”He Should Have Had a Better Attorney”  says Commenter

Opening Up and Risking Rejection

Today The Detroit News ran a human interest story about me. www.detroitnews.com/story/life/columnists/marney-rich-keenan/2014/10/29/attorney-takes-sabbatical-stay-home-mom/18159245.

They wanted to talk to me about my murder trial and timing of my sabbatical.  

On Monday, Marney Kennan, a reporter for the Detroit News, came to my house.  We chatted for an hour and a half.   I told her how touched I was that somebody was interested in my story.   Even more than that, I felt like Marney really listened and understood me during the interview.   It was like chatting with an old friend. Marney told me about her children and job.   She told me that I’d never regret taking a sabbatical.

The only way we connected is that we both revealed things to each other.   We revealed emotion, not just facts.   We could have just told each other how many kids we each have and their ages.    Instead, we got deeper.   We both revealed our emotions about being a working mother.   How life goes by so quickly.    She felt like a wise older sister.    As we were talking about my murder trial, she said, “You are the type of attorney I would want.”   It felt good.   And I told her that.   Instead of saying, no, no or averting my eyes, I took the compliment.   I felt it and appreciated it.   I want to tell people how their words make me feel, good or bad.   More than that even, I want to feel how a person’s words make me feel, good and bad.

A media relation’s expert would have died if they had been present during the interview.   I gave opinions on the trial judge, revealed my shame at crying in the courtroom, and talked about my personal relationship with my client Ted.   I took a risk in revealing so much.   It’s a risk I am taking now.   Sometimes that risk will pay off, and sometimes it won’t.   I may be rewarded with a warm feeling or I may be punished with cruel words or people misinterpreting me.   Is the risk of being vulnerable worth it?

Yes it is.   Well at least that is what I’m learning.   

I’ve already been mocked and put down by Detroit News’ reader comments such as these:

Jason Matthew · Top Commenter

Wafer should have hired a better attorney.

     Leodis Elliott – Well Jason.   As Kwame incorrectly stated his lawyer

     done set him up to claim ineffective assistance of counsel in his

     quest for another trial. 

I can take the name calling.   It does hurt though.   I won’t pretend it doesn’t. My husband didn’t want to tell me about these comments.    He was trying to protect me.   I can take it because I reverse roles with these commenter’s.   I think their anger is about the case, racism and gun control.   Not about me.   

However, Leodis was in the mood to comment more on the article and me.   This time he hit home:

Leodis Elliott · Please with the effen emotional neurotic drama. Bob

Bashara needs you to fight as he is an underdog who murdered his wife just 

as that old paranoid trigger happy white man senselessly murdered that young             woman. Most lawyers accept or are thrust into challenging cases. Do your best, accept the verdict, and get ready for the next case. And if you can't stand the heat get out and stay out of the kitchen at least while the stove is on.

  

This comment hurt more because it mocks my shame.  Crying in the courtroom.   Did I try a case too much on emotion?   Some attorney friends have told me this and hell knows a lot of the public said this.    I don’t know.   I tried a case with the emotion of fear for one’s life.   Of panic and anger and fear, at different levels, at different times.   It was the truth and I can’t hide the emotional truth.   Should I have changed it?   Told Ted, never ever say that and when you said you were full of piss and vinegar to the police, let’s shade that statement or explain it away.  Or should I have hid it?   Just have Ted tell the facts of what he did, without feelings?   Or should I have done an opening statement without emotion?   Should I become more clinical and exact?

I couldn’t.   Because no matter how people are uncomfortable that a bit of Ted was mad when he got his shotgun, it is the truth.    He was more afraid than angry.    I can never understand how someone can kill in self-defense if they are not a little angry.   You need the anger to fight.   Fight or flight.   Yet it’s hard to swallow this.   To accept feelings that may seem contradictory but aren’t.    Just to accept feelings and not put blame on them.   You shouldn’t feel like that!   How many times have we felt like this in our life or somebody has told us that.

Tears and emotion are hard for society to accept.   Happiness or sadness is only understood only if they are related to a socially appropriate event.    Tears from an attorney in the courtroom is not socially acceptable.    Why?   Don’t lawyers feel?    Isn’t good storytelling and advocacy done with passion and emotion?

This weekend, I was reminded of this again.   I was teaching at the Trial Lawyers College seminar on closing arguments.   I worked with a student who was struggling to connect with the jurors during closing argument.   I saw the problem.   He was just saying words, like reading from a script.    None of us felt any love or compassion for his client.    So we did a retake.   He did it again, after exploring his feelings for his client and what happened to her.   This time the “jurors” were on the edge of their seat.    They wanted to help him.    The lawyer showed his sadness for a husband losing his wife after being married for 30 years.   This lawyer was thinking of his own wife and the thought of losing her.   He tried to hide his tears that came naturally.    When he wiped away the tears and became clinical, he lost his connection to the jurors.  

I am not sure if this attorney will really open up his feelings in court.   He’s old school and has been taught real men don’t cry or show emotion.  

Just think if lawyers showed their compassion in every step of the legal process.   It would take hold.    Judges would become more empathetic.   The attorneys would stop fighting so hard against one another.   The fighting wouldn’t stop but the vicious nature of it might.  

Just think if the commenter to the news article let go of his anger towards the case and me.   If he felt what was deeper inside him.   It’s more than anger.   He’s been hurt by racism or family member killed/injured by a gun.   He is taking it out on me.   Because his side won.  They got a murder conviction.   Got 17 years in prison for a 55 year old man.   So why does the anger at me linger?  He’s never dealt with the bigger issue in his life.  

Although the mean comments are hard to read, it’s part of being vulnerable.   I have to open up in order to feel connected to others.   I risk being rejected by many for opening up and being emotional.   Some already has rejected me.   But far more have connected with me and me with them.   

This is a lesson to remember the only way to feel connected with others, is to take risk of vulnerability and opening up.    Pain will come from it.   Some people don’t like it and will tell you.   Try to shame you.   But I promise the beauty of the connections, like the one I will always have with the newspaper reporter and from comments from people who identify with me, far outweigh the rejection.

To read more about the Power of Vulnerability, read and watch Brene Brown.   She gets it.   To get a taste of Brene Brown, watch this 20 minute TedTalk: 

www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability?language=en