Summer Corps Standout-Jonathan Edwards

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This is a guest post from Equal Justice Works Summer Corps member and Standout Jonathan Edwards. Jonathan shares his experience serving as a legal intern at the Charleston County Public Defender’s Office.

This summer, as an Equal Justice Works Summer Corps member, I served at the Charleston County Public Defender’s Office. My first assignment was to prepare for a first-degree murder trial, which was beginning in two weeks.  I volunteered to visit our client in jail, in order to compare his current story – two years after his arrest – with the original police interview.  The attorney assigned to his case was pleased to have the extra perspective and the client was elated when I arrived. I told him I wanted to hear everything he had to say about the case.  I sat in jail all day, listening to every detail of his story, stopping him after almost every sentence to cross-reference it with his original police interview. I was also able to explain to him the burden on the Public Defender’s Office due to budget cuts and the unreasonable volume of caseloads.  I assured him that as a law clerk, I would be spending all of my time on his case and I would make sure his attorney felt confident about the case going into it. 

By the end of the day, he was glowing with appreciation.  He could not thank me enough for taking the time to listen to him.  I will never forget his toothless smile, grinning from ear to ear.  He would not let me leave before telling me about his prayers.  He said he had been praying for someone to help his attorney, to listen to his side of the story.  I was surely a godsend, he said, because I had the same name as his grandson.  As I was waiting to be escorted from protective custody, he started preaching to one of the other inmates locked in his cell.  He told him to have faith, that God was good and always listened to the prayers of his followers.

I later realized that when his story was examined with linear precision, his innocence was absolutely plausible.  In my personal intern log, I recorded my doubts as to his guilt.  He waited two years, from the time he was originally jailed, for his day in court, and the jury deliberated for two hours before finding him guilty.  Recently, he wrote to the office requesting that the same attorney and I represent him in the appeal.  Of course, he will be represented by an appellate defender, but I have plans with that office to help when the time comes.  I know only one thing for certain:  he truly believes he is innocent.  The truth likely will always evade me, but I will never stop listening.

As a student intern, I have been able to make a considerable effort getting to know different defendants, as well as their perspectives on their own cases.  No matter how much you have looked at a file, there is always something new to learn from talking with the client, the human being whose liberty is at stake.  My summer experience has shown me that Public defenders are important because they safeguard individual liberties from encroachment at the hands of the government.