Patrick’s warrant stated capital murder, meaning lethal injection in Arkansas, and had since been reduced to first-degree murder—still an overcharge. Jury trials are expensive and time-consuming, and the overcharge is a standard prosecutor’s tactic, intended to scare the defendant into taking a plea. The state also overcharges for a simpler reason—because it can. To overcharge sends a message: We have the power to really hurt you, so obey us. The sentence for a first-degree murder conviction is life; the sentence for manslaughter, three to ten years. Few defendants—including those who are innocent—want to take a gamble on a jury trial that might send them to prison for life.
Only in certain cases—where, for instance, the defendant has the public’s sympathy—does the prosecutor undercharge, or charge with the law in mind. The white guy in Louisiana who’d shot the Japanese kid at point-blank range on his doorstep was charged with manslaughter, for instance, in consideration of two legally relevant factors: the “castle doctrine”—that one’s home is one’s castle, and a man has a right to defend his castle—and genuine fear. These two factors could certainly have been weighed in determining the appropriate charge for Patrick. But Patrick was not a white man living in the suburbs, so he was charged with first-degree murder.
My professor didn’t seem surprised by the overcharge. “He’ll need to try to get that charge down,” she said, leafing through the pages. Then she asked, “Did he talk to the police?”
“He signed a waiver,” I said.
Her face fell.
“There wasn’t a lawyer with him?”
“No.” I hurried on. “It says that he was read his Miranda rights, but, to be honest, I doubt he knows what Miranda is or what those rights entail.”
She was uninterested in this argument: This is true of most criminal defendants who are poor and uneducated. The law on Miranda v. Arizona barely makes exceptions for defendants who are mentally handicapped.
“He confessed?”
“Yeah. And his dad signed a statement, too.”
She closed the file. He’d confessed; no question existed as to legal innocence. Patrick was the one who did it. The case was just ordinary, a fight that had ended badly but not unpredictably. He had won the fight and then he told the police everything. He had protected himself too much and then he hadn’t protected himself at all.
She handed the file back to me. “I hate to say that it’s too late,” she said. “But there’s not much you can do.”
This was not a “close” case. She, an experienced defense lawyer, was telling me to not have hope.
—
I TOOK THE BAR EXAM over the summer and moved to California. It was September and my life was set to begin. The fellowship in Oakland was to start in a month and a half.
My mother flew to San Francisco to help me unpack. With her characteristic meticulousness, she ironed each piece of clothing—blouses, blazers, dresses, slacks—shaking her head tragically at the wrinkles wrought by the long journey west. When she thought a blouse and a blazer made a particularly good match, she placed them together on the same hanger. I took my mother for a walk in the neighborhood. “You’ll be happy here,” she said, pleased.
I was to live in the Mission District in San Francisco. My friend Adina had found the two of us an apartment; we signed a yearlong lease and paid the security deposit. We were excited to live together. Down my street was Tartine, Mark Bittman’s favorite American bakery. On a single block were three excellent bookstores, arrayed in puzzling and wonderful proximity to one another. On one side of my neighborhood, Diego Rivera–inspired murals greeted me in fantastic swirling colors. If I walked in the other direction, the names of businesses amused me, playful or ironic or obscure—like the restaurant Foreign Cinema.
At every corner, a bar advertised happy hour. Big, gorgeous sheepdogs shared the streets with preposterously small Chihuahuas. Accenting the streets, always, were people and more people, dressed chaotically in argyle, boots, leggings, and rebellious-looking hats. Gentrification had begun, but the rent was still affordable.
The day after my mother left, my friend and her husband visited. We took the bus to Ocean Beach and looked out at the Pacific. The salty air, the pale drama of the fog—the California that had existed in my fantasy was now reality. Sharing a loaf of sourdough, the three of us sat on the sand and followed the sound of barking yelps to a herd of seals on a nearby island. A golden retriever chased a ball into the ocean and emerged triumphant and sopping, treasure in jaw.
—
PEOPLE IN MY workshop told me that my writing about Patrick was good enough to get published. I felt guilty considering this. Then I tried to comfort myself: The writing was not triumphalist, it did not downplay my moral failure; I had tried to depict Patrick and my students warmly, humanely. Did that effort mitigate the exertion of power, the betrayal of intimacy, that was intrinsic to telling someone else’s story?
A teacher had put me in touch with The New York Times Magazine, and an editor offered to publish it as a “Lives” column. I made a pact with myself: If Patrick didn’t like it, I would not publish it. I mailed Patrick the essay I’d written about him.
But he didn’t write back. Had he even received it?
I told the editor to go ahead and publish.
Then—after the deed was done—I worried. I worried what Patrick would think. Would he find my portrait wrong? What if he thought I only cared about writing his story and didn’t really care about him? It was a strange, sudden, unexpected opposition between writing and caring. I had never doubted the latter; indeed, I had built my whole identity out of it. Anybody who knew me knew I was a clichéd bleeding-heart liberal, sure, but my heart truly bled! Now my act of publishing seemed to have undermined my sincerity.
I made another little pact with myself. When you go back in October to see Patrick—I had planned one more visit before my job started in Oakland—you’ll show him the piece, face-to-face.
—
ON A SATURDAY MORNING IN early October, almost exactly a year since I’d last seen Patrick, I drove to Helena’s county jail. There was no traffic. The streets were empty. Having lived in San Francisco for a month, where the sheer effort required to park your car can steal your soul, I was incredulous at the parking spot I found squarely at the entrance.
I sat down in the waiting area. At the front desk was a sign in orange block letters—OPEN—but there was no guard.
This time, the only other person there was a woman, who wore a shirt that said, DON’T ASK ME SHIT.
After ten minutes a guard appeared, holding a jumbo-sized bag of hot chips.
I told him I was there to see Patrick Browning.
“You can’t see him,” he said.
“But aren’t visiting hours now?” I asked, confused.
“Maybe I ain’t feel like getting him,” he said. Then he winked.
Now I understood. He was “just playing” with me and wanted me to play back. I was no longer puzzled—indeed, had he been professional, I probably would have been more surprised.
Mock-affronted, I furrowed my brow. At this, he cocked his head.
“You got a boyfriend?” he asked. Suddenly I felt his hand on mine. “You don’t got no ring.” He puckered his lips at me, then grinned.
In the Delta, banter was sexual harassment. It didn’t really matter what you looked like, as long as you were under fifty.