As I write this, I am struggling to get going. Today, Florida has felt its first freeze of the year and I am “frozen” with several topics on my mind. In the last few weeks, it’s been easier than I expected to write about some of my experiences. But today I am struggling with “analysis paralysis” of the many topics I can dive into. But I think I will just back up a little and give some insight to why I’m writing in the first place.
After having my initial appeal denied by the court, I fell into a depression. I entered the holiday season with a sense of dread that I was stuck in a world I did not belong in. I knew I still had several legal options to consider, but also felt that I was fighting a system stacked against me.
As always happens, once a legal decision is made public you begin to receive solicitations from legal firms promising the expertise you need. Some mailings actually contained informative details of the process I would be facing. For whatever reason, I kept the letters and filed them away.
It took a few months, but I slowly found the urge to reread my trial transcripts and dig back in the issues that still haunted me nightly. “What happened to my defense?” “Why didn’t my attorney say this?” “Why did the judge do this?” Soon, I started to ask other people the same questions. After becoming frustrated with the range of answers from other inmates, I had the idea to make use of the free call offered in the solicitations. With the help of my son, I began to set up phone calls to speak to the attorneys.
Fast forward to May 2018. After more than a dozen phone “interviews” with different attorneys and hours spent researching case law, I found that my case riddled with critical errors. Good for me, right? Well, not really. I needed an attorney, but I did not have money to hire one. This is when I started to kick around the idea of using crowd funding. The idea was not well received by some. Bottom line? No one likes to ask for money. Inspired by my research, I prepared to put myself out there and trust God.
Until next week. MB
Michael Barnes' Story 