I majored in business administration as an undergraduate and assumed I’d go to work for my father’s company after law school. Imagine my surprise after graduation when I found myself riding around South Carolina with lawyer Jack B. Swerling, Mr. Murder himself, trying murder cases. We rode around in his metallic green Lincoln Continental automobile, the largest model they ever made, with front seats the size of sofas that were covered in plush green velour fabric. We listened to the King, Elvis Prtessley, on Jack’s 8 track cassette player. It was the beginning of a completely unexpected forty-six-year career as a trial lawyer that included thirty-four murder cases. Each case was its own story but the one I want to write about is my favorite.
I often wondered how cases found their way to my door. How a mother from New York City a thousand miles away would call the number to my office. One day the receptionist buzzed my extension saying, “there’s was a woman on the phone from New York City whose daughter is in jail charged with murder.” I quickly picked up and spoke to the mother on the phone to find out about the case but just as quickly learned the mother didn’t know anything about what happened, other than she was certain her daughter’s innocence.
The only way I’d be able to find out anything about the case would be to drive to jail and speak to the daughter personally. Normally, that would require an upfront fee which I hadn’t been paid but, with murder cases being as rare as they are, I decided to take a chance and go see her.
Working your way into the jail to visit an inmate requires patience on a glacial scale. You have to wait in line to speak to the visibly bored guard manning the desk. When you finally reach the front of the line, you have to show the guard your picture ID and bar card for his scrutiny like you’re a teenager trying to buy a six pack of beer. He’ll look up when satisfied with your ID and wait for you to tell him the name of the inmate you want to see. Then he’ll pretend not to hear you until you spell your client’s name out for him as he hunts and pecks the inmate’s name into the keyboard of a computer with an antiquated cathode ray terminal with a flashing green cursor. If you’re lucky, your client’s name will pop up on his screen and the guard will tell you to sign the visitors log as he lazily waves you through to the attorney visitation area which operates on a first come, first served basis, so you hope there’s an open booth or else you’ll have to stand around and wait for another lawyer to finish talking to their client. When you’re lucky enough to get a booth, you park yourself in it and wait for the guards to bring your client down from the cell blocks.
And you wait, and wait, because transporting inmates for visitation is about the last thing on the list of things prison guards do. It comes after mealtime, medical call, shift change, and quelling any disturbance on the cell block. There’s no telling how long it might take for your client to arrive on the other side of the plate glass window in the visitation booth. While you wait you notice the smell of hopelessness and begin to worry it will permanently permeate your hair and clothing. About the time you’ve given up all hope of ever feeling clean again, the guards shuffle your dazed client into the room on the other side of the plate glass as you point and wait for them to pick up the plastic telephone so you can speak to them.
My first impression of the daughter I was visiting was of a young woman who’d been too scared to sleep, change clothes, or bath for days. Her orange jump suit was crumpled and her hair was as wild as the look in her eyes. I verified I was speaking to the right person and told her I was a lawyer her mother asked to come see her. While that seemed to calm her some, I could tell she remained suspicious of me.
First things first. I gave her the talk every lawyer gives prospective clients when visiting them for the first time in jail, “don’t talk to the police without me being present. I don’t care what threats or promises they make to try and get you to talk to them, I can’t protect you, if I’m not there. Don’t give details about your case to a cell mate because, armed with details, snitches can manufacture jailhouse confessions for you and barter them for leniency in their own cases, don’t .” “Don’t sign anything without reading it and, if, after you read it, if you’re not 100% sure what it says or what it’s for, don’t sign it, oh, and don’t forget, don’t talk about your case on the phone because all calls in and out of the jail are recorded.”
After my speech, I asked if she had any paperwork from when she was arrested. She did, so I asked her to hold the papers up to the glass so I could read them and make notes while we talked. The warrant charged her with murder punishable in South Carolina punishable in one of three ways: the death penalty, life without the possibility of parole, or 30 years in prison of which you have to serve 85%, or 25.5 years, before being eligible for parole. It’s a lawyer’s duty to advise a client of nature and elements of the offense charged and possible punishment but doing so only increased this frightened young woman’s anxiety.
Based on the warrant and what she was telling me; I began to piece together what had happened. She stabbed the alleged victim, a young man, to death. The warrant said she stabbed him 28 times, but she couldn’t remember the number. She didn’t know the alleged victim having just met him at a club about an hour before she killed him. She went to the club that night with her boyfriend, but they got into a fight, and he drove off leaving her stranded. The young man victim saw she was upset and kindly asked if she was alright. He seemed like a nice guy, so she accepted his offer to give her a ride home. He drove a nice car, so she didn’t object when he said he just wanted to run by his house on the way. He lived in a nice house, so she accepted when he invited her inside. She didn’t realize the mistake she’d made until he closed the door behind her, grabbed her by her arm, twisted it behind her back and pushed her face first into the wall as he threatened to hurt her really bad if she cried out or resisted. After she nodded accent, he ushered her down the hall to a bedroom where he threw her on a bed, pulled tore her clothes off, and raped her. She was so shocked and scared, she didn’t resist. He finally got off and left her lying terrified on the bed.
Hoping to distract him before he raped her again, she told him she had two vodka mini bottles in her purse laying on the floor and suggested they have a drink. He picked her purse up and, sure enough, found the two mini bottles. He took both bottles and tossed the purse onto the bed as he twisted off the top of the first bottle and chugged it in one pull. He had no intention of sharing the other bottle and, as he was busy twisting the top off it, he didn’t notice when she reached for her purse and pulled a butterfly knife out of it. A butterfly knife, for those who may be unfamiliar with one, hides its stiletto blade between its two ornate metal handles. You flip the knife in a back-and-forth motion to open it and expose the blade.
Once the knife was opened, she didn’t hesitate to use it. She stabbed him furiously until he stopped resisting. She ran from the room, back down the hall, and out his front door, then ran down the street in front of his house stark naked, covered in his blood, still holding the knife, and screaming for somebody to call the police.
Somebody did call the police but, when they arrived and found the victim’s bloody body in the bloody bedroom, they couldn’t wrap their minds around the 28 stab wounds. Most of the stab wounds were on the young man’s hands and forearms which the detective said made them defensive wounds. I’m no forensic expert, but I had no reason to doubt that’s exactly what they were. The bloody crime scene made the detective ignore her story about what happened and charge her with murder.
And here she was locked up in the filthy county jail, scared to death, telling me, a stranger, her story through a half inch of glass over a cheap plastic telephone. As rare as murder cases are, a person accused of murder actually being innocent is a whole higher level of scarcity. I could hardly believe my ears as I found myself listening to a young woman charged with murder who could actually be innocent. A real live, breathing unicorn.
In South Carolina, a person charged with murder has to be brought before a Circuit Court judge to set bail, usually just a formality as bail bonds are rarely given in murder cases. I gathered all the information I needed to file a bond motion and concluded my interview. Still, jaded by my years as a criminal defense lawyer, I couldn’t help but think there had to be more to this story than what she told me. I was astonished when I was able to get a copy of the police incident report, and it verified virtually everything she told me.
As fate would have it, Judge Casey Manning was presiding in General Session court that week. I had no idea how he would rule on a bond motion but had appeared before him many times and was confident he wouldn’t just rubber stamp the prosecution’s opposition to bail. I didn’t wait for a fee from the young woman’s mother in New York and filed my notice of appearance and bond motion the next morning. Judge Manning didn’t wait either and set a hearing for later that week.
Not wanting my client to appear in court looking the way she looked in the jail when I interviewed her, I decided to stop by Gwynn’s of Mt. Pleasant department store where a friend worked to get her to help me pick out a simple dress for my client to wear for her bail hearing. Jailers don’t have to let inmates wear street clothes for ahearing before a judge based on the legal fiction judges aren’t human beings and won’t be prejudiced when an inmate is brought before them in an orange jump suit, shackles, and rubber sandals. So now not only hadn’t I been paid, now I was out of pocket the cost of the dress on a gamble the guards would let her wear it.
While its true guards can become hardened and sticklers for the jailhouse rules, it is also true they can sometimes surprise you with simple human kindness. My gamble paid off and the lady guards not only helped my client put on the dress but to fix her hair before bringing her out into the courtroom for her bond hearing.
A silence fell over the courtroom as my client was led in through the door from the holding cells. All eyes were on her as she walked to the podium in front of the judge where I stood waiting. There was something about her. Something dignified in the way she held her head up as she walked, in the way she was smiling. She wasn’t beautiful but she was captivating. Her smile spread to everyone in the courtroom including Judge Manning.
Judge Manning ran through the preliminaries asking her name, age, how far she got in school, had she ever been treated for any mental health problems, and was she under the influence of any drugs or alcohol before turning to the offense charged. He asked her if she understood she was charged with murder and what the possible punishment was. Satisfied she was competent and understood the proceedings, Judge Manning turned to the prosecution to tell him about the facts.
I watched as the young duty prosecutor hastily read the warrant and incident report to put together reasons why this young woman needed to remain in custody. He emphasized the seriousness of the offense, the 28 stab wounds, and that she had no family ties to the community as pretty solid reasons to deny bail. I was ready when Judge Manning turned to me and asked if there was anything I’d like to add. I told him the whole story in as much detail as he would allow. I quoted from the police report verbatim about her running down the street calling for someone to call the police for emphasis. As I spoke, I noticed my client and Judge Manning’s eyes were locked on each other. When I exhausted everything I could think to say, it was Judge Manning turn to rule on the bond motion.
My heart sank when he announced he was setting her bond at $50,000.00, then soared back up again as he said the bond would be an unsecured, personal recognizance bond. A PR bond in a murder case is unheard of, but to be honest, this never was a murder case and Judge Manning saw that right away.
My favorite murder case would never again see the inside of a courtroom. It would never generate a line of print in the local newspaper, not so much as a sound bite on the evening news. On closer examination the Solicitor dismissed the case with little prodding from me. After the case was dismissed, I never saw or heard from my client again. In fact, my memory of her faded as the months passed until one day, it had to be a year and half later, there was a handwritten envelope in my morning mail from New York City. Inside that envelope was a check for $2,500.00 and a note from the client’s mother thanking me for saving her baby girl’s life.
Needless to say, $2,500.00 is a pittance for representation on a murder charge, but I knew it was probably more money than the poor mother could afford. I was made far richer by this one fee than any other fee I ever received. I knew it wasn’t my courtroom prowess or my astute legal arguments that set the young woman free, but I took her case without a thought of the fee I would earn or the publicity I would receive. It was a reaffirmation of everything I went to law school for.
It has been a long and unexpected career as a criminal defense lawyer. What I’ve learned is that lawyers who think being a lawyer is a ticket to fortune or fame will never know the far more meaningful reward that comes from helping a deserving client without thought of either.
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