The Last Plea Bargain

by Randy Singer

  Reporters in the courtroom were tapping on their laptops, fingers flying. Now this was a story! Because Supreme Court arguments were generally dull affairs, only a few diehards had even shown up for today. Just two Atlanta stations had sent camera crews, as permitted by the court rules, to film from the alcove of the courtroom. But their glee was nearly palpable. And I could envision the headline in the Atlanta Times: Law School Professor Accused of Beating Up Witness!

  The motto of the Georgia Supreme Court was coming to life. Justice was prevailing.

  When Thornton finished his argument, the chief justice granted Mace James five minutes for rebuttal. James took his place behind the podium, grabbed the sides, and stared at Thornton for a moment before addressing the court.

  “That affidavit is patently false,” he said, his words seething with anger. “I’d like to know what the state promised Mr. Cooper to get it.”

  “Counsel,” the chief justice said sharply, “leave the personal attacks out of it.”

  “But, Your Honor, that’s what this entire affidavit is. The state’s using a three-time convicted felon to personally attack me. He lied in his trial testimony and now he’s lying again.”

  “Did you pull him out of a Nashville bar and threaten him?” Justice Sherman asked. The former prosecutor had probably seen his share of defense-lawyer shenanigans.

  “Before the bar incident, one of my investigators recorded an admission by Mr. Cooper that he had lied at trial. Because the quality of that recording was not good, we did pull him out of a Nashville bar on the night before my client’s scheduled execution to get him sober enough to do another recording and sign an affidavit.”

  “Did you threaten to turn him in on drug charges if he didn’t cooperate?” Sherman asked, the exasperation evident in his voice.

  James hesitated, and I knew the justices had him.

  “He had drugs in his possession, Your Honor. I told him that if he didn’t come clean, I would turn him in. But he had already admitted that his trial testimony was false before this.”

  “Did you tell the authorities that Mr. Cooper was in possession of drugs?”

  There was more hesitation, crimson crawling up Mace James’s neck, swallowing his tattoo and coloring his bald head. “No. I didn’t believe I had an obligation to do so.”

  “But you would have if he had not signed your affidavit?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Sherman leaned forward. “Did you tell him that you would turn him in for possession of drugs if he didn’t give you an affidavit recanting his prior testimony—yes or no?”

  “Yes. But that doesn’t mean the affidavit is untrue.”

  “We’ll be the judges of that.”

  43

  There was a hum of excitement as the justices called the next case. James stormed out of the courtroom without shaking hands with the prosecutors. Caleb Tate followed on his heels. I waited for both of them to leave and then followed at a distance, barely able to contain my excitement. I lingered in the hallway and thanked Andrew Thornton.

  “That didn’t exactly go down the way I anticipated,” he admitted. “But I think we’ll get the right result.”

  “There’s no chance they’ll order a new trial,” I said. “And I appreciate you taking a bullet in there to make sure justice was done.”

  Thornton shrugged. He came across as self-effacing and likable, but I would still rather have Bill Masterson as Georgia’s next attorney general. Masterson inspired confidence; Thornton inspired sympathy.

  “Does this mean I can count on your vote?” he asked with a sly smile.

  I smiled back. “Only if you win the Republican primary without me.”

  Following the court media rules, the reporters asked Thornton and me if they could interview us outside the judicial building. I told them I wouldn’t be answering any questions and slipped away to the elevators. I rode to the first floor and was walking across the lobby when I saw Caleb Tate out of the corner of my eye. He veered toward me and I continued walking, eyes straight ahead.

  “Jamie, you got a second?”

  I didn’t slow down. “Why? So you can bait me again and misquote me in the press?”

  He fell in next to me. “I need to talk about my case. There’s something you need to know for your own good. You don’t have to say a word—just listen.”

  I had almost reached the door before I stopped to face him. “Forgive me, but when someone who lies about what I said before wants to have another conversation, I’m a little skeptical. And I also have a lot of work to do thanks to your influence on the other inmates when you were in the Milton County jail.” I turned and pushed open the door.

  “It’s about your father,” Tate said, stopping me in my tracks. He pulled a microcassette recorder from his suit pocket and held it out to me. “Here. You can record every word of the conversation and keep the tape. That way you don’t have to worry about me allegedly misconstruing what was said.”

  I considered this for a moment. There was an old saying that any lawyer who represented himself had a fool for a client. The reason was simple—lawyers thought they were too smart for their own good. They believed the rules didn’t apply to them. And one of the main rules is that no criminal defendant should ever talk to a prosecutor without a lawyer present.

  “You’re represented by Mace James,” I said, standing in the doorway. “I shouldn’t even be talking to you.”

  A couple walked through the door I was now holding open, and Tate took a step closer, turning on the recorder. He gave his name as well as the date and location of our conversation. “I waive my right to have counsel present, and I have specifically requested that Ms. Brock listen to what I have to say. She has informed me that I have the right to have my lawyer present, but I have emphatically told her that I want to speak to her without my lawyer.”

  He turned the tape off and rewound it so I could hear his voice. “Good enough?” he asked. He handed the recorder to me, and this time I took it.

  “Let’s go over there in the corner,” I said.

  We walked silently to the far side of the lobby. I did a couple of dry runs to make sure the machine was recording properly. “Go ahead,” I said.

  Tate cleared his throat and looked at me, watching my expression as he talked. “This is Caleb Tate, and I’m innocent. I loved Rikki, and I would never have done anything to hurt her.”

  I shifted my weight onto my right leg, left hand on hip, right hand holding the tape recorder between us. I knew Tate could read my impatience. I’m not impressed.

  “Jamie, we both know you can’t make the case against me without Rafael Rivera. And he’s got more credibility problems than you realize. Because I served as his attorney, I can’t tell you what those problems are right now. But if Rivera takes the stand and testifies against me, he waives the attorney-client privilege, and I’ll be able to testify about every conversation we’ve ever had.”

  “So what’s your point?”

  Tate looked past my shoulder and then turned back to me. “Let me speak hypothetically for a moment—just so you’ll understand the import of what I’m trying to say. Let’s say that hypothetically my client came to me and told me he wanted me to bribe a certain judge so he could get acquitted. Let’s say he explicitly mentioned Cynthia Snowden, a judge who has a reputation for being on the take. Let’s say I refused, and my client threatened me, saying I would regret it. Let’s say that same client later came to you and offered to provide false testimony against me.”

  Tate looked at me as if lightbulbs should be going off in my head. But none of this seemed to torpedo our case. It was still Rivera’s word against Tate’s.

  “That’s it? You did all this cloak-and-dagger stuff to tell me that?”

  “We’re still speaking hypothetically, right?”

  “Sure,” I said, playing his game. He had already revealed part of his strategy for the cross-examination of Rivera. Maybe he’d tell me more.

  “What
if I could prove that Judge Snowden was on the take? That would help corroborate my version of events, would it not? What if I gave you the names of three defense lawyers who had achieved uncommonly good results in front of Judge Snowden? Would you still put Rivera on the stand?”

  I sensed that Tate was leaving a lot of things unsaid. And I knew better than to answer questions coming from a sleazeball like him. “Maybe you just heard rumors that Judge Snowden was dirty and concocted a story that would allow you to use those rumors to bolster your own credibility. As to whether I would still call Rafael Rivera as a witness—I guess you’ll have to show up the first day of trial and find out.”

  “Clever . . . but maybe this will change your mind.” He reached into his suit coat pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper, handing it to me. “These are the names of three criminal-defense attorneys who have had results in front of Judge Snowden that are inexplicable. Check them out for yourself. I think you’ll see that the judge is definitely playing favorites.”

  I put the piece of paper in my pocket without looking at it. “Is that it?”

  “You can keep the recorder,” Tate said. “Have a good day.”

  I smirked at him. “In case you’ve forgotten, I already did.”

  I waited until I got to my 4Runner in the parking garage before I unfolded the paper. The first two names were defense lawyers who had been around Atlanta for a long time and were known to get stellar results. They were Tate’s competitors, and seeing their names on the list did not surprise me. But the third name sent my head spinning. The roller-coaster ride that was my life had just taken a breathtaking drop. I stared at the paper in disbelief. I knew it couldn’t be true, but I was shocked at Caleb Tate’s audacity for even suggesting it.

  The man I despised more than any other man in the world had written in neat block letters the name of my own father: Robert James Brock.

  44

  Mace James left the judicial building and kept his head down as two reporters chased after him, peppering him with questions. They soon gave up, and Mace marched straight to his car. His first call after leaving the parking garage was to the dean of Southeastern Law School. Sylvia Ellison answered on the second ring.

  “There’s something I need you to hear from me,” Mace said. “It has to do with a hearing on the Marshall case at the Georgia Supreme Court.”

  For ten minutes Mace told the Freddie Cooper story, his narrative interrupted by occasional expressions of surprise and concern by Dean Ellison. She had hired Mace six years ago, had stuck her neck out for him, and had been one of his biggest supporters. But today he couldn’t tell how she was taking this. When he concluded, she asked a number of terse questions and then fell silent for a moment. Mace waited her out.

  “We’ve got a serious problem,” she said. “When you represent these clients, you’re not acting on your own behalf. You’re representing our school through the clinic. I’m definitely going to be hearing about this from the other professors and alumni.”

  “I know, Sylvia. I’m sorry.”

  “I need some time to process this. I want you in my office at 8 a.m. tomorrow. I might have Elias and John here as well.”

  Elias was the dean of academic affairs. John was chairman of the law school’s board of trustees and the managing partner of a large Atlanta firm. It was like being called into the principal’s office and knowing that both parents would be there.

  “Okay,” Mace said. “I’ll bring my Kevlar boxers.”

  “See you tomorrow,” Sylvia said. It seemed the dean had lost her sense of humor.

  On the way to Jackson, Mace called a few law school colleagues to tell them his side of the story, such as it was. He also called a few buddies he didn’t want hearing the story for the first time on the news. They were on his side before he could get halfway through the facts. His last call before he arrived at the prison in Jackson was to his pastor. The man listened patiently and promised to pray for Mace.

  The conversation Mace had been dreading the most took place ten minutes later. Separated by glass from his client, phone to his ear, Mace gave Antoine a blow-by-blow description of the hearing.

  Antoine’s eyes were as big as saucers, and tears started forming as Mace continued. Antoine held the phone tight, struggling to keep his composure.

  “You don’t know how much I’ve been praying,” Antoine said when Mace was finished. “I haven’t eaten nothin’ for three days because the Bible says we should fast. Why does God hate me like this?”

  Mace knew he didn’t have any satisfactory answers for a man who had already spent eleven years behind bars for something he didn’t do. “I don’t know what’s going on,” Mace admitted. “But I know you were three hours away from dying once, and God spared your life. This is no time to give up.”

  Antoine shrugged, his rounded shoulders signaling total defeat. “You’re a good lawyer, Mace. But you can’t beat the system. Maybe it’s time to stop trying. Spend your time on somebody who’s got a chance.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Mace promised. He tried to sound more confident than he felt. “In fact, I’m just warming up.”

  “Right,” Antoine mumbled, his pity party in full swing. “Maybe I should just help the state out a little. Make everyone happy. End it once and for all.”

  Mace leaned forward. If he could have reached through the glass, he would have shaken some sense into his client. “Don’t ever say that again,” Mace said firmly. “We’re going to get you out of here.”

  45

  By the time I arrived back at the office, I had just enough time to grab my files and make it to court for the afternoon docket. I had been too nervous to eat much breakfast before the Supreme Court hearing, and now I’d skipped lunch. My mind was a million miles away from Milton County Superior Court. I needed to prove Caleb Tate wrong about my father.

  The claim that my father had been bribing or extorting Judge Snowden was laughable. It cut against everything I knew about his character. But Caleb Tate had asserted his claim with such confidence, challenging me to check the records myself, that he had managed to germinate the tiniest seed of doubt. And that seed had now sprouted into a hundred what-if questions.

  What if my father’s record in front of Snowden was inexplicably good, even if he hadn’t done anything illegal? What if Tate was telling the truth about his former client Rafael Rivera? What if—and I couldn’t believe I was even asking this—my father had something on Judge Snowden? What if all of that became public? Would Antoine Marshall get a new trial? And if so, how could we possibly get a conviction now that my father, the only eyewitness to the crime, was dead?

  These questions ate at me as Judge Pipes, a substitute judge who had been pulled out of retirement to help due to the plea-bargaining crisis, gaveled the afternoon session to order. I had about fifteen files stacked on the prosecutor’s table. They were all probation violations and bond revocations—the types of things the court normally processed with utmost efficiency.

  Defendants who had violated probation would come in and plead with the court for one more chance. I would express the state’s frustration with a convict who had been given a second chance and thumbed his nose at the court. The judges would typically hand out whatever sentence I asked for and throw in a harsh lecture for free.

  But that afternoon, Judge Pipes, who had been one of the tougher judges on the bench when he was active, was giving out light sentences and setting low bonds. My recommendations for tough love were ignored.

  Halfway through the afternoon, I started arguing more forcefully and cross-examined the defendants at length to show their blatant disregard for the law. But none of this seemed to affect Pipes. By the time the day was over, I realized that a new kind of normal had been established in Milton County. Instead of judges listening to prosecutors, they were going light on nonviolent offenders, freeing up jail space for the hard-core felons.

  I returned to the office at five and compared notes with other prosecuto
rs. They had experienced the same thing. It was like the judges had gotten together and decided to change the sentencing guidelines. If word got out, Milton County would become the place for drug gangs.

  We had lost round one.

  I called both Bill Masterson and Regina Granger but got their voice mails. I shut myself in my office, checked my e-mail messages, and played around on the Internet. I was trying to get up the nerve to check our database to test Caleb Tate’s claims.

  After procrastinating for half an hour, I entered my father’s name in the defense attorney field and searched the criminal cases in the Milton County DA’s data bank. I started ten years before my mother’s death and looked at every case my father had handled in front of Snowden and every other judge in the county. I took notes and categorized the results. After two hours of skimming through more than three hundred files, I calculated the results and stared at the paper in disbelief. My stomach ached as the reality began to sink in. The results jumped out at me, mocking my hope that Caleb Tate had exaggerated my dad’s success.

  As prosecutors, we normally win about 90 percent of our cases. In general, my dad did better than most defense attorneys, winning not just 10 percent of the time but nearly 30 percent of the time. But of the forty cases in Judge Snowden’s courtroom, he had won twenty-nine—better than 70 percent. Worse, about half of those were decided on motions to suppress or other hearings where the judge played a critical role. It was exactly the way Caleb Tate suggested it would be.

  I felt sick as I tried to formulate scenarios that could explain the results. Perhaps my father just understood the way Judge Snowden thought, the same way I had achieved better grades with some teachers than with others. Perhaps Snowden had a great deal of respect for my father and subconsciously gave him the benefit of the doubt.

  Okay, so maybe the judge played favorites. Did that make her corrupt? Or maybe she just liked the defense lawyers who were better prepared than the others. None of these reasons would mean that my father or Judge Snowden had done anything wrong.