Lawyers are Chasing Me
And not to collect a debt either...
I got a call yesterday from my brother. He said a very polite but insistant lawyer had come by their house looking for me. My brother was incredulous until she explained that she was with a non-profit defense representation group for people facing the death penalty. It seems she found my name on a facebook discussion about Will Morva
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Morva
I knew will for quite a long time. When I worked at various coffee houses in downtown Blacksburg near the VA Tech campus he was always a fixure. At nights when I closed he oftentimes stayed after I locked the doors, just talking and helping me clean up. I never worried about the till or anything. Besides being shiftless and seldom working he was very outgoing and somehow made his life work. He was very intellegent and hippish. If I could place him anywhere in history it would have been 1969 at the hight of the hippie movement in San Fransico's Haight Ashbury neighborhood. I went away for a couple of years and when I came back he wasn't the same person. There was a coldness there. He wasn't the outgoing free spirit I came to know almost a decade prior. The whole armed robbery thing was a shock. His escape from custody, not so much. Some people can't abide being locked up. I think it awakened some primative fight or flight instict in him. I think he deserves to spend life in prison for what he did, but not die. I think in an ideal world his mental health would be taken into account in his appeal. I guess that's where this lawyer wanted my insights. It's tough to prove insanity tho, especially within the narrow confines of the M'Naghten Rules.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNaughton_Rule
I guess I'll talk to the lady. Although I'm not really sure how to arrange a meeting. It's not a discussion I'd prefer to have in my home as I'd rather not have her see where I live, or my roommates/landlady overhear our discussion. But it's not really the kind of conversation you want to have at a Starbucks either. I don't really think I can help either.
I'm not really sure if Will Remembers me given his state of mind, and I'm not sure how to feel about reaching out to him either, though I'll probably ask her for his prison address. I've never been to jail but I can immagine having spent 3 months in bootcamp with a broken leg which ultimately led to a nervous breakdown. I lived each day for when the mail was passed out. I'm not sure if it makes a difference but I'm thinking maybe I'll send him a letter, a couple of books and perhaps a money order for a small sum. The smallest comforts are a blessing when you literally are deprived of everything else in life. Think Kate Winslet in "The Reader."
I don't really know how to think or feel about most things these days, I'll admit. In fact the older I get the less certain I become about a lot of things. I remember 12 years ago when I was a freshman in college, just 18, sitting in Intro to Philosophy being really confused about all the importance given to morality and justice, knowlege and reality, etc. and hearing all these differnt takes on the issue by Kant, Aristotle, Nietzsche, Durkheim, and James. The whole time I thought, "all very well and fine, but real people don't sit around all day" pondering morality and the existence of absolute truth. I was partially wrong...18 year old college freshmen don't. Now that I'm older and somewhat more esperienced I find myself trying to figure out these issues more and more. Oftentimes, I conclude there's no concrete answer to anything in life, and shrug as I just go on with the busy nothings of existance. But even if I can find the answer, I feel better for at least examining the problem.
Wow, this post got deeper than I expected.
I got a call yesterday from my brother. He said a very polite but insistant lawyer had come by their house looking for me. My brother was incredulous until she explained that she was with a non-profit defense representation group for people facing the death penalty. It seems she found my name on a facebook discussion about Will Morva
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Morva
I knew will for quite a long time. When I worked at various coffee houses in downtown Blacksburg near the VA Tech campus he was always a fixure. At nights when I closed he oftentimes stayed after I locked the doors, just talking and helping me clean up. I never worried about the till or anything. Besides being shiftless and seldom working he was very outgoing and somehow made his life work. He was very intellegent and hippish. If I could place him anywhere in history it would have been 1969 at the hight of the hippie movement in San Fransico's Haight Ashbury neighborhood. I went away for a couple of years and when I came back he wasn't the same person. There was a coldness there. He wasn't the outgoing free spirit I came to know almost a decade prior. The whole armed robbery thing was a shock. His escape from custody, not so much. Some people can't abide being locked up. I think it awakened some primative fight or flight instict in him. I think he deserves to spend life in prison for what he did, but not die. I think in an ideal world his mental health would be taken into account in his appeal. I guess that's where this lawyer wanted my insights. It's tough to prove insanity tho, especially within the narrow confines of the M'Naghten Rules.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNaughton_Rule
I guess I'll talk to the lady. Although I'm not really sure how to arrange a meeting. It's not a discussion I'd prefer to have in my home as I'd rather not have her see where I live, or my roommates/landlady overhear our discussion. But it's not really the kind of conversation you want to have at a Starbucks either. I don't really think I can help either.
I'm not really sure if Will Remembers me given his state of mind, and I'm not sure how to feel about reaching out to him either, though I'll probably ask her for his prison address. I've never been to jail but I can immagine having spent 3 months in bootcamp with a broken leg which ultimately led to a nervous breakdown. I lived each day for when the mail was passed out. I'm not sure if it makes a difference but I'm thinking maybe I'll send him a letter, a couple of books and perhaps a money order for a small sum. The smallest comforts are a blessing when you literally are deprived of everything else in life. Think Kate Winslet in "The Reader."
I don't really know how to think or feel about most things these days, I'll admit. In fact the older I get the less certain I become about a lot of things. I remember 12 years ago when I was a freshman in college, just 18, sitting in Intro to Philosophy being really confused about all the importance given to morality and justice, knowlege and reality, etc. and hearing all these differnt takes on the issue by Kant, Aristotle, Nietzsche, Durkheim, and James. The whole time I thought, "all very well and fine, but real people don't sit around all day" pondering morality and the existence of absolute truth. I was partially wrong...18 year old college freshmen don't. Now that I'm older and somewhat more esperienced I find myself trying to figure out these issues more and more. Oftentimes, I conclude there's no concrete answer to anything in life, and shrug as I just go on with the busy nothings of existance. But even if I can find the answer, I feel better for at least examining the problem.
Wow, this post got deeper than I expected.