact that he didn’t want to disappoint the only person who was left standing, his mother, he would have run before he was ever picked up that day. He had given it serious consideration. Even making preparations for his departure. The cops got there before he could think it through or else, he would have at least gone underground for a few days, weeks or for as long as his conscience would allow.

The windowless room, the rent-a-cop mentality of the guards, the tearing in his heart, the slashing away at his dignity, like the unraveling of the handmade afghan were constantly threatening to claim his sanity—what was left of it. His head hurt. He periodically had to rest it from thoughts of legal theory that he didn’t understand. Logic and reason that he couldn’t quite grasp. Legal jargon, motions, orders, and so on… While housed in the county jail, his level of hope spiked every few days and fell in between a few hopeful minutes.
Mostly he could only think of what would not be—a future. No future, only a past. Meanwhile, his life played out in the media as the journalists whipped up the sentiment of the citizens. Only a fringe faction, a Westside clique supported Christian. To their credit, they were standup guys. They were down for his cause. Most, however could not visit him in County due to the fact that they were a motley crew—parolees, drug dealers, street thugs and the like.

He was forced to think about the idiocy of his choices. Desperation was visible in his eyes. The black ringed eyes. The puffy, dough like face, the array of unattended to black heads, the downcast glances, the unshorn hair, the hit or miss shaving and his unconscious attention to his healed over wound.

His mother, after learning that her eldest son had been charged with First Degree Murder effectively collapsed to the floor, strangling her own sobs, her olive skin turned ashen, when suddenly she could not make herself calm down enough to take a breathe. Christian’s stepfather made every attempt to comfort his wife. Unfortunately, all to no avail. How does one attempt to comfort the comfortless? How does one make sense of the senseless? How does one reconcile the world with such tragedy? Later that night, after sitting on their porch stoop and getting devoured by mosquitoes for six hours waiting for the execution of the search warrant, they showed up very late to a late-August party and effectively got bombed. Sloan Beresford a law student acquainted with Rose, had already briefed the partygoers on the issues while Blencoe De Jesus, the party’s host, filled glasses and made sure everyone, especially Rose, was sufficiently boozed up.

Nelly’s song It’s Getting Hot in Here blared from a compact disc player and the women in attendance, decidedly trashed, put on a show, mimicking strippers in front of poles and danced their individual troubles away—at least for the night. That was, until when around 2:00, exhausted and utterly despondent, she fell into an alcohol-induced slumber. Upon waking, the realization of her sons being taken out of their home sickened her. These were her babies. Both had been in a lot of trouble, having your sons taken out of your house one at a time as material witnesses to a homicide put her in a free fall in a nightmare.

Everyday at least once, Christian would make the consoling calls home. The telephone was his only lifeline. At $1.86 per local call collect, it didn’t take long before the phone bill was a few hundred dollars for the first month of his incarceration. Employed as a legal assistant in a mid-sized firm, maximizing 401k savings and her medical cafeteria plan, little was left for expenses over and above those budgeted. It was decided that he would have to taper the calls down to once a day then once or twice a week.
When his mom finally saw him, he forced a smile, almost as though he was wincing—knowing full well what he had gotten himself into this time.

As a part of his vulnerability, he had that wild-eyed look to him. That look somewhere between fear and a hollowness that fell in the cusp between the two polar opposite emotions. His eyes remained glassy, staring—so damned hollow throughout the one and only face-to-face jailhouse visit his mother would be granted.

For the first time since he was ten, he was vulnerable, malleable because he believed that he would spend the rest of his life in a cage. It is ironic how once something like this wakes you up, how the scales fall off of your eyes. He was snapped to attention and rose to the calling.