The Execution of Noa P. Singleton (31 page)

November

Sarah
,

I just learned that, in addition to the clemency petition, Oliver has been working with Noa on a writ of habeas corpus to file with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court for another appeal. Last week when I came to the prison to get some signatures from Noa to release additional school and medical documents from their custodians that I wanted to incorporate into the petition, I put it together. It had been months since I’d been to the prison, and I presumed the same for Oliver. True, I needed him to visit and try and pull out a nugget of truth here and there about what happened on New Year’s Day, but it was quickly and clearly becoming a mistake. He was no longer serving his purpose
.

Last Saturday, I drove nearly three-and-a-half brutal highway hours to visit the prison, only to be told by the guards that Oliver was already there. Not that I need to even verbalize this, but he was not visiting clients of ours in general population or continuing to work on any of our other cases. Rather, he was chatting with Noa about … well, God knows what. Of course I told the prison officials that I had simply mixed up the days. Of course this was Oliver’s scheduled appointment, I told them. Of course it must be my age catching up with me, and I tried to pass it off as self-deprecating humor. They laughed, kindly, and then showed me the visitors’ log, which I frantically transcribed all in one place for you so that you can see with your own eyes
.

Sixteen times, sweetheart. Sixteen visits. Some consecutive, some not. Some visiting under the guise of Mothers Against Death, and as the weeks continue, never for MAD and perhaps not even as an attorney at all
.

Next, I drove all the way to Harrisburg to see if “Ollie” had actually filed something on his own. Something beyond the clemency petition he was helping me compose. The court clerk handed me all paperwork filed on behalf of Noa P. Singleton or even just “Noa Singleton” in the previous year, and that is when I discovered it on thick blue cardstock, typed with simple black Courier typeface: Oliver Rupert Stansted listed as the attorney of record on yet an other futile writ of habeas corpus with no connection whatsoever to Mothers Against Death; Adams, Steinberg, and Coleson, LLP; or Marlene Dixon, esquire
.

My eyes skipped around the language, reading furiously from ground to ground, hoping to find something new, something that I hadn’t previously considered, something for which I locked her away mistakenly. But there was nothing new in that writ, thereby nothing cognizable by the courts at this point for anything. His arguments weren’t even sound. He brought up issues that have long been settled by the courts, that have long been settled in this case after the previous appeals. They lacked merit. They lacked intelligence. They lacked substance. Just a hunch, a silly hunch that you were not pregnant at the time you died, backed up by a hack who based all of his
theories on blood tests. And that your heart was the reason you died, not the clear and unquestionable gunshot wound to the chest, which was the unambiguous cause of death. Nothing else. A jury of twelve unbiased peers found that to be true. A lawyer with five minutes of experience could have shown Oliver that if he had examined Noa’s files with me, if he had done the research properly, if he had understood the law accurately, if he had had experience in this sort of procedure, if he had written down each and every word he shared with Noa with me (as was his only responsibility on this case from day one), then perhaps things would have turned out differently for him. But what he filed? A waste. A waste of language, of time, and of resources
.

“Find out what actually happened. Write down every word she says,” I told Oliver on that first day at the prison nearly six months ago. “That’s your only purpose. Your only goal.”

But after five visits, he stopped reporting their discussions to me, stopped bringing the yellow pads back to me, and I presumed, had also stopped visiting Noa. He claimed people were writing in support of her. He claimed that progress was being made with the clemency petition, and yet he was spending his time doing anything but. Eleven more visits followed. Eleven? Practically a dozen sessions of psychoanalysis. For what? A waste of my time. A waste of his. Of the Supreme Court’s. They don’t need to review another faulty writ filed by an attorney with barely a perfunctory knowledge of American law, claiming grounds for review that have long been settled for decades
.

Instead of following my explicit orders, instead of expressly getting information from her that could elucidate that last moment of your life, Oliver took valuable time away from the matters that actually counted for everyone involved in this case to file another useless appeal. He resorted to his untested, inexperienced foreign legal skills to make everyone a fool on issues that have long been determined. I know this is not what you want to hear, sweetheart, but I just have to get it out. I’m just so angry, I don’t know what to hit.
I don’t know who to take all my anger out on anymore. On Oliver? He doesn’t deserve this, and when I think calmly, I know that. I do know that. Yes, I’m angry with him, but he’s also only just barely understood the serpentine path of these filings, and I can’t possibly fault him for that. Part of me wanted to applaud his innovation and direction, his selfless ambition. Another part wanted to remind him that his absurd sifting of the law was taking away from his one and only goal. But, as is always the case, regardless of my emotional sensibility, the rational part of me regressed to reason and logic, and I knew what had to happen. His initial purpose no longer existed. I know that you could imagine what happened next. You would expect no less, sweetheart
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When I returned home to Philadelphia, I called Oliver to my office. One of my colleagues at the firm had him working on a major case that was set for trial in three weeks, and although I was tempted to inform him of Oliver’s extra-extracurricular pro bono activities, I didn’t. His modest performance would say everything that needed to be said. The court said everything that needed to be said, and surely he’d read its opinion
.

Oliver came into my office about thirty minutes after my request. Initially, I asked him if he had anything to divulge. “Honesty is far better than misgivings,” I said to him. “The bar deems so, and I agree.”

He admitted nothing. Instead of coming clean, we stared at each other until I broke the silence and told him what I had recently uncovered. He claimed that he only came to the prison when I specifically sent him there on MAD business. That he only drove out to the prison when he was sent from me with a bulleted list of information to uncover, with conversations to record, with papers to sign. But when I showed him the visitor’s logs and the opinion, he broke down. (This is all public record, though. I haven’t a clue how he thought his extracurricular activities would be a secret. But still, he broke down like a child whose secret stash of candy had just been found between the couch cushions.) He didn’t realize that he’d be
caught, or worse, that he actually did something wrong. In his mind, he was doing something right. He wanted to help Noa, he claimed. He wanted to fix the system that is flawed beyond repair, he pled. He thought that we had the same goal
.

“How could you possibly fix it if it’s really flawed ‘beyond repair,’ as you say?” I said to him
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“Isn’t that what you preached when I signed up for this? Your change of heart—excuse me—owning up to the heart you’ve always had. Your belief that executing people is wrong. That punishing them in prison for life is far worse. Isn’t that what this is all about? Having statistics for the future so we can see what actually happens with all of these appeals?”

He was fighting back, Sarah. He was fighting for Noa or his job or his moral code or reputation, I wasn’t quite sure. It was sort of inspiring and exhausting to watch at the same time
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“You knew exactly what you were getting involved with when you agreed to work on this case,” I said to him
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“I don’t know,” he sputtered, shocked, the adrenaline starting to fade. “I just thought I could fix past errors.”

“Noa’s incarceration is not a past error, Oliver.”

He didn’t respond
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“Listen to me, Oliver.” My voice was getting louder, and with each new breath, clarity materialized over my thoughts. “Noa’s incarceration is anything but erroneous. Her punishment, on the other hand, might be. Are we clear? Those are two separate and distinct entities. We have been on her case solely due to punishment issues—not innocence.” I paused. “Punishment.”

His head dodged the answer, but I read past it. This kind of work required emotions that he lacked. His heart was too visible outside his garments, where it resided like lint on a week-old sweater
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“Are we clear?” I said again
.

A mere child before me, Oliver nodded reluctantly. I waited a moment for it to sink in, and, again, he nodded
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“She’s going to die,” I said to him
.

“Yes,” he echoed, nodding his head up and down slowly, “but … if …”

I placed a single hand out, stopping him
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“Don’t confuse your feelings.”

“What feelings are you talking about?” he said, uncomfortably. “I’m just following your lead. Your feelings are the ones that I’m concerned with.”

My brow inched higher
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“Do you remember why you hired me in the first place?” he asked
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“To try and talk to Noa and understand what actually happened,” I said. “That’s why.”

“Partially.”

“Completely,” I affirmed
.

“Partially,” he insisted. “The other part we never spoke about, did we?”

His left eye began to twitch
.

“And what other part do you suddenly believe I have put you on the course to do?”

“To exonerate an innocent woman. Clemency is not going to free her. These letters just talk about her as a child. That’s not going to sway any governor to commute her sentence. You and I both know that to be true.”

He said it so clearly, so articulately with that accent that almost made even him believe what he was saying. But he was wrong. He was wrong. He was absolutely wrong. Nobody else was responsible for your death but her. It was Noa and Noa exclusively. Hear me, sweetheart and know that. Know that as you sleep, as you watch over me, as you … as your eyes remain closed. Know that
.

“I may be older than you and I may be your boss,” I said to him, “but trust me, I see what’s going—”

“—you know,” he stopped me. “She’s a remarkable person, Mrs. Dixon. I never would have thought that someone like that would be in prison, let alone on death row. Did you know that she was at the very top of her high school class?”

Salutatorian, I wanted to tell him, but I didn’t
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“Helping Noa isn’t going to fix your own issues. You left them in England to come here and play Susan B. Anthony.”

Fingers darted to his eyes in half-hearted circles
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“What exactly, then, do you think you’re doing with Noa?”

I watched myself turning into a different person, ogling my actions in shock. I no longer recognized myself. As a result, nothing I said or did felt like my own, which in one way liberated me from everything, and in another, brought me closer to Noa
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“I’ve got a few new theories on what happened with the case that I’m pretty sure were never developed at trial,” he said, breaking the silence. And that is what the writ was about. I was just adding to it. To clemency, if possible.”

He pulled out a thin file of papers from his briefcase and handed it to me. “These are for the petition. But there is just so much more beyond it to be done here.”

I took it and tossed it on my desk
.

“Oh?”

His nubby fingers dropped from his face so that I could see it fully, clearly, like a freshly cleaned window, and he stared through me as if he knew
.

“For example, her father was lying,” he declared, quite authoritatively. “In my mind, I know he was covering up for someone while on the stand, and it wasn’t Noa.”

“Is that so?”

He nodded
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“Yes, I’m certain of it. I’m very close to figuring out why. I think I’ll know shortly, as I’ve located him but haven’t been able to get in touch with him again. He’s living in Canada, tending a bar there. It’s called Barre Dive, actually. Which is sort of ironic if you look at the facts of the—”