The Last Plea Bargain (29 page)

67

Mace James spent the days after Antoine Marshall's execution trying to make good on his oath to vindicate his dead client's name. Mace was no psychiatrist, and he didn't know the DSM-IV criteria for an obsessive disorder, but he was pretty sure his focus on Antoine Marshall qualified. He had other clients, but he spent nearly every waking hour working on Antoine's case. Something wasn't right about this case, but after all these years, Mace still couldn't put his finger on it. Now Antoine was dead. Yet how could he just close out the file? What if he had allowed an innocent man to die?

He started by rereading the entire case file, looking at the matter from a different perspective. In the past few years, he had focused on errors in the trial court's rulings in order to get his client a new trial. But now he searched the file for clues about who the real killer might be, the way he had when he first got involved in the case. Once the police had zeroed in on Antoine, they had never really pursued the kinds of questions Mace was re-asking now.

What if this wasn't a random breaking and entering? Who might want Laura Brock dead? What if the real target was Robert Brock? Who were his enemies?

Mace started running down all the cases where Laura Brock had testified. Next, he looked at the high-profile cases that Robert Brock handled. And because he had always been suspicious of Snowden, he started studying her other decisions as well. Why had she bent over backward to protect Robert Brock? What did she have against Caleb Tate? What other cases had Caleb handled in front of Snowden?

He did some additional digging into the scientific research in order to understand how Marshall could have passed a lie detector test but failed the BEOS. He called some scientists in India who were on the forefront of the BEOS procedure and who swore to its reliability. Lie detector tests, on the other hand, had well-known credibility problems.

Mace had downplayed the reliability of the BEOS test to Antoine during his client's final days because it seemed like the right thing to do. But now, the more he researched, the more Mace became convinced that the BEOS test was reliable. Maybe Antoine had it right. Maybe he had been so drugged that he had no conscious memory of that night and could pass a polygraph. But Mace couldn't talk himself into closing the file just based on the BEOS test. Not yet. Maybe not ever. Mace had watched a client die. He couldn't just move on to the next case while he still had doubts.

One thing that intrigued Mace was the number of times Caleb Tate's clients had passed a polygraph. That fact, coupled with Tate's own on-air performance on the lie detector, caused Mace to investigate Dr. Stanley Feldman, the polygraph expert who had tested Tate.

Mace left no stone unturned. He spent hours combing through files in the Milton County clerk's office. He went to the jail and interviewed defendants who had been involved in the cases. He talked to lawyers and expert witnesses and made charts and spreadsheets about what he found. He went to bed thinking about his research and woke up with new ideas to pursue.

He felt close to a breakthrough, like he was onto something, something that eluded him, something just beyond his reach. But he couldn't quite figure it out. And sadly, even if he did, it would all come too late to save his client's life.

68

I felt myself spinning out of control the week before the biggest trial of my life. Like any young lawyer, I always got nervous before an important case. But this was different. I was so jittery I could hardly concentrate or get anything done.

Part of it was my certainty that Tate would figure out a way to inject the information about Judge Snowden and my father into the case. Even if he didn't take the stand and testify, he would leak it to the press. He would also let them know that he had shared the information with me nearly three months ago and I had been sitting on it even when Antoine Marshall was executed. Tate would figure out a way to turn the tables so he wouldn't be the only one on trial. I would join him. And so would my dad.

There were times during the week when I thought about the trial, imagined all the terrible things that could happen, and felt my heart start racing, my breathing becoming short and shallow. I checked my pulse and a few times found my heart beating over 150 times per minute. When it happened at work, I closed my office door and sat at my desk, eyes closed, forcing myself to calm down. At home, I would pace back and forth or lie down on the bed until I relaxed enough to think straight.

I took Lunexor at night and muscle relaxers during the day. I told myself that these anxieties were no different from the nervousness an athlete experiences before a big game. Once the trial started, I would be all right.

But I had been an athlete, and I had never experienced anything like this. At times I honestly thought I was losing my mind.

It got worse when LA and I prepared Rivera for his testimony via Skype. Not surprisingly, the man came across as surly and defensive. “He's lying,” LA said as soon as we hung up.

I had my own suspicions, but I was hoping we were both wrong. “How could you tell?”

LA looked at me for a moment as if trying to weigh whether he should further destroy my confidence.

“Tell me,” I insisted.

He shrugged. “You asked.”

We had been using his computer for Skype, and I didn't realize he'd had a software program recording the video. For the next thirty minutes, he played back portions of Rivera's testimony. He pointed out microexpressions that had flashed across Rivera's face. He showed me a graph of pacing and voice pitch that his software program had computed. Rivera's word flow slowed and his pitch changed when he answered questions about providing drugs to Caleb Tate.

“The most reliable signals of deception come from the cognitive efforts and emotions that surround a lie. It takes more mental horsepower to construct a lie than to remember the truth,” LA explained. “As a result, our pace and pitch change in ways that are usually imperceptible to the naked ear. But a computer program can pick it up.”

The most fascinating clues were the nonverbal signals Rivera gave off. LA called it “duping delight”—the joy a sociopath takes in deception. “Look at that—did you see that sinister little smile flash across his face?”

He was right. It wasn't something I had noticed in real time, but I could see it when LA ran the tape in slow motion. “He's playing us,” LA said. “Caleb Tate may be guilty. But this guy is lying through his teeth.”

The whole experience created more anxiety for me. I couldn't prove Rivera was lying, but I knew in my gut that LA was right. And so Jamie Brock, the by-the-book prosecutor, the woman who valued integrity and justice above all else, the same woman who had recently withheld information from Mace James, was getting ready to put a lying witness on the stand in a high-profile murder case.

But how could we win the case without him?

69

Of all the luck. There were nine judges in Milton County Superior Court, and we ended up with the one judge who had a personal stake in the matter. And the way she glared at me from the bench, she acted like the entire case was my fault.

One bizarre ruling followed another, and I seemed to be the only one in the courtroom who noticed. Tate would object, and the judge would sustain the objection automatically. If I tried to object, she told me to sit down. Masterson, sitting next to me, was too busy jotting notes for his cross-examination of Caleb Tate to pay it any mind.

And then it dawned on me. I had been so focused on my dad's results in front of Judge Snowden that I had never checked on Tate's. What if Tate had wised up after the Antoine Marshall trial? What if he had started paying off Snowden like the other defense lawyers? Or started blackmailing her, or whatever it was my dad had been doing?

It suddenly made sense—the rulings against me, Tate being allowed to strut around the courtroom and say whatever he wanted. I now knew how Tate must have felt all those years ago trying to defend Antoine Marshall and fighting the judge as well.

Things turned truly bizarre when Tate took the stand and Masterson said he had no questions. I stood and objected. I had questions myself! But Masterson was pulling on my elbow, and Snowden was yelling at me to sit down, over and over, her shrill voice drowning out my questions.

Tate started laughing, a truly heinous laugh, taunting me, mocking justice.

And then, when I had reached the breaking point, the alarm broke through. I sat straight up, my heart pounding. I reached over to the nightstand, found my BlackBerry, and turned it off. I struggled to get my bearings.

Relief and dread flooded me at once. Relief that it was all a dream. Dread because part of it could still become reality. We wouldn't know the judge for our case until Monday morning. And we had a one-in-nine chance of drawing Snowden.

Masterson and I had talked about it at length. If we drew Snowden, we would request a meeting with her and Tate in chambers to tell her about Tate's anticipated cross-examination of Rivera. Snowden would probably be furious, but we guessed that she would ultimately recuse herself. In the process, Masterson's investigation of the judge would have lost the element of surprise.

Sitting in my bed, I forced myself to calm down. Justice, lying on the floor, made a sleep noise, a dog grunt that told me to go back to sleep.

Not on your life.
I was exhausted, but I got up anyway. Going through the day bone-tired was better than facing the nightmares.

By Thursday night I realized that if I couldn't stop the anxiety attacks, I would be of no use at trial. As usual, Aaron Gillespie agreed to juggle his schedule so he could see me.

For nearly an hour, I unloaded all of my concerns. We hadn't been able to prove any affairs by Tate. Our only witness tying him to the drugs was probably lying. The issues about my dad and Judge Snowden. My own role in the execution of Antoine Marshall. The loneliness I felt. The guilt.

Gillespie listened patiently and reminded me that I was under a tremendous amount of pressure. He said I had never properly mourned my dad and that it was catching up with me. “But considering the circumstances, I actually think you're handling things quite well,” he said.

It helped to hear his calm reassurance. And he had some thoughts about managing the trial pressures as well.

“Have you ever heard about Advanced Performance Imagery?” Gillespie asked.

“I've heard of it.”

I had once been an elite kayaker, finishing fourth in the Olympic trials. I knew several of my competitors used API as a sort of “mental steroid” to enhance their performance.

“It's the company that's trained a lot of professional and Olympic athletes,” Gillespie said. “I guess you never worked with them.”

“No. I had enough self-confidence on my own.”

I thought groups like API were for athletes with inferior willpower who freaked out during intense competition. The whole idea smacked of Eastern religion and hypnosis to me. I never needed any of that. Or at least I didn't think I did.

For the next few minutes, Gillespie talked to me about the idea behind what he called “neurolinguistic programming.”

“What you practice in your mind, you perfect in reality.” He explained how numerous athletes had trained their minds for success through visualization. Mary Lou Retton had employed a hypnotherapist named Gil Boyne prior to her 1984 gold-medal performance. Mark McGwire used visualization techniques—along with some less benign assistance—to set the home-run record in 1998. Gillespie ticked off a list of other famous athletes and coaches who used similar approaches to find “the zone.” He had worked with several athletes himself.

“I know you're going to hate this,” he said, “but I want you to try something.”

He asked me to lie down on the couch and close my eyes. “You've been envisioning every bad thing that's going to happen next week,” he explained. “I want to teach you a few relaxation techniques and then help you reprocess this trial in your mind.”

The whole thing felt a little weird, but I was willing to give it a try. He had me concentrate on my breathing and took me through a protocol of relaxing each muscle in my body, one at a time. He had me picture various parts of the trial—my opening statement, the examination of witnesses, handling Caleb Tate's antics. I imagined the jury handing the verdict slip to the judge. Deep breaths. Slow. Keep the pulse under control. Purposefully focus on each muscle. Relax.

“Control, Jamie. It's all about control.”

I envisioned a guilty verdict, and despite my skepticism, I had to admit that this was the most relaxed I had felt all week. I left Gillespie's office glad that I had taken the time to meet with him. I had almost talked myself out of it. But now, I at least had some tools for when the anxiety hit the hardest.

I used them on Friday at 3 p.m. when we found out who the trial judge was. It wasn't Snowden, but it was nearly as bad.

“Your old buddy Harold Brown,” Regina Granger told me. The judge who had held me in contempt. One of the clerks had given Regina a heads-up. “Let's try to keep it civil,” Regina said.

Deep breaths,
I told myself.
And think positive.