The Last Plea Bargain

by Randy Singer

  Masterson showed no emotion, even when I detailed the statistics implicating my own dad. He had a few questions—the same ones I had already answered to my own satisfaction—about my father’s success rate in front of other judges and whether this might just be an aberration. Then he took off his sunglasses and rubbed his face for a minute, deep in thought. He noticed what he thought was a nibble on his line and quickly jumped up, jerked the fishing rod, and reeled in the line.

  “Nothing,” he said. He cast it out again before he sat back down.

  “I wish you had said something earlier,” he said. “But you did the right thing coming to me before the execution.”

  He leaned forward and looked out over the lake again. “It’s in my hands now, Jamie. I can make some decisions that you can’t make without being accused of protecting your father and trying to make sure your mother’s killer doesn’t get another reprieve or even a new trial.”

  “I appreciate that, but it’s not why I told you—”

  “I know that,” Masterson interrupted. “But you’re not the first person to make these kinds of allegations about Judge Snowden.” He let that thought seep in before he continued. “I’ve already started a below-the-radar investigation on her. I’ll add this to the file.”

  Add this to the file? It wasn’t the reaction I had expected. Prosecutors had a duty to share exculpatory information with defense attorneys.

  “Don’t we need to tell Mace James?”

  Masterson shook his head. “Not until we confirm some kind of link between these defense attorneys and Snowden that’s based on more than just statistics and conjecture. Case results are public information. James could have figured this out on his own. Maybe he already has. Besides, I can’t let our investigation of Snowden hit the press just yet. And don’t worry; your dad’s cases haven’t come up in that investigation.”

  His approach made me uncomfortable, but I reminded myself that I had come to Masterson for precisely this reason—because he saw the big picture.

  “She’ll find out about it anyway in a few weeks,” I reminded him. “If we put Rafael Rivera on the stand, Tate will use it on cross-examination.”

  Bill Masterson took a deep breath and looked straight at me. “With what you’ve just told me, we can’t go to trial against Tate. He’d destroy us. Not only would his cross-examination of Rivera be devastating, he’d be able to put into evidence the fact that he told you about these matters two months before the execution of Antoine Marshall and that you just sat on them until after he died.”

  “It’s not too late,” I said. “We could still give this stuff to Mace James and take away that argument.”

  “I’m sorry, Jamie, but not after you’ve been sitting on it this long. The courts would have a field day with that. Plus, it would compromise my investigation of Snowden.” He shook his head. “Caleb Tate is a big fish, but there are bigger fish out there. I know you don’t like this part of what we do, but we’re always making choices. And this one’s pretty clear. We preserve our investigation against Snowden, protect your father’s reputation, and make sure Antoine Marshall gets exactly what’s coming to him.”

  “But what about Caleb Tate? He’s the reason every defendant in Milton County has quit plea-bargaining. Not to mention the deaths of the ones who did.”

  Masterson didn’t respond immediately. When he did, his tone was low and reassuring. He didn’t want a debate. And he wasn’t the one who had been withholding the information for two months.

  “We don’t know that for sure. But if he is behind these recent killings, we’ll eventually catch him. Somebody will talk; somebody will slip up. They always do.”

  “And if they don’t?”

  Masterson looked at his line. “Jamie, you ever go fishing?”

  “No. I don’t like taking the hook out of the fish’s mouth.”

  “Well then, let me tell you the first rule about fishing. Even the best fishermen don’t catch ’em all.”

  I understood exactly what he meant. But in typical Bill Masterson style, he left nothing to chance.

  “And neither do we,” he said.

  60

  Thanks to Atlanta traffic, I had a four-hour drive home to think about what Bill Masterson had said. Before I left, he agreed to leave the overall investigation of Caleb Tate open but said we had to nol-pros the pending case since we were only three weeks from trial. If we obtained new corroborating evidence linking Tate to the drugs, we could reindict.

  I called LA as I approached Alpharetta, and he agreed to meet me at a local Starbucks. I thought I owed him a face-to-face explanation.

  He sipped on a latte and listened without expression as I described my meeting with Masterson. There was a long and awkward silence when I finished.

  He ringed the top of his glass with his finger and said softly, “I thought we agreed to keep that information to ourselves. At the very least, I didn’t think you’d go to Masterson without letting me know.”

  I shifted in my seat. I was tired of apologizing to everybody for doing the right thing. And I was still thinking about the letter I had been handed in the Peachtree Road Race. Was LA really disappointed, or was he just acting the part?

  “The letter from Marshall changed things. It made me realize that I couldn’t just sit on this information and let him get the needle. That’s not the way I do things.”

  “But that’s what’s going to happen anyway. Except now your boss is going to sit on it, and the price of him doing that is that Caleb Tate walks free.”

  “It’s out of my hands,” I said.

  “Is it? I don’t know much about the politics of the DA’s office, but I do know one thing: you’re the biggest story in that office right now. If the press had its way, they’d just declare you a saint and get it over with. Even judges who hold you in contempt get skewered. If you insisted on something, Masterson wouldn’t cross you.”

  I thought LA was overestimating my popularity, but I could see his point. I also knew he had worked so hard on nailing Caleb Tate that he couldn’t let it go. And frankly, neither could I.

  LA had interviewed more than forty witnesses. We had put together a compelling case of financial motive, marital disputes, and eerie similarities with the Kendra Van Wyck case. Trial was only three weeks away. But it still all hinged on the testimony of Rafael Rivera.

  “We can still make the case if we can get some corroborating evidence on Tate’s access to the drugs,” I said.

  LA frowned. “That’s just a bone Masterson threw to you. Doing that is impossible, and he knows it.”

  I spent nearly an hour with LA at the Starbucks before I excused myself. I had to go home and take care of Justice. I left feeling unsettled, and I could tell that LA felt the same. The chemistry from our prior times together was gone. It had been replaced by a battle of wills between two professionals who no longer seemed to entirely trust each other.

  I couldn’t shut my brain down that night even after taking an Ambien. I was tormented by the thought of Caleb Tate winning this legal battle without ever going to trial and even more by the possibility that my father had been walking on the dark side of the law. But those concerns, grave as they were, took a backseat to the one vision that literally made me sick. In five days, I would be standing in a small room at the Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Jackson, watching medical technicians inject a deadly mixture of sodium thiopental, pancuronium, and potassium chloride into Antoine Marshall’s veins. How could I stand there in silence, knowing that there was evidence that might provide a legal defense? But how could I turn over that evidence when I had been ordered by the DA not to and when I knew that doing so might free my mother’s killer?

  I had nightmares about the execution on both Thursday and Friday nights and woke up in a cold sweat Friday and Saturday mornings. Even during the day, I couldn’t get my mind off the impending execution of Marshall. It wasn’t just my dad’s reputation or my obligation to the system that kept my stomach in a kno
t; it was my belief in a God who rewarded those who honored him and punished those who didn’t. Even if we never tried Caleb Tate and the allegations about my father never came out, God would know that I had this information and had stood idly by while Antoine Marshall was put to death.

  Late Saturday afternoon, I called Masterson and shared my concerns. “Whether or not we try Caleb Tate, I think we’ve got a duty to share this information with Mace James,” I said.

  “You’re too close to the case to make that call,” Masterson said evenly. “You did the right thing by bringing it to me. I’m having some people double-check your results. If the data holds up, I’ll share it with the AG’s office first thing Monday because they’re the ones handling the appeal. I’ll let them know I’m concerned about jeopardizing the investigation of Judge Snowden, but if they decide it’s exculpatory and material evidence, they should disclose it. In my view, the appellate courts have already ruled that Snowden acted appropriately in this case. I don’t view this as exculpatory evidence. I think it would be just another red herring for Mace James to carry on about.”

  “Shouldn’t we at least ask the AG’s office to agree to a stay pending the results of the Snowden investigation?” I asked.

  “Jamie, you’re the last person I thought I’d be saying this to, but this man’s had plenty of stays over the last eleven years. There’s always going to be some new piece of information or a different angle the courts haven’t considered. At some point, we’ve got to let the authorities finish the job.”

  When I hung up, I still had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. Masterson was playing this like the ultimate politician—taking his time and then passing the buck to the AG’s office. By the time they got the information on Monday morning, it would be too late to verify much of anything, and they would probably decide the information wasn’t material.

  On Saturday night, I called my brother and asked him to explain again why he had signed an affidavit trying to get Antoine Marshall’s death penalty commuted to a life sentence. This time, I was ready to listen.

  He said a lot of things, but my mind was racing so fast that I couldn’t really concentrate on most of it. It was the usual stuff about our duty to forgive and the state’s inconsistent application of the death penalty and the fact that he believed Antoine Marshall was a changed man. All of that I had heard before. But he quoted a Bible verse I never knew existed, and it was the one thing that stayed with me long after our conversation: “Judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.”

  At eleven o’clock on Saturday evening, I picked up the phone and did the unthinkable. I called Mace James and asked him for a meeting first thing Sunday morning.

  61

  Mace James hit End Call and stared at his phone. He had slept a total of six hours in the last two nights, and he felt like he was close to delirium. But there was no doubt he had just heard exactly what he thought he had heard. Out of the blue, Jamie Brock had called and wanted to meet first thing Sunday morning.

  It was a miracle of biblical proportions. He hadn’t felt this jazzed since he was allowed to walk out of prison a free man years ago.

  Jamie wouldn’t say what she wanted, but he knew she wouldn’t request a meeting just to reiterate her desire to see Antoine Marshall die. Chris Brock had already signed an affidavit asking the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to commute Antoine’s sentence. At the very least, Mace was hoping Jamie would join that request.

  Antoine had sent his letters of apology to Jamie and Chris Brock without first checking with Mace. When Mace confronted him, Antoine said he’d sent them without asking because he knew Mace would oppose the letters. For the last several days, as his Tuesday execution deadline grew closer, Antoine had taken on an air of grim resolution. This time, he said, there would be no stay.

  Until now, Mace couldn’t argue otherwise. He had run out of tricks. Even with the fertile and creative minds at Knight and Joyner helping out, Mace couldn’t come up with a single legal issue that might get the court’s attention.

  And so it had come down to seeking mercy from the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles. They had already denied him four months ago. But if Mace could get affidavits from the only two surviving family members . . .

  He had arranged for Jamie to meet him at the Southeastern Law School library at 7 a.m. He could no longer use his office at the school and so, like a first-year law student, he had his books, papers, and computer spread over a carrel in the far recesses of the book stacks. He was not looking forward to another night of coffee and Red Bull, drafting motions and briefs that might never be read.

  When I arrived at Professor James’s study carrel on Sunday morning, he was slouched over the desk with his head on his arms, sound asleep. The study lamp was shining on his bald head, and he was snoring loud enough to echo against the bookshelves.

  I placed a hand on his shoulder and nudged him. Nothing. I shook a little harder, and his head popped up. He rubbed his hands down his face and shook his head like a dog drying off.

  “Thanks for coming,” he said, his voice scratchy. He checked his watch and looked up at me with bloodshot eyes. “You want to go get some coffee at the student center?”

  “Sure.”

  The student center snack shop was closed, but the vending machines dispensed coffee as thick as oil, and Professor James brewed a big cup. I went for an orange juice from another machine. We sat down at a table, and James slurped his coffee. Steam rose from the cup.

  He looked like death. He had dark circles under his bloodshot eyes, and he probably hadn’t shaved in three days. He had on a black T-shirt and board shorts, and he smelled like the men’s locker room.

  “I really appreciate you coming,” he said. “I honestly never thought I would get a chance to talk to you one on one.”

  He took another slurp of coffee, and I sensed that he was just getting warmed up. “I’ve never had a chance to tell you how sorry I am that you lost your mother and now your father,” he continued. His eyes were still only half-open, but they radiated sympathy. “I’m sorry I have to be the one representing the man accused of killing your mother, and I can understand why you would despise me for doing that. But somebody’s got to. And I’ve watched you work the other side of cases. I know you appreciate the fact that when you do something, you have to do it with everything you’ve got.”

  “You’re doing your job,” I said. “I don’t have to like it.”

  “I don’t expect you to. But I also know you didn’t come here just to give me a lecture.”

  I didn’t care for this man, and his apology did little to change my mind. Yes, he had a job to do. But that job did not include threatening a witness and beating him up just to get him to lie for Antoine Marshall. Yet he was right—I wasn’t here out of respect or even revulsion for Mace James. I was here because I wanted to be able to live with myself.

  “I’m willing to sign an affidavit requesting that your client’s punishment be commuted from the death penalty to life in prison. I’m not as gullible as Chris, and I don’t believe for a second that your client is a changed man. But I appreciate the fact that he’s taking responsibility for this crime. That ought to count for something.”

  Professor James stared at me for a moment, his droopy eyes registering his disbelief. After all, I was the cold-blooded prosecutor who was rumored to have ice in her veins. James probably thought Chris had guilt-tripped me into this. In truth, it seemed like the only way out.

  I couldn’t tell Mace James about the evidence implicating Judge Snowden without risking my job for insubordination. Plus, I didn’t want Antoine Marshall to get a new trial. At the same time, I couldn’t just sit back and do nothing. This approach seemed to be a reasonable compromise, the best I could do under the circumstances.

  “It takes a big person to step up and change direction like that—”

  “Spare me,” I said. “If you have someone bring the affidav
it to my house today, I’ll sign it. I’m not saying your client shouldn’t be punished. But I’m willing to help you save his life.”

  Mace James looked down at his coffee and seemed to be thinking hard about what he should say next. He gave me a tentative look and chose his words carefully. “I know you said to spare you the accolades, but it does take a lot of guts to do this. My client will be very grateful. And, Jamie, he and I are both very sorry.”

  “I appreciate that,” I said. “And I hope this will at least prevent any more surprise affidavits from jailhouse snitches.”

  “I think I’ve learned my lesson.”

  62

  Regina Granger met me at the office on Monday morning and asked for a few minutes of my time. She closed the door and said she had cleared my schedule for the week. I had already planned on taking Tuesday off, which was the date for Marshall’s execution, as well as the day after. But she had reassigned all of my cases that week to other ADAs.

  “You’re under a lot of pressure right now, and you need some time away,” she said. I wondered how much Bill Masterson had told her.

  I started to protest, but the matter was not open for debate. When I realized I couldn’t change her mind, I thanked her for taking care of things. She gave me a big Regina Granger hug and then held the outsides of my arms.

  “Jamie, there’s already been a lot of talk around the office about the affidavit you signed. You’re probably aware that Mace James is making the media rounds. For what it’s worth, I think you did the right thing.”

  I nodded and told her how much I appreciated her support. But it bothered me that my colleagues were talking.

  “The press will try to interview you today,” Regina said. “You can do whatever you want—this is a personal matter—but I don’t think you need to throw any more fuel on the fire.”

  “They’ll have to find me first,” I said. “And that’s just to get a ‘no comment.’”