put my suit back on and walked out.
“I’d like to get inside the visitation room now.” I tried to reclaim some dignity by speaking more forcefully.
“Well, you have to go back and sign the book.”
He said it coolly, but he was clearly trying to provoke me. There was a visitation log that the prison used for family visits, but it was not used for legal visits. I’d already signed the attorney book. It would make no sense to sign a second book.
“Lawyers don’t have to sign that book—”
“If you want to come in my prison, you’ll sign the book.” He seemed to be smirking now. I tried hard to keep my composure.
I turned around and went over to the book and signed my name. I walked back to the visitation room and waited. There was a padlock on the glass door that had to be unlocked before I could enter the space where I’d meet my client. The officer finally pulled out his keys to unlock the door. I stood silently hoping to get inside without more drama. When he opened the door, I stepped forward, but he grabbed my arm to stop me. He lowered his voice as he spoke to me.
“Hey, man, did you happen to see a truck out in the visitation yard with a lot of bumper stickers, flags, and a gun rack?”
I spoke cautiously. “Yes, I saw that truck.”
His face hardened before he spoke. “I want you to know, that’s my truck.” He released my arm and allowed me to walk inside the prison. I felt angry at the guard, but I was even more irritated by my own powerlessness. I was distracted from my thoughts when the back door of the visitation room opened and Mr. Jenkins was led in by another officer.
Jenkins was a short African American man with close-cropped hair. He grasped my hand with both of his and smiled broadly as he sat down. He seemed unusually happy to see me.
“Mr. Jenkins, my name is Bryan Stevenson. I’m the attorney you spoke—”
“Did you bring me a chocolate milkshake?” He spoke quickly.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?”
He kept grinning. “Did you bring me a chocolate milkshake? I want a chocolate milkshake.”
The trip, the Confederate truck, the harassment from the guard, and now a request for a milkshake—this was becoming a bizarre day. I didn’t hide my impatience.
“No, Mr. Jenkins, I didn’t bring you a chocolate milkshake. I’m an attorney. I’m here to help you with your case and try to get you a new trial. Okay? That’s why I’m here. Now I need to ask you some questions and try to understand what’s going on.”
I saw the grin fade quickly from the man’s face. I started asking questions and he gave single-word answers, sometimes just grunting out a yes or no. I realized that he was still thinking about his milkshake. My time with the officer had made me forget how impaired this man might be. I stopped the interview and leaned forward.
“Mr. Jenkins, I’m really sorry. I didn’t realize you wanted me to bring you a chocolate milkshake. If I had known that, I would absolutely have tried. I promise that the next time I come, if they let me bring you in a chocolate milkshake, I’ll definitely do it. Okay?”
With that, his smile returned, and his mood brightened. His prison records revealed that he often experienced psychotic episodes in which he would scream for hours. He was generally kind and gentle in our meeting, but he was clearly ill. I couldn’t understand why his trial records made no reference to mental illness, but after the George Daniel case, nothing surprised me. When I returned to my office, we began a deeper investigation into Mr. Jenkins’s background. What we found was heartbreaking. His father had been murdered before he was born, and his mother had died of a drug overdose when he was a year old. He’d been in foster care since he was two years old. His time in foster care had been horrific; he’d been in nineteen different foster homes before he turned eight. He began showing signs of intellectual disability at an early age. He had cognitive impairments that suggested some organic brain damage and behavioral problems that suggested schizophrenia and other serious mental illness.
When he was ten, Avery lived with abusive foster parents whose rigid rules kept him in constant turmoil. He couldn’t comply with all of the requirements imposed on him, so he was frequently locked