He smiled and offered me both of his hands, which I took.
I wheeled Joe to a cramped office for our legal visit. He continued cheering quietly and
kept clapping his hands in excitement. I had to argue with the attending prison guard for
permission to close the door and talk confidentially with Joe. The officer eventually relented.
Joe seemed to relax when I closed the door. Despite the terrifying start to the visit, he was
extremely cheerful. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was talking to a young child.
I explained to Joe how disappointed we were that the State had destroyed the biological
evidence that might have allowed us to prove he was innocent through DNA testing. We had
discovered that both the victim and one of his co-defendants had died. The other co-
defendant would not say anything about what had really happened, making it extremely
difficult for us to challenge Joe’s conviction. I then offered our new idea about challenging
his sentence as unconstitutional, which might create another way for him to possibly go
home. He smiled throughout my explanation, although it was clear he didn’t understand all of
it. He had a legal pad on his lap, and when I finished he told me that he had prepared some
questions for our visit.
During the entire visit I kept thinking about how he was much more enthusiastic and
excited than I had expected him to be, given his history. When he told me about the questions
he had prepared for me, he was practically bubbling. He explained that if he ever got out of
prison he might want to be a reporter so “I can tell people what’s really going on.” He spoke
with great pride when he announced that he was ready to ask his questions.
“Joe, I’ll be happy to answer your questions. Fire away.”
He read with some difficulty.
“Do you have children?” He looked up at me expectantly.
“No, I don’t have children. I have nieces and nephews, though.”
“What is your favorite color?” He once again smiled eagerly.
I chuckled, since I don’t have a favorite color. But I wanted to respond to him.
“Brown.”
“Okay, my last question is the most important.” He looked up at me briefly with big eyes
and smiled. He then became serious and read his question.
“Who is your favorite cartoon character?” He was beaming when he looked at me.
“Please, tell the truth. I really want to know.”
I couldn’t think of anything and had to force myself to keep smiling. “Wow, Joe, I honestly
don’t know. Can I think about that and get back to you? I’ll write you with my answer.” He
nodded enthusiastically.
Over the next three months I received a flood of scrawled letters from Joe, one almost every
day. The letters were usually short statements about what he’d eaten that day or what show
he’d seen on television. Sometimes they were just two or three Bible verses he had copied. He
would always ask me to write him back and let him know if his handwriting was improving.
Sometimes the letters contained only a few words or a single question like, “Do you have
friends?”
We filed a petition to challenge Joe’s sentence as unconstitutionally cruel and unusual
punishment. We knew that there would be procedural objections to filing it nearly twenty
years after his sentencing, but we thought the Supreme Court’s recent decision banning the