Imperfect Justice

It’s the wafting scent of donuts from Conroy’s Bakery that forever reminds me of Helen Wilson. There was almost no traffic on the street as I walked the few blocks from my freshman college dorm through the Nebraska wintery cold to clear my head.  

The year was 1985 and I was safely ensconced in my own little world of music performance and college friends. That chilly February morning, though, something ripped through the fabric of my blissful ignorance about the world. The news report about a 68-year-old woman I had never met, in a small Nebraska town I had never visited, who had met an unimaginable end, shook everything.

Helen Wilson had been brutally raped and murdered inside her apartment in the nearby town of Beatrice. Her killer(s), it appeared, had sat down for coffee and pastries in her kitchen before leaving. It was one of those heinous crimes that make you lose faith in humanity and demand that justice be done.

I pulled up the collar of my winter coat as I walked briskly, trying to make sense of it all, but it did little to stop the freezing wind.  If Helen Wilson wasn’t safe in small town Nebraska, how was anyone safe, ever, anywhere?

 I had no way of knowing then how my life would intersect with that event.

Four years later, six people were convicted of the crime, three men and three women. They were called the “Beatrice Six” or, by some others, the “Sara Lee Killers” in a grisly reminder of the callousness of the crime.

            Five of the accused confessed after intense interrogation by police. Only one, Joseph White, went to trial. The jury convicted him and, although the case was death-penalty-eligible, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Having graduated from college already and living in another state, I paid little attention to the news, registering only a passing sense of justice having been done for Mrs. Wilson. I gave no further thought to the case.

More than ten years after the murder, I was living in Nebraska again, having graduated from the University of Nebraska, College of Law, and starting my own criminal law practice in Lincoln.  On an otherwise unremarkable day, I found a curious envelope in the day’s pile of mail. I examined the markings and unfamiliar handwriting on the envelope which prominently identified it as mail from an inmate at a correctional facility, the nearby Nebraska State Penitentiary to be exact. I carefully opened the envelope and examined the small, neat handwriting of the letter inside. “Dear Ms. Kramer” it began before asking for my help in representing him with a post-conviction motion seeking his release. It took a few minutes for my brain to register the name of the inmate, and the general outline of the case: Joseph White, one of the convicted killers of Helen Wilson. I was intrigued.

            A week or so later the details for meeting Mr. White were worked out. I had only visited the Nebraska State Penitentiary once before as a law school student. I had spoken to murderers and rapists before, but I was nervous nonetheless to meet him.

The facility was less than five miles from home, unremarkable concrete surrounded by tall, barbed wire fences. Several fast food restaurants sat in a cluster on the other side of the road. I was told that the scent of those unattainable burgers and fries was, inadvertently, part of the punishment for inmates. Cruel and unusual punishment was banned in the U.S. Constitution; I wondered if anyone had made that argument before.

After a first attempt to get into the facility, I had to return home to change from my usual lawyer suit and heels into clothes that met the strict visitor attire guidelines. Returning in a plain long-sleeved shirt, not-too-snug jeans and tennis shoes, I was escorted to a small room where a female guard conducted a pat down search. I breathed a sigh of relief that it wasn’t a strip search or body cavity search. My minor indignity paled in comparison to what inmates had to endure on a regular basis, especially after they had a contact visit with anyone, even their lawyer.

I was escorted into the cavernous visitor’s room which, on weekends, was filled with family members under watchful eyes and strict rules. This was a weekday, though, so the room was empty. I was shown to one of the few glass enclosed rooms on one side that allowed lawyers and their clients a modicum of privacy.

            Within minutes, a guard brought Mr. White into the room. Despite his ten years of incarceration, this convict looked like one of those church visitors that my pastor father and mother would have readily invited home for after-church dinner. I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that this man had not killed another human being. People who have killed, even unintentionally, have a look in their face that is unmistakable. Joseph White did not.  He was not a rapist or a murderer. I would have staked my life on that instinct.

Proving what I knew in the core of my being to be true and convincing a court to overturn his conviction, however, would be no small task. Once someone has been convicted of a crime, it is very hard to overturn that decision, even for the most skilled lawyers. Despite my growing reputation as a fierce advocate for my clients, I knew I was a neophyte. Joseph White knew that, but picked me anyway. How could I say no?

Having agreed to represent him, I spent months working to access and review all the information about Mr. White’s case, including the trial transcript which had been collecting dust in the Gage County Courthouse. I was appalled and outraged the further I read.

One of the primary witnesses at trial was JoAnn Taylor, one of the five suspects who had entered into a plea deal. She described her mental state at the time of her apprehension and days of interrogation by Gage County law enforcement. She was a drug addict with hallucinations and was shown photo after photo of the gruesome crime scene. She testified that at a certain point she didn’t know the difference between hallucinations and reality.

Couldn’t tell the difference between her hallucinations and reality? I couldn’t believe what I was reading, but there it was in black and white.

Ms. Taylor’s description of her mental faculties went to the very heart of the rules that govern trials—witnesses must be competent to give testimony. Evidence 101 in law school: a witness must have the ability to comprehend and recall facts or they are not allowed to testify at all. Ms. Taylor openly admitted she failed this basic test of witness competency and any law school student could have readily recognized it.  She never should have been allowed to testify at Joseph White’s trial, but she was. It’s a judge’s job to disallow her testimony under these circumstances, even if none of the lawyers mentioned it.

Another thing attracted my attention—there was no physical evidence that Joseph White had ever been at the scene of the crime. No fingerprints, no blood, no DNA. DNA testing was not commonly done back then, but with no fingerprints and no blood (though samples of both that did not match Mrs. Wilson were found at the scene.) It troubled me that Joseph White had been charged with a crime at all. I did my best to work through the materials and put together a compelling post-conviction motion that would be likely to overturn Mr. White’s conviction or at least grant him a new trial, but I was young and inexperienced and did not have access to the expertise I needed. I reached out to Barry Scheck, of O.J. Simpson’s trial fame, but the case was not accepted by the Innocence Project that he ran.

When I relocated to California for personal reasons, my work on the case was incomplete. I felt terrible and was sure he felt abandoned by me. My failure was a regret hanging over me in the following years far away from it all.

By 2008, more than 20 years after the murder, my life was worlds away. I spent my days in front of a computer in my glass-walled San Diego law office handling patent infringement lawsuits nationwide for an injection-molded plastics R&D company. Joseph White and Helen Wilson were a distant memory. I didn’t keep up with Nebraska news anymore.

In April 2011, though, the strangest thing happened. I was at Stanford giving a presentation to law school students on freelance lawyering when I kept saying a name wrong. When talking about Joe Miller, one of the early proponents of freelance lawyering, I kept calling him “Joseph White.” Bizarre. I hadn’t thought of Joseph White for many years. Why was his name percolating through my subconscious?

The answer came via email less than a week later. “My name is Jeff Patterson, and I am one of Joseph White's lawyers.” I tried to catch my breath before reading further. How had the universe known that Joseph White’s life was circling back around to me again? I continued to read.

I don't know if you are aware, but Joe and the other 5 who were convicted, were exonerated regarding the death of Helen Wilson.  I am part of a team of lawyers
representing Joe and three others in wrongful conviction actions.

I sat at my desk stunned, relieved, grateful. Tears streamed down my face unbidden and I didn’t even care if co-workers saw me through the glass. Somehow, some way, new lawyers had done what I could not do-find a way to exonerate Joseph White. I pictured him, another decade older, walking out the Penitentiary’s front gate a free man. Free. What must that feel like? How happy his family must be. I felt a pang of regret that it had taken so long for justice to be done.

As I discovered later, in 2008, after a battle all the way up to the Nebraska Supreme Court to access physical evidence, DNA tests were done that excluded every one of the Beatrice Six from involvement in the rape and murder of Helen Wilson. The test results also identified the real perpetrator of the crimes, a man who had died in prison a few years previous on another charge, ironically, the first suspect looked at by investigators.

Joseph White had been imprisoned for 19 ½ years for a crime he did not commit. The Beatrice Six were the first people exonerated by DNA evidence in Nebraska history, and the largest number of defendants in one case exonerated by DNA testing in the United States.  The six defendants were wrongly imprisoned for a collective more than 76 years.  If it hadn’t been for lawyers—dedicated, hardworking lawyers—insistent on finding the truth, these six innocent people would still be in prison.

I wish the email would have ended there, with the news of exoneration and a return to ordinary life for six people wrongfully convicted. It didn’t. My heart sank as I read the next sentence. “Tragically, Joe died in a work accident a couple weeks ago …” Almost two decades of wrongful imprisonment, followed by only a few short years of renewed freedom. It was too much for me, a stranger, to bear. How could his mother, who had never doubted his innocence, or his new fiancé, ever come to terms with this turn of events?

Jeff Patterson and I talked again in 2020. A federal civil rights case for the wrongful conviction has wound its way through the court system, with a jury finally awarding over $27M in damages to the Beatrice Six, including Joseph White’s estate. Rural Gage County with a population 21,000, however, doesn’t have the money to pay it all. That has spawned even more court proceedings.

Justice is elusive, and imperfect at best. I have to make peace with that and, most days, I think I have. As I finish up this writing, a full 35 years since that icy walk past the bakery, I set aside my keyboard and wrap a knit blanket around my shoulders to stop the chill air coming through my window. The blanket was a gift from the sister of another criminal defendant client back in my Nebraska practice days. I ponder the mysterious twists and turns of life.

A lot has happened since 1985. Nebraska has made the record books for the largest group of defendants exonerated through DNA evidence. New laws have been passed giving defendants rights to DNA testing. Courts have examined all angles of responsibility and compensation for defendants wrongfully accused. A little money has been paid to the Beatrice Six. Conroy’s Bakery closed its doors last year.

I realize now that the rewards of lawyering are not always grand. Sometimes you are part of some groundbreaking legal case, but more often the rewards are much simpler. I close my eyes and see the faces of many people that I have helped over the years, so many clients who have offered a heartfelt thank you for standing next to them as they walked through some type of legal hell.

I pull my blanket tighter and examine its worn pattern again. I still remember the note that came with it. “Thank you for being like a warm blanket around our family during these difficult times.”

Published 2020 in “The Guilded Pen: Strange Happenings” 2020 Anthology by San Diego Writers and Editors Guild. Adapted from “Why Lawyers Suck.”