The Last Plea Bargain

by Randy Singer

  If the good folks in my county who attended church on Sunday could have rendered a verdict based solely on the press reports, they would have viewed lethal injection as too merciful.

  I didn’t normally like to try my cases in the press, but on this one, I was willing to make an exception. Besides, when I confronted LA about the leaks, he just smiled and agreed that it was a terrible thing for the press to have so many moles inside the police department. Then he would turn around and leak another story.

  The downside of LA’s tactics was that he had the public howling for an arrest, but we still had a big evidentiary problem. We couldn’t prove Caleb Tate’s access to the drugs. Nor did we have a solid motive. As our case stood, I doubted that we could get an indictment, much less a conviction.

  I received Rikki Tate’s subpoenaed psychiatric records on the first Thursday in April. I took the records home and immediately began going through them. I went to bed at midnight and stared at the ceiling for an hour, thinking about my father. The emotions would come like a flash flood, unpredictable and overwhelming, receding to leave behind the muck of despondency. For some reason, the house pulsed with loneliness that night, and I found myself reminiscing about my childhood, tears dampening my pillow.

  After a good cry, I turned on the light and decided to get up and do some work. Two hours later, I was still poring over the documents in the war room, wearing my pajama bottoms, a sweatshirt, and a pair of running socks. Justice had moved from the bedroom to the war room with me, but not until he had given me one of those How long are we going to be acting crazy like this? looks.

  Reading through Rikki’s counseling records on an emotional night like this only exacerbated my melancholy and depression. Identifying with the victim came at an emotional price.

  Rikki was a sporadic patient who seemed to show up for counseling only when she was in the middle of one crisis or another. Her appointments had been much more frequent in the six months prior to her death. The counseling notes tended to ramble and jump around, and I did my best to integrate the information into the timeline of Rikki’s life I had already established.

  Hers was the all-too-familiar story of childhood abuse destroying a beautiful young woman’s sense of self-worth and identity. Rikki’s father left the family when she was in elementary school. During her early teenage years, she was abused by her stepfather. She ran away two months after she turned sixteen. Her sad home life made me ache even more for one of my father’s hugs.

  Rikki eventually landed in Las Vegas and moved in with one boyfriend after another. She got her first break when she put pictures of herself on a modeling website and before long started getting offers for modeling, some of it topless. When she turned twenty-one, she began working the Vegas shows—first as a crowd plant for a comedy hypnotist, then as an assistant to a well-known magician, and finally as a showgirl in one of the biggest musicals on the Strip.

  Unfortunately, as her career continued its upward trajectory, her relationships spiraled downward. She was arrested twice for drugs. A boyfriend beat her up, and she pressed charges. The casino fired her for missing work, and she got blacklisted on the Strip.

  At twenty-six, Rikki moved to Atlanta to start over.

  She landed with a high-end escort service and promptly got busted for prostitution and possession. When she retained Caleb Tate as her defense attorney, her life took a dramatic turn.

  Tate cut two deals, one of which he claimed was the best deal of his life. The first was a plea agreement with Masterson. Rikki had a high-profile client list and agreed to testify against her pimps and her johns. In exchange, the DA dropped all charges against Rikki.

  The second deal was one proposed by Caleb, who was twelve years older than his ravishing client. After the smoke of the investigation had cleared, Caleb and Rikki took a trip together to Vegas, where Rikki enjoyed her old stomping grounds on the arm of a man who had lots of money. They returned to Atlanta as Mr. and Mrs. Tate. According to Gillespie’s notes, Rikki claimed that Caleb Tate was the first man who had ever treated her like a lady. He loved her for who she was, not for what she could do for him. It was Caleb’s third marriage and Rikki’s first.

  The honeymoon lasted two years.

  After that, Rikki felt out of place in the circles that Tate inhabited. Only in the movies could a Vegas showgirl fit in with the debutantes of Atlanta. She turned back to drugs for a year or two and then, when Caleb seemed to be more interested in work than paying attention to her, she began a series of affairs with at least three different men. She only used first names in her counseling sessions, and it was hard to tell if those names were real or fictitious. Gillespie never pressed for details about their identities.

  According to Gillespie’s notes, Caleb Tate found out about two of the affairs, and both times Rikki promised that it would be the last. About nineteen months before her death, just after Caleb had uncovered the second affair he learned about, Rikki began attending a neighborhood Bible study. She eventually went to a charismatic church service with one of the women in the study and, in the sort of high drama that characterized Rikki’s life, went through a radical salvation experience. From what she told Dr. Gillespie, she thought her new faith would solve the marital strife, but it only made things worse.

  In the year prior to her death, she had fights with Caleb about how vocal she should be about her faith. When she decided to sue the owners of Internet sites still displaying her topless pictures, Caleb advised against it.

  The one entry that I found the most disconcerting from a prosecutor’s perspective was a note from about three months prior to Rikki’s death. It reflected a phone call from Caleb Tate to Dr. Gillespie, expressing a concern that Rikki was back into her drug habit. She seemed, according to Caleb Tate, to be out of it all the time and more lethargic than ever. Gillespie confronted Rikki about it, and though she denied any drug use, he suspected she might have been lying.

  As I read the notes, I was surprised at Caleb Tate’s response to Rikki’s affairs. He had forgiven her not once but twice. And I had a hard time reconciling Caleb’s phone call with my theory of the case. Maybe he had already started drugging his wife and was setting up a sophisticated alibi, but that seemed a bit reckless for a man who planned as meticulously as Caleb. If nothing else, it would make Gillespie more sensitive to signs of drug abuse. And what if Gillespie talked Rikki into rehab?

  On the plus side, there were no suicidal thoughts by Rikki reflected in the notes. And Rikki’s affairs could cut both ways. Yes, they showed Caleb to be a forgiving husband. But they also helped establish motive. Rikki and Caleb had been sleeping in separate rooms for two years. Their marriage was one of convenience. Caleb liked having a trophy wife on his arm when he went to his high-society events. Rikki liked the creature comforts Caleb provided and enjoyed living the good life of an Atlanta housewife.

  Maybe Rikki had become too expensive a trophy. Maybe Caleb had found somebody else and didn’t want to pay a fortune in alimony to a third ex-spouse. His second divorce had cost him a king’s ransom.

  It was nearly four in the morning when I finished reviewing the records. Since I had given LA a copy of them, I sent him an e-mail reminding him that the records were confidential and to make sure the press didn’t get their hands on them. Frankly, they don’t help our case, and they paint Rikki in a bad light. She had a hard life, and I want to make sure we don’t tarnish her reputation any more than we have to.

  I was surprised to get a reply before I had even shut down my computer.

  I agree. Now get some sleep.

  I fired back another e-mail. You should talk.

  Three hours later, when I woke up and turned on my computer, the Atlanta Times already had the story prominently featured on its website: “Tate’s Psychiatric Records Reflect a Troubled Marriage.”

  20

  Mace James stood behind Chris Brock, arms folded across his chest. On the other side of the bulletproof glass was Antoine Marshall, speaking into
the telephone, his face less than two feet from the son of the woman he was convicted of killing. Antoine thanked Chris for coming and told Chris he was sorry to hear that his father had passed away. He said it without the least bit of irony, but all three men knew that if not for Chris’s father, Antoine would not be facing his own execution in 123 days.

  Mace had done everything possible to attack Robert Brock’s credibility on appeal. At the trial, Caleb Tate had tried to introduce an expert witness to talk about the reliability of cross-racial identifications, but Judge Snowden hadn’t allowed the testimony. To make his point another way, Tate had kept his client out of the courtroom the morning that Robert Brock took the stand. In an effort to show how suggestive the police lineup had been, Tate put together his own lineup, but he used men who more closely resembled Antoine Marshall. In addition to a year-old picture of Marshall, Tate’s lineup included four other convicted felons who had been out on probation when Laura Brock was killed. After staring at the photos for an inordinately long time, Robert Brock admitted that he wasn’t 100 percent certain which of the men was the intruder.

  From there, Tate had attempted to hang Robert Brock with his own words. He started asking questions about closing arguments Robert Brock had given in other cases, stressing the unreliability of cross-racial eyewitness identifications. But Masterson had objected, and Judge Snowden had quickly sustained the objection.

  When Tate sat down, Judge Snowden undermined the entire cross-examination by asking some pointed questions of her own. Mace had made this conduct a linchpin of his appeals, but four separate appellate courts had found nothing wrong with it. Nevertheless, Mace had practically memorized the exchange.

  Judge Snowden: It’s been more than a year since your wife’s murder, Mr. Brock. Do you think your memory of the defendant’s face was better on the night that it happened or as we sit here in court a year later?

  The Witness: It was definitely better then. In fact, every time I closed my eyes that night, I saw his face.

  Judge Snowden: Mr. Tate seems to be implying that you have very little exposure to or interaction with the African American community. Can you tell the court what percentage of your clients are African American?

  Caleb Tate: Your Honor, I have to object to the court’s questions. Cross-racial identifications are problematic regardless of how much exposure we might have to other races.

  Judge Snowden: As you know, Mr. Tate, the jury will decide the reliability of Mr. Brock’s eyewitness identification. I just thought it might be helpful if we provide them with all the relevant information.

  Caleb Tate: I believe Your Honor ought to allow the district attorney to try his own case.

  Judge Snowden: Overruled, Mr. Tate. Now sit down. If you want to ask follow-up questions, you may do so when I’m done.

  Caleb Tate: Just note my objection, Judge. And I’d like the record to reflect that the court is raising her voice at me in front of the jury.

  Judge Snowden: Sit down, Mr. Tate!

  Caleb Tate: Yes, Your Honor.

  Judge Snowden: Now, Mr. Brock, you may answer the question.

  The Witness: I don’t know the exact percentage, Your Honor. But I would say the majority of my clients are African American.

  Mace hadn’t been there, but Caleb Tate told him that the jurors, most of whom were black, had seemed particularly attentive during the court’s questioning.

  All of that was history now. And it wouldn’t help to criticize Chris Brock’s dead father at this meeting.

  “He was a good man,” Chris said.

  Antoine nodded but didn’t say anything.

  “Why don’t you tell Mr. Brock how your life has changed in jail?” Mace prompted. He tried to talk loud enough that his voice could be heard through the phone Chris was holding.

  Antoine collected his thoughts and started his story. He and Mace had actually rehearsed this part, not because the narrative wasn’t genuine but because Mace wanted to make sure his client hit all the right notes. Antoine’s voice was tight and hoarse as he described his childhood—the father he never knew, the gangs where he found a sense of belonging, the drugs he started experimenting with before his fourteenth birthday. Crack and meth became his drugs of choice, and they were not cheap. He would move from mall to mall, shoplifting and pawning the merchandise. He tried part-time work but found he could make more money by breaking and entering people’s homes. He started packing heat not because he ever intended to shoot anybody but because he had lost too many friends to gang violence.

  Chris listened intently, never taking his eyes off Antoine. As the prisoner warmed to his story, he slowed down and became more animated.

  “As you know, I was out on bond the night your mom got murdered. I was facing my third strike in ten years and a lot of hard time. You ever been high?”

  Chris shook his head. “I never got into drugs.”

  “Man, it’s all you can think about. I mean, if I didn’t get my fix, I went berserk. I’d do anything to get my hands on more crack. I didn’t even try holdin’ down no job because I couldn’t make money fast enough the way I was smokin’ it and snortin’ it up my nose. I had to steal stuff so I could keep the crack coming.”

  Antoine looked down, clearly ashamed of what he had done. Other inmates liked to brag about their past. Antoine wasn’t one of them.

  “I don’t know. . . . I’m not trying to make no excuses. I’m just saying—it wasn’t me. It was like some other brother just took over my body. I didn’t even know when I woke up where I had been the night before.”

  Mace could tell that Antoine was doing his best to walk a tightrope. He would never admit to killing Laura Brock, but Mace had emphasized how important it was to have a repentant attitude. It seemed to Mace that Antoine was overdoing it, making it seem like he had done things he couldn’t remember.

  Antoine talked about the drugs some more, frequently slipping into language that would prompt an apology—“Sorry, Pastor.”

  “No problem,” Chris would say.

  Eventually Antoine worked his way around to the despair and depression that he had felt in prison. It had been hard quitting the drugs cold turkey, but it was one of the best things that ever happened to him.

  At this point, Antoine nodded at Mace. “That man back there saved me,” he said. “All these other dudes on death row are always complaining about their lawyers. Their lawyers don’t take collect calls. They don’t care about their cases. They’re just trying to grab the headlines. But that man—he cares about me.”

  This wasn’t exactly how they had practiced it. But Antoine had gone off script and was speaking from the heart. He swallowed, choked up, and paused to get his composure.

  “One day I just asked the man: ‘Why do you care about me?’ You know what he said?”

  Chris shook his head.

  “He told me that Jesus Christ cared about him when he was guilty. He told me that he wanted to be the same kind of defender for me that Christ was for him. And you know what? That . . . blew me away.” Antoine shook his head like he still couldn’t believe it. “I mean, it was like, man, I never thought nobody would care about me after everything I’d done. But Mace showed me that was just the devil’s lie.”

  Antoine had a few pieces of paper sitting next to him, and he showed them to Chris. “I prayed for Christ to forgive me, and I pray every night for you and your family.” He held one paper so Chris could see it. Every inch of it was covered with tiny handwritten notes. Paper was a precious resource in prison.

  “These are the things I pray for. You’re on here. Your sister’s on here. Your dad was too. . . .” Antoine couldn’t bring himself to look at Chris, and the paper trembled a little in his hand. “You don’t know how much it meant getting that letter saying you forgave me.”

  Antoine pursed his lips and put the paper down. He opened a Bible that was literally falling apart at the binding. “I want to be a preacher like you someday,” Antoine said. “I think I’ve got the gift
.”

  He showed Chris some pages in the Bible where he had made notes in the margins. “This is a sermon I put together on the woman at the well,” he said. In small handwriting, covering all the margins on the page where John 4 was located, Antoine had written a sermon outline.

  “I was going to ask you—but don’t feel like you’ve got to do this—if maybe you could send me some of your sermon notes.”

  “Sure, I could do that.”

  “Thanks. Anyway . . .” Antoine seemed to be running out of steam. He furrowed his brow and then remembered something. “Oh yeah. Almost forgot. I get an hour a day with the other inmates. One of them figured out a way to do some tats with a—” Antoine suddenly remembered that he had a guard standing behind him. He cupped his hand over the phone and lowered his voice. “Anyway, I’ll tell you some other time how we do it. But I knew that what Mace was saying was right. That Christ didn’t just go to the cross for me, but he got beat up for me too. He got whipped. Well . . . you know.”

  At this, Antoine placed the phone down and stood slowly. The guard took a step forward. Antoine unzipped the front of his jumpsuit and shrugged the suit off his shoulders so that it hung from his waist.

  Mace had not seen him without the jumpsuit on in a long time. The man had become shockingly thin. Mace could count every rib; Antoine’s bony shoulders protruded like a prisoner of war’s. At one time, his arms had had some definition, but now they were just skin and bones.

  Mace knew what was coming.

  Antoine turned so that Chris could see his back. Not surprisingly, he had tattoos on his neck, shoulders, and triceps. But there was one tattoo across the middle of his back that covered him from shoulder blade to shoulder blade. It was five letters scrawled out in a cursive style by the inmate who controlled the tattoo needle. It read simply: Jesus.