The trial is really hard to talk about because it destroyed any faith at all I had in the justice system.
Sadie and I are not saying that she did not do things to land her in prison-she did. What we are saying is that she never deserved 20 years and she deserved to have good representation which she did not.
In defense of the public defender, he had about 300 cases and was headed for retirement and told me that it wasn't too long after he became a public defender that he realized the system was rigged. You could tell that he was just "doing his time" until retirement. The judge treated him like a 2 year old and the public defender was very intimidated by her. Sadie used to tell him, "you need to stand up for yourself". It was obvious he never had. He did a little better at sentencing but she was a force to be reckoned with. At sentencing, when we all testified and the psychiatrist testified, she did not listen to one word. She played with her items on her desk and looked impatient and bored. No empathy-nothing.
Sadie went to trial because she said she was not going to plea to something she did not do. She honestly thought if she told her side of the story that she would get very little time for occupying a car without permission (don't know the legal term). If you are going to carjack someone, or kidnap someone, you don't go into their car with flip-flops and a slurpy and no weapon except the one the legal system designated-the crack pipe pusher she had on her. So she got attempted kidnapping, attempted burglary and attempted car jacking with a deadly weapon (crack pipe pusher). To know the whole story go to her blog, "How I Got Here".
When we hired an appeals attorney he was astonished and called her and apologized to her for the system failing her. He said the most she would have gotten in his state is 5 years.
Not knowing much about public defenders we thought okay that's fine; not to mention the fact that I could not afford a lawyer.
Well, the public defender was a nice guy but not interested in defending my daughter. Until I showed up on the scene (from Oregon to Florida), he took absolutely no interest in her case and when I walked into his office, the first thing he said is "she's guilty". My daughter would call me crying saying mom he said he was going to come and see me and he hasn't. The PD would promise to see her to work on her case but never show up and this happened several times. I would call and email him and he would say "I'll see her tomorrow" and never show up. He never prepared her for trial. He never prepared for trial. It was like learn as you go. He never questioned the victim's conflicting statements or brought up inconsistencies that any normal person would have. There was so much to work with to defend her. He had not called witnesses in her defense, nor laid out the scene where you could actually see that there was tons of reasonable doubt. It was the victim's word against a drug addict. A couple weeks before the DA had upped the charges so that Sadie was looking at life in prison. The PD put an emaciated, frightened person on the stand and never prepared her for that. It did not go well. The victim was a nurse, her husband was a sheriff and that was that. The victim was found guilty of child abuse a few years before and had family members who were incarcerated.
Sadie had asked to fire her public defender many times, but the judge refused and said she was getting good representation. The judge should have recused herself because her husband was Sadie's lawyer a few years before in a child custody case and they ended on bad terms and the judge made it very obvious she did not like my daughter. Sadie tried to recuse her but the PD did not file the paperwork in time. The judge was the most unprofessional person I have ever seen. She looked like she was trying out for Judge Judy. She yelled and carried on at Sadie's sentencing and gave her 20 years. At the sentencing hearing myself, her sister and a friend all testified to Sadie's addiction issues and bi-polar issues and her traumatic childhood. The judge had already made up her mind and said so before we even spoke. Also, a psychiatrist testified on Sadie's mental state (the PD got it a little more together when family showed up). She yelled that my daughter was a "danger to society". She sentenced a pedophile during Sadie's sentencing hearing and he got 18 months-go figure.
Sadie tried to hang herself in jail. As time went on she made a conscious decision to make the best of the situation but there have been many difficult times as there are for all inmates.
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