In The Dark - Coronavirus in the Delta E5: Geno

Episode Date: May 28, 2020

As the coronavirus swept into the Mississippi Delta, a judge in the small city of Indianola decided to release every inmate she had in jail. That is, every inmate except one.  Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

As the coronavirus swept into the Mississippi Delta, a judge in the small city of Indianola decided to release every inmate she had in jail. That is, every inmate except one. This is In the Dark, Coronavirus in the Delta. I'm Madeline Barron. I've spent the past few months, along with the rest of the In the Dark team,

reporting on coronavirus in the Mississippi Delta, the poorest part of Mississippi, and one of the poorest places in the entire country. In this series, we're bringing you stories of people trying to live in this really hard time, trying to make decisions, trying to get by, in a situation that none of us have faced before. In a situation that none of us have faced before. In this episode, the story of a guy looking for some everyday justice at a time when the justice system is closed for business. Episode 5, Gino. When the pandemic hit, we started wondering what it was like to be in jail right now, especially if you're just sitting there on a low-level charge, like a lot of people are right now. So our reporter, Parker Yesko, decided to find out.

She'll take over from here. It's not the easiest thing to get in contact with people in jail, or even sometimes to know who's in jail. But a few jails in Mississippi post their rosters online. So I was looking at a list of all the people who were locked up in a city called Indianola, and I landed on the booking page of a guy named Eugene McShane. The website said that he was 44 years old, he was in on a shoplifting charge, and he'd already been in for a few weeks at that point, which seemed like a long time. And unlike most mugshots, his made him look kind of friendly. He was gazing straight at the camera with a sort of smile, and I thought, why not? Let me try to give him a call.

What's up, Lyle County Jail? Hey there, I was trying to get in touch with an inmate, Eugene McShane. I wasn't really sure that this was going to work. Who's calling? My name's Parker Yesco. I mean, are you an attorney or anything? No. Okay. Hold one moment. Hold one moment, ma'am.

Thanks. Hello? Hello? Hello? Hi. Is this Mr. McShane? Yes, yes, it is. Mr. McShane? Yes, ma'am.

Suddenly, I had this guy on the phone. This guy I knew basically nothing about. Suddenly, I had this guy on the phone. This guy I knew basically nothing about. Hey, good to talk to you. I'll tell you why I'm calling. My name is Parker. I'm a reporter with Public Radio. And I was just hoping to talk to some folks that were in jail.

I just saw your name and your picture up on the Sunflower County website. Yes, ma'am. And thanks for talking to me. I understand this is completely random that I've called you. Right. And that's how I started talking to Eugene Mitchell McShane. Screen name, Gino. G-E-N-O.

Gino's story starts in the first week of February. A deadly coronavirus outbreak was spreading across China. But here in the United States, things still felt kind of normal. And on February 6th, a Thursday afternoon, Gino walked into Walmart Supercenter 347 in Indianola, Mississippi, and made a decision that would land him in jail at the worst possible time. I went to the store, I shouted, some meat. I really did. Some what? Some meat. I really did. Some what? Some meat. Some food.

Meat? Yes, ma'am. Two packs of steaks. The steaks were ribeyes, three of them, worth about $36. He'd stuck them in his coat and walked out. Did you have a plan for the steaks? What were you going to do with them? Why was it the steaks that gripped you like that? Because, I mean, when I walked by the meet session and I looked at the stakes, I looked how thick they were and it caught my attention.

I couldn't afford them. So I don't know what stupid thing made me think I could take them. So I don't know what stupid thing made me think I could take it. But the stake just had control over you, it sounds like. You could say that. After Gino stole the stakes, a judge signed a warrant for his arrest. And that warrant caught up with him a few weeks later, on March 18th. It was at the exact moment when the pandemic was spreading into every corner of the United States,

when everybody started talking about flattening the curve, and when Mississippi's governor was declaring a state of emergency. But instead of sheltering at home, Gino found himself sheltering at the Sunflower County Jail. It's stressful. You know, once somebody breaks into into jail, we all probably infected. And being trapped in here, and then catching coronavirus, it's really weird. The only thing I saw was how. When I first talked to Gino, he'd been in jail for three weeks already,

and he knew that his only hope of getting out was for the judge to grant him release or bail. But his court dates with her kept getting canceled. I had a court date two weeks ago, but I couldn't go. Gino had actually been due in court again that very morning at 9 a.m., but 9 had come and gone. After like 10 something, I feel like I wasn't going to go. And I started thinking, you know, trying to convince myself like 1 o'clock they may come get me. But they didn't. That's when I know that I ain't going to court today. I got my paper here looking at it now, and I was showing the guard, and I was showing the jail administrator, and he's looking at it like, okay, if they call for you, we're going to get you to court.

But nobody called, nobody come to pick you up. So he don't know. He can't tell me anything. And now I don't know, when do I go to court? What Gino was starting to suspect, accurately, it turns out, was that the municipal court was shut down. The building, the scheduled hearings, all of it, because of the coronavirus. And Gino didn't really have anyone to help him figure this out. He didn't have a lawyer, because the way it works,

he wouldn't get a lawyer until he got a court appearance. But he couldn't get a court appearance because the court was closed. With no court appearance, no lawyer. With no judge, no release. And so, Gino was stuck. Three weeks had passed already. Three weeks over three stakes. And now the weeks seem to be stretching into infinity.

Could you please help me out with this? I'm just in on the shop, let me show you. That's it. I ain't looking to do it here. Tomorrow, I'll try and call up the court and just, like, ask them what's going on. I surely appreciate it. I can give you the judge's name. Yeah, what's the judge's name?

Miss Kirkendall Owen Murray. The next morning, I requested Gino's case file from the city court clerk, and then I left a voicemail for Judge Kirkendall-Murray. She called me a few hours later. Hi, this is Parker. Hey, this is Kirkendall-Murray, the judge in Sutherland County, Mississippi. Hey, Judge Murray. How you doing? Hey, I'm good. I also have in the Sunflower County, Mississippi. Hey, Judge Murray. How you doing? Hey, I'm good. I also have, I've got a conference call.

Our police chief for the city of Indianola, Edrick Hall, is also on the line. Oh, you're on the line right now? Yes, he's on the line as well. I'm merging it. Are you there, Chief? I'm here. Hi, Chief Hall. Can I ask a preliminary question? Okay, so it's my understanding from my city clerk, our court clerk, that you had made a request for the records of Eugene McShane? Yes.

for the records of Eugene McShane? Yes. Okay, well, the police chief can give you the background of Mr. McShane if you would like. It seemed that my random inmate was not so random after all. The reason why the judge asked me here, not only have I been chief here for right at four years prior to that, I worked here for eight years as well as an investigator, as a sergeant, chief commander, numerous roles. Mr. McShane has been arrested several times.

He has had several shot misses. From 1995 through this year, he's had 23 shot listings alone. To hear the police chief describe him, Gino was no everyday sticky fingers. He was notorious. And according to Judge Murray, he'd become the scourge of her little municipal court. Her docket was just filled with Gino. Judge Murray told me that she's not the type of person who thinks jail's the answer for everyone. When the coronavirus came along, she did what a lot of judges around the country have been who thinks jail is the answer for everyone. When the coronavirus

came along, she did what a lot of judges around the country have been doing. She released a bunch of people. Yes, when the pandemic first began, I went out to the county jail and in consultation with the Indianapolis Police Department and with the sheriff, we went through the jail roster and we suspended sentences. Judge Murray couldn't empty the entire jail. She was only in charge of some of the inmates. But she let out a shoplifter, like Gino, and a forger, and a man brought in for disorderly conduct, and a woman booked for assault, and not one, but two domestic abusers. Why was it important at that point to release those folks? domestic abusers. Why was it important at that point to release those folks?

Because for the safety of the people that work at the jail, for the safety of the people that had committed misdemeanors, for their safety, for the people that are released, for their safety. I don't want them in a situation where they're confined to a space with other people, and, you know, they didn't kill anybody. They didn't rape anybody. They just made a mistake. They sold.

They cut somebody's tires or whatever it is they did. By the time Judge Murray had finished going through the list of all her city inmates, there was just one man who she'd decided didn't deserve her mercy. The only person that is serving time at the city of Indianola for a misdemeanor is Mr. McShane. Everyone else has been released. He's the only one in jail now? I think he's the only inmate we have out there serving a misdemeanor sentence. I can't let him out. Not with his history. What could possibly be in this guy's history,

I wondered. Here's the answer. Gino's record is long, 141 misdemeanor charges over the last 25 years or so, but nothing to indicate that he's some sort of criminal mastermind. What kind of tendencies do the records indicate?. In August 2018, a Gino quote, shoved down his red pants. And the T-bones in November of that year. Such a big haul that he had to split it between his pants and his coat. And the five packs of steaks in 2019 that he smartly slipped into Walmart shopping bags before exiting the store. And while he seemed to have a clear preference for Walmart's meat selection, so much so that he'd actually been banned from the store, he wasn't above paying a visit to the Double Quick gas station

when he wanted four cans of Vienna sausages, down the pants again in summer 2018, or sardines the year after. Gino did appear to be a prolific shoplifter, and he was caught with pot once and a pipe a few times. Judge Murray had actually sent him to rehab before. But as far as I can tell, it had been over 20 years since Gino had been convicted of a felony,

and those were mostly car thefts when he was in his teens. But there was one more thing that seemed to be pushing Judge Murray's frustration with Gino over the edge. Just a few weeks earlier, she'd actually let Gino out of jail, the very thing she was so loathe to do now, after he'd promised her that he'd change his ways. The condition for me releasing him

was that he commit no new crimes. And what did Gino do? Judge Murray said he got right out and stole again. March 18th, he got new charges. He was arrested by one of the officers for shoplifting. Judge Murray was a little hazy on the specifics of what happened that day, and I didn't have the police report yet. The shoplifting incident on the 18th.

Do you know where that was and what that was? I don't, but I'm assuming it was Walmart. His favorite place to go was Walmart, so I'm assuming it was Walmart. It was so easy for her to picture it that she didn't seem to need the details. And since Gino had broken his promise to her, that made him a thief and a liar too. Since Gino had broken his promise to her, that made him a thief and a liar too. But still, it was hard for me to imagine how Gino posed a bigger threat to public safety than the threat the coronavirus posed to him. And I said so to Judge Murray.

But I guess the thing that still sort of doesn't make sense to me is, you know, at some point you're making a judgment about who you're comfortable leaving in a jail during a time of a pandemic. And I guess I don't understand how he meets that threshold. Gino didn't kill anybody or rape anybody. I mean, he's being held on a shoplifting charge. Mr. McShane is a menace to the society. I'm going to have to run in just a second. I've got a meeting. Okay, I mean, I get what you're saying,

but it's like, given the pandemic, I mean, like, he could die in there being held on a shoplifting charge. Judge? Hello? Hello. Gino called me the same day I talked to Judge Murray. He was still in jail, still wondering when he'd get his day in court. Hey, Gino. Hey, how you doing, Ms. Parker?

Good. How you doing? I'm doing okay. Gino did not sound okay. He sounded bummed. He was sitting in the cell block at the back of the jail, and he'd heard that Judge Murray was in the building, meeting with her latest crop of inmates and releasing them, too. Gino could hardly believe it. She let a man go.

He had two children. He got caught with two guns. His bond was $100,000, convicted felon. And she just let him go. This was true. I checked the records. The judge actually let out two inmates that day, a felon who'd been caught with a firearm and a guy who'd violated a protective order. Later, she released aon who'd been caught with a firearm and a guy who'd violated a

protective order. Later, she released a man who'd been arrested with a gun. He'd been at a shootout where a woman had been murdered. He'd spent only a couple days in jail. Gino, at that point, had been in for almost a month. A few days later, Gino called again to tell me that the judge had come back. Gino had sensed a fleeting opportunity. He flagged down an inmate who was walking towards the judge. So I paid the inmate a note, gave it to her. And so you handed the inmate a note as he headed up to meet the judge. What did the note say?

My name, Eugene McShane. Could I please see you? He couldn't think of anything else to do or say. He didn't have a lawyer who could fight to get him into court. And the judge was right there at the jail, right then. And I never got it out. You didn't hear anything back? No.

He gave her the note, but he said she didn't say nothing. She didn't respond to it. I told Gino that I'd had a chance to talk about his situation with Judge Murray. The judge said, she said that she has released everyone else, all of the other city inmates, except for you. All of them? That's what she told me. Why? I told Gino that the judge said that he'd broken his promise to her,

that she thought he'd stolen something else after he'd told her he'd steal no more. But he said that wasn't true. But I haven't committed no more crimes. I haven't caught a charge since she released me. She seemed to think that on March 18th, when you got arrested, that it was for a new shoplifting? No, it's not. No, no, ma'am. Gino said that on March 18th, he wasn't anywhere near Walmart. He was out on the street when a fight broke out nearby.

The cops showed up, they ran his name, and they found an old Walmart state warrant. That was it. So she's thinking I had a new charge. Right. No, I have no new charge. I'm done with charges. The whole warrant thing was confusing, to me, to Gino, and certainly, it seems, to Judge Murray. But Gino actually had a point. I got the records. There was no March 18th Walmart incident, just the old warrant on the street. Since Judge Murray had last released him from jail, there was no record of Gino shoplifting anything at all, at Walmart or anywhere else. Gino had messed up, many times.

But this wasn't really one of them. In a certain kind of sense, he was in jail during a pandemic because of a misunderstanding. I called Judge Murray a couple times to talk to her about the warrant, but she didn't answer. I even sent her an email. I think there may have been a miscommunication that I can help to clear up, I wrote. She never responded. As time dragged on, new inmates came into the jail and and inmates were released. But Gino remained a constant.

His stakes kept him stuck. Until, on the sixth day of his eighth week behind bars, the municipal court announced that it would, at long last, reopen the next day. It all felt a bit slapdash. No one at the court seemed sure how they'd manage it. But Gino's hearing was slated for the next morning. He'd finally get his date with Judge Murray. That's after the break. Hi, this is David Remnick.

I'm proud to share the news that three films from the New Yorker documentary series have been shortlisted for the Academy Awards. And they are Incident, Seat 31, Zoe Zephyr, and Eternal Father. And they all immerse you in the finest cinematic journalism, exploring themes of justice, identity, and the bonds that shape us. These extraordinary films, which were created by established filmmakers, as well as emerging artists, will inform, challenge, and move you. I encourage you to watch them along with our full slate of documentary and narrative films

at newyorker.com slash video. I couldn't go to Gino's court date myself, since I had a stay-at-home order a thousand miles north in Minnesota. So I called a reporter in the Delta, Rory Doyle, and he agreed to drive out to the courthouse. He had an N95 mask at the ready. It's just after 10 a.m. here in downtown Indianola. I'm standing outside of the city court. The tiny court building looked like a cottage from the front, just a door and two narrow windows.

There was a piece of paper taped to the entrance, explaining that the court had been closed due to the coronavirus. Its edges were all curled up. There'd been weeks of wind and humidity since the court had last been in session. There was no sign of Gino until 1.30 in the afternoon. He arrived in a police cruiser and was quickly led into the building by a cop. Rory was let in shortly after. Someone took Rory's temperature at the door, and he walked into the courtroom. But a few minutes after that, he was back outside, calling me. Hey. Holy crap.

What happened? Rory had gone into the courtroom. He'd seen Gino up in the front row on the right side. Rory couldn't see his face. He was looking straight ahead. Rory sat down on the left, at least 15 feet from any other human. There was more than enough space to social distance. But all of a sudden, a masked woman at the front of the courtroom started yelling for him to leave. Just kind of lost it, threw a little bit of a temper fit, said only necessary personnel can be in here. I asked, do I not have a First Amendment right to be here? Just as an aside here, Rory was correct. He did have a First Amendment right to be there.

Criminal proceedings are public. And the Mississippi Supreme Court had issued orders specifically saying that even in the pandemic, the press was to be allowed in courtrooms. Nevertheless? She started yelling. Everyone outside. And did Gino react at all during any of this?

Nope. Just sat there. Had a mask on. I never got close to him. Never talked to him. Pretty sure he was as confused as I was. So Gino's long-awaited court hearing took place in private, with no way for us or anyone else to know what was happening inside. Afterwards, Rory tried to ask Gino himself, but a cop escorted Gino back to the police cruiser. The cop said he was taking Gino back to jail. Rory tried to talk to Judge Murray, but she just pursed her lips as she walked towards her car and shook her head. The city prosecutor walked out,

and Rory went over to her with his cell phone. He held it out with me on the line, so I could try to talk to her. She was flustered, maybe by the events of the day, or maybe by the fact that a faraway reporter had sent another reporter to a mundane shoplifting hearing in the middle of a pandemic. I, on the other hand, was annoyed that we'd been barred from the courthouse, which had made it incredibly difficult to figure out even the most basic things about what had gone on inside. I was hoping the woman who had just prosecuted Gino for his stake theft would be able to fill me in.

I'm just wondering what Gino said to you in there, what Mr. McShane said. What do you mean, what he said? He didn't say anything. He pled guilty to his two charges. And then the judge, you know, entered a judgment? Of course. What was the sentence?

I just told you what happened today. Is the answer that no, she didn't sentence him? She's gone. The prosecutor walked away. The next day, my phone rang. Hello? Hello, hello. Hello.

I am trying to reach, I'm not sure the young lady's name, but I'm trying to reach a news reporter. Is this the right number? Sounds like it. My name's Parker. I'm a reporter. You are a reporter? Are you the reporter that has reached out to local, I guess, court officials concerning Mr. McShane over in Inland Ole Miss City? Yes. This is the municipal prosecutor, Attorney Alicia Thomas. Alicia Thomas, it turns out, was the masked woman who had kicked our reporter Rory out of the courtroom. Uh-huh.

It was a frustrating day for both of us, I think. We had hoped to be able to have our reporter in on the hearing. Thomas said that the court's first day back in session had gone off the rails pretty much from the get-go. Didn't go too well yesterday. The court employees had been trying to enforce social distancing, trying to keep down the number of people in the courthouse at any one time. But the people that had shown up for court dates weren't necessarily familiar with these new rules, and some were having trouble following them. We had too many people. There were people coming in and out of there that should not have been. According to Thomas, the situation had reached peak fiasco when the person whose job it was to take people's temperatures at the door had actually, knowingly, let in a guy with a fever.

The guy was there with his wife on a domestic violence charge. He told the temperature taker he'd been roasting while waiting in his hot car, and he somehow convinced her that instead of kicking him out, she should let him in to cool down inside of the courthouse. It was right about the time that they retested the feverish man and found that his temperature was still 101 that our reporter Rory walked in on the chaos. For Alicia Thomas, it was all too much. I'm just like, uh-uh, everybody's getting that. I don't know, uh-uh, I ain't playing this game. What I'm not going to do is jeopardize my health, and I'm one of the vulnerable ones. I'm type 1 diabetic, I have high blood pressure and a whole bunch of other stuff

going on. I'm not risking my life over no misdemeanor cases. All in all, Thomas said, the first day back at court had been such a disaster that they'd actually decided to close it back up. We're not going to have court again until we can get things in order. The day before had been chaotic for a number of reasons, but Thomas said, dealing with Genomic Shane and his stakes wasn't one of them. That had been pretty straightforward. Judge said, we're here today on your arraignment on two charges. She read in those charges, and he pled guilty to both. Alicia Thomas had only been the city prosecutor for four months, and the court had been closed for half of them.

The first time she'd ever seen Gino's case file was when she got to court that afternoon. I became involved with Mr. McShane on yesterday. I became involved with Mr. McShane on yesterday. First time I met that guy that I know of and had any dealings with him in municipal court at all. But even though she didn't have a long history with Genomic Shane, she had an instinct about him. In her time working as a criminal defense attorney, which she did in addition to being the city prosecutor,

she'd encountered habitual shoplifters before. And she thought the stakes could be a sign of something more. Me personally, through my practice, I know that people have gone into stores and stole food and not for them, but to sell. So if you steal a steak that's $15 and you go out on the street and sell it for $5,

people buy it. You got some cash in your pocket. Because one thing I know for sure about this, stealing one steak tells me you hungry. Stealing four. Makes me question. So she put the question to Gina.

So I asked him, I said, Mr. Shane, is this stuff attached to you having, you know, a drug problem? And he said, yes. He said, yes, ma'am. That's what he said. I said, okay. Would you like help? And he said, yes, ma'am. It wasn't like it was a 15, 30-minute conversation.

We were talking about maybe like a good minute. A good minute was all it took for Alicia Thomas to cut through to the meat of Gino's problem. She saw him as a person with an addiction, not as a menace to society. And she recommended that he be sent to drug rehab instead of continuing to languish in jail. He asked for another chance, and I was willing to give it to him. The judge was willing to give it to him. The judge was willing to give it to him. Hey, how you doing, Miss Pop?

Is this Mr. Gino? Yes, it is. I got a call from Gino a couple days after the hearing. He was still in jail for the time being, waiting to get into rehab. And he only had a minute to chat. Yeah, I've been trying to call you and things. The phone's on. I don't know what's wrong with him. I just wanted to catch up with you to see sort of what happened in court. I asked him if he'd gotten a chance at all to reckon with Judge Murray, to ask her why she'd kept him in jail all those weeks

while she was willing to let everyone else out. I asked whether he'd tried to sort out the confusion about the warrant or whether he'd told the judge that he hadn't broken his promise to her. He told me he hadn't mentioned any of it. Because there'd be a lot of problems. What'd you say? Gino, it seemed, had had enough problems for one pandemic. He knew something about the criminal justice system and how it worked.

Something he'd probably known for a long time. It was the judge that judged him, not the other way around. And for a guy like Gino, standing in handcuffs in a courthouse, there was only one way to solve problems. It was to say, yes, ma'am, and get out of there.

I just played a good choice and just send me to rehab. Okay, my time up on next time. I told you. Okay, my time's up on the phone. I'm back. Time's up next time. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. All right. And just like that, he was gone. Next week, the final episode of Coronavirus in the Delta.

In the Dark, Coronavirus in the Delta is reported and produced by me, Madeline Barron, managing producer Samara Fremark, producer Natalie Jablonski, associate producer Raymond Tungakar, and reporter Parker Yesko. Thank you. mixed by Corey Schreppel. Original music for this series is by Gary Meister. To see photos that accompany our series, you can go to our website, inthedarkpodcast.org. Photography for this series by Ben Depp. © BF-WATCH TV 2021 a Robot, a live-action short film from the New Yorker's Screening Room series, has been shortlisted for the Academy Awards. This thought-provoking film grapples with questions that we can all relate to about identity and technology, and what it means to be human in an increasingly digital world. I encourage you to watch I'm Not a Robot, along with our full slate of documentary and narrative films, at newyorker.com slash video.