God'll Cut You Down (20 page)

With the trial now officially delayed for several months, I move on to other work due. I skip town to film a short documentary,
Jedis & Juggalos
. I hunt down Americans who fuse religion to pop culture. Mahmoud lives in an octagonal home in Oregon and sees Muslim messages in
Star Wars
. Jason built a church in Maryland bonding God with the teachings of the Insane Clown Posse. Bill runs an exorcism ministry in Arizona that expels devils brought on by reading Harry Potter and Twilight.

I tell all these men about my true crime adventure. With just the mention of “black man” and “Mississippi,” all assume Vincent has been unfairly incarcerated by a bunch of racist yahoos. Mississippi really has quite the reputation. The Sufi Jedi, the Juggalo priest, and the exorcist agree there’s something strange about those Mississippians.

Four days ago, I moved back to Mississippi. I’m not at the motel in Jackson anymore. I’ve moved into a gated apartment complex in Rankin County to be closer to the trial. I’m stretched out on a lounge chair under the gazebo by the pool. The white columns that prop up Southern mansions have been shrunk and prop up this gazebo, too. The humid summer is now in full swing. My eyes sting from the sweat and sunscreen.

I drove past that billboard at the airport again.
YES, WE CAN READ. A FEW OF US CA
N EVEN WRITE.
Last time, I didn’t know what to make of it, I hadn’t been here long enough. Now I know it speaks of the state’s defensive worldview. I try to think of another place that would greet tourists with a paranoid and passive-aggressive accusation.
You think we’re stupid? Is that what you’re thinking? Screw you!
I can’t. Oh, and I checked. Mississippi has the lowest literacy rate in the United States.

The
Clarion-Ledger
is inking up my hands once more and telling me what I missed while off chasing Jedis. James Ford Seale, finally jailed in 2007 for the 1964 killings of two black teenagers, has died in prison. The Scott sisters, with a release conditioned on Gladys donating her kidney to Jamie, have found out they’re too fat for the operation.

A small child in a bathing suit walks by and laughs at my face. His mother tells me I have a
Clarion-Ledger
ink mustache streaked under my nose. I wipe my face with a towel, and my phone trembles on my thigh.

It’s District Attorney Michael Guest returning my call. I wanted an update on his preparations. Lucky I phoned. Michael says there may be no trial in two and a half weeks. There may be no trial at all.

Michael says tomorrow morning Vincent will be unlocked from his cell. He’ll be led across the walkway that connects Rankin County Jail to the courthouse. He will stand before the judge. And if Vincent follows through on what he has said he’ll do, he’ll be pleading guilty to killing Richard Barrett.

I’m thrown. On the one hand, it looks like finally I’ll see Vincent
McGee in the flesh. Maybe I can pass him a note or something? That’s good. That’s terrific. On the other hand, if he pleads guilty, there’s no trial. Don’t I need one of those? Lawyers treading back and forth in front of the witness box, asking sharp questions? Emotional men and women, blurting the secrets of Vincent McGee and Richard Barrett?

The ceiling lights bounce off the bald patches in a courtroom filled with male-pattern baldness. The security guard has no hair at all, his shiny globe poking in and out of a side door, waiting for things to start.

We’re finally in court. Soon, Vincent will be here.

The two white Mikes—DA Michael Guest and Vincent’s lawyer, Mike Scott—laugh with each other near the side door, too. Is that from where Vincent will appear?

I crane my neck and scan the pews. Vincent will not be the only person pulled before the judge today, so it’s impossible to tell who, if anyone, is here for him. His mother, sister, and brother are not. Nor his stepfather, nor Vallena Greer from the Vincent McGee Defense Fund.

Is anyone here for Richard? There’s a shorn-headed man in an army uniform that’s not one from the actual Army. Is he? Is Richard’s sister here?

A dozen lawyers buzz like atoms in front of the judge’s bench (presently judge-less). I pass time deciding who has a crush on whom.

I’m squeezed between Tim Hall, from the
Rankin County News
, and Jerry Mitchell, from the
Clarion-Ledger
. I guess Jerry Mitchell’s here for Richard, in a way, for one last article.

Tim points his old finger at one of the buzzing atoms.

“That’s the son of Ross Barnett,” Tim says, “the old governor. You know James Meredith?”

James Meredith was the first black person to register for the University of Mississippi, and Governor Ross Barnett drafted legislation specifically
to keep him out. President John F. Kennedy, fed up with Mississippi, ordered troops to accompany James to his first day of class, to ensure he got a seat without being lynched.

That buzzing atom isn’t the great-grandson of Governor Ross Barnett, or his grandson. He is his son. In Mississippi, the incomprehensible past feels just one remove away.

There’s a side door on either side of the judge’s bench, and Mike Scott ducks in and out of them like a Marx brother, until the bailiff comes out of the stage-right side door and says, “All rise! The Circuit Court of Rankin County is now in session. The honorable William E. Chapman III is presiding.”

Judge Chapman whooshes in from the same stage-right door, wrapped in his black robe. His feet cannot be seen, so he appears to float across the floor. As he sits, air puffs up his black robe.

“Thank you,” Judge Chapman says. “Whoever’s cell phone it is, get it off!”

Judge Chapman reads though a roll call of lawyers like it’s school. One lawyer is absent, and Judge Chapman grouses.

“Her grandma died,” explains a lawyer.

“All right,” says Judge Chapman. “We’re on 22157—
State v. Vincent V. McGee
.”

Chains chink from the darkness behind the side door stage left.

The shackled feet of Vincent McGee wiggle themselves into the courtroom.

Vincent’s suave face pulls into the light. His eyelids hang heavily. Satan’s beard pokes from his chin. A thin, wiry mustache frizzes out. On his cheekbone drips a tattoo of a teardrop. The teardrop heads toward what first looks like a blemish, but is a blotch of a butterfly tattoo. Beneath it all he still projects something urbane, like he could hang in the Rat Pack with Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr.

Vincent
chink-chink-chink
s across the courtroom carpet to the lectern facing Judge Chapman. A security guard adjusts the microphone for
Vincent’s plump lips. His hands aren’t cuffed together; they’re cuffed separately to a chain wrapped around his waist. This chain pulls in a baggy yellow jumpsuit, revealing a slender young man.

“If you’ll raise your right hand, please, sir,” Judge Chapman says. (So that’s why Vincent’s hands aren’t cuffed together.) “Do you solemnly swear and affirm that the testimony you will give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

“Murble,” says Vincent.

“Pardon?” says the judge.

“Yessir,” says Vincent.

“Do you understand,” says the judge, “that you are now under oath and your answers will be sworn answers under penalty of perjury?”

“Yessir,” say Vincent’s plump lips.

“You were born on February 17, 1988?”

“Yessir.”

“Your social security number is . . .”

The last three digits are 666, matching his devil’s beard.

“You completed eight years of school and obtained a GED certificate?”

“Yessir.”

“Are you under the influence of any drugs or alcohol?”

“No, sir.”

“Have you ever been treated for any mental illness or disorder?”

“No, sir.”

Judge Chapman may have rolled through this a thousand times with a thousand men in colored jumpsuits, but he sounds stern and emotionally present, gravely conscious of where Vincent’s words will lead him.

Vincent is harder to work out. All we can see is his back. He rolls his square shoulders now and then like a boxer warming up. Or maybe like a crazy person on the train. Lifting my butt from the pew and craning my neck, I can sometimes make out a slice of his face. He seems to be
staring into the distance even when looking at the judge. When he drops his eyes to his shackled feet, his long, feminine eyelashes bat up and down.

“Did you read and sign your petition to enter a guilty plea?” says the judge.

“Yessir,” says Vincent.

“As count one: You did, without authority, willfully, unlawfully kill Richard Barrett, a human being, without malice, in the heat of passion but in a cruel or unusual manner by the use of a dangerous weapon and not in necessary self-defense. Do you understand those elements?”

Insomuch as neck muscles can talk, his suddenly sinewed neck suggests he’s agitated with this description.

“Yessir,” says Vincent. So maybe Mike Scott’s hint that Vincent would argue self-defense was part of the same game as Michael Guest’s death penalty. The negotiations are done.

“With respect to count two, those elements are: You did willfully, unlawfully, maliciously, and feloniously set fire to a dwelling house—the property of Richard Barrett. Do you understand those elements?”

“Yessir.”

Judge Chapman moves to Vincent’s third crime.

“You did willfully, unlawfully, feloniously, knowingly, intentionally, and burglariously break and enter into the dwelling house of Richard Barrett, with the intent to commit the crime of arson therein. Do you understand those elements?”

“Yessir.”

“Do you understand that you have a right to a trial by jury,” says the judge, “and each of the twelve jurors must be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt of your guilt before you can be found guilty and sentenced?”

“Yessir.”

“Should you choose to go to trial,” says the judge, “you would have
the right to confront and cross-examine witnesses who would testify against you and the right to subpoena witnesses to testify on your behalf. Do you understand those rights?”

Vincent pauses from his reflexive
yessir
s. His eyes take a peek at the heavens. His shoulders rise and lower as he breathes in and out. He looks at the judge, this time really looking, not staring into infinity.

He squeezes a soft and rueful
yessir
from his lips.

“Do you understand I can impose the maximum sentence on each crime?” says the judge. “That is, twenty years on the first one, twenty years on the second one, and twenty-five years on the third one. All of those consecutive would mean you’d be sentenced to a term of sixty-five years in the penitentiary.”

“Yessir.”

Judge Chapman twists to District Attorney Michael Guest.

“What’s your recommendation?” Judge Chapman asks.

Michael says his office is recommending the maximum, sixty-five years.

Judge Chapman twists back to Vincent.

“Is that the recommendation you expected to hear?”

“Yessir.”

“At this point,” says the judge, “it’s not too late to stop the hearing. But it will be if I accept your guilty plea. And I want to be certain that you want to plead guilty. Do you want to plead guilty?”

“Yessir.”

And that’s that. Vincent is sentenced to sixty-five years in the Mississippi Department of Corrections.

Vincent’s head droops forward like he’s beginning to deflate.

“The court costs, fees, and assessments in the amount of $846 will be waived,” says the judge. “Anything further?”

“No, sir,” says Michael Guest.

“No, Your Honor,” says Mike Scott.

“All right. Good luck, Mr. McGee.”

A sorry-looking Vincent exits stage right, disappearing into the shadow behind the door.

For his first court appearance, when I was still in Melbourne, the police tightened Vincent into a bulletproof vest. This was to be Rankin County’s trial of the century: Perhaps a Klansman would stand up from the pew and pull a pistol from his sock. No bulletproof vest was strapped on Vincent today.

For his first appearance, CNN, MSNBC, and the other national news channels planted their tripods on every square foot of carpet in the courthouse. The party is thinner today: Tim and Jerry from the two local newspapers, an Associated Press stringer, and true crime writer John Safran. A local TV crew stumbles in at the end, when it is all over.

We bunch around District Attorney Guest in the marble hall outside the courtroom.

“Sixty-five years is a long time,” I say. “So what was his motivation for accepting that?”

“You know,” says Michael, “if he would’ve gone to trial and if the jury would have convicted him of capital murder, he would’ve had no chance to ever get out of jail. With this plea, I would say it would be highly unlikely that Mr. McGee will ever leave the state penitentiary, but he would be eligible for parole at roughly seventy-five years old. And so, if he is in good enough health and is able to live that long, then he would have a chance to, you know, walk the streets a free man again.”

My brain kicks around this explanation. It doesn’t make any sense to me. How could Vincent have been persuaded that the best he could hope for was to get out of jail at seventy-five? Why wouldn’t he work up his defense and go to trial? The death penalty had been taken off the table
months ago, so that wasn’t hanging over him as a threat. But perhaps it had served its purpose as a bargaining tool.

I recall what local lawyer Mark told me. The chance of Vincent’s being acquitted by a jury was slim, but not the maddest thought. A jury in a conservative county could feel sympathy for a man—even a black man—they felt was repelling a gay sexual advance.

“Was it important for him,” I ask Michael, “that he didn’t want things to be flushed out in the trial, in the public view?”

“You know,” says Michael with a smile, “I would say that that was probably a factor that went into his consideration—based on all of the circumstances surrounding this.”