Prison Blues

16 - Innocent Man

Blake's new trial didn't make any headlines. It wasn't in any paper. It was private, just Blake, the judge, the prosecutor, and the independent lawyer Levi had arranged. The trial consisted mostly of everyone falling over themselves to ensure that the entire thing was kept as quiet as possible. Faced with the evidence of her son's journal and Dwayne's testimony to his own abuse, Jennifer Garner had confessed. The state was forced to admit it had prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned an innocent man.

The only real fuss the state made was over the issue of Adam and the riot. Adam had agreed to drop charges in exchange for not being asked to provide testimony against Blake. Then Blake's lawyer had immediately wanted the evidence of the video tape thrown out. "Listen to that crowd in the background," he insisted. "Those inmates were literally screaming for blood! If my client hadn't assaulted Mr. Levine, it's highly possible that my client would have been assaulted himself! And the same thing goes for the sexual assault. You can clearly hear on the tape that the crowd was completely out of control, screaming for far worse than what actually happened. Later, according to Mr. Levine's written statement, Mr. Levine himself initiated sexual intercourse with my client. While we all understand his motives now, understand that my client, at the time, was an innocent man in prison, had been violently physically and sexually assaulted himself there, and was in a very tenuous state of mind. He believed that the contact the two of them had was consensual."

"Are you seriously going to sit there and try to claim that what we saw on that video, what Mr. Shelton did with Mr. Levine after Levine's beating, was consensual?!"

"My client isn't on trial for sexual assault because no charges have been filed!" the lawyer shot back. "And I deeply resent this attempt by the state to confuse the issue. We are here today to discuss the fact that nothing that happened during that riot should have happened, because my client never should have been in that prison in the first place! Everything he did while there was simply the attempt of a frightened, desperate man just trying to survive. Now, since we're all so eager to discuss sexual assault, let's discuss what happened, repeatedly, since the first night my client was unjustly imprisoned!"

Through it all, Blake hadn't said a word. Adam had been just as silent as he watched on closed-circuit television. He'd had to force himself to pay attention. Even on the grainy screen, Adam could see the bruises, the marks on that dear face. There were stitches in Blake's lip. Blake's right wrist was in a splint. He'd seen the way Blake had limped when he was brought in. Blake's face was covered with scruff again. His hair looked unkempt. Big Country was coming back, Blake's attempt to protect himself from the hell of his surroundings. Adam hardly recognized the gentle giant that had held him so close that last morning. The blue eyes on the television screen were hard, angry and set. They were exactly what he might have expected the eyes of a man in Blake's position to look like. But they were so far from those kind sky-blue eyes he'd seen that morning that Adam's stomach was twisting itself into knots.

"He's getting out, Adam," Levi assured. Adam's brother reached over and squeezed his hand. "I know this is hard, but honestly, they're just trying to find a reason to pay him less in damages. He was falsely accused, wrongfully convicted, and gave up years of his life because the state made a terrible mistake when it believed Jennifer Garner. Now they've got to compensate Blake for that mistake."

"Mistake," Adam said bitterly. "That's what you call it. All that happened to Blake, it's all categorized as 'Mistake.' He'll never be able to go back to his old home or his old life, never be able to teach again... What's he going to do?"

"Start again," Levi advised, squeezing his hand again. "He's young, only a few years older than you. He's smart, and he's tough. He'll make it. And Adam, we are going to make sure Blake's got a nice little nest egg to work from!"