Huwe Burton - Passing of the Torch

 

How are you? In 1989, at the age of 16, I was wrongfully arrested and charged with second-degree murder. Ostracized by many, believed by a few, I still had one person who had an unwavering belief in my innocence and would dedicate everything to prove that I was innocent. And that was my father. We fought a great fight, but we lost trial and I was sentenced to 15 years to life. 

 

As I was shuttled from facility to facility, my father was there, every visit, every week. The visits would fill with us strategizing how we were going to reverse what had happened. We would also talk a lot about him playing the saxophone and me playing piano, and how great it would be when one day I would be free and we could sit down and we could play together.

 

As time would go on, the visits were less and less. His health started to become an issue, and the normal seven- and eight-hour journeys that it took him to come to upstate New York and visit me were becoming a little bit harder to do. In 2000, my father had to sell a house and he moved back to his native Jamaica. Although we kept in contact through writing and we still did our strategizing about proving my innocence, we weren’t in the visit room. It wasn’t like the visit room. Nothing could replace those visits. 

 

One day I’d gotten a letter, and it said that my father was coming back to the country. I was excited. The guy who had been in every visit room with me, had been in every courtroom, was finally coming back. The day came that Saturday morning, I was up early, and the cell door opens and you can hear the metal on metal. But I heard this one thing that I’d longed to hear, “Burton, you have a visit.” I made my way out of the cell and into the hallway. 

 

The hallways normally have this gray, battleship kind of color that's very depressing. But today, they didn’t look the same. They looked like they had a lot of life. I had an extra bop in my step. I knew what it was. I was going to see my guy. I finally get to the visit room where I get frisked. There are two doors. I went through the first door, and then there’s this vacuum before you get to the second door, because once that door opens, it’s just a flush of noise. There are wives talking to husbands, mothers talking to sons, and children running around. It was all great. It was a sound I hadn’t heard in a while. 

 

Finally, I saw my father and I made a beeline to him. As I’m drawing closer to him, I notice, wow, he has aged considerably since I’d last seen him. Wow, his hair is completely white now and he’s a bit hunched over and he uses the assistance of a cane. But none of that mattered. I know what time does. My guy was here to see me. He traveled all this way, and his first stop was here to see me. I embraced him. When I held him, he felt much more frail than I remembered, but it was okay.

 

I embraced my cousin, who came with him. We spoke, and I thanked her for bringing him up. So, we all sat down. As the visit started, my mind was racing. There were so many things I wanted to ask him. How was the transition? How was everything going when he was down there? Did he get a chance to do any practicing while he was there?

I wanted to tell him how good I had gotten playing the piano. I felt I was a little bit better than him, but-- So, I was excited. 

 

So, as we’re talking, or I’m doing most of the talking, I’m noticing that he’s not really as engaging as I remember our visits being in the past. I'm thinking maybe he’s just overwhelmed being here, so it doesn’t matter. I said, “Well, let me ask something that he has to give me a more definitive answer, a more explained answer.” So, we began to talk about music. I know with music, that could usually take us maybe two or three hours on a visit. When I asked him about music, his responses were still, “yes, no.” I turned to my cousin and I asked her, “Is everything okay? What’s going on with him?” And she said, “Well, as of late, his memory has been beginning to slip and fade.” I knew he had dementia before he left, but this was a bit different. This felt different. But I didn’t want to let the day be damned. So, I continued to keep talking and talking. 

 

I noticed, he asked me for a cigarette. But at first, I didn’t really pay it any mind, because I thought-- well, maybe he just wanted a smoke. We continued the visit, and he asked again. But I knew. I said, “My father knows the policy with cigarettes.” If you leave, you cannot come back in, because the visit is terminated. He knows this. I know this. He’s been in these visit rooms for 13 years, back and forth. But still I said, “Okay, we’ll just continue with the visit.” And then, everything came full circle. We’re still talking, and he referred to me as Wayne. 

 

Wayne is my brother’s name. I knew in that moment that the guy who was championing my cause from the age of 16, who was in every courtroom, in every visit room, didn’t know who I was. I was crushed, because this was the only one I knew who believed in me and would never stop. 

 

So, as it went on, when he asked for the cigarette again, I told my cousin, I said, “Allow him to have the cigarette.” And she said, “Are you sure?” And I said, “Yes, I’m sure.” I said with all of the service I said to myself, with all that he has done, with all that he has sacrificed, “Just allow him to have the cigarette. It’s not much.” I couldn’t be so selfish as to want to just keep him here in the visit room, although that’s what I wanted to do. I told I will allow him to have a cigarette. So, we ended the visit. 

 

As we got up, I embraced him, and I just held him. It was so much I just wanted to convey what words couldn’t express, how deeply I thanked him and appreciated him for just being a rock for me. I hugged my cousin and I told her, “Take care of him. Watch over him.” I’m watching them leave. I’m supposed to leave the visit room first. But today, I didn’t want to leave first. I needed to watch him leave, because there was something in me saying that when he leaves this visit room, you may not see him again. I could hear the officers in the background calling to me, “Burton, Burton.” But I just needed to see him leave. 

 

So, as he left, and I went through the other doors and made my way back down the hallway, the hallways returned to their normal, drab color. I got back to the cell and the door closed. And in that moment, when it shut, I knew I was alone. I knew I was by myself. But I knew I had to do something, because we started out in a fight together. It was yet to be finished. It was yet to be completed. 

 

I laid there that whole evening just numb, just quiet. My dad died 16 months later. I got paroled four years after. But when I got home, I knew again that only half of this fight was done. Yes, we wanted me home, but it remained we needed to prove my innocence. I went about trying everything that I could to prove my innocence. Finally, one day, a little over a year ago, I’d gotten a phone call, about 09:30 at night and it was my attorneys and they told me that the Bronx courts have decided to overturn the conviction. “You’ve been exonerated.” 

 

The truth had finally come out. I was happy. I was relieved. I was sad. Happy because I had finally won. Relieved because I could take a burden off that was not mine to bear. But sad because my guy wasn’t here to see it through to the end. Finally, in 2019, January 24th, I was exonerated at Bronx Courts. And the first thing they asked me, “What is it that you want to do?” I said I wanted to run a New York City Marathon. I wanted to run it for a few reasons. One, because the marathon always represented for me a staying of the course. And two, because I wanted to take a victory lap around the city that had taken everything from me.

 

And finally, the day the marathon came and I ran. When I got about 17, maybe 18 miles in, I was looking across the Willis Avenue Bridge and I saw the Bronx Courts, the same building that had taken everything. My freedoms and everything. I ran past it in a victory lap and then back down through Central Park. As I crossed the finish line, I knew. I said, “I didn’t just cross this myself. I crossed this with me and my father and for my father.” Thank you.