A Fool For An Attorney

By Erroll Shepherd

The Los Angeles County jail was infested with drug dealers and addicts, gangs, and racist of all kind, even the public defender’s office. Erroll was falsely accused and arrested by the police. He was no stranger to crime and jail; he had been in trouble many times before and was in every juvenile facility in Los Angeles as a youth. State and Federal prison also became familiar terrain, but this time he was innocent.
This was the worst attorney/client disconnection he had ever seen. The days of Perry Mason's and Johnny Cochran's was over, there was no way that Erroll was going to let a public defender represent him in court. After a few rounds of brain wrestling, and locking horns with his public defender, Erroll fired him and became his own attorney.
During Erroll's grueling court battle without an attorney, his homegirl, a.k.a. Foxy, was always a sight for sore eyes when he entered the courtroom. Erroll never could understand why Foxy remained so loyal to him, or why her love never wavered. Even though Foxy didn't want Erroll to fight the State without an attorney, she had his back and supported him, win, loose, or draw.
Little did Erroll know, he would be in one of, if not the biggest, fight of his life. And while he fought his legal battles, he would also be in jail fighting for his life against gangs, corrupt jailers, race riots, and California's three strikes law. He had equally as much to win, as he had to loose, his freedom, and Foxy's love for him, that he never recognized until then.
Erroll's triumphs and defeats in the courtroom, and jail, will move and stun you, while Foxy's unwavering love, and commitment, will romance and woo you to tears.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Erroll Shepherd
• Release date: May 14, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311001368

Erroll Shepherd

Erroll Shepherd was born in Oakland, California, and raised in Los Angeles. After years of being negatively influenced by older dudes from the streets, then getting older himself and continuing the negative influences on the youth under him, he decided to turn a negative into a positive by rebuilding what he helped tear down. Through his writings, he refrains from glamorizing a negative lifestyle by skillfully and craftily writing with a strong compelling lure, which he demonstrates to the youth that crime doesn’t pay.

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INTRODUCTION

For most of my life I’ve been imprisoned, from juvenile facilities to the big house. My interpretation of being a man was to never run from a fight, get money at any means necessary (illegally), and never express love to women unless they were family.

After years of living a lie I finally crawled out from under the rock I had been living under and realized what being a man really was, but not before taking on the biggest fight of my life against the United States of America.

During my entire criminal lifestyle had I ever gave a dam about going to jail or prison until I was framed by police officers and was looking at being struck out by California’s three strike law. This was the turning point in my life that forced me to man up and look at life so seriously that it scared me.

While fighting for my life without an attorney, and at the same time fighting for my life during race riots and gang violence in Los Angeles’s dangerous County jail’s. I saw to many kids going down that same dark path, and many of whom was worse off than I, and my situation looked grim.

The public defenders (Attorneys), that prisoners referred to as, public pretenders, were sending innocent people up creek without a paddle, and I was going to be one of them if it wasn’t for another older prisoner who was a jailhouse lawyer, that the courtroom viewed as a fool for an attorney, and the unscrupulous and immoral tactics of the public defenders who were appointed to us defendants by the courts.

After the public outcry of a well known actor by the name of Robert Downing Jr. who was about to be sent to prison for his drug addiction, the state of California passed a law to help him and others who were addicted to drugs, which prescribed that they would go to a drug rehab instead of prison, if they were charged with possession. The law was entitled: Proposition 38.

It didn’t take long for the system to figure out how not to apply the change in law to the undesirables, who were usually poor, uneducated, and the actual drug addicts who needed help.

I witnessed with my own eyes and ears how these addicts were arrested for fragment amounts of drugs, and charged with possession of sales, instead of mere possession, which automatically disqualifies them for the drug rehab.

After these drug addicts sat in jail for a few months awaiting court, these unscrupulous public pretenders convinced them to take a plea bargain by pleading guilty to possession of sales instead of fighting for their clients by filing a motion to reduce the charges to possession, which would qualify them for the drug rehab.

The three strike law was no game; they were dishing out life sentences like it was the order of the day. They had just given a man (a hungry drug addict) a life sentence for stealing a slice of pizza. There was no way I was going to be represented by a public defender that didn’t have me in his best interest.

After the discovery of DNA, and law enforcement agencies using its technology to be 100% sure that rape victims were actually raped by their accused suspects, as well as other heinous crimes that were committed, numerous suspects who were falsely accused, found guilty, and given draconian sentences, that had already spent twenty and thirty years in prisons, were being cut loose left and right.

While incarcerated representing myself in a court of law, I was eventually labeled as a jailhouse lawyer. Whenever jailhouse lawyers went to court, or were seen in the jail in various places, we were compounded with legal questions by other prisoners. This was when I found out that, ten years after the discovery of DNA, many prisoners were not being allowed the use of the discovery and technology of DNA to prove there innocence, because of the high cost and a bias judicial system.

With all the modern day hatred that was blatantly visible in the jails and judicial system, prisoners were at each other throats like dog eat dog. Snitching, backstabbing, beTreyal, double dealing, and deception was the norm for a criminal lifestyle. As many times as we heard this from our love ones, There is no honor among thieves, and the streets don’t love anyone, we embraced it anyway.

The court battles between me and the unbalanced scales of justice within this book isn’t just for the purpose of exposing a serious miscarriage of justice, or to justify my crime and poor choices, but to show young people who are so out of touch with reality, that there freedom is easy to lose, and harder to regain.

A Fool for an Attorney is a true life story that sheds light on more than just the justice system, but also the life of crime, jails and prisons, street life, gangs, and drug dealers. After reading this book and you still think a criminal lifestyle is fascinating, you too will someday be, a fool for an attorney.

CHAPTER 1

Is there any reason that you feel that by being a juror in this case of California vs. Erroll Flynn Shepherd that you would be biased towards him in any way, the judge asked the prospective juror.

Well, you know what they say, your honor.

The judge looked at the prospective juror, as if waiting for him to continue. Then he looked over at the prosecutor, who also waited for the prospective juror inquisitively, then back at the prospective juror. No, not exactly, the judge replied. What is it that they say?

They say that anyone who represents himself in a court of law has a fool for an attorney, he replied sarcastically.

Another juror had to be excused from the jury selection after revealing to the prosecutor and the defense attorney various things that could prejudice an effective defense. This particular exclusion was bad for the prosecution and good for the defense. However, the defense had just taken a loss as well by having a prospective jury member speak negatively against the police and the judicial system because of his son, who was arrested, then killed while in jail custody.

The process of the jury pooling starts off with 36 prospective jurors. A long list of questions are asked, such as, their occupation, their family member’s occupations, likes, dislikes, criminal histories, if any, and prejudices, in the end, twenty-three prospective jurors will be excluded, leaving only twelve jurors and one alternative juror.

The process can take days, or weeks, depending on how big the trial is, the popularity of the defendant, and the aggressiveness of both, or all attorneys involved.

In this case it had already taken most of the day and court was adjourned until the next morning. It was a long, tiring, and grueling day. But there would be no rest for me until the trial was over and the case won, if not, there would be no rest for the next fifteen years, because that is how much time I was looking at if I were to lose.

I was not a stranger to jail cells, courtrooms, juvenile facilities, gang activity, fighting, or anything that was synonymous with a criminal and a poverty stricken lifestyle.

It would be very easy for me to blame my dilemma on my father for not making more appearances in my upbringing as he should have, and I could blame my mother for not being more choosey in my father selection. I could also blame white people, lack of education, being poor, the devil, and even God. But, that would be hard to do when there are kids of all colors born without their fathers and mothers who were placed in juvenile facilities, not for doing anything wrong, but for the sole reason of not having anyone other than the State to care for them. But they overcame all of the same things, and more, and they succeeded. Lack of education, white people, being poor, the devil, my mama, nor my daddy chose my life for me. I did!



The ride back to the L.A. County Jail from the criminal court building was very short, but the process of being shackled with chains, ankle cuffs, handcuffs, and boarding a bus took hours.

Once arriving back at the county jail I was placed inside a crowded holding cell with nowhere to sit and barely a spot to stand. The cell was designed to hold no more than about ten prisoners; they would always stuff these cells with at least twenty-five men, sometimes more.

The cell was supplied with a toilet that was used for urinating and defecation, a sink to get a drink of water and about two or three concrete slabs to sit, or lay on if you ever got the opportunity. That’s exactly what happened close to midnight when the sheriffs opened the steel door and called numerous names to be processed and booked. I claimed a spot on a concrete slab and laid down in a crunched position, using a roll of toilet paper that had been left there by the previous tired and exhausted prisoner as a pillow.

As I laid there gathering my thoughts and preparing myself for a restless night, I thought about the reasons why I was there, and all the events and circumstances that had led up to me being there.



Get a loaf of bread and a carton of eggs! And don’t smash the bread this time boy! my mother said, as she handed me a crumpled dollar bill.

Living in the Nickerson Garden Projects with my mother, who was a single parent on welfare, with four other siblings was the best time of my life, coming from a five year old kid’s perception. There was never any shortage of other kids to play with and plenty of things to do, which most of the time got me into a whole lot of trouble.

As kids, me and my friends would collect and save bottle tops from Coke bottles that contained winnings ranging from 5¢ to a dollar posted on a small piece of rubber that was stuck to the inside of the bottle top, which we would peel off after we had collected and saved up so many.

While walking down Central Avenue, which stretched north and south from downtown Los Angeles through the Watts District in which I lived, and further on to the city of Compton. I carried a bag full of bottle tops just in case I came across other bottle tops that I usually collected on the side of the curb, or anywhere else they had been discarded.

The bag I carried my bottle tops in was just a simple brown paper bag that you got from the local supermarket. I had a string tied around the top of the bag so that none of the bottle tops would fall out. As usual when walking I swung my bag of tops casually, in a circular motion as I walked down Central Avenue to the local store.

When the momentum got the best of my swinging the bag of bottle tops recklessly, the string attached to the bag snapped loose causing the bag to fly aimlessly into oncoming traffic hitting the windshield of a late model Ford station wagon and exploding! Bottle caps flew everywhere!

Ironically a black and white LAPD police cruiser was trailing right behind the station wagon when the bag exploded onto the windshield, and they saw everything that unfolded from the beginning to the end.

I was made to stand on the sidewalk to answer numerous questions asked of me by the police officers. Mostly about what had happened, then where I lived, how old was I, etc.

I was then placed in the back seat of the police car and the cops drove me around various places in Watts while they badgered, insulted, and scared me straight’! But even at the age of five I knew the difference between being scared straight and being ridiculed. The things these police said to me were the kind of things that killed youthful spirits.

That was my very first encounter with police officers. Before then, I was just like any other normal little kid that you would ask what they wanted to be when they grew up. ‘A police officer,’ would have always been one of my choices, until then!



CHAPTER 2

53rd Street was not as bad as the Nickerson Gardens housing projects in the district of Watts. But, it was a long way off from being on the top ten places in America to raise your children.

My mother worked her fingers to the bone and did everything she could to save up enough money to purchase a real home to raise her children instead of a project apartment.

155 W. 53rd Street was located about five miles south of downtown Los Angeles, and about five miles northeast from the Forum, where the L.A. Lakers used to play all of their home games.

I was in the fourth grade when we moved. I transferred to Main Street Elementary School on 53rd and Main, from 112th Street Elementary School in Watts. By the time I entered the 7th grade, Los Angeles was engulfed with an influx of gangs, and the violence that accompanied them.

The mid 70s was a time when it was a badge of honor to have been in jail, belong to a gang, and to know how to fight. Then, the crack cocaine era came along in the early 80s, which changed the game entirely.

None of the youngsters that I grew up with had their fathers in the home living with them. There was either a step daddy, or better put, ‘our mother’s’ boyfriends who would come and go like good and bad weather.

All of my friends and I were influenced by, and looked up to, the older dudes in the neighborhood as our role models, which happened to be gang members, drug dealers, pimps and hustlers.

During the early and mid-80s, most of the neighborhoods in the inner city were introduced and hit with everything at the same time, crack cocaine, semi and automatic weapons, an explosion of illegal aliens, federal conspiracies, aimed at the gangs and black youth, crack and powder cocaine disparity, HIV and Aids, confidential informants, and gangster rap music was the order of the day.

My mother tried her best to safeguard my brothers and I from the streets by pushing us into institutions like the Job Corps, the Armed Forces, and Conservations Corps, but it was too late for me. I was already fascinated and overwhelmed by the underworld and street life.

At 16 my mother sent me to Clearfield Utah to the Job Corps, in an effort to save her son. However, after a short two months, I was caught rolling up marijuana by one of the counselors. By it being at least forty marijuana sticks, the Job Corps turned me over to the police. I was kicked out of Job Corps and sent to jail.

After barely getting my high school diploma, my mother made another attempt at saving me from the streets by shoving me into the Navy against my will. Again, after three-to-six months I was kicked out with an honorable discharge under administrative conditions.

Positive and career bound institutions were behind me now and only negative and hell-bound institutions awaited me, prisons, morgues, and hospitals.

By the time I’d turned twenty-six years of age I had been to seven state penitentiaries and was a hardened gang member. I was getting everything out of life I had put into it - bullshit!



Staring out the van window back at Gladiator School was the best feeling in the world. I had just spent two years there for disciplinary reasons after a shank was discovered in my cell at the lower security prison, C.I.M. (Chino Institution for Men).

Gladiator School was the name DVI (Dual Vocational Institute) was given for its reputation for violent assaults, riots and murders that this prison had been known for.

This was my release day, 1985. I would never forget it. I had survived without a scratch. Well, not physically anyway. But I would eventually suffer the psychological effects of such a horrific experience.

As the van pulled away from the ugly gun towers that I had witnessed many men gunned down from without hesitation, I stared at the ugly barbed wire that stretched all around the wall, and I stared at the relic ass building in which I had lived for the past two years. Instead of getting a real lesson from this experience, I admired the new bulging muscles that I knew were under my shirt. I had gained them from relentlessly lifting weights and other physical training I had endured. I was proud of my polished street and prison mentality that I had absorbed from prison. No, my stare and thoughts at this terrible place wasn’t a look of being ‘scared straight’, it was a stare that stated that I was feeling and looking as if I had just graduated from the #1 college in the country! 1 was a zip damn fool that was once again set up for failure!

The prison van was driven by a lower custody prisoner. The Greyhound bus station was about a fifteen minute drive from the institution. Before entering the bus station I took a cigarette from my pack of non-filter Camels and placed it between my lips, lit it with a match and inhaled the warm grey-blue smoke, as well as the freedom that engulfed me as the prison van pulled away from the curb.

I had two hundred dollars, ‘gate money’, they called it. The prison gave that to everybody who had been incarcerated over six months. They also paid for your bus ride home.

Tracy California was where Gladiator School was located. It was in northern California. My bus ride to Los Angeles would take every bit of nine hours or more because of all the stops in between.

I claimed a seat all the way in the back of the bus and noticed a newspaper lying in the seat. It was the Oakland Tribune. On the front page were horses pulling a carriage. It was actually the funeral of a known drug dealer by the name of Felix Mitchell. The headlines read:

KNOWN DRUG DEALER’S FUNERAL

SHUTS DOWN OAKLAND!

Felix Mitchell had gone out in style! The hearse carriage in which his body was in was trimmed in gold. Thousands of people attended his funeral as if he had been some kind of hero to them. Many tax payers were furious!

Felix Mitchell had done a lot of things for poor families in the community and they forgave him for any wrong he had done prior to his death. Felix had been indicted, tried and sentenced to a life sentence in the Federal Penitentiary at Leavenworth Kansas, where he had been stabbed to death by another prisoner.

After reading that article, I vowed to myself to be as big as Felix Mitchell one day, without being took off my high horse!

CHAPTER 3

Shepherd! Shepherd! the sheriff’s deputy yelled into the holding cell.

I barely heard my name being called after psyching myself out to the noise in the holding tank in order to get some sleep. I also had to psyche myself out to sleep light, because it was crucial that certain things be heard.

Yeah! Over here, I responded, sitting up and looking toward the front of the tank.

Usually, when the sheriff’s deputies call a prisoner’s name the prisoner is required to respond by yelling a number that is on an identification wristband given to the prisoner after they are processed. Unfortunately for me I was being re-processed. I had been in the Los Angeles County facilities close to six months. The Los Angeles County jail was huge with many branches that spread 30 to 40 miles in different directions.

Before being transferred to the main branch of the L.A. County Jail, located in downtown Los Angeles, I was housed in a branch of the L.A. County Jail called Super Max, located about 30 miles from downtown Los Angeles.

There were only two branches within the L.A. County Jail that prisoners who fought their own cases, without an attorney, were housed. That was downtown Los Angeles, or Wayside California, where Super Max was located.

Now, here I was in the middle of jury pooling, fighting the biggest fight of my life. All of a sudden, I’m transferred from where I was housed, all my personal things, as well as all the evidence and material needed to prepare for an effective defense with, were separated from me.

Get over here Shepherd! You got court. The deputy stated.

It hadn’t been two good hours that I had been in that holding tank after being in court, other holding tanks at court, and arriving here at the Los Angeles County Jail. I couldn’t have been asleep no longer than forty-five minutes, now I was on my way back to court, unrested, unshowered, and worst of all, without any material to prepare for an effective defense with.

Again I was cuffed at the wrists, ankles and waist, put on a large bus which took every bit of three to four hours to finally board.

Inmates who had to go to court from the L.A. County Jail were awakened at 3:00am but the process of preparing the prisoners for the various courts throughout the County of Los Angeles, no matter how far, or how close took every bit of three or four hours.

The ride from the jail to the Criminal Courts Building was only a ten minute ride. As soon as we were seated I took advantage of the catnaps, which was the only time I could rest and regroup. Jail cells, bus seats, and courtroom holding tanks.

After arriving at the Criminal Courts Building (CCB) downtown Los Angeles, each prisoner is placed in a large holding tank before they are escorted to the various floors in the building to their designated judges and courtrooms.

The Mexicans and white prisoners were separated from the black prisoners because of the history of racial tensions, riots and violence which many times resulted in death.

Anytime a prisoner goes to trial he is allowed a suit to wear if his or her family can’t supply him with one. Every day I was dressed in a blue velvet suit that was flooding way above my ankles, as well as the sleeves of the suit jacket being midway between my elbows and wrists.

Every morning I was extracted from the large holding tank, taken to a smaller holding tank next to the courtroom in which I would fight in trial. There, I would be given the extra small velvet suit to change into from my county jail jumpsuit.

This would usually transpire around 7:00am every morning, and the