The Last Plea Bargain (20 page)

46

I slept fitfully that night, waking up several times, praying the whole thing was just a nightmare. At three in the morning, I thought about taking an Ambien but realized that I wouldn't be able to wake up in time for work. At four thirty, after lying awake for thirty minutes staring at the ceiling, I conceded defeat and got out of bed. I threw on my sweats, and Justice rolled over and looked at me like I was nuts. I padded down to my dad's study, sat in his chair, and started going through the desk drawers as if I might discover the key to the man's character there. Could I possibly be this wrong about somebody I knew so well?

In the top left drawer there were some old family photographs. Chris, Mom, Dad, and me, smiling on vacation. I was fifteen, and my hair looked like a rat's nest. Photographs of me from my college days racing kayaks and some from the Olympic trials when I came up one place short. There was one of Chris in his cap and gown, graduating from seminary, Dad on one side, me on the other. There was another family photo from my middle school years; Mom had cut herself out of the picture. Before her death, we made fun of her—my mom, the psychiatrist, who swore she didn't take good pictures. We said she needed to work on her self-image.

At Antoine Marshall's murder trial, Masterson had introduced the photograph into evidence and used it during his closing argument. “This is what Antoine Marshall did to this family.”

Toward the bottom of the drawer were some yellowed pages from my earlier childhood, the wide-lined paper you use when you first begin writing. On the bottom right corner of one I had taped a picture of myself in my white cap and gown at kindergarten graduation. On that same page I had also taped two Atomic Fireballs, which had now gone from red to white with age. In large block letters I had written,
I love you, Dad. Jamie.

Underneath that memento was a book I had put together when I was in second grade. Our teachers had asked us to write about our hero. I had a hard time choosing but had eventually landed on my dad. I could still remember feeling guilty about choosing him over my mom. I'd even talked to my mom about it. She was so excited that we spent hours working on the little book together. My mom's dad had left her family when she was in elementary school, and she said she had always prayed that her kids would have a special relationship with their father.

I read through the book now with tears rolling down my cheeks, and I was somehow certain that my dad would never have cheated in order to set his clients free. It was up to me to save his reputation. Antoine Marshall had killed my mother. I couldn't let my dad be destroyed by his lawyer.

Mace James made a point not to read any newspaper coverage or watch television reports before he met with Dean Ellison on Tuesday morning. He wore his best blue pin-striped suit and white oxford shirt. A man ought to be dressed up when he faced the firing squad.

The dean welcomed Mace into her office, and he exchanged terse greetings with Elias Gonzales and John Shaw.

Ellison had a spacious office with an ornate desk and a round conference table that could have easily accommodated the four of them. But Mace had never seen Ellison meet with anyone at the table. Instead, as was her custom, she and the others took seats on the opposite side of the office, where two wingback chairs, a coffee table, and a small couch gave visitors a homey feel. Gonzales and Shaw hunkered down on the couch. Mace sat in one of the chairs, and the dean sat across the coffee table from him in the other.

“Anything to drink?” she asked.

“I'm fine.”

“Have you read the papers this morning?” Shaw asked. As the managing partner of one of Atlanta's biggest firms, Shaw was proud of his reputation and also the school's. He guarded both like a rottweiler.

“No.”

Shaw placed the paper on the coffee table. It was a long article, page one, local section. “Congratulations,” Shaw said.

Mace didn't respond.

“Mace, before we talk about what to do, I think it might be helpful for us to hear from you exactly what happened,” Dean Ellison interjected. “Why don't you just start from the beginning, and we can chime in with any questions?”

Mace cleared his throat, surprised at how nervous he felt. His voice was hoarse as he started, but he eventually relaxed a bit. When he got to the part about the bar fight, John Shaw grimaced in disbelief. “The papers haven't even figured that angle out,” he said. “You staged a bar fight in order to kidnap this guy—wait until
that
comes out.”

“Let 'im finish,” Gonzales said.

From that point, Mace gave them a truncated and slightly sanitized version, ending with the hearing in front of the Georgia Supreme Court.

When he was done, heads turned toward Dean Ellison. Mace knew that Shaw wanted him gone. Gonzales had always liked Mace, primarily because Mace didn't complain about being overworked like the other professors. But the buck stopped at Dean Ellison's desk.

She hesitated too long for John Shaw's liking. “I counted five separate ethical violations, if anybody needs a scorecard,” he said.

“And the execution of an innocent man postponed,” Mace added sarcastically. “But maybe that doesn't make the scorecard in your world.”

“In my world, the ends don't justify the means,” Shaw retorted.

“Gentlemen,”
the dean said. Hearing her tone, Mace swallowed his verbal counterpunch. He felt like a schoolboy caught in a fight.

The dean softened her voice. “Mace, what do
you
suggest we do?”

“I'm assuming that Teacher of the Year is out of the question?”

Ellison gave him a don't-toy-with-me look.

“Sorry,” Mace said. “Look—you hired me to run a clinic and provide zealous representation for our clients. And that's not as clean as the civil cases handled by Mr. Shaw in his silk-stocking law firm. I regret that I stepped over the line. And I'm especially sorry that it has put Southeastern in a bad light and will cause you all sorts of grief. It's no excuse, but I just kept asking myself: How could I go to Antoine Marshall's funeral knowing that I hadn't done everything possible to save him?”

Mace glanced at his feet and back up at Dean Ellison. “Well, if I were you, I'd make me apologize, and then I would probably suspend me pending an investigation by the state bar. I'm sure Andrew Thornton has already reported me.”

The dean turned to her colleague. “Elias?”

“That sounds about right. I would have the law school do its own independent investigation as well so we can issue a report that would help answer some questions the public might have. I'm not excusing what Mace did, but if I were Antoine Marshall, I'd be glad to have him on my side.”

“John?”

“You know how I feel. I've been practicing law for forty years. There are ways to get things done that don't violate the ethical rules. We've all worked too long and too hard gaining national prominence for our school to flush it down the toilet with this kind of behavior.”

John shot an accusatory eye toward Mace. “Frankly, if you were an associate in my firm, you would already be fired.”

Frankly, if I were an associate in your firm, I would have committed suicide by now.
But Mace didn't say it. He wasn't going to win Ellison's swing vote by arguing with the chairman of the board.

The room grew quiet, and the dean sighed. “You've put me in quite a dilemma, Mace. I like you a lot. The students love you. And your whole story has been good for the school. But how can we exhort our students to follow the highest possible ethical standards and condone conduct like this?”

It was a rhetorical question, and Mace didn't try to answer. He stared at the dean, unblinking, as she prepared to pronounce her sentence. He liked this woman and respected her integrity. He couldn't blame her if she fired him on the spot. She had the entire law school to worry about. But Mace's job was to take care of his clients.

“When I hired you, I told you that you would be under stricter scrutiny than the other professors. With your background, there were a lot of folks who warned me not to take a chance on you at all. So far, you've been fabulous for the school, so I'm taking that into account. But last night, I received eighty-six e-mails and phone messages calling for your head.

“What's especially troubling is that this recent conduct is somewhat similar to what landed you in jail in the first place. I thought you were a changed man, and I put my neck out there for you, Mace. And you've let me down.”

“I'm sorry, Sylvia. I really mean that.”

“I believe you. But that doesn't change what's happened.” Another big sigh. For the dean, it was the same thing as banging a gavel. “I'm going to suspend you immediately through the end of the school year. By that time, the state ethics investigation should be complete. I'm going to hold your position open, and you can reapply this summer along with other candidates. We'll wait to make a decision until after August 7.”

The implications weren't lost on Mace. August 7 was the new date for Antoine's execution. By then, the courts would have ruled on the substance of Mace's motion, and the state ethics investigation would be complete. Dean Ellison was giving him every chance to clear his name.

“Thank you,” Mace said.

“Most people never get a chance at redemption,” Dean Ellison said. “You've now been given two. Make the most of it this time.”

“I think you're making a mistake, Sylvia,” John Shaw piped in. “This thing won't die down unless we take decisive action.”

“I'm not interested in making this
thing
die down. I'm interested in doing the
right
thing.”

Shaw shook his head and frowned. Mace hoped the man would one day be in the hot seat himself. To a lawyer like Shaw, who had lived a charmed life, mercy was just a concept, one that constantly interfered with the true administration of justice. But for men like Mace, who had been forgiven much, mercy was like air. You couldn't survive without it.

47

Jimmy Brandywine was a loser in every sense of the word. He was soft and pasty with a chipped tooth and curly brown hair. Even at thirty-one years old, he couldn't grow a proper beard—just a few strands of chin hair. He had been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and had lashed out at his previous two lawyers when his medication hadn't been right. Prior to his arrest, he had lived with his mother and collected unemployment intermittently for fourteen months. The police busted him as part of a pornography sting and found hundreds of pictures of child porn on his computer.

Jimmy had been in jail for six months when, one month before trial, his new lawyer claimed Jimmy wasn't competent to assist in his own defense. Rowena Guilford, one of the hardest-working public defenders I knew, argued that Jimmy had been repeatedly abused by other prisoners. That abuse had aggravated his preexisting psychiatric issues, pushing him over the edge. According to her motion, Jimmy now thought the entire world had conspired against him—including his own lawyer. “The defendant can no longer separate his own psychotic ideations from reality and therefore is not competent to stand trial,” she wrote.

Shortly afterward, Dr. Aaron Gillespie evaluated Jimmy and declared that the defendant was fit to stand trial after all. The court agreed. And so, on Tuesday morning, the case began.

Judge Whitaker was a massive African American judge who was known to be deliberate and evenhanded. Following Rowena Guilford's advice, Jimmy had waived his right to a jury trial; judges generally went easier on pornography cases. But before Whitaker took the bench and called the court to order, Rowena approached me at counsel table. “I want to talk about a plea,” she said.

At any other time, this would have been expected. We had a can't-lose case—the police had conducted a lawful search of Brandywine's computer and found the pornographic pictures of underage girls. But in the past two weeks, not one defendant had attempted to cut a deal.

I tried to play it coy. “What's the use? We've got him dead to rights.”

Rowena frowned. “Cut the crap, Jamie. We all know things are out of control around here. My client's willing to step up, plead guilty, and put his life on the line when he walks outside those prison walls. He's asking you to recommend that the judge sentence him to three years and suspend all but the six months he's already served.”

I scoffed. “You want him to plead guilty and walk without serving another day?”

Rowena lowered her voice. “He's willing to play ball. I haven't had one client willing to play ball in almost three weeks. This could break the logjam, Jamie.” She hesitated and frowned, as if trying to talk herself into something. “Look, if you want him to serve a few more months, and you can make sure he's in isolation with a twenty-four-hour watch, I can probably work that, too.”

I looked around the courtroom. There were a few folks in the gallery, but nobody could hear us. The defendant had not yet been ushered in by the deputies. “You know I don't do pleas, Rowena. Especially not on pornography cases.”

“He didn't hurt anybody. He's a nonviolent offender.”

That made me bristle.
Didn't hurt anybody?
“There are photos of hundreds of naked girls on his computer, and some of them are eleven and twelve years old. Don't tell me he didn't hurt anybody.”

“That's not what I meant, Jamie. At least talk it over with your boss. This guy is getting abused so much in jail that he'll do anything to get out, even if people will be gunning for him once he does. We aren't going to have a perfect case to break this deadlock.”

“I'll see what I can do.”

I stepped out in the hallway and called Bill Masterson. I quickly filled him in on the details, expecting him to demand that I take the deal. Instead, he had the same concerns that I did.

“We can't make our first deal with a guy downloading child porn,” Masterson said. “We've been busting our butts for two weeks trying to keep up with this new caseload. We can't cave in now and start dishing out deals that we wouldn't have made before the defendants started this nonsense.”

“I agree,” I said quickly. “I just wanted to make sure you were on board.”

I relayed the message to Rowena, who said I was making a big mistake.

A few minutes later, when the trial started, Jimmy Brandywine pleaded guilty to the child pornography charges and took his chances with Judge Whitaker.

Both sides stipulated to the facts; then Rowena had Jimmy testify about how sorry he was for what he had done. Jimmy's mother took the stand and gave a sob story about the impact on her son's self-image from being laid off three times in the twelve months before his arrest. She had sacrificed on a fixed income so he could have a place to live. She slipped in testimony about how Jimmy had been abused in prison. I had seen it all a hundred times before—a mother's love for her son was willing to forgive all sins.

When it came time for our closing arguments, I urged Judge Whitaker to show no mercy. If it wasn't for men like Jimmy Brandywine, sex traffickers and Internet pornographers could not exist. Everybody in the chain was equally reprehensible, leading to the abuse of eleven- and twelve-year-old girls. Lots of men had been laid off from multiple jobs—that wasn't a license to prey on kids. “Some of these girls should be in the fifth grade, Your Honor.”
The fifth grade!
What kind of animal sits at his computer all day and stares at pictures of naked fifth graders?

“The state is suggesting an eight-year prison sentence without the possibility of parole,” I concluded. “We are also asking for an additional ten years of supervised release and that Mr. Brandywine be required to register as a sex offender when he's released from custody.”

I could hear Brandywine's mother gasp at my suggested sentence. Brandywine would be nearly forty years old by the time he got out. I would have asked for more if I thought Judge Whitaker would go for it.

When Rowena rose to argue, she reminded the court that Brandywine had no priors. He had taken full responsibility for his crimes and apologized to the court. “If it were left to Ms. Brock, every convicted felon would die in prison.” It was a cheap shot, but I didn't give her the satisfaction of a response.

“Let me address the elephant in the room,” Rowena continued. “No defendant has had the guts to come into a court in Milton County in the past two weeks and plead guilty to anything. None of my clients have done it. Everybody in this county knows that plea bargains and guilty pleas have become a thing of the past. Why? Because men like Mr. Brandywine, who are willing to take responsibility for their crimes, end up being killed within thirty-six hours of their release. As the court considers its sentence, I think the court should take into account the fact that Mr. Brandywine pleaded guilty today because it was the right thing to do, even though he is risking his life to do it.”

Judge Whitaker gave me a chance for rebuttal, and I went off. “Judge, I cannot believe what I just heard. This defendant—Jimmy Brandywine—just pleaded guilty to leering over hundreds of images of young girls on his computer, and now his attorney wants the court to treat him like some kind of hero? Ms. Guilford can't be serious! Just because the defendants in this county have entered a conspiracy to backlog the system doesn't mean we should reward somebody involved in child pornography.”

I calmed down. Took a breath. “Each one of these pictures is a separate crime. Ms. Guilford is right; I
do
want Your Honor to keep this man in jail for the rest of his life. Because this man is evil. And there's no guarantee that a man as selfish and exploitative as him will not prey on young girls again the day he gets out. But I know a life sentence isn't possible. Eight years is a bargain, Your Honor. Anything less is an insult to the lives of these young victims.”

When I sat down, Judge Whitaker made a face as if he didn't get paid enough to make these kinds of decisions. “Ms. Brock makes some very good points,” he said. “And as the DA's office knows, this court has been very tough on sex offenders in the past. But Ms. Guilford is also right. This defendant had a clean record before his arrest. And there are no allegations that he distributed child pornography or produced child pornography. As Ms. Guilford also suggests, this court must take into account the overcrowding of our county correction center and give this defendant some credit for coming forward and admitting his guilt. No other defendant has been brave enough to do that in any Milton County courtroom for the past two weeks.”

Whitaker stopped and made some notes on his yellow legal pad. I felt the hair on the back of my neck bristle. I knew I wasn't going to like the sentence.

“As Ms. Brock suggests, the court will require the defendant to register as a sex offender. In addition, the court will impose the eight-year sentence suggested by Ms. Brock but will suspend all but the six months that the defendant has already served. The court will require supervised probation for an additional two years and order payment of five thousand dollars into the Victim Restitution Fund.”

“Praise God,” I heard Brandywine's mother say behind me. I considered her comment blasphemous.

Judge Whitaker banged his gavel, and Guilford thanked the court for its ruling. I shook hands with Rowena, glared at Brandywine, and stalked out of the courtroom.

Things were out of control in Milton County. I couldn't remember another child pornography case where the defendant had gotten off so easy. The inmates were now officially running the asylum.

When I told Masterson about the verdict, he suggested we call the Milton County police and park a vehicle in front of Brandywine's house for the next few days. I reminded Masterson that Brandywine was a porn addict, not a city dignitary. But I knew Masterson was right. If anything happened to Brandywine, there wouldn't be another guilty plea in Milton County for months.

It was two o'clock on Wednesday morning when a phone call woke me out of my Ambien-induced sleep.

“You don't have to worry about Brandywine getting off easy,” LA said. “He and his mother just died in a house fire. They say the explosion was set off by a remote-controlled device.”

I sat up straight in bed and tried to clear the cobwebs out of my head. “I thought they put Brandywine under surveillance.”

“They did. But the explosive device was apparently planted in the house a couple of days ago.”