Patterson took the stand, swore the oath, and then he told his story: three stops in four months, always at night, always on rural roads, always alone.
The first time, they told him his taillight was out; it wasn't. The second time, they said he matched a description; he didn't. The third time, they didn't bother with a reason at all.
"They pulled me over on Route 23, about ten miles south of here," Patterson said. His voice was quiet, but steady—the voice of a man who had practiced this in the mirror. "Two officers. They told me to step out. They searched my car for forty-five minutes, opened every bag, every container, pulled the spare tire out of the trunk."
"What did they find?"
"Textbooks, a lunchbox, a Bible my mother gave me."
"Were you charged with anything?"
"No, ma'am."
"Were you given a reason for the stop?"
"No, ma'am."
In the fourth row, Wells sat rigid. His jaw was clenched so tight the muscles in his neck stood out like cables. Pike sat beside him, bouncing his knee so hard the bench creaked.
The second witness was Darnell Crawford, twenty-six, a UPS driver, pulled over twice in three weeks on I-16: same stretch of road, same time of night, same result. Searched, detained, released without charges.
"They made me sit on the curb for an hour," Crawford said. "Cars passing by, people staring. They went through my whole truck, found nothing but packages with other people's names on them." He paused. "I called in sick the next two days. I couldn't... I couldn't get back in the truck."
The third witness was Linda Osei, fifty-eight, a registered nurse driving home from a twelve-hour shift, pulled over at 1:00 in the morning. She was still in her scrubs.
"He shined the light in my face and asked me where I stole the car," she said. "I told him it was my car, I've had it for six years. He said, 'Sure you have.' Then he made me stand outside in the cold while he ran my plates, twice."
"Were you charged?"
"No."
"Were you given a reason?"
"He said I was driving too slow for the speed limit." A pause. "I was going 53 in a 55."
Adrian wrote notes. He wrote them carefully in the same neat handwriting he'd used on ten thousand legal pads. His face showed nothing: not anger, not recognition, not the fact that every single detail—the flashlight, the tone, the assumption, the search, the absence of reason—mirrored his own night, beat for beat, word for word.