Innocent

Today is Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week.  Christians reflect on the trial and punishment Jesus Christ endured for everyone’s sins.  Others relish in the pagan rituals of Spring Break.  Still others celebrate nothing.

Me?  I’m reflecting on my own trial.

Late one night in Summer of 2011, on a tip from a person who remains anonymous to this day, the police showed up at my house and pounded on the front door until I woke up.  I opened the door and stepped out onto my porch to find two officers there.  As soon as I was on the porch, one of them whipped me around and handcuffed me.  I lost my balance (remember my left ankle is mostly titanium?) and the other officer shoved me so I fell back into my house.  The handcuffing officer said, “Oh!  You’ve invited us in!  Let’s go inside and talk about this!” and dragged me – by my hair – inside and sat me in a chair in my front room while the list of offenses I’d allegedly committed was read.

And so it began.

They never did read me my rights, although the police report from that night says they did.

The police report from that night contains several other lies that I spent the next two years unravelling.  Talk about falling down the rabbit hole!  Nothing is deeper or darker or more bottomless than the lies people construct to cover up or protect or defend their wounded human egos.

My ex was around during this time and, on good days, I remind myself that I was distracted by my battle with the police department.  On bad days, I remember I felt guilty about all I was putting him through with the constant – and I do mean CONSTANT – interaction with the legal system.

After all of the lies were uncovered and I was exonerated, the fog lifted and I saw my now-fiancé for what he was.  When I told him the drinking and carousing had to stop, he knocked me down – not for the first time, but for the last.  I called 911.  Fate brought me the same officer from that summer night who said, “Remember me?  You’re not getting away with something this time like you did last time” and arrested me again (for “Misuse of 911”). 

He did read me my rights this time.

I refused to plead guilty and the DA – who also told me I wasn’t going to get away with something this time – refused to drop the charges.  So I went on trial for “Misuse of 911” one year later.  By now, the DA had been elected as a judge and he put himself on my case.  No one – including my lawyer – saw a problem with this.

After telling my tale of two years’ physical, mental, verbal, and emotional abuse to justify the 911 call (you can see the marks on my neck in my mug shot, which the judge disallowed as evidence, deeming it “hearsay”), the DA presented a defense that consisted mostly of telling the jury I “deserved it” because my fiancé and I were not married and, failing that, I am a liar.

The jury agreed with him.

The judge told me he was going to make an example out of me when he sentenced me to 20 days in the county jail.  The DA shook his finger at me.  I was taken from the courtroom in shackles.

Nine months later, my guilty verdict was overturned and EVERYTHING going back to that summer night was reversed.

I relate to Amanda Knox because:

I know firsthand what it’s like to fight a corrupt system that speaks a completely different and double-tongued language.     
I know firsthand what it’s like to sit in jail for a crime you KNOW you didn’t commit.   
I know firsthand what it’s like to hear the whispers of judgement Every. Single. Place. You. Go.
I know firsthand what it’s like to discover who in your circle really thought you were guilty when you witness their reaction to the news of your ultimate victory.     
I know firsthand how a person can be stunned into expressionlessness silence. 

I don’t know how Amanda Knox endured all that she did.  I barely made it through my thing (and I had a LOT of help) and it’s 1/100^th of her thing (thank God for double jeopardy).

But I do know this:

I do know that Spring comes every year.

I do know that everything that was cut back will grow again.

I do know that re-birth follows death.

I do know that, while human justice often fails, Divine Justice never does.

Just ask all of the former law enforcement personnel in my town. 

So hold on. 

Hold on through the despair and the despondency and the distractions and the depression and the doldrums.  Your day of restoration is coming, I just know it.  It came for Amanda Knox and it came for me.  It’ll come for you.  This is the perfect time for it.