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To: Robert Coleman File From: Attorney Date: March 13, 2001 Re: Client Interview I met this afternoon with Robert David Coleman after being assigned to the case by Judge Kleinborg this morning. I met with Robert at the Potter County Jail in Amarillo, where he has been held since his arrest. Robert is seventeen, but is being charge as an adult and is being held in the adult population. I spoke with him first about the attorney-client privilege, explaining that I could help him most only if he was completely honest with me. I also asked him how he was doing at the jail. He said he is very scared and that he is afraid someone is going to try to rape him. He has been harassed already by some of the other inmates, who have groped him in the dining hall. He does not know their names. He wants to know if there is any way I can get him out of there or transferred to another facility. I told him that he would eventually be transferred to Parker County, where he is formally charged. He said he wants to get out of the Potter County facility as quickly as possible. He is a thin boy, weighing about 145 pounds. He is a young African-American with a short haircut. He had difficulty keeping eye contact at first, but he seemed to get more comfortable as the interview went on. His vocabulary is not very good and he has difficulty expressing what he wants to say. I asked him if he could read and he said "not real good." He said that he wanted to talk to his sister and asked if I could talk to her for him. I explained to him that he should not talk to anyone, including his family, about his case. He also wanted to know if I knew anything about his brother, who he has not seen since his arrest.
During the interview, Robert told me the following:
Robert is seventeen years old. He was living at home with his mother, Eloise, until she died last December. His older sister, Roberta, moved into his mother's house with Robert after Eloise died. Since then he has continued living with his older sister in the home his mother owned until her death, but he has been sleeping many nights at his brother Alex's apartment over the last two months. His father was killed in November, just before his mother died, in a drug deal gone bad. Robert had not seen his father since just after Christmas in 1991. His father spent a lot of time in jail prior to that time for cocaine offenses. His sister grew up with his maternal grandparents. They were not very close, but saw each other several times a year. His brother Alex, who is a co-defendant in this case, grew up in the same household with Robert, but moved out several years ago. Robert last attended Beaumont High School, but has not gone to school since he was released from TYC last June. He would be a sophomore. He said he had started helping his brother, Alex, to sell marijuana after his release from TYC last June. He started by selling pot to friends and acquaintances from the neighborhood. In January he started selling on a street corner near his house in a. relatively open drug market. He said he "learned the ropes" from his brother and his friends. Alex had bought Robert a used Jeep Cherokee in August so that he could make deliveries of drugs around town for Alex and Sean
On March 3rd, Robert was at Alex's apartment when a phone call came in from Sean. Sean was in San Antonio and Alex said that some supplier down there was drying to dupe them out of a bunch of money. Alex was very angry during the conversation, but Robert doesn't really remember what was said, except Alex kept saying, "we're gonna fuck some shit up!" Alex told Robert that they needed to go to San Antonio to help Sean and Marvin straighten out the problem. Since Sean and Marvin had taken Robert's truck, they drove to San Antonio that night in Robert's truck. He doesn't remember what time they arrived, except it was still dark outside. They met at a motel called the Sunshine Inn, or something similar to that name. When they got there, Sean and Alex talked for a while about what to do. Marvin kept asking what Robert was doing there, saying things like "he's just a kid-he can't be trusted," and "so help me God, that punk ass better not fuck this up." Robert was very angered by Marvin's comments and told him he wasn't going to mess up anything and that he could carry his weight. He wanted to show his brother and the others that he could "handle it." Sean gave Alex a piece of paper with a phone number on it. Alex called somebody and asked if he could get on his computer and find out what address matched the phone number. Alex got the address and hung up. They all went to McDonald's to get some breakfast and then went to find the address. They stopped at a gas station to buy a map. When Sean found the address, they drove to an apartment building. It was located on a two-lane road and it was across the street from an open field. Robert remembers they were Iooking for apartment 101. When they got there, Sean, Alex, and Marvin said they recognized "Art's truck." After they were there for a while, they saw two guys come out of the apartment building and get into a blue Nissan Pathfinder. Marvin said, "That's them. Let's get `em." But Sean said not to do anything-they would come back later. Robert asked who were the two men and Alex said, "That's Art and Tony and we're gonna fuck `em up if we don't get our stuff." Sean said he knew they were lying about getting "jacked" and they were just trying to steal their money. Robert, Alex, Marvin and Sean left and went back to the motel. They made a plan to return to the apartment after dark to make a "sneak attack" and try to get back their money or to get some drugs. Alex sent Robert and Marvin to find some duct tape and rope. They went to a K.-Mart and while they were there, Marvin bought a large hunting knife. He said it was for protection. Robert asked if he should get one too, but Marvin told him they would "cover his back." Robert asked to look at some handguns while he was there. Marvin told him he was stupid to buy a gun there because it could be traced. Robert asked if he could buy one of the guns, but the clerk wouldn't let him do it because he was only 17 years old and Marvin wouldn't help him buy it. They ended up buying some duct tape and rope, along with the hunting knife. Robert and Marvin went back to the motel. When they got there, Alex and Sean were smoking some pot. Robert and Marvin joined them. Then Marvin went next door to a liquor store and bought some "45's" (45 oz. malt liquor). They were all drinking for a while and then Robert fell asleep for a period-he thinks maybe an hour or two.' He woke up when a pizza delivery person knocked on the door of the motel. They all ate some pizza and drank more beer.
They all got back into Robert's Cherokee went back to the apartment. There couldn't see any lights on from the front of the building. They all went to the front door. Robert took a baseball bat he had in the back of his Cherokee and carried the duct tape and rope in his jacket. He was wearing a brown leather jacket and blue jeans with a tee-shirt. He also had on a black knit hat he had brought from his brother's apartment. Sean knocked on the door and a woman asked who was there. Sean said they were friends of Art and wanted to know if he was home. The woman said he wasn't there and she didn't know when he'd be back. Sean tried to tell her that Art told them to come there to wait for him, but she said he told her not to let anybody in unless he was there. Sean said o.k., that they would come back later. Then Sean told Robert and Marvin to stay at the front door in case the woman tried to leave out the front door. Alex took the bat from Robert and told Robert to stay behind Marvin "if anything went down." Alex and Sean said they were going around to the back of the building. Shortly afterwards they heard some glass bread from inside the apartment. A woman yelled for help and they she was quiet. A minute later Alex opened the door and Robert and Marvin went inside. Somebody had pulled the kitchen phone off of the wall and it was lying on the floor of the kitchen. Sean had the woman on the floor with a gun to the back of her head. Alex closed the door behind them. The glass on the sliding glass door had been broken. Alex still had the bat in his hands, which he gave back to Robert. Sean kept asking the woman where the money and drugs were hidden. She said that she didn't have any idea. She was just "Tony's girlfriend" and she didn't know anything about "Art's business." She said she was just house-sitting for the night. Sean told Marvin to put some duct tape over the woman's mouth, which he did. Then they all started tearing through the apartment trying to find any drugs or money. Robert and Marvin went into the bedroom while Sean and Alex stayed out in the kitchen and living room area. There were there for about ten minutes when Robert heard Alex in the living room cursing at the woman and telling her that she wasn't going to go anywhere until they got what they wanted. The Marvin took the bat from Robert and went back into the living room. Robert followed him. Marvin knelt down next to the woman and poked the end of the bat in her face. He said that she could, "talk to me or talk to the bat." He asked her if she had anything she wanted to tell them. She shook her head "no." Then Marvin took the end of the bat and rammed it into the back of the woman's head. He hit her hard enough to knock her out. Sean and Alex got pissed and said that was stupid because she couldn't talk if she was knocked out. Alex took the bat from Marvin and gave it back to Robert. Sean turned the woman over and took the tape of her mouth so she could breathe. Alex told Robert and Marvin to go back into the bedroom and continue searching. After a few minutes, Alex came in and said they had to get out of the apartment before somebody called the police. When they got back into the living room the woman was awake and sitting up. Sean still had her at gunpoint. He told the woman that she was going to come with us and if she made a sound he would kill her right there. Alex went to the front door and looked to make sure no one was around. Sean told Robert and Marvin to help the woman to the Jeep. She said she wanted to take her coat, so Sean grabbed it off of the couch. He followed behind Robert and Marvin as they took the woman out to the Cherokee. They all drove back to the motel.
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