C. J. Rice’s Narrow Path to Freedom
Last week, The Atlantic published its November cover story, “Good Luck, Mr. Rice,” in which Jake Tapper investigates the case of a Philadelphia teenager who was convicted of attempted murder after a 2011 shooting that left four injured. C. J. Rice, now 28, has maintained his innocence. No physical evidence tied him (or anyone) to the crime, and the single eyewitness who identified him as the perpetrator had told police three times that she did not recognize the shooter before ultimately changing her story. Rice’s pediatrician, who happened to be Tapper’s father, Theodore, contends that his involvement would have been physically impossible—Rice himself had been seriously injured in a separate shooting three weeks earlier.
A skilled lawyer would have emphasized these holes in the state’s case. But Rice’s court-appointed attorney, Sandjai Weaver, was not up to the task of zealously defending her client. Overworked and underpaid, she failed to prepare alibi witnesses, challenge the credibility of the eyewitness’s testimony, or even introduce his medical records as evidence. “Rice lacked legal representation worthy of the name,” Tapper argues. “And as he has discovered, the law provides little recourse for those undermined by a lawyer. The constitutional ‘right to counsel’ has become an empty guarantee.”
Rice first appealed his conviction in 2013. At the time, an older man gave him what he calls an “athar,” a prison adage imparted from inmate to inmate ( may derive from the Arabic, meaning “transmit” or “pass along”). The appeals process, the man said, was like a boxing match: Each time you get knocked down, it will be harder to get back up. If Rice wanted his freedom, he would have to shake off the disappointments, drag himself to his feet, and keep fighting.
