Case of a Lifetime

We drove to Bedford Hills. It was good to see Kelly again, to hug her, to be in her presence. But it was also sad. She was older, grayer, less lighthearted. When Kelly was first incarcerated, she weighed just over 100 pounds; now she was closer to 200. So much had happened in my life. So little had happened in hers.

Since my days as a public defender, I always have been a proponent of clear-cut, unambiguous professional boundaries. But boundaries are a tricky thing in lawyering. The more the lawyer cares about a client, the trickier they become. With Kelly, I acted in ways I never acted with other clients. I sent her clothes, shoes, books, a Scrabble set, a portable stereo. I intervened in prison matters and family matters. I shared my own life. She signed her letters "love." Soon I signed mine the same way.

It helped that Kelly was respectful. She respected that I had other clients, other demands on my time, that my attention was sometimes directed elsewhere. She respected the family I had built with my partner, Sally, and was thrilled when our son, Joe, was born in 1995. Kelly showed me that sometimes -- not often, but sometimes -- being a good lawyer also means being a good friend, no matter how uncomfortable I am with the idea.

Over the next several months, trying to leave no stone unturned, the students and I contacted Kelly's first lawyer, eyewitness Hyland and the judge who had presided over the original case. We drafted a careful letter to the parents of the young man who had been killed. We tried to find William Sullivan, Billy Ronald's old boyfriend. But the case had occurred more than 20 years before. Most of our letters went unanswered. Billy Ronald responded to our meeting request with one line: "I decline your invitation and wish you luck in your endeavors."

A few years earlier, Sister Antonia, a nun who worked at the prison and who had become Kelly's godmother, had visited Hyland, and he had admitted feeling pressured to identify Kelly at the trial. He agreed to see us, and the students and I took a two-day trip to Upstate New York. What if he said he identified Kelly only because the police told him she was a prime suspect? Could we get a new trial? Get the police to reopen the case?

But Hyland gave us nothing. He was in his early 80s, on oxygen and had apparently had a stroke. He was happy for the company but confused about the case. He stuck to the story he'd told at trial.

Meanwhile, Kelly wrote me letters. Hundreds of them. Every one began by thanking me. In 1993, she wrote: "I'm so happy to have you back in my life, Abbe. I will never forget you for not forgetting me." Some expressed frustration, indignation and sadness -- at times sardonically, such as the words she scrawled at the top of a letter to me on April 24, 1997: "20 years in prison. Wish me a happy anniversary!"

We were essentially back where we'd restarted: Kelly was a convicted murderer with a strong claim of innocence seeking executive clemency from a governor -- Republican George Pataki had since taken office -- who would be loath to grant it. Yet clemency was the only option. We had to move forward.

Our petition, seven inches thick, was denied in July 21, 1998. Under clemency procedures, we had to wait a year before filing another.

During the time Kelly was in jail, the U.S. prison population boomed -- from 1977 to 2004, the number of women prisoners rose by more than 750 percent, according to U.S. Department of Justice statistics. The population at Bedford Hills became younger and more troubled. It was a more dangerous place for a middle-aged woman such as Kelly. Once, a younger inmate who thought Kelly had "disrespected" her viciously attacked Kelly with a metal bucket. Kelly's nose was broken, and she lost sight in both eyes for several days. The attack frightened and angered her.

Kelly's friends did their time and got out, while she remained imprisoned. Whenever I asked her how she tolerated it, how she slept at night, she would answer, "God." I should have been glad that she found comfort in faith. But I had a hard time understanding it.

Every couple of years after the first denial, I filed a new clemency petition, updating, adding, revising, polishing, reworking. Every couple of years, it was denied. I created a file for the one-page form letters, which I optimistically labeled "Correspondence with the Clemency Board." It seemed as if the clemency petitions would be denied no matter how carefully put together. What I needed was access.