No One Wins Their First Murder Trial

On February 5, 2010, I won my first murder trial. At the time, I was an attorney at the Fulton County Public Defender's Office. Public defenders rarely won trials, especially not murder trials. And no one wins their first murder trial. That was impossible.

Recently, out of the blue, my former client contacted me (only ten years later) to thank me. I was quite surprised to hear from him. I thought I would have heard from him ten years ago.

He probably thinks that I made his dream of freedom a reality, but in fact, he made my childhood dream come true. When I was about six years old, I watched a movie where someone was wrongly convicted. Not realizing it wasn't real, I went crying to my mother to tell her about this grave miscarriage of justice. I declared that I didn't want that to ever happen again, so I wanted to be a judge. She replied that I had to be a lawyer first. I decided then that I would be an attorney and help innocent people like the one in the movie regain their freedom.

Winning that trial and giving an innocent man his life back was actually my dream come true. I am more grateful to him than he could ever be to me. The truth is, his courage to say not guilty and to fight the mighty State of Georgia is far more important than anything I did.

Success took months of preparation, support from friends, the best judge in Fulton County, guidance from my ancestors, and prayers (lots of prayers). At times, I was terrified during the trial and didn't think it was possible for us to win. But somehow, I pushed the negative thoughts aside and put my faith in God and the wonderful people on the jury. My faith was not misplaced. After less than two hours of deliberation, the jury arrived at a verdict.

Not guilty on ALL counts before dinner on a winter day in Atlanta is my dream come true.