My Night in Jail--As an Angel

[Dedicated with gratitude to Officer Jeff Sugg of the Reno, Texas. Police Force]

The situation was certainly my fault. I thought the fine for not having car insurance would be less than the premiums I would have paid for all the months during which I did not have insurance. I’ve never added up the numbers to see if I was right.

I had a low beam go out. I bought a replacement, but could not figure out how to install it. As a result, I was driving from Paris, through Reno, back out to Blossom with my high beams on, hoping that would be less noticeable than having one headlight out. It wasn’t.

Reno is a fairly quiet little town. The police officers don’t have much to do besides making traffic stops. Hence Officer McCarthy spotted me and tailed us just over the town limits before he stopped me. My wife says that the officers received a bonus from the county for stops outside of all city limits.

Officer McCarthy informed me that he was ticketing me for failing to dim my lights. He asked for my insurance card; I admitted I didn’t have one. He took my Washington license back to his car. In a few minutes he came back and asked me, “Do you know your license is suspended in Washington State?”

I suppose my surprise was clear enough that he believed I hadn’t known. He asked if anyone else in the car had a valid license. Neither Phyllis nor Melinda had one at that time. He then asked if there was anyone who could come drive the car home for us. I said that I believed Melinda’s Uncle Chuck would do that, but I had no way to contact him. Officer McCarthy pulled out his personal cell phone and said, “Here. Use mine.”

I got Chuck’s phone number from Melinda, called. Chuck said he and Aunt Di would be there quickly. While we waited, I chatted with the officer about the fact that my family has consisted largely of military and police officers. After Chuck arrived, I thanked the officer for his compassion. I knew quite well that he could have arrested me and impounded our car. I suppose my not being at all afraid of him might have made a difference. But he also simply did not want to leave my wife, kids, and sister-in-law stranded.

Many of the people who worked with me at the call center that TCIM ran for AT&T (I’ll deal with that separately) had been in jail, some many times, some for felonies. Such people had a very low opinion of Officer McCarthy. When I went to court, I made a point of praising him as an excellent officer to Judge Rutheart.
The problem with my Washington license was a ticket (I had been tricked by a police officer into not slowing to 20 in a school zone) I thought I had taken care of. I got it paid off and got insurance. In court, Judge Rutheart gave me the standard fine for not having insurance and allowed me to set up a payment plan for it. She warned me of the dire consequences for not making payments on time. I assured her that I understood.

Act II involved two different factors. First, I got stopped again in Reno, this time by Officer Jeff Sugg, for having our license plate on the dashboard, not on the front bumper. He said it was not easy enough to read. Unfortunately, I had left the now-current insurance card on my desk, not in the glove compartment. Officer Sugg wrote me a fixit ticket to fix the plate and show the court that I did have insurance. I also chatted with him about my family: my father and grandfather were both career military intelligence; my uncle was naval intelligence; my great-grandfather, John Raymond Kelly, was one of New York’s Finest, his beat having been in Central Park; and my almost-son-in-law, Bob Foster, had been a top instructor at the Oakland Police Academy before going on to become Police Chief in three different northern California towns.

Second, I could never predict how much my TCIM paycheck would be, since much of it depended on bonuses computed with Byzantine niggardliness by AT&T; so our budget was always precarious; it was only the generosity of Bishop Herb Bundy of the Paris Ward that was keeping us afloat. When the first payment on the fine came due, it was obvious we wouldn’t have it. Melinda phoned the court and asked if we could please have a little extra time to get the payment in. The court clerk assured her that they routinely granted a two-week grace period, and that she would make a record of their conversation on the case record.

When the date for my second court appearance came, I fortunately had left the car with Melinda that day and just got a ride down to the Reno courthouse. I made the payment on the fine and brought the receipt and my insurance card into court. In fairness, I must admit that I was a few days over the grace period and that Judge Rutheart was quite justified in what she did next.

When I approached the bench, I commented jokingly that I had been seeing entirely too much of her lately (we were also having to deal with Evan’s “Truancy” as defined by Texas’ Draconian truancy law). She glared at me and said, “Mr. Kelly, there is a warrant for your arrest. I warned you about making payments on your fine on time, and you have not communicated with the court about your failure to do so.” It seemed to me that she was somewhat puzzled about why she was suddenly so angry with me. I think she was also blanking on who I was.

I was so stunned that I could not remember exactly what had happened. I said, “But your honor, we did communicate with the court.”
She said, “There’s nothing in your records showing that you did. Your payment was late. With the added penalties, your fine is now $900. Can you pay that now?’

“No, ma’am.” I said. “May I have some time to arrange that?”

She said, “No, you will have to go to jail until you can pay it.”

I said, “But your Honor, I’ll lose my job!”

She replied, “That’s not my problem. Officer, please take Mr. Kelly into custody.”

The officer there was Jeff Sugg. He looked at me, surprised, and escorted me to his office. I said to him, “I’ve never been arrested before in my life.”

He said, “Just wait here,” went back into the courtroom, then returned in a few minutes. I believe he argued with Judge Rutheart about her decision, but was told to obey orders. When he came back, he took a phone call, then said to me, “I have to go deal with a traffic situation. Just sit at my desk. Use my phone to call your wife. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

I called Melinda and explained what had happened. We were able to sit and talk for quite a while. By now I had remembered that Melinda had told me that the court clerk had said she would note their conversation in the case records. I asked the woman officer at the other desk if I could ask Judge Rutheart about that, but she said the judge had already left. Melinda was rather hysterical, of course, and immediately began emailing everyone we know.

When Jeff came back, he said, “You understand that I do have to do this.”

I said, “Jeff, you know I’m from a military family. I understand what orders are.”(It occurred to me later that, as far as I know, someone who is under arrest is normally also restrained. I don’t think Jeff even considered putting cuffs on me.)

When we walked outside, I asked if I could please have a cigarette before we got to the jail. He said, “Oh, sure. Just have a smoke here.” We stood around chatting while I smoked. Then he helped me into the car. As we set off, I remarked, “Well, at least this ought to be interesting.”

Jeff laughed, then got into a long phone conversation with a colleague about their gun collections. When we arrived at the Lamar County jail, he escorted me into the airlock, where I learned the routine of having everything but shirt, pants, and socks removed and sealed into an evidence bag. My $8.35 in cash was counted and sealed separately.

As we entered the jail proper from the airlock, Jeff said to the assistant warden on duty, “Don’t bother processing this one. Just leave him in the holding cell. He won’t be in here long.”

Jeff sat down at a computer and began typing in his report. A woman’s voice came over the intercom: “I’m not finding any criminal history on this one.”

Jeff said, “No, and you’re not going to, either.”

I said, “So now I have a criminal history?”

Jeff said, “On a traffic thing? Don’t worry about it.”

He asked me various questions to fill in his report. When he finished, he brought me over to the assistant warden. I asked if I would be allowed to have any dinner. The warden laughed and said, “Oh, yes, we will feed you.” (And they did: quite a nice sandwich and drink and chips.)

The warden brought me to the holding cell, unlocked it, ushered me in, locked it. I looked at the dozen men in the cell, and said, “Hi, guys.”

They looked at me curiously, and one said, “Hi, Pops. What are you in here for?”
That began a series of comparisons of portions of life stories. I discovered they all shared an intense dislike of Judge Rutheart. Most of them were there on drug charges, some not for the first time, as were the trusties I chatted with.

(We had moved to Paris on the assumption that it would be a safer place to raise kids than Tacoma. When later on I was discussing with Bishop Bundy whether moving to New Orleans would be prudent, he told me he would never have picked Paris as a place to raise kids, because it was and is the major crossroads for drug trafficking in the southeast quadrant of the USA. Book covers.)

Gradually over the next 18 hours, the men were taken out one by one to be processed. At one point I was brought out for a preliminary arraignment by another Judge Rutheart (the father of “Judge Cindy,” as most people called her). The men let me have one of the slightly more comfortable wall bunks, and I did manage to get some sleep. Breakfast was served at 4:30 a.m. The men woke up, ate, and went back to sleep.

At some point in the morning, I was told I had a visitor and was taken to the visitors’ room, where Melinda and I had to shout at each other through what looked like a showerhead. The kids were there, looking quite disconcerted. Melinda told me she had emailed everyone we know about what had happened. (She also told me later that she had trouble getting in, because she wasn’t already recorded in the visitor’s database, unlike the women who came every day or every week to visit their husbands.) Walking back from the visitor’s room, past one of the dormitories, I saw a young man who had been in the holding cell with me. He was adjusting his orange jumpsuit and looking rather pleased with himself.

When I returned to the holding cell, the only other man there was named Sean Seat. He was very quiet, with a bewildered look in his eyes. As we got to talking, I learned he was also bipolar and was in jail on a charge of aggravated assault, facing a sentence of ten years. I didn’t ask exactly what he had done. He commented to me that he had been given the choice of being in a dormitory or in a cell by himself. He said he had chosen the cell, not because he was afraid of the other inmates, but because he was afraid that he might go berserk again and harm them.

I thought, “This is a man with a conscience, not a sociopath.”

I said to him, “I’m bipolar too. I was in a manic state for 20 years. My case was really mild compared to yours. It never got me into legal trouble—except maybe for being in here. It just wrecked my career and my finances. Let me ask if you’ve felt the same sort of thing that I have. When my manic state is at its worst, I feel like I’m being taken over by some sort of alien monster. When you’re at your worst, does it feel like the real you has been shoved into the background, and that all you can do is watch this monster destroying your life?”

He looked very surprised and said, “Yes, that’s exactly what it feels like.”

“That’s what I guessed,” I said. “That means you, the real you, did not have any criminal intent. That changes the legal situation. Try to tell them, if they will listen, that you have an illness, that you need treatment, not punishment.”

“Yes, I will try that,” he said. He seemed to be feeling less discouraged.

I went on, “This illness has been around for a long time. Do you know the stories about Jesus expelling evil spirits from men and restoring them to sanity?”

“Yes, a little,” he said.

“That was clearly this same illness,” I said. “It does feel like we’ve been possessed by an evil spirit. There’s a story about the apostles trying to expel a spirit, and they couldn’t. Jesus told them, ‘This kind can be expelled only by prayer and fasting.’ I think maybe that gives us a clue about what to try to do about the illness.

“So you think you’re facing a sentence of ten years. Look at it this way. Suppose you had joined a religious community, like becoming a monk. You’d live in a cell by yourself, and you’d have a community that provided you with food and clothing. You’re going to be able to think and pray and read and write.”

“Yes,” he said. “I always liked writing in school.”

“So you’ll be able to use those years to work on yourself, to turn yourself into a person you’d rather be.”

“Yes,” he said. I thought I saw hope in his eyes now, and not so much fear. I was repeating what I had said to him about asking for treatment when the assistant warden came to the cell door and said, “Okay, Kelly, you’re outta here.”

He brought me to the room with lockers where I would be processed out. At first they gave me a form to sign saying that I had no other possessions. I asked about the things I had surrendered when Jeff brought me in. They looked confused and staring looking about. Finally one brought my stuff to me and said, “The only reason I found this is that the jacket matches your pants. It was in the wrong locker.” (I had worn a suit to court. It usually helps to look respectable.) However, I did not get my $8.35 back. I was told I had to go get that at the courthouse. I never bothered.

As I was following the warden to the exit, I was wondering where the suggestions I had given to Sean had come from. I had never before thought about any of that.
Then it burst upon me: “My God, I was sent to that man as an angel! A messenger, to bring him a message of hope! That’s what this was all about. And of course Judge Cindy did not know it. No one ever does until afterward.”

I remembered the story in Acts about the angel who came to release the apostles from jail. I’ve sometimes said that if angels walk among us, they are always disguised as other people. But now I knew that was true. It had happened to me. And as soon as I had finished delivering the message, I was released.

When I came outside, Melinda and the kids hugged me and kissed me and cried. It turned out that when my oldest daughter, Maeve, had received Melinda’s email, her reaction was, “My Daddy’s in jail!?!” She immediately wired Melinda the funds to get me sprung. The supervisors at TCIM were also astonished to learn that I was in jail. I had once been elected employee of the month.

Fast forward to Tuesday, three days later. We had to go to the courthouse to deal with Melinda and Evan being charged with truancy for the second time (Melinda only because she was the one who happened to have signed the enrollment forms). This had also happened the year before, at the end of sixth grade, not really his fault. Maybe I had forgotten to write him the mandatory excuse notes or maybe he had lost them. Having mainly been homeschooled, he just didn’t grasp how seriously a public school system deals with such matters, or what the Texas truancy law’s penalties were, and really, neither had I. I had withdrawn him from school when I realized the problem was not going to evaporate, but he still had missed one more day than the law allowed.

(The year before, I had stood in the hallway outside the courtroom, watching boys, teenagers, in orange jumpsuits, being taken to jail because they had missed school. Lines from Blake sprang to mind, from London and “this is a land of poverty.” I thought, “This is freaking insane! These people send children to jail so that they can be sure to get their money from the state! Including girls! Who get raped! And they’re in total denial of what they’re doing!” And so on.)

We arrived in the hallway outside Judge Rutheart’s chambers. At that moment she came out into the lobby and saw me. A look I suppose was horror appeared on her face, and she turned and ran.

“This is strange,“ I thought. “Everyone in town is terrified of this woman, and she runs from me?’

We met with a nice young woman asst DA, agreed to plead guilty, pay a fine, and that was the end of it. However, we had to persuade Evan to plead guilty, which he was reluctant to do, since he did not believe he had done anything wrong. Judge Rutheart had to hear his plea. She came in, asked him what his plea was. He said “Guilty,” and she immediately started to leave.

I called to her, “Your honor, I brought along his homeschool curriculum if you’d like to see it.”

“No, that’s all right,” she said and vanished.

Perhaps she had found the records of Melinda’s conversations with the court clerk. Perhaps she was afraid I might sue her for false arrest (no, I had been late with the fine, and she was just doing her job). Perhaps she had merely remembered who I was. Maybe having a Ph.D. was a plus in that situation. I don’t really know—and she could not have known what had really happened, why she had been inspired to send me to the jail.

I asked Melinda if I should tell her of my angelic assignment.

Melinda said, “No, it would just make her feel better.”