grant one to shut him up. So far it had not been working but he
was determined to keep it up to keep his promise. Kim informed
him she had gotten her high school equivalency diploma and
informed Nicandro that being done with this she now had some
more time on her hand.
It actually struck her as funny considering she was in jail
for the next twenty three plus years. If there was anything she
had enough of it was time. So she wanted to know more about how
the law worked. If it ever came to an appeal she wanted to know
what was going on. She didn‟t want to be a bystander any more.
Nicandro frowned at this but didn‟t see any harm in it and told
her he would bring a copy of her file for her the next time he
came over.
They said their goodbyes and over the next two weeks Kim
spent more and more time in the library. She made an inventory
on what the prison library had to offer as far as legal books
and to her surprise they had a dated but rather complete set of
law books about Mexican law. She was surprised that, considering
where they were, the books looked rather unused which struck her
as ironic. At the next visit Nicandro had a large file with him.
The size had quadrupled in size from what she remembered at her
trial. Nicandro explained that the majority of the paperwork
covered the requests for appeal and the denials of said
requests.
She thanked him for the file and unfolded a couple of
sheets of paper. On them were questions she had about the
Mexican legal systems that she had run into while browsing
through the complex legal volumes. He gave her a puzzled look
and she asked if he could look over them and see if he could
answer some and bring the answers next time he came over. He
looked at the first few questions and they were very basic. He
knew all of them off the top of his head but they had not been
stupid questions. They had actually been questions he had either
asked or had been afraid to ask during his first year of law
school. He wanted to answer them right there but they only had a
few minutes left on the visit and Kim didn‟t seem to be in a
hurry. Again she had plenty of time. When Nicardro left, a guard
took about thirty minute to scan through the complete file to
make sure there was nothing in it that was not allowed. Kim
considered complaining about privacy but realized that she
hadn‟t had privacy for over a year and a half and didn‟t expect
to get any now.
When she got back to her cell she looked through all the
paperwork. It contained every document that had been used in the
trial from the prosecutor and her lawyer as well as the
sentencing and the appeals. She sorted everything and for the
time being focused on the trial documents ignoring the appeals.
She would look at those later. Every day she would spend at
least a few hours in the library comparing her documents to
examples in the legal books and journals. Every two weeks she
had a new list with questions for Nicandro and he faithfully
stopped by every other week and gave her the answers to the
questions from the last visit.
Some of the times she had already found the answers
herself. To his surprise the questions were getting more and
more complex. Where in the beginning he had been able to answer
them all off the top of his head as time went on he was stumped
by a large portion of the questions and had to look them up. The
denial of the appeal came six months after filing. Nicandro
thought he was starting to hit a nerve with the judge and he was
making them wait longer on purpose. Two years had passed since
Kim had been arrested. She was twenty now and there was no
improvement on her case.
Nicandro delivered the bad news in person but to his
surprise Kim was not moved about the appeal being denied one way
or another. She was only eager to give him her new list of
questions and receive the answers to the list from two weeks
ago. Sheepishly Nicandro had to admit that he had not been able
to answer two of the questions and was checking with some
colleagues and would get back to her on those the next time. She
had a remarkable mind for the law he decided. She could come up
with questions that nobody in his office had been able to answer
and she had never spent an hour in law school. She didn‟t seem
to mind but he still felt foolish.
He promised her to file for another appeal immediately but
she told him not to. Surprised he asked why. She looked at him
and said that the appeals had been virtually the same. The judge
would just look at it for five minutes then deny it as he had
done with the others and put it on a waiting pile for a few
months before having it returned. They were making it too easy
to deny and they needed to put some reasons in why an appeal
should be granted. The sentence had been harsher than expected
but it had been with legal limits and therefore it hadn‟t really
provided a compelling enough reason for an appeal. She decided
that to get an appeal they shouldn‟t attack the length of the
sentence but rather the validity of the sentence. He was
dumbfounded when she explained it with the ease of a seasoned
trial lawyer.
She asked him to wait until they could come up with some
grounds for an appeal and interested he agreed. Over time she
started to spend more time in the library and it came to a point
where other prisoners were seeking her help in legal matters.
Most of the prisoners were represented by a public defender like
her and most of those public defenders had workloads that did
not allow them to do their cases justice. Her services were in
such high demand that prisoners would pay her for it. She often
helped out for free but most of the time people would do things
for her. She barely worked in the kitchen anymore as most of the
time someone would work her shift for some legal help.
In total she had been able to save several hundred dollars
from her kitchen work and from the gifts from people she helped.
Nicandro came over again and she laid out the plan. The appeal
would have three new parts to it.
Part one: The statement would be challenged. He objected
that they had done that at trial and it had been denied. She
explained that they had challenged it for the wrong reason. They
had challenged the statement based on that it had been
incomplete. That was not a valid reason to have it excluded and
the fact that the statement had been in Spanish was also not a
solid ground for exclusion. However the statement had been their
clever way of interrogating her and she had not been able to
understand Spanish at the time of the interrogation which meant
that if even a single word of Spanish was spoken or written
during the interrogation they should have offered her an
interpreter which they had not. Therefore the interrogation had
been illegal and since the statement had been a product of that
interrogation it should be excluded. Nicandro smiled in
bewilderment. This was brilliant.
Part two: He would need to setup a test on the packaging
the drugs had been in. If they checked for fingerprints they
would find that hers were on the box but not anywhere on the
inside of the packaging. The bag that had been in the box would
produce no such prints. This was not going to declare her
innocence she realized but it would make her story more viable.
“How are we going to pay for that?” he had asked and she
pulled out a large pile of bills and said that this should cover
it.
“When was she going to cease to surprise her?” He thought.
And finally part 3: Part 3 was going to be the hardest of
all. They would prove that there had been a relationship between
her and Jake and that he had plotted to set her up.
Nicandro frowned at her and said “He won‟t admit that, we
tried.”
“I need you to set it up that I can call him. Make sure the
call won‟t show up on the caller-ID and we will record the
conversation. I‟ll tell him I got released early and need to
talk to him about the money. He will get mad about it I am sure
and tell me it‟s gone or that I won‟t see a penny of it.
Something like that and it will establish the relationship” she
told him.
He nodded, “That could work.”
“Then you need to check the flights that we flew on and the
ticket and hotel transactions” she said, “That will confirm the
relationship and his efforts to cover it up.”
“But they did that” he said, “And the tickets were
purchased with separate credit cards and you sitting next to
each other had just been a coincidence.”
She nodded and said “Correct, but we were seated next to
each other on both flights in. That is a pretty big coincidence.
Then if you check the transactions for the hotel and the flights
that were made on separate credit cards I would bet they were
made within five minutes of each other. Finally you will
probably see that all bookings were made from a computer with
the same IP address. I think all those coincidences together
will make a pretty strong case.”
He agreed but told her that she was probably still going to
be convicted if she got the appeal. She had brought the drugs
and that in itself was punishable. She agreed and said that she
knew that and that being a gullible dumb American was not going
to set her free but she didn‟t think she would get sentenced to
twenty five years again if they could prove that her crime had
been one of stupidity rather than greed.
Nicandro agreed and promised to start making arrangements.
On the next visit he had the results from the finger print tests
and her prints had not been found anywhere but on the outside of
the package. Part 1 and 2 were completed. The credit card
company and airline had been resistant and would not release the
records of the transactions but he had the call to Jake set up
for next week. She told him that if the call would go well they
could use that to get a judge to order the credit card company
and the airline to release their records.
The next week they sat down with the phone and recorder
ready. She was nervous and prayed she would be able to stay
calm. She had learned to hate him for everything he had done to
her and for doing even worse to many other girls. She swallowed
away a lump in her throat as she dialed Jake‟s number and there
was no answer. She tried again and still no answer then on the
third attempt, it was answered. She heard his voice and had to
work hard not to immediately start screaming at him.
“Hello?” he said.
She paused and said “Hi Jake.”
It was quiet on the other side of the line for a few
seconds.
“Kim?” he asked and Nicandro‟s face lit up.
That right there was already enough.
“Yes” she answered, “I just got out and need some money to
get back to the United States.”
It was quiet on the other end of the line again as he
realized his mistake.
“I don‟t know you, leave me alone” he quickly tried to
cover up and the line went dead.
She looked at Nicandro and he nodded, “I think it‟s enough”
he said and smiled.
She tried to smile back but the anger raging in her after
hearing Jake‟s voice prevented it. Nicandro went back to work
and because the credit company and airline were based in the
United States it took a little while before the records were
released, a month later they arrived. Nicandro came over
immediately to the prison with the good news. On both flights
Jake and Kim had been seated together and the credit card
records showed that the tickets were booked online four minutes
and thirty-five seconds after each other. The hotel rooms had
been booked three minutes and twenty-eight seconds after each
other and all transactions had been done from the same IP
address and thus the same computer. Nicandro promised to file
the appeal the next morning and did so but this time with the
new facts in it.
Chapter 26:
Two months later Nicandro came over unannounced and not on
his usual schedule and said he had some great news. The appeal
had been approved and they would go back to court in March. That
was still six months away but she could live with that. She
should pursue a legal career he joked but really meant it. She
smiled and for the rest of the week she could not be happier.
She knew she wasn‟t going to be set free but if they would
just bring it down to the original ten years then she could be
out four years after the appeal. Time went fast and Nicandro
prepared for the appeal like he had never prepared for anything.
Kim was happy with his efforts and did as much as she could. She
kept helping the other prisoners with their legal issues and
even helped Marcella Nunez, the daughter of the cartel leader,
to get a hearing set up. Marcella had a no visitation order. She
could not receive any visitors because of the position of her
father in one of the more notorious drug cartels. Kim had
arranged a hearing to quash the order based on the fact that she
was being punished for her father‟s crimes. Marcella had offered
her gratitude but Kim had stayed away from her as much as
possible, still it was good to be on Marcella‟s good side.
In no time her twentieth birthday came and went and she was
ready to go to court. The day of the first hearing she was led
to the bus again with fifteen other inmates. This time she knew
over half of them and most of those she had assisted with their
legal problems. She welcomed the bus rides now. It had been two
years since she had been outside of the prison walls and even
though she was still confined, it gave her a small sense of
freedom. It was even cool to see how things looked outside the
prison. The bad neighborhood they passed through in the
beginning looked wonderful compared to life in prison. Three
years ago it hadn‟t seemed so nice. They arrived at the
courthouse and to her disappointment she found out that there
had been some scheduling issues and her case had been postponed
to next week. She complained about it but in the end she didn‟t
mind that much. Another bus ride she thought.
The next week things went better as her case was the first
one of the morning and they presented all the documentation that
they based their appeal on. Kim felt much better as she was able