Broken: A story of hope and forgiveness

by Kevin Mark Smith

  *****

  “So what are your thoughts?” Jacob asked Barbara as he sat across from her at her desk, a very modest one made of solid oak and a high-backed swivel, cloth chair behind it. Two metal, four-legged chairs were on Jacob’s side; the many blemishes and dings on the surface of the desk and the thoroughly worn cloth padding on the chairs told him that every piece of furniture in Barbara’s office was not a day younger than twenty years old, and might possibly be older than the woman who worked there.

  It was a quarter past eleven, and she wasn’t in the mood for the confrontation that was sure to follow what she was about to tell him.

  “You picked a doozy,” she began. “Did you know the victim is the grandson of a friend of our newly-appointed sheriff?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  He had been relatively straightforward, trying to exude a sense of confidence, no matter how hopeless the case might be for his client. Her question made him slump; the sheriff’s personal interest in the case did not bode well for his client, he was certain.

  “Yeah, it’s true, and I’ve been given a very tight mandate from my boss. You’re not gonna like it.”

  “Don’t do this to me,” he almost begged. “We’ve done a few cases together, and you’ve always been fair.”

  “Sorry. Your guy’s gotta plead guilty on all counts. If he does, we’ll join in a recommendation of ten years prison, the maximum for the aggravated battery charge. He’s looking at double that if convicted by a jury. And that’s if he gets the judge’s sympathy, which I doubt. You’re free to argue for probation.”

  Jacob seethed in his chair, afraid to tell Barbara what he really felt. She had always been fair to him and his clients in the past, and the last thing he wanted to do was let his advocacy of a penniless client bleed over to the cases of more lucrative ones, the kind that pay their own fees and don’t rely on family and friends who promise that this will be the last time for such generosity. He shook his head vigorously from side to side. He squeaked out his reply—“That’s no deal at all,” which was much better than screaming it.

  “Your guy’s long history of drug and alcohol offenses, as well as DUI and a potpourri of other less serious offenses make me pretty confident that anything I get out of a trial will be much better than what I’m offering.” With that she sat back in her chair and took a sip of the caramel latte on her desk. She allowed a confident smile to spread across her lips. It was a look she’d given Jacob before, and is almost always set him off, compelling him to lose his temper and storm out of her office. She expected no less this time.

  Behind the smirk was the knowledge that her seemingly overconfident demeanor was actually a poker face, and that Jacob was woefully incapable of knowing all the thoughts that lay behind it. She had read the file, too, and knew very well that the deal she was offering was as likely as not to be the best outcome she could obtain at trial, as well. It was strategically employed to make Jacob believe her case was better than it actually was, a trick she had learned from Sun Tzu’s Art of War, a book she had read cover to cover in its English translation when she was in law school.

  Jacob’s face reddened, much more than when his client had insulted his professionalism. “That’s garbage, and you know it,” he almost yelled.

  “Sorry.”

  “You realize there are suppression issues here, right?”

  “Not many; certainly not enough to seriously hurt my case, at least as far as most of the felonies are concerned, the ones that will put your boy in prison for a very long time.” This much, she knew, was certainly true.

  “What’s the victim want out of this?”

  “What do you think?”

  Jacob, frustrated, grabbed his briefcase and stood up, turning his back to Barbara. He glanced over his shoulder and said, “Push me and you could end up with an acquittal.”

  Barbara didn’t bother to get up to shake hands goodbye. She continued to lean back in her chair as her smile widened. “That’s fine with me. Sounds fun. I haven’t had a trial in awhile. I’ve been a little too generous with sweet deals.”

  Jacob left, slamming the door shut, and stormed through the hallway leading to the exit, which happened to pass by the open door of the elected District Attorney’s office of Anthony Jackson, the man who was in charge of all prosecutions in Darkwell County.

  Anthony Jackson was an oddball in conservative, white-bred Oklahoma—he was the only African-American DA in the state. But Jackson had two magical qualities lacking in most attorneys, regardless of race: he was a genius and a former first-string quarterback and field general for the University of Oklahoma’s National Championship football team from ten years before. He had even played professional football for a couple of years before realizing he’d go a lot further with his mind than his athleticism. He was also an ordained minister, not to mention a rising star in the state’s Republican Party. Indeed, most well connected members of the community knew he was merely punching his clock at the DA’s office in preparation for a future run for national office, possibly for the United States House of Representative or Senate. The title “former tough-on-crime prosecutor” was an excellent first step.

  After catching Jacob’s huffing and puffing out of the corner of his eye, Jackson stood up and walked to Barbara’s office. As he walked through the door, his physical stature was apparent. Standing roughly six-foot-seven and still built like a tank without an ounce of body fat, his bulk took up much of the space within the doorframe. In a courtroom such a naturally domineering presence had the effect of humbling even the most obnoxious and pretentious attorneys, and it often turned the shorter ones—those who tended to compensate for their lack of physical presence with extra loud, obnoxious voices and physical expressions via a sort of Napoleon complex—into total buffoons as their overcompensation grew even more grotesque in his presence. Genes, it seemed, gave him advantages on and off the football field.

  “What was that all about?” his booming baritone voice asked Barbara after he let himself into her office; his voice seemed loud even when he spoke softly.

  She grinned and sipped her lukewarm latte. “He’s pretty miffed, huh?”

  “I’d say so.”

  “Good.”

  Jackson sat down in the very same chair Jacob had been in. “So you stood by your guns?”

  “Of course. You didn’t give me much choice.”

  “You don’t fool me,” he chuckled, his voice rumbling behind closed lips as he tried to suppress all-out laughter. It seemed in bad taste given the circumstances. “You’re the last person in this office who wants to cut deals. You wouldn’t cut any if it were up to you.”

  “True, but I can blame this one on you, right?”

  “If it helps.”

  “You up for lunch?” Jackson asked.

  “Only if you’re buying.”

  “Let’s go.”