Hannah
FOUR
TUESDAY, AUGUST 27, 2019
By Tuesday morning Hannah had a plan. Rachel had given her a starting point, with her little jibe about Hazel Ellison failing to secure a job offer after her summer internship. On Monday night Hannah trawled through selected social media. She found that Sean had his social media accounts locked down on fully private settings, but Camilaās were public and she posted a few times a week. Hazel was even more prolific. Between social media and the student newspaper, Hannah got all of the information she needed. Sean and Camila were both in their final year at UVA Law, and both had already accepted job offers from major law firms. Hazel was in her third year too, and had had a summer internship at McKnight Babbage in New York, but at the end of the summer thereād been no offer for her.
And there lay an opportunity.
By eight A.M. on Wednesday morning Hannah was ready. She made a call to Hazel Ellison, first routing her number through a website so that a 212 area code would come up on Hazelās phone, rather than Hannahās own cell number.
āHello?ā Hazel sounded distracted, a little confused.
Hannah tried to tighten her voice, make it a little nasal sounding. āAm I speaking with Hazel Ellison?ā
āYes. Yes, thatās me.ā
āIām calling from Gabriel Ryanās office at McKnight Babbage,ā Hannah said. According to Hazelās social media posts, she had worked on Ryanās team during her internship.
There was silence from the other end of the phone. Hannah waited for Hazel to fill it, but she said nothing.
āIām getting in touch because McKnight Babbage is looking again at staffing requirements and we have a number of first-year associate positions available. Mr. Ryan has recommended that we consider you for one of those positions.ā
āI ā¦ Gabe recommended me?ā
āYes. Certainly.ā Hannah concentrated on sounding professional and no nonsense. āMr. Ryanās team is growing, with four major acquisitions kicking off simultaneously next quarter.ā According to the McKnight Babbage website, Gabriel Ryan was a senior partner on the mergers and acquisitions team. āWe do need to fill out his team quickly, however, so this position would require you to be available for an interview immediately. We would need you in the New York office next Monday at nine A.M. The interview process takes place over three days and includes an aptitude test and two rounds of interviews.ā
āI ā¦ I do have some commitments. I work for the Innocence Project at UVA. Thereās a trial ā¦ Would it be possible to reschedule my interview?ā
āNo. Iām sorry. Mr. Ryan and the other partners have very full schedules. Next week is the only time we were able to clear for the process. But of course, if you arenāt available, we do understand given the late notice. And we would wish you luck with your other opportunities.ā
āNo. No, Iām not saying Iām not available,ā Hazel said. āIf it has to be next week then I can make some arrangements.ā
āExcellent. Iām sure Mr. Ryan will be pleased. Please arrive at the main desk in the ground-floor lobby by nine A.M. on Monday and ask for Margo Dowling. Youāll be escorted to the interview suite and guided through the process from there.ā Margo Dowling was another name Hannah had plucked from the firmās website. It was a risk, giving Hazel the name of a real HR manager at the firm. There was always a chance she would call Margo Dowling to ask a question. But Hannah thought it was worth the risk. You always need to add that extra something for authenticity.
āThank you,ā said Hazel. āThatās fine. So this position would be with the mergers and acquisitions team?ā
āYes. Thatās right,ā Hannah said.
āWorking ā¦ uh, working directly with Mr. Ryan?ā
Shit. Hazel sounded wary. āNot directly, based on the organizational chart Iāve been provided,ā Hannah said.
āThatās fine. I mean, of course, I would be happy to work with the entire team.ā
āMmm-hmm. Then weāll see you at the office on Monday.ā Hannah hung up the phone. She took a long slow breath and let it out, then lay back on her bed and thought about her next move.
HANNAH WENT FOR A RUN BEFORE WORK. SHE NEEDED IT TO FOCUS her mind for the day ahead. She got to the Project offices at ten A.M. Marianne Stephenson gave her a nod and a smile but otherwise her arrival went largely unnoticed. Robert Parekhās office door was open and Hannah could see him in there, sitting on the edge of his desk, feet on a chair and phone pressed to his ear. He saw her pass and nodded to her. Rachel was already at her computer, as were Sean, Camila, and Hazel. Hannah put her head down and kept walking. She made her way to her desk, said hello to Rachel, and started work. Today her approach would be different. Monday had been all about metrics and efficiency. Today she wanted to show that she could dig deeper. She had been working quietly for a couple of hours when Robert Parekh dropped by her desk.
āHannah,ā he said.
Hannah looked up, aware of Rachelās small jump of surprise next to her.
āHello,ā Hannah said.
āMarianne talked to me this morning,ā Parekh said. āShe keeps an eye on all of our new recruits. Iāve had a look at the work you have done so far and I read your recommendations so far. Good work. Very good work.ā
āThank you,ā Hannah said.
āI guess they give you good training up there at the Bangor legal aid clinic,ā he said.
Hannah smiled. āThe best,ā she said, and he started to move away. āSorry, Professor Parekh?ā
He stopped. āItās Rob, please.ā
āIāve come across one application here that I think has a lot of potential. The applicantās sister sent in her appellantās brief overnight, and I think ā¦ well, youāll be the judge of course, but I think thereās a case here. The applicantās been in prison for more than twenty-four years and she has eleven years left to run. Iām hoping to finish my analysis today, and I was just wondering who I should send my recommendation to for review?ā
āYou can send it to me.ā Parekh glanced at his watch. āYou know what? Iāve got a few minutes. Why donāt you come by now and run through what you have so far?ā
āGreat,ā Hannah said. āIāll just print out my notes.ā
Parekh left for his office and Hannah printed her document. She was conscious of Rachel, sitting to her right, quivering in outrage. Rachelās head was still bent to her work, but she had two spots of color high in her cheeks and her hand was clenched around her pen.
āYouāre a fast mover, arenāt you?ā she said in a sharp whisper.
Hannah said nothing.
āI told you yesterday that our recommendations go to the staff attorneys for review,ā Rachel said.
āThis is a good case,ā Hannah said. āI donāt want it to get lost.ā
āSure,ā Rachel said. āYouāre just thinking about the applicant, right?ā
āThatās what Iām here for.ā Hannah picked up her notebook and pen and made for Parekhās office, stopping only to collect her notes from the printer. She paused as she entered his office.
āDoor open, or closed?ā she asked.
āOpen is fine,ā he said. āTake a seat.ā
Hannah sat in one of the seats in front of his desk and, conscious that they could be interrupted at any time, launched into her pitch without any preamble.
āThe applicantās name is Nia Jones. In 1994 she was twenty-two years old and living in a trailer in a park outside Richmond with her childrenāa six-month-old baby boy named Andre, and a two-year-old little girl named Carly-Anne. At approximately ten-thirty P.M. on a Friday night in October, the trailer caught fire. The fire started in the kitchen area. Nia was asleep in the bedroom with the baby, and Carly-Anne was asleep too.ā Hannah looked up. āCarly-Anne slept in the living room. The couch there converted into a bed at night, but that meant that she was caught on the other side of the fire from Nia and Andre.ā Parekh nodded, and Hannah looked back at her notes.
āNia managed to get outside with the baby, and witnesses say that she went straight around to the side of the home and broke the window. The window was high up off the ground ā¦ā Hannah put her papers down and demonstrated with her hands. āIt would have been above head height for Nia, who is only five foot two. But she broke the window and managed to climb halfway inside before the fire drove her back. She had deep lacerations to both hands and second-degree burns to her face and upper body.ā
āThe little girl didnāt make it,ā Parekh said.
Hannah shook her head.
āAnd Nia was charged.ā
āYes. With arson and felony murder. Iāve looked at the reporting around the case. Thereās a strong streak of prejudice running through everything. Lots of talk about how she was a single mother of two. Lots of references to previous arrests for drug offenses at the trailer park, though thereās nothing to suggest that Nia had any drug history. Her sister tells me that she had no history with the police at all, that she was a good mother who loved her children and was doing her best. No drugs, no alcohol abuse.ā
Hannah would never deny that there were innocent people in prison. She had, however, been a little taken aback by how easy it had been to find a case that seemed to be such an obvious case of wrongful conviction. Was that just luck? Or were they really stacked up, ten deep?
āYou said felony murder?ā Parekh asked, brow furrowed.
āYes.ā
āAnything in that we can use?ā
Hannah shook her head. āI donāt think so.ā Felony murder charges could be controversial. It was a basic legal principle that to be convicted of a crime an offender must have both committed the crime and had the intention of committing it. The felony murder rule was an exception to that principle, and it had, on more than one occasion, resulted in convictions that most people would consider to be unjust. Under the murder rule, when an offender accidentally kills someone while in the process of committing another serious crime, like arson, rape, or burglary, the offender can be charged with first-degree murder. But it goes further than that. In some circumstances, the killerās accomplices in the original crime can be found guilty of murder too, even if they werenāt physically present when the death took place. Hannah had read about a case where a burglar was already in handcuffs in a police car when her accomplice in an earlier burglary shot a police officer. The burglar in handcuffs was found guilty of felony murder. There was another case where a twenty-year-old loaned a car to a friend. The friend used that car to travel to commit a burglary, and during the burglary, he beat a young woman to death. The twenty-year-old was convicted of felony murder and sentenced to life without parole. The prosecution had argued that the twenty-year-old knew that his friend was planning a burglary, but it didnāt seem likely that he could have known that the murder, which had been spontaneous, would take place.
Hannah could see that the murder rule was problematic, but she wasnāt sure she agreed with critics who said it should be removed entirely. For her, it was a question of moderation, rather than complete removal. Virginia had added a requirement that the murder result directly from the offenderās own acts, rather than those of an accomplice, and that felt like a reasonable approach. If Nia Jones had intentionally set fire to her own trailer and her babyās death had been the accidental result, Hannah would have wanted to see Nia punished. So Hannahās problem with Niaās conviction wasnāt that it resulted from a charge of felony murder. The problem was, as far as Hannah could see, that there was no evidence that she had committed any crime at all.
āYou made contact with the sister?ā
Hannah nodded. āHer number was on the application. I thought calling her might be the quickest way to get what we needed. She had the brief and she was able to send it through overnight.ā
Parekh nodded. āOkay,ā he said. āLetās talk about the evidence.ā
āRight,ā Hannah said. āWell, the arson investigation found evidence of accelerant in the living room. Two arson investigators testified with confidence that the fire had been started deliberately, that someone had poured kerosene in a line across the living room floor and set the whole home on fire. They specified that the accelerant was the reason the fire had burned so quickly and so fiercely. Nia had no explanation for the accelerant found in the trailer. She said she had never poured or spilled kerosene or anything similar in her home. She had a small kerosene heater, but the arson investigators had already discounted that as the source of the blaze. At her trial Nia said that the trailer wasnāt hers. Sheād been renting for two years, so she suggested that the kerosene could have been spilled by the owner or a previous tenant, but the arson experts said no way.ā
āWhat was the motive?ā Parekh asked.
āThey said she intended to make an insurance policy claim.ā
āOkay,ā Parekh said. Raised voices came from somewhere outside and Parekh looked over Hannahās shoulder, squinting a little as if to try to make out who was speaking. āTalk to me about the evidence,ā Parekh said.
Hannah had read about nothing but exoneration cases for the past week, which was why Niaās case had jumped out at her. In her reading about death row cases she had come across more than one case where arson evidence had later been overturned. She hadnāt just been searching social media feeds the night before. Sheād also spent several hours looking for specific case law where new scientific evidence had been effectively introduced. Sheād worked until three A.M. but it hadnāt been in vain.
āThe National Registry of Exonerations shows that at least seventeen arson convictions have been overturned in the past twenty-four years, including that of David Lee Gavitt, who had been imprisoned for twenty-six years for the murder of his wife and two baby girls by fire. Investigators in Gavittās case, and others, pointed to charred patterns in the shape of puddles and other signs to argue that the fire had been intentionally set. They used almost word for word the same language used by the arson investigators in Niaās case.ā
He was listening to her, she definitely had his attention, but the raised voices from outside the office werenāt going away. What had started out as a lively discussion sounded like it was degenerating into an argument. Parekh stood.
āAll of the evidence has since been debunked. There is no scientific basis for it,ā Hannah said. āThe only real evidence against Nia was the evidence of the arson investigators and I think itās unreliable. If we could get the right expert ā¦ā But she had lost him. He went to the door of his office, leaned out.
āWhatās going on?ā he said.
The argument outside stopped as soon as he spoke. Hannah turned in her chair, craning her neck to try to peer around the door, but Parekh was blocking her view. There was a mumbled response, and then Parekh saidāāMy office, please. Right now.ā Hannah stood up, hovered, unsure if she should stay or go. Parekh came back inside, closely followed by Camila and Hazel. Both girls looked flushed and unhappy.
āIām sorry, Hannah. Weāll have to pick this up later,ā Parekh said.
āNo problem.ā Hannah turned to leave.
āI think you have something there. Stay on it. Finish your recommendation, send it to me, and letās set a time to talk again,ā Parekh said.
Hannah nodded and left, closing the door behind her. She went back to her desk. The atmosphere in the office was strained for the next few hours. Rachel treated Hannah to an icy look and silence on her return to her desk. Rob Parekhās office...
