Page 5 of 9
Sitting in an empty gym at Contra Costa College on a recent evening, Johnson and Dave recall their time apart. Dave coaches football at the college, and on this night a whistle continues to swing around his neck. Johnson, who's fashion conscious and a bit vain, is dapperly dressed in a pressed goldenrod button-down shirt, black slacks, and gleaming shoes; despite the dimness of the building's fluorescent lights, he wears designer sunglasses. Pulling up a chair, Johnson leans in toward Dave to listen to him talk.
"It felt good seeing him, but it didn't feel good leaving," Dave says, thinking back to the prison visits. "We left, man; he's going back in there. No telling what going to happen to him. That was the bad part. The good part was seeing him."
I ask Dave how he explained to his kids why their Uncle Albert was in prison for 10 years. Johnson looks thoughtfully at his brother.
"I was just thinking about Devon [Dave's son]," Johnson says finally. "He came to see me one time, and after two or three times, we was playing. We just playing and stuff, and time really goes, and he wanted me to leave with them. He said, 'Man, why can't you leave with us?' I said, 'I got to stay here.' 'But why you got to stay here for something you didn't do?' And I said, 'This is how it is.' He said, 'Why don't you just tell 'em you didn't do it and they let you go?'"
The brothers chuckle wryly.
Johnson continues, "'It don't work like that, man.' And I just thought about that. It was so funny, but it hurted, too. But I couldn't, you know, it hurt so much I wanted to cry, but I couldn't. And when I went back to my cell, I did. And you know ...."
Johnson stops talking and removes his sunglasses to rub the tears in his eyes.
Dave stares into the farthest corner of the room. "God, I feel bad for people who really can't do more than they can; they get into a situation where they really can't help themselves," he says. "I don't know, this system we have, it either work or it don't. Once you in it, you tied up in it. They got you and you're never completely free."
It's a typical morning in July, and the phone on Paul Myslin's cluttered desk in the San Francisco Public Defender's Office is ringing. Myslin, a determined young lawyer with a quirky sense of humor, is a one-man Innocence Project whose mission is to investigate possible cases of wrongful murder or rape convictions in San Francisco. As a result, the person on the phone could be an inmate calling collect to ask for help, a police lieutenant delivering news about physical evidence, or Susan Rutberg of Golden Gate University phoning to discuss a case (the two satellite offices often work together). This time, though, it's a criminal court clerk named Jeff telling Myslin that case files he ordered are available for viewing.
After hanging up the phone and wading through the landscape of case files and paperwork in his cubicle, Myslin dons the coat to his suit and heads out of his drab room, which he tries to liven up with Folsom Prison postcards and letters from inmates. Striding so briskly that a companion must run to keep pace with him, he exits the Public Defender's Office and crosses to the other side of Bryant Street to enter the dim, cavernous Hall of Justice.
Now the adventure begins. The criminal courts have recently moved their records room, and it's unclear where Myslin should go to find Jeff or his files. He decides to inquire upstairs, in the old criminal court clerk's office.
On the third floor, Myslin walks into a now-abandoned space, where a series of unenthusiastic-looking city employees walk back and forth behind the long counter, lugging boxes and carrying computer equipment. At long last, Jeff, a tall and bookish fellow, appears, wheeling a dolly.
"I've got some files for you, 'bout yay high," he says to Myslin, indicating a 2-foot stack. "And we're purging old evidence, old guns -- 'the arsenal.' I found a gun for 8824401."
Myslin immediately recognizes the case number: It's one that he's investigating, and it's been difficult to find evidence that could be tested for DNA clues (see Page 20). This is the third time that material from one of his cases has emerged serendipitously.
"It was misfiled," Jeff continues. "In the wrong box. But I looked at the number and I thought, 'Oh, it's one of those [Innocence Project] cases.'"
"It was one of those cases that didn't have any evidence left," Myslin tells him, a note of disbelief in his voice.
"Well, I don't know what you can do with it now," Jeff says, and offers to show Myslin the gun.
Jeff tells Myslin to meet him back on the first floor. As we sprint down the hallway at Myslin's usual brisk clip, the public defender shakes his head incredulously. "I hear stories like that every day," he says. "Here I am, trying to locate evidence in a case, and it's misfiled, and they're about to purge it. You can see the drama to it."
Once downstairs, Jeff takes Myslin to his cubicle and opens an innocuous file box on the floor, in which pistols, semiautomatics, and .32-caliber guns -- enough firepower to arm a small militia -- have been tossed haphazardly on top of each other.
Jeff begins digging through the box, tossing aside guns as if he were going through a department store sale bin. Finally, he holds up a smooth, black handgun with a tag dangling from it that reads "8824401."
