Chapter 1
Florida State Prison

"I DIDN'T RAPE that girl, and I didn't kill her. In fact, I never even saw that girl before in my life. I know you've heard this from every client you've represented, but…I'm innocent." Jon Clayton took a breath, leaned forward and looking me straight in the eye said, "Mr. Thomas…I swear to God…I…didn't…do it."

"Well, Jon, you're wrong. I don't hear that from every client." I shrugged and added, "A lot of them, yes, but not every one. So my question is, if you didn't kill her, how'd you end up here?"

"I don't know, sir. I went to trial. I got convicted. All I know for sure is I didn't do it," he said, shaking his head. His gaze never wavering, he sighed and said, "My attorney said it was the bullet that convicted me. They said the bullet they found in the girl matched the gun I was arrested with."

"Any ideas how that might've happened?" I asked, knowing prisoners have plenty of time to think of answers to such questions.

"Either someone else used the pistol and put it back in my car, or the cops got the pistols mixed up, or maybe they just plain lied about it… I don't know," he said, "but I swear to God I didn't shoot that girl. I didn't kill her."

Good stock answers. We criminal lawyers call it the SODDI defense—Some Other Dude Did It. Somehow, it was always someone else. However, innocence is rarely a question after all direct appeals have run, and not after five years on death row. I wrote what Clayton told me on a yellow legal pad, and decided I might as well start with the penalty phase, or why he was sentenced to death.

Just because a person is convicted of a capital crime does not mean he is automatically sentenced to die. The nature of the crime and the prior life of the defendant are considered. Then the jury recommends, and the judge imposes, the sentence. I needed to know about Clayton's background, his life—the good he had done, the pain he had suffered. Maybe I could at least keep him alive.

I leaned my chair back, hitting the wall before it balanced and said, "Jon, I need to know about you, about your life before your arrest. Tell me about yourself. What do you remember about your childhood?"

"Wait a minute, Mr. Thomas," he said. "You don't believe me, do you? You think I killed her."

"It doesn't matter what I think. I don't care if you are guilty or not. What matters to me is that you're alive, and I'd like to keep you that way. I'll go over the trial. But what I need from you is not in the trial records. I need to know you from the day you were born."

"You mean you want to overturn my sentence, but you aren't interested in overturning my conviction."

"Not so—"

"Listen, I didn't do it," he said.

Clayton's voice had deepened and there was a cold edge to his words. His eyes narrowed. He leaned toward me over the table and said, "I'm innocent, but I'd rather be dead than rot in a cage the rest of my life. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"Yes, I—"

"Do you have any idea how I feel?"

We sat staring at one another for a moment. I could hear his breathing. I could feel a slight ache in my left arm as my blood pressure rose.

I believed I understood how he felt. I had heard it before and often wondered what I would do were I in his situation. Convicted and waiting to be executed versus life with no chance of release, guilty or innocent. No chance to sail, to walk beaches, to see sunsets. Would I choose to go to my death quietly—perhaps a form of suicide? No…each time I'd considered the question, I had chosen life. But if actually faced with a caged life, with absolutely no hope of freedom, I'm not sure I would make the same choice.

We sat silently a moment more before I sighed and said, "Jon, I think I understand how you feel and what you want. Now you understand this…"

Jon started to interrupt, but I formed a "T" for timeout with my hands.

"Hear me out," I said loudly. Then more softly, "Please."

Jon leaned back, sighed, then nodded as I began.

"I intend to talk with everyone you know, everyone who knows you, everyone involved in the case—relatives, friends, cops, enemies, whatever. I'm gonna talk with 'em. Maybe, just maybe, someone has heard something or knows something that can help you. You're innocent, right?"

He nodded.

"Well, maybe they can help me find who really killed the girl. I don't know what I can do at this point, but you've got to help me first. Okay?"

THAT MORNING, WHEN I arrived at the prison just before my 10:30 a.m. appointment, I found the guards had been up to their old tricks. Jon Clayton had been put in a holding cage at eight a.m. to wait for me, even though the prison knew I would not arrive for two-and-a-half hours. The holding cage was the width of a telephone booth, but only half as deep. It was impossible to sit down, so prisoners were forced to stand during the entire wait, their hands cuffed behind them. Some of the guards did this to get the prisoners agitated, hoping to make them not want to see their attorneys. Often it worked, but not this time, not this prisoner.

When the guard ushered Clayton into the eight-foot by eight-foot conference room where we could talk privately, his presence surprised me. As the guard moved his manacles to the front, Clayton's eyes were quiet and gentle. There was a serenity about him the guard's games could not dispel. So he would not be distracted, I had him sit with his back to the door, which had the only window in the room. I sat in the other gray metal chair across the small gray metal table from him, my back against the twelve-foot high, tan concrete wall.

Copyright © 2005 Ray Dix.