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Lawless
A lawyer's unrelenting fight for justice in a war zone
Kimberley Motley
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eBook - ePub
Lawless
A lawyer's unrelenting fight for justice in a war zone
Kimberley Motley
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About This Book
In the summer of 2008 Kimberley Motley quit her job as a public defender in Milwaukee to join a program that helped train lawyers in war-torn Afghanistan. She was thirty-two at the time, a mother of three who had never travelled outside the United States. What she brought to Afghanistan was a toughness and resilience which came from growing up in one of the most dangerous cities in the US, a fundamental belief in everyone's right to justice and an unconventional legal mind that has made her a legend in an archaic, misogynistic and deeply conservative environment. Through sheer force of personality, ingenuity and perseverance, Kimberley became the first foreign lawyer to practise in Afghanistan and her work swiftly morphed into a mission - to bring 'justness' to the defenceless and voiceless. She has established herself as an expert on its fledgling criminal justice system, able to pivot between the country's complex legislation and its religious laws in defence of her clients. Her radical approach has seen her successfully represent both Afghans and Westerners, overturning sentences for men and women who've been subject to often appalling miscarriages of justice. Inspiring and fascinating in equal measure, Lawless tells the story of a remarkable woman operating in one of the most dangerous countries in the world.
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Biografías jurídicas1
The playlist
In 2007 I was living and working in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Milwaukee is where I grew up. It’s where I went to school. It’s where I started my life with my husband, Claude, and it’s where we had our three kids, Deiva, Seoul and Cherish. I know Milwaukee better than I know myself. Although that doesn’t mean I have to like it.
Ever since I was a kid, Milwaukee has been the most segregated city in the United States.1 It’s a place that incarcerates more black men than any other city in the US so that now more than 50 per cent of black men in their thirties and early forties have been incarcerated in some type of state prison.2 In 2018, Milwaukee was deemed the worst place in America to raise a black child.3
These may seem like just another set of grim urban statistics to you, but they are more than just numbers to me. They represent the experiences I’ve had my whole life.
I grew up in the projects. When I was seven, my best friend was a girl named Janine. I would go to her house every day to play, and I can still remember her mother, a beautiful woman who was always kind to me. I remember how sometimes she would bake us cookies. One night I was lying in bed when suddenly the street was lit up by the lights of ambulances and police cars. The sirens rang out and I could hear voices shouting outside my window.
The next day I found out that Janine’s mother had been murdered by her father. She had tried to get away, banging on people’s doors, crying for help, but no one opened up their door for her. Her husband beat and stabbed her to death in the street and threw her body in the green dumpster that I passed when I walked to school every day.
When I was nine, my two brothers and I were playing baseball in the neighbourhood playground and an older teenager came over to borrow our bat. He took the bat from us and beat the shit out of another kid in the middle of the street right there in front of us.
That is Milwaukee. It’s the city where I was born and raised. It’s a city that I love and hate. It’s the city that made me who I am and prepared me for whatever the world could throw at me.
Despite growing up in the projects, not going to college was never an option. Not with my Korean mother and African-American military father. Even though I had my heart set on other things, they expected me to go to college to get a degree. Still, it wasn’t until I was twenty years old and pregnant with Deiva that I decided to focus on getting a paralegal degree so I could find a job that earned enough to provide for her.
I have always had an interest in the law. When I was two, my father was nearly killed in a car accident while he was working, but not only did his then employer, General Electric (GE), refuse to pay compensation for the disabilities he suffered as a result of the accident, they actually fired him. He was forced to sue. The case rumbled on for years and at times was the main focus of life in our house. Eventually it went to court and he lost. That transformed life for us because, while we weren’t rich before the accident, we were definitely poor after it. We even had to give away our dog.
After earning my paralegal degree, I finished my Bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and then went to graduate school and law school at two different universities simultaneously, graduating in May 2003. I wasn’t yet sure in what area of law I wanted to practise, but I’d tell people “anything but criminal law” because I had grown up in that world and seen enough of it to last a lifetime. But when the Milwaukee Public Defender’s Office visited our campus and I started talking to one of their recruiters, she convinced me that I was well suited for the work and offered me a job. Already pregnant with my second child, Seoul, it seemed easy to say yes.
Becoming a public defender is for a lot of people the first time they’re introduced to poverty. It can be quite a culture shock. In order to be a lawyer worth your salt, you have to know the law but also how to deal with people who might be very different from anyone you’ve ever met. So as soon as I started working at the Milwaukee Public Defender’s Office I could tell I was unusual. While for most of my peers, this was the first time that they’d seen criminal activity up close, I’d been conditioned to it since I was a little kid.
It takes a special person to be a really good public defender, to be that kind of advocate, because it’s more than a job, it’s a lifestyle. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long before I began to feel that that lifestyle wasn’t what I wanted. I felt increasingly like I had to choose between being a good lawyer and having a good life. I’m not saying that I had to be super-wealthy, but it frustrated me that I couldn’t do my job well and also live a full life outside of it. Our system in the US just doesn’t allow for people to do that work, represent poor people and have enough time or money to support a family.
Like most public defenders, I was overwhelmed with cases. I was required to represent somewhere between 200 and 250 people per year, which meant there was little time to go to the office or have meetings or to do any of those other things you might think a lawyer does with her day. My days began with dropping off my eldest daughter and son, Deiva and Seoul, at school and my youngest daughter, Cherish, at child care. I then spent the rest of my time running between the court and the jail.
The day I met David was a pretty typical day.
I had dropped off the kids that morning and had been bouncing from court to court. Or, as in David’s case, fronting up to argue bail.
The way our Public Defender’s Office worked was that we took bail hearings on a rotating basis, so when you’re on you argue bail for everyone arrested that week. Whoever they might be, whatever they’ve done, you try to make some kind of reasonable argument no matter how hopeless. I’ve literally stood up in a bail hearing and argued that the fact my client has actually showed up, albeit in handcuffs, is sitting in court politely and promises that he won’t run (this time) are positive factors that the judge should consider when setting bail. You do what you can.
So the day I met David I’d arrived at court and knew I had around ten minutes to see what we might use to convince the court not to incarcerate him. To be honest, I was on autopilot because I’d seen ten Davids already that day. Or so I thought.
Something about David’s file was unusual. He was still in high school; I could use that and argue that he was less of a flight risk. He had no prior record, which definitely helped, and he also had a part-time stable job—another bonus. Before I’d even considered the details of his case I had figured this kid had a good shot at being released on bail.
David was a seventeen-year-old black kid who was preparing for his prom. To get himself looking his best, David went to get a haircut at the local barber shop. He sat down in the barber’s chair, and while the guy was cutting his hair the other guys were shooting the breeze like guys in barber shops do. Then one of the guys pulled out a gun that he’d just bought from some guy on the street.
Everyone was excited at the sight of the gun. They started laughing and joking about it as the barber removed the clip and passed it around. Everyone in there took turns holding the gun, admiring the gun, talking about the gun, goofing off a bit. Eventually the gun landed in David’s hands.
Now, let’s remember the gun had no clip. David held up the gun, examined it, and pulled the trigger.
The bullet fired across the room and struck another seventeen-year-old kid sitting in the chair opposite David. Just like David, Mike was there that day getting his hair cut for his prom. The bullet struck Mike in the head and killed him instantly.
David dropped the gun and yelled, “You didn’t tell me there was one in the chamber!”
He panicked and tried to help the kid bleeding on the floor. David screamed for help even though it was clear there was nothing that could be done.
The other guys in the shop must have panicked too because they started getting aggressive with David, telling him he needed to get the hell out of there. They forced him out of the door and David ran home. He told his older sister what had happened. She packed him a bag and told him to get the hell out of town. His sister instructed him to head to Chicago and lie low.
Somewhere between his sister’s house and Chicago, David’s conscience and good sense must have kicked in because instead he walked to the nearest police station. He told the police what he’d done, and like any officer would in that situation they sat him down and asked him to write down a full confession.
But then David did something very interesting.
Instead of writing a confession, he wrote a letter. The letter was addressed to the mother of the boy who he had just shot hours before. It was contrite, full of remorse and sorrow for what had happened. In it, he explained that it had been a terrible accident and that he was sorry for the pain that he had caused.
The police officers promised to share David’s letter with the victim’s family (which they never did). Ultimately, he was charged for murdering Mike.
A couple of days after he’d been released on bail, David came to my office. He walked in wearing his high school letterman jacket, eyes scanning nervously around the room. It was obvious that this was the first time he’d been in any kind of trouble. Just as he’d been at the hearing, he was polite and humble, but his fear was palpable. Being a public defender, you get used to seeing a lot of people who commit crimes and you get used to their swagger, the way they conduct themselves, the way they look at you, talk to you. But right away, as I measured up this teenage boy standing in front of me, I thought, “You ain’t supposed to be here.”
I felt strongly that we had a case to bring to trial. Though what David had done was ill-advised, there was no intent; it had been an accident and so there was a chance to win if we went in front of a jury. But David was firm. He felt so bad about what he’d done that he simply wanted to plead guilty and take his punishment.
“I deserve to go to prison for the rest of my life,” he kept saying over and over.
He seemed genuinely remorseful, like all he wanted was for everything to stop and for the pain and guilt to go away. I wasn’t sure volunteering for prison was the best way to achieve that. I tried to talk him through his options, but his mind was set. He wasn’t listening. All he said was, “I should never have picked up that gun.”
So David began to go through the exact details of what had happened that day. I was surprised when he told me that he had confessed at the police station. I was particularly interested in how the police had extracted that confession from him. I wondered if they coerced him or put words in his mouth. That’s when he told me about the letter he’d written to the kid’s mother.
“Didn’t she get it?” he asked me. I doubted it, but I decided I’d ask for a copy.
Two weeks later, David and I met again. This time back in the courtroom. David pleaded guilty and a court date was set for his sentencing.
In court, the prosecution agreed with David: that he should never have touched the gun. They called the victim’s parents up to the stand and they impressed upon everyone what a good person Mike had been. I couldn’t argue with any of this. When it came my time to present David’s case, I was determined to show what a good kid he was, too.
But when I stood up I froze.
I had spent the last month working hard to put together strong arguments to justify a light sentence for David. By pleading guilty, we already knew that he was going to prison, so all I could do was try to get his sentence reduced as much as possible. I had compiled character references from the school, his boss, people who’d known him his whole life. They all stood by him. He was a good kid. This wasn’t some gang-related assassination but a terrible accident that had robbed two promising young black men of their lives because we live in a country where guns get passed around at the barber shop. After countless hours discussing the case with David, I could only admire his maturity and willingness to accept responsibility. I speak from experience when I say how rare that is.
But in that moment, as I stood in front of the court, I changed my mind about how to present my arguments. I’d given sentencing arguments and presented character references a hundred times before; the court had heard millions of them. And I’d defended gang members and murderers; the results were nearly always the same. I knew I had to do something different for David.
David’s family sat on one side, while Mike’s family were seated on the other. I stood up and glanced at the boy sitting next to me, swimming in the oversized suit his father had lent him, head down, crying. I looked at the notes that I had spent hours writing with all the positive letters in support of David.
Judge Donald urged, “Ms Motley, please proceed.”
Putting aside my notes, I looked again at my client and decided to shuffle my playlist. I reached for another document at the back of David’s file—the letter he had written to Mike’s mother hours after the shooting.
“Ms Motley …” Judge Donald repeated impatiently.
“Dear Ma’am.” I began, clearing my throat. “I’m sorry. I am so sorry for what I have done …”
I have always believed that the law needs to be practised with humanity. A lot of my colleagues disagree and prefer to rely on the rules to guide their every step through the legal process. We’re trained to learn the book so that we can follow it, but I think sometimes you have to throw the book away and do what feels right. As I read through David’s letter, I knew it said more than any character reference ever could.
“I think about all of the times I’ve seen your son at this barber shop before,” he’d written. “I’ve never spoken to him, but he seemed like a very nice person. My father always taught me not to touch guns, that guns are not toys, and I should have known better. I’m so sorry that I killed him and I wish I was dead instead.”
I’ve always wondered how David must have felt walking to the police station, the thoughts going through his mind, the weight on his young shoulders. How he must have felt as a seventeen-year-old kid who had just killed somebody after he’d been told to run away, to hide, to avoid recrimination. What strength David showed to instead make the decision to say, “No, I’m going to handle this.” What did that take? I can’t imagine what that walk felt like on his young legs.
Reading David’s letter was so emotional and raw that it was difficult for me to even get through it. When I’d finished, I sat down and the court was silent. The judge took a minute before he addressed us.
“This is one of the most difficult sentencings I’ve ever had to make as a judge,” he said. “I recognise that you’re a good kid. Mike was also a good kid, too. But still there was a life that was taken …”
Then he sentenced David to three years in prison.
It was the best result that we could have hoped for. I hugged David before they took him down. Then I experienced the most powerful thing as I left the courtroom and walked down the hall. I saw the two mothers, David’s and Mike’s, talking to each other in the corridor. Two women whose lives had been destroyed, consoling each other for their loss.
There were no winners in the courtroom that day. I used David’s own words to defend him, to protect him. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was exploring something new, something outside of what I’d been taught in law school. I didn’t realise it then, but it would become a cornerstone of a legal style that would come to define my career.
In the meantime, I saw that this was another example of the reality of Milwaukee. It’s a town where even good kids get shot dead and other good kids end up in prison. Watching the two mothers mourning their sons must have flicked a switch somewhere inside of me because suddenly I felt a profound sense of sadness as well as urgency. I knew I needed to get away from that place. I needed my children to grow up somewhere else because othe...