Joyce Ann Brown
...bbery. Before she knew it she was slammed in jail waiting to go to trial for something she didn’t do with a million dollar bond. With a trial that started on September 29, 1980 and was over nine days later with a six hour deliberation to find her guilty. Though she spent the next nine years, five months and twenty-four days behind the Texas justice system she never lost sight of her freedom and neither did her family. About right now you probably thinking about the relation of this woman and me. She went to court before I was even a twinkle in my parent’s eyes. Nobody in my family is a practicing lawyer or has any relation to Joyce’s court case. But when I was in the eighth grade my dad was wrongly convicted with assault to a minor. He’s a simple man who hates to kill flies let alone hit a teenage girl. We had exhausted all of my parent’s savings and retirements on the first trial alone. So when it was the second time to go to court and we were plainly put, broke. We had spent every amount of money that they could get their hands on for the first trial. So when it came time for the second trial we were lost not only finically but also spiritually. But one day my dad was searching the internet for some help of any kind. He came across Joyce’s story with a number at the bottom. He called right then to find out that they were not taking on any more cases because they were moving to a bigger office, and he would have to wait until the first of the year. He simply replied, “I don’t have until the first of the year”. Joyce says it made her stop everything she was doing not because of the words but because of the tone he had in his voice. My dad began to volunteer there every day of the week and then on the weekends our whole family would go to whatever church Joyce was speaking at. I never really got to hear her story cause I was always busy setting up tables f...