When your life is on the line, we need lawyers with heart as well as brains
A love letter to attorneys who care, and one in particular
By Robert Barton
For six months, I prepared for my parole hearing. It felt like all of my hopes and dreams, my entire everything really, was tied into that hearing. Prepping with me weekly was my lawyer, Stew. Together, we wrote and re-wrote what I wanted and needed to say. I was scared, anxious and nervous. But Stew is as invested in my freedom as I am — which is a beautiful thing. It seems almost certain that lost my bid for parole (the hearing examiner recommended against it and we don’t expect the board to overrule him; it rarely does).
But I don’t feel as alone or as discouraged as I did when I was denied release once before (in January 2020).
Stew has told me many times that he feels as though he’s “responsible” for me, and I know now that I don’t walk alone. I have a fighter in my corner. But he is more than that; Stew also has become my brother and my friend. When we first started communicating, he told me I could call him just to talk, since he wanted to get to know me. And as we began to establish our bond, he once told me that lawyers are taught to avoid becoming too close to their clients, since they are supposed to remain “even-keeled.” Still, he said, how could he do his best for them if he didn’t feel personally invested?
I agree; how can lawyers passionately represent their clients if they have not grown to truly understand them? I say they can’t.
I know so many people who are fighting for their lives and their lawyers are non-responsive. They don’t care or are just “doing their jobs.” I was in a cell with a guy recently who is serving a sentence of 114 years and was back in court on a post-conviction motion. His lawyer never came to visit or even call him to discuss his case. One day, he thought he was supposed to go to court. But when he called his lawyer to ask why he had not been picked up to go to the courtroom, she told him that “the date was changed, and I don’t have time to talk because I’m walking my dog.”
This happens all the time. Lawyers take guys’ money or are appointed by the courts to represent them and then they do the bare minimum. They don’t visit. They don’t strategize with their clients. They don’t inform them what’s going on. They are non-responsive when their clients write or call. They don’t care. And the consequences are catastrophic. I still remember the account of Anthony Ray Hinton in his book “The Sun Does Shine.” Hinton served 30 years on the Alabama death row before his innocence was proven and he was released. His original, court-appointed lawyer was shown to be incompetent, and no wonder. He told Hinton at one point that the amount he was being paid was barely enough for him to “buy breakfast.”
In contrast, Stew told me both before and after my parole hearing that he “was not going anywhere (no matter what the decision). I will fight to the end and keep trying to find ways to get you out.” And that has been the case. Stew took the hearing examiner’s decision to ignore the parole commission’s own scoring system kind of hard, but I am so used to being let down that I have been able to quickly move on. I don’t have much faith in the federal parole board (which handles D.C. residents) or even the system, so I was sort of prepared. But Stew was torn up and apologized to me. What a change from my past attorney, who moved on immediately after my denial. It was like I was just another case: “You lose some, you win some, and on to the next one.” But Stew? He is still with me to this day and is already looking for other options. I don’t have many and I know that. What matters is that he is my partner in this, and if there is a way out, he’ll help me find it. I am not alone.
I’m so thankful for Stew. We need lawyers like him who really care and want to be true advocates for their clients. People whose very lives are at stake often spend their family’s last dollars for these lawyers. They languish in jail because there is no way to win their freedom without a Stew.
To all the lawyers out there: Please remember that there are real people behind those case files in your load. None of them is “just another case.” Approach it like someone’s life depends on your work, because it does!
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