Chapter 15: Chapter 15
Jobson looked straight at his mother; quickly turned his eye balls towards the Lawyer seated in front of him and said. “Anyway, let me bite a little bit of the legal cherry and see where it will land me.” He ended with a smile for the first time since he was incarcerated at Akuse Maximum Prison, some six months ago. Rita Martinson also smiled back at her son for the first time since she arrived in this unknown country, where her beloved son is struggling to save his head from the gallows. This was not normal times for anyone to gloss over with happiness in a situation where young ebullient vibrant life was about to be truncated. Jobson dragged his right foot on the tarred floor to create sea waved sound. He simultaneously used his right minimus finger to rub his columella nasi, while expecting to hear a word of hope from the Lawyer. The sound of his foot echoed through-out the small visitor’s room at the Prison yard, thereby attracting the attention of the two Warders in-charge of the day. One of the Warders fingered his wrist watch to indicate that there was not much time left to dismiss the visitors. Nonetheless Lawyer Abena Agyeiwaa, a lecturer in Criminal and Homicide Law and senior partner at AbenaKwabena@Law Chambers slowly removed some paper leaflets from her file and placed them on a table in front of Jobson and the mother. She cleared her throat, looked directly at Jobson in the face and said. “My little research into your matter indicates that the Judge did not apply the Joint Enterprise Doctrine. This is because he believed that all the information on the Uber driver’s phone pointed out to you as the culprit. However, what baffles me most is the judgement of first-degree murder meted out to you. Normally such criminal liability involves wilful and premeditated murder. But there was no witness to help prove intent in order to fight a reduced sentence for you. Likewise appealing on grounds of self-defence would be very difficult, since it will be impossible to measure the degree of force used to defend oneself in that circumstance. If we could convince the judge that the juries were wrong in their estimation of the circumstance that led to the driver’s death then we could fight our case to reduce your sentence to manslaughter, if and only if your misjudgement was genuine and reasonable. In any case do not misquote me wrongly. These are different scenarios we could contest to mitigate your sentence from Death penalty to Life or even further.”
These last words hit Rita like a bombshell. A mother’s womb and intestines wobbled and quivered. Little drops of tears began to streak out from Rita’s eyes. For good two minutes, she bent her head looking on the floor as if she had misplaced some valuables. Meanwhile, Jobson on the other hand had opened his mouth wide staring at the ‘potty’ frame of the learned lawyer. Perhaps, what was running through his mind was not the beautiful slimy curves of Abena Agyeiwaa, but the fact still remained that the ‘die is now cast’ and there was no turning back for him. Was this his destiny or calamity has just befallen him? His mind wandered in bewilderment.
Lawyer Abena Agyeiwaa was an expert in criminal and Homicide Law. She had earned Doctor of Science in Law degree (J.S.D.) from a leading Judicial University in the United States of America and had practised in that country for twenty years before taking appointment at the National University College and resettling in Ghana. At fifty (50), Dr. Abena Agyeiwaa, Esq. was a spinster with no known issue of her own, but lived on a four bedroom apartment on campus with her twenty-year old maidservant. A known workaholic with great body type; slim hourglass shape with her shoulders almost the same size as her hips. She possessed curvy goddess female body arching to reward any man the way as drugs may do for the ailing human body and yet has never been seen with any male lover before apart from her working colleagues at Abenakwabena@Law Chambers and the University. No man can looked at her once. Even females always turned to look at her twice when they passed by her. Nature has gifted her with large eyes, dilated sensual pupils, small pointed nose and reddish lips. These coupled with clean good skin, slender body, long legs, juicy thighs and flat toned stomach present God’s own definition of a perfect beauty not to the eye of the beholder but to mankind.
Maybe the beauty and sophistication of Abena Agyeiwaa mesmerized Rita and her son. Nonetheless they were on a mission to accomplish a job. There was no room to dabble with nonentities. Rita gathered courage to surmise from the lawyer, the way out of the whole gamut of legal appellate open to save her son. “What can we do then, Lawyer?” She concluded. “Hmmmm…Mrs. Martinson, your appeal is very dicey. Actually, in appeal, what the Judge will be looking for is new evidence to the already tried case. Now Do we have it?” She looked directly into the eyes of Jobson expecting an answer to the question she had asked, but there was nothing forthcoming because there was none between the three of them seated round the table. Lawyer Agyeiwaa remarked. “Anyway, I am aware that right from the onset of your trial, you maintained your innocence and argued of mistaken identity and yet the Jury saw otherwise because there was no witness even to testify as to the identity of the real offender. Rather, you were convicted on the grounds of the data stored by the Uber Company. You and your Lawyer were not able to convince the Jury and the Judge otherwise, hence the conviction.”
Rita, who was all these while sobbing, found her voice. She cleared her throat and blew her nose onto a wet handkerchief. “Madam Lawyer, at this point what other options are opened to us?” Lawyer Agyeiwaa quickly re-plied, “Mrs. Martinson, please do not misquote me but I must seek your mind as well. In other words, what do you also think?” “Looking at the whole story, I think my son had been wrongfully convicted.” She started. “If we can establish the fact that Jobson was wrongfully convicted, then it opens a whole wide of ideas to be explored.” Lawyer Agyeiwaa’s face beamed as Rita’s words echoed and sank into her thinking faculties. “Go on, Mrs. Martinson! Maybe something good might come out from it.” She stressed. Rita without blinking continued. “I am hiring you to perform the following things for my son. Firstly, you are going to appeal to the Trial Judge to overturn the Jury’s guilty verdict and enter a verdict of not guilty. Secondly, you have to ask the Judge to set aside the Jury’s verdict, declare a mistrial and start the case all over again or finally, you have to seek a writ to ask the court to reverse my son’s conviction of death penalty. Anything short of these meant you do not have a job.” Absolute silence resonated through the room until the Warder came in to interrupt. “Please, time is up.” The Warder removed some keys that are hanged from one of the belt holes on his trousers. He opened the chains tied to Jobson’s legs to the table and led him back into the cells. Lawyer Agyeiwaa tried inconsolably to calm Rita down before leading her out of the Visitors’ hall at Akuse Maximum Prison Yard.