By Katherine Itacy
Synopsis:
Former journalist Carla Conti (a nom de plume) had just moved back to the US from Europe. While catching up in Pennsylvania with a group of her friends from high school, one of them asked her for a favor. Scott Powell (a pseudonym given by Conti, which she gives to all those involved in the case in order to protect their safety) was handling a federal prison stabbing case and needed help on the case. Acting as an investigator for Scott’s client, Carla was exposed to the sad and violent state of things for many federal inmates.
As part of the draw to join the defense team, Scott suggested that Carla write a tell-all about the court case, with Scott’s client providing a lot of the inside information about prison gangs and corruption within the federal prison system. During the many years Carla and Scott were involved with their client’s life inside prison walls, they developed a friendship with the inmate and had to watch from the outside as two different prison gangs issued hits against him. Soon, Carla and Scott’s own safety was in danger simply from being associated with their new friend.
Chained Birds is part memoir, part a true crime account of Carla’s ten-year involvement with federal inmate Kevin Sanders as he fights his court case and is eventually released back into society. By fighting Kevin’s court case, the defense team was trying to expose the dangerous, often deadly conditions of an experimental prison program in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.
Review:
Carla Conti is a former crime reporter who is pulled into a federal criminal defense case by one of her friends from high school. Her friend, Scott, seems to be a bit over his head in handling this federal case. Up until this court appointment, Scott’s experience is mostly in defending clients in state court.
The inmate, Kevin Sanders, along with his cellmate, have been accused of each stabbing another inmate while locked in an outdoor recreation cage in 2011. Kevin tells Scott that, per the prison gang code of conduct, if he hadn’t joined in on the fight that his cellmate had initiated, then his cellmate would’ve then turned the shiv on Kevin. Scott agrees to help Kevin fight the assault charges, but realizes he’ll need help to argue his client’s version of events in court.
After Scott is denied court funds to hire an investigator or an expert witness, he enlists Carla’s help, suggesting to her that by assisting in Kevin’s defense, she could then turn the case into a true crime book.
The book is incredibly detailed and well-written, and I found the defense’s unique legal approach to fighting a serious assault case interesting to read about, especially since I’m a former criminal defense attorney myself. I also appreciated reading about all the institutional problems occurring within the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), especially as it pertained to the experimental Special Management Unit (SMU), which housed some of the most problematic and violent federal prisoners.
Carla’s reporting of the fraught conditions within the BOP and the prevalence of prison gangs throughout the federal system is undoubtedly well done. She also presents a realistic portrait of the difficulties criminal defense attorneys and their teams face in representing a client in federal court, especially if they are court-appointed to represent an indigent defendant.
And I’m all for defense attorneys and their team fighting vigorously for humane and just treatment of their clients. I, myself, went beyond the standard defense of my clients and did all I could to improve their quality of life, whether that was trying to get their ankle monitor temporarily removed so they could obtain a liver transplant when the time came, or fighting a disciplinary report they did not deserve, or trying to find them the appropriate supportive services upon their release from incarceration.
Scott, Carla, and later their colleague and co-counsel Jack Bear should be proud of how fiercely they advocated for and tried to protect their client and friend, even if some of their methods for raising funds for Kevin’s defense seem to have bordered on violating federal rules or ethical guidelines. It’s clear that they were doing everything they could think of to provide Kevin with the best defense possible.
The book follows Scott, Carla, Jack, and Kevin through pre-trial hearings, the trial and its fallout. It details how the defense team’s individual relationships with one another change over time and continues after Kevin is eventually released from prison.
Not to spoil the ending, but eventually, Carla begins to think more critically about everything that her client, now friend, has been telling her.
It sounds as if Carla ended up learning a hard lesson about how manipulative and/or deceitful some criminal clients can be. Many of my clients presented all their struggles in life as being somebody else’s fault. Several minimized their culpability when speaking to me, even though they’d already given a full confession to law enforcement before becoming my client. The vast majority of inmates are said to, at the very least, suffer from antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), which, according to the Mayo Clinic, is
“a mental health condition in which a person consistently shows no regard for right and wrong and ignores the rights and feelings of others. People with antisocial personality disorder tend to purposely make others angry or upset and manipulate or treat others harshly or with cruel indifference. They lack remorse or do not regret their behavior.
People with antisocial personality disorder often violate the law, becoming criminals. They may lie, behave violently or impulsively, and have problems with drug and alcohol use. They have difficulty consistently meeting responsibilities related to family, work or school.”
I’m obviously not a medical professional, and I’ve never met Kevin, but from Carla’s account, it appears as if Kevin might have suffered from ASPD. If you’ve spent any significant amount of time defending alleged criminals or being part of their defense team, this wouldn’t surprise you a bit. Annoy, frustrate, disappoint you? Yes. But surprise? No.
This isn’t necessarily a criticism of Carla, but she admittedly was new to this experience when she accepted Scott’s request to join the defense team, and she had absolutely no prior experience or training as a private investigator. And I think her naivete to the realities of trying to help an individual who rarely (if ever) accepts responsibility for his own actions, who manipulates, exaggerates, has problems with drug and alcohol use, cannot seem to hold down a job, and acts out emotionally and/or violently shows when reading this memoir.
I’m sorry that Carla, Scott, and Jack had to go through these experiences while providing a vigorous, empathetic defense of Kevin Sanders. It sucks when a client lies to you. It’s hard to watch them act against their own best interests. But it’s sadly not a unique story.
As interesting as the book was, and as much as I appreciate the defense team’s efforts on Kevin’s behalf, I think the memoir is ultimately more about Carla’s personal journey becoming more knowledgeable about the federal criminal justice system and the behavioral issues of many an incarcerated individual than anything else.
Maybe if that was all the book was about, I’d like it better. But Carla also awkwardly tries to shoe-horn in facts about her life and friend circle while relaying the facts about Kevin’s case. She details her arguments with Scott over their political leanings, making it exceedingly clear what she thinks of Trump voters. She even boldly and proudly describes acts of vandalism and/or destruction of property she participated in against Trump supporters. She slips in details that makes it clear she has money, although it’s unclear why that’s relevant. And bizarrely, she makes the choice to reveal a mutual friend’s alcoholism, Scott’s money, employment, and relationship issues, and a dark childhood secret of Scott’s, allegedly with Scott’s tepid permission to do so. It comes off as deeply invasive and unnecessary to the story.
That being said, if you ignore these sections of the book, it’s an interesting and enjoyable read.
This review was originally published on Story Circle Network’s website here.
My Rating: 3/5
About the Author:
From the author’s website:
“Carla Conti is a true crime journalist, storyteller, and prison reform advocate who previously covered the police beat and criminal courts as a newspaper reporter in the Midwest and Northeast. In 2011, she was asked to write about federal inmate Kevin Sanders, who was incarcerated inside the brutal, torturous conditions of Pennsylvania’s Lewisburg Prison. Carla then became part of the legal team that defended Kevin against unjust assault charges and remained his advocate and friend on the outside ever since.
Because of her exclusive access to Kevin’s first-person accounts, she knows the stories that led to the 2018 shutdown of USP Lewisburg’s Special Management Unit, one of the bloodiest experimental prison programs in the country. For a decade, Carla followed Kevin’s journey inside various federal prisons to write an exposé on the world of prison abuse, corruption, and violent prison gangs he experienced. However, she became imperiled by association after two separate prison gangs tried to kill Kevin and learned she was writing a tell-all book about his case.”
To learn more about the author, you can visit her website here.
Chained Birds: A True Crime Memoir is currently available on Amazon.
Disclaimer: I was sent a copy of Ms. Conti’s book, Chained Birds: A True Crime Memoir, via Story Circle Network, in exchange for my honest review of the book.
Katherine Itacy is the author of Relentless: From National Champion to Physically Disabled Activist (July 28, 2020, E.L. Marker). After medically retiring from practicing law, Katherine wrote her memoir, Relentless (which is available now in audiobook and e-book formats on Amazon). She is also on the board of directors for the Rhode Island ACLU, the national ACLU, and the Warwick Health Equity Zone (HEZ), an advocate for the Rare Disease Legislative Advocates (RDLA), a patient advisor for the All of Us Patient & Family Advisory Council (PFAC), an advisor on the Science & Policy and Community Leadership Councils for the National Pain Advocacy Center, and enjoys blogging about book reviews as well as social justice and disability issues.
Katherine Itacy 