The heartbreak of collapsed support

Anyone who has been in business is braced for occasional disappointment. Stuff happens. A deal falls through. A major account is lost. A key person switches loyalties. Each time it's difficult, but you learn that you must press on, and that usually better days are ahead.

For a prisoner, such types of disappointments become monumental. This is especially true when legal support collapses.

A few weeks ago one of our friends informed me that his attorney apparently took him to the cleaners. Not only did he fleece the prisoner and his family of thousands of dollars, but he also failed to produce. There were huge promises, and with that came a substantial downpayment. But then red flags started popping up. Failure to call at agreed upon times. Failure to show up for meetings. Failure to accomplish promised legal goals. It's one thing in business to grab your bootstraps and start again. It's another thing when you're in prison, and you've placed all your hopes on the work of this one person. Hopes for freedom. Hopes for recovered losses. What comfort can we offer this man?

And this week it was my job to inform another dear friend that his legal support had collapsed. A reputable innocence agency just dropped the ball. I don't know any other way to describe it. Agreement was made to involve university students, numerous legal documents were reviewed and discussed. There was obviously a wrongful conviction here, and the hope of the wrongly accused were high. But the same story...eventually the prisoner was hearing nothing. No word for months at a time. Then it became years. Well, other issues came up according to the agency, and the case got sidetracked. The university students graduated and moved on. This kind of heartbreak is monumental. Indescribable. And where does he go from here? And what comfort do we offer?

Big responsibility, this business of befriending and helping prisoners. Not to be taken lightly.

Pray for inmates and their support systems.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Half-a-race!

The HFP Drag-Racing Fund-Raiser had the potential of being extremely successful, and could have raised several thousand dollars. Let's just say it was partly successful. For background purposes I'll explain that I was racing a 1963 supercharged Studebaker Lark that has a reputation of being one of the fastest stock Studebakers in drag racing today. The engine was built by one of the finest Studebaker engine mechanics in the country, and the car many times has achieved quarter-mile runs in less than 14 seconds! We promised to make at least ten passes in the Pure Stock Muscle Car Drags at Mid-Michigan Motorplex in Stanton, Michigan, this past weekend, and we asked for pledges ONLY ON THOSE RUNS REACHED IN LESS THAN 14 SECONDS. On Friday, here's how we fared: Run #1 13.936 @ 101.24 mph Run #2 14.027 @ 101.30 mph Run #3 14.091 @ 100.88 mph Run #4 13.805 @ 102.84 mph Run #5 14.058 @ 101.26 mph By the 5th run we discovered that
Read more

Gregory John McCormick: 1964-2008

Itchy is dead. The lifeless body of this talented rock musician, whose band Shock Therapy was a popular group especially in Europe, was found in a field in Detroit last Wednesday, November 5. The Wayne County Coroner's office informed father Glenn McCormick that the body of his son Gregory, better known to all of us as Itchy, bore no signs of trauma. Glenn said that Itchy, who had been living at his father's dental lab in Detroit, had been drinking to excess for some time. While the toxicology report has not been released yet, the general consensus seems to be that he drank himself to death. Our agency, while still named INNOCENT, first got involved with Itchy in 2005. The Detroit native, who called Germany his home, got involved in some unfortunate activity that placed him in the Michigan State prison system on a charge of arson of a dwelling. It was really just a bonfire in an alley, but an alleged parole violation placed him in prison for 1-20 years. I personally sat w
Read more

Three lives, connected by a divine thread

My kids say it should be a book! The Doug, Pat and Mark story is a doozie!   About 25 years ago, while fighting to free Maurice Carter from prison, I read a newspaper column written by Pat Shellenbarger of the Grand Rapids Press on the topic of eyewitness identification. I contacted Pat re that story. That led to a friendship between Doug and Pat that continues to this day.   In subsequent months, Pat would go on to assist me in an investigation into the Maurice Carter case that eventually led to solving the crime.  That particular episode became a chapter in my book about the Carter case, SWEET FREEDOM, published in 2006.   Fast forward to 2009, A New York businessman claims wrongful conviction, and while serving time in a Michigan prison is handed a copy of my book. Mark Hartman, who was also convicted in Berrien County, was amazed at the similarity of these two stories and tried to reach out to me. His letters bounced.   Persisting in his efforts to contact the author, Mark
Read more