The Last Plea Bargain (17 page)

37

The newspaper ran a short article about the killing at the Milton County Correctional Facility. It was buried on page three of the local section and was short on details. The deputies managed to keep a lid on the fact that the prisoners had cut out Ricky Powell's tongue and that Powell was the only defendant who had followed through with his guilty plea on Tuesday.

My colleagues had lots of theories about the plea rejections. Most favored the idea that the gang leaders in jail had found out that I would be the one accepting the pleas. In retaliation for my past refusal to cut deals, maybe they had instructed every defendant to sabotage the deals we had offered. When Powell didn't come through, they cut out his tongue.

It was a symbolic killing, meant to send a message—there was no doubt about that. But what was the message?

On Wednesday night, I slept with a loaded single-action .45 Kimber Pro Carry II next to my bed. I had bought it during my third year of law school at a gun shop in Gainesville after I got tangled up with some members of the federal witness protection program. I also made a point to stay away from the large window in my father's study at the front of the house. I didn't take a sleeping pill because I was worried that I wouldn't wake up if somebody tried to break in. I knew Justice would bark like crazy, but if somebody actually made it inside, my black Lab would just try to lick him to death. For protection, I preferred the Kimber.

It was a long night. Between missing my father, thinking about Rafael Rivera, trying to work on Tate's case, and knowing that gang leaders might now be targeting me, I was so wired I could barely sleep. I struggled to get through the next day, and by Thursday night, I was in dire need of sleep. Shortly after midnight, I finally succumbed and popped two Ambien. I was late for work Friday morning.

By noon on Friday, we knew my courtroom experience earlier in the week was not an isolated event. There had been no plea hearings on Wednesday, but every defendant scheduled to cop a plea on Thursday had backed out even though a different ADA had handled them. The public defenders had grown as jittery as the prosecutors and spent Thursday afternoon meeting with each defendant who was scheduled to plead guilty on Friday morning. All but one backed out on the spot.

On Friday, the only holdout, Rontavius Eastbrook, pleaded guilty to a lesser included crime in exchange for a reduced sentence based on his past cooperation with police on a major sting operation. After the court accepted his deal, Rontavius was escorted directly from the courtroom to the district attorney's office for processing. He was being released on time served and, in a deviation from prior procedures, was not sent back to the jail for processing. He was asked if he wanted police protection but scoffed at the idea.

I got the text message on Saturday night, right after I finished my workout at the gym. Rontavius Eastbrook had been found dead in an alley in the projects. He died from a bullet wound to the back of the head.

38

On Monday morning, there were no plea bargains on the docket. Instead, Bill Masterson called a meeting for all prosecutors. Unless we had to be in court, we were expected to be in the main conference room at 10 a.m. sharp.

In my three years at the prosecutor's office, I'd never seen an in-house meeting start precisely on time. But when I arrived a few minutes before ten, every seat was taken, and I had to stand along a side wall with several of my colleagues. There was a buzz of excitement and a good deal of nervous energy. Most of us had become prosecutors because we were crusaders; we wanted to right wrongs. We saw recent developments as a frontal attack on the integrity of the criminal justice system, and we weren't about to let the inmates run the asylum.

Admittedly, a few prosecutors took the opposite approach. They believed the only way to break this logjam was to divide and conquer. They wanted to target a Latino gang and offer some sweet deals to get the wheels of justice grinding again. Once the African Americans learned that the Latinos were getting preferential treatment, they would want in on the action. It was the law of supply and demand; we just had to price the deals right. I thought it was the dumbest idea I had ever heard.

Masterson walked into the meeting five minutes late, and the chatter quickly died down. He took a seat at the end of the table. Regina Granger stood behind him.

The boss surveyed the room and gave a slight nod to most of us. These were the troops he had hand-selected, and you could read the look on his face—
If I'm going to war, I want you men and women to go with me
. He took a deep breath before he began.

“I guess you've heard by now that the inmates have decided to play an interesting little game of chicken,” he said. “I always knew this job would be a little harder if they ever unionized.”

The remark drew a few smiles, but Masterson remained serious. “We're still trying to get to the bottom of who's behind all this, and we have our suspicions. But that's not why I called this meeting. Regardless of how or why this started, it's the new reality, and we've got to deal with it.”

There were a number of theories flying around the office about how the inmates had gotten organized. Some focused on the gang leaders, and the deputies had now put them all in isolation. Many of us suspected that Caleb Tate was involved. The pleas had started falling apart soon after he was locked up, and his firm had suddenly begun representing two of the gang leaders. But nobody was talking.

“We're squeezing the gang leaders and threatening them with new charges,” Masterson continued. “But until somebody blinks, we've basically got three choices. Some say we should single out the weakest inmates and give them blue-light specials—deals they can't refuse. Part of the problem with that approach is that we'd have to use precious law enforcement assets to protect them once they get out. A plea bargain looks decidedly less appealing if you know you only get to live twenty-four hours after your release.

“A second approach is to nol-pros all the nonviolent offenders. We've got limited resources. The public defender's office has limited resources. Under this plan, we'd set the druggies free and just prosecute the rapists and murderers. That feels to me like we're conceding defeat, and I'm not a big fan of playing dead before the first shot is fired.”

Not to mention the fact that it might be a little hard to explain on the campaign trail,
I thought.

“There is a third alternative. We let them know that two can play this game. We bust our butts and prosecute every one of 'em to the full extent of the law. We cut no deals until further notice with anybody in Milton County. If they want to plead guilty with no promise of leniency and save themselves a trial, well . . . maybe they could talk us into that. But otherwise, we do the job the taxpayers pay us to do.”

There were determined looks on most of the faces in the room, but there were also some skeptics. Even if we worked around the clock, there was no way we could get
all
the cases to trial on a timely basis. And even if
we
could, the public defender's office would have no incentive to play along. Public defenders loved to complain about how overworked they were and how little budget they had. They would claim they couldn't adequately prepare all of these cases, and if we got convictions, the appeals would clog up the courts for years.

“Have you run the numbers on this, Bill?” one of the senior ADAs asked. “I mean, I'm willing to do whatever it takes, but we frankly don't have the staff to pull this off.”

“I know that,” Masterson replied. “And I know the PD's office faces an even greater challenge. But I've given that some thought. I could ask our state legislators for emergency legislation that would allow us to hire lawyers from private firms as part-time prosecutors. They can already volunteer to help the public defenders. We could put a lot of pressure on all the big Atlanta firms and give them some positive publicity when they send us their young guns for one day a week. If we publicize the names of the firms, we could have fifty new prosecutors by the end of the month.”

“I don't know,” ADA Larry Hinson said. He had a reputation for being the last guy in each morning and one of the first to leave at night. “It'd take too long to train them. They won't know what they're doing. Most of the big-firm lawyers have never seen the inside of a courtroom.”

Masterson stared him down. “You got a better idea, Larry? Because I've got lots of people who can help me identify the problems. I'm interested in solutions.”

Larry shrugged. “I like the first option. Divide and conquer.”

“Not me,” I said. Heads swiveled in my direction. “This is why I came to work here. I saw Mr. Masterson try the man who murdered my mother, and I knew that this was more than just a job for him. And that was not an easy case. To be honest, I don't know if I would have survived if somebody hadn't stood up for our family and put Antoine Marshall behind bars.”

The room was still. Everybody in the office knew about my history, but I had never played the victim card once in the last four years. I was playing it now.

“If we back down from this, it's just a matter of time before they do it again. And I'm not willing to look a rape victim or the family members of a murder victim in the eyes and tell them that the man who committed that crime is getting a deal because we've offered some blue-light specials. All because we're not willing to work around the clock and train a few private-firm lawyers. So . . . I don't know. I've probably already said too much, but I think we ought to do the job we're getting paid to do.”

The room became uncomfortably quiet while Masterson glanced around. “Anybody else want to say anything?” he asked. “I'm not putting this up for a vote, but I want your input.”

I had mentored two first-year prosecutors who were sitting on the opposite side of the room. One at a time, they spoke up and echoed my concerns. The rookies were all in.

A soft-spoken man named Al, a guy who had dedicated his professional life to the Milton County DA's office, spoke next. He said he didn't think we could ethically do anything other than prosecute these men and women to the full extent of the law. In the old days, he used to handle three times as many cases as he was handling now. And he was ready to step up.

One by one, my fellow prosecutors spoke in support of Masterson's third proposal. A few of my more dramatic colleagues even got a little choked up when they reminisced about the reasons they had come to this office in the first place. By the time the last person spoke, we were ready to storm the beaches. At least most of us were. A few lawyers stayed conspicuously silent, and Larry stared at a spot on the floor. No more two-hour lunches.

“I guess that settles it,” Masterson said. “There's never been a good time to commit a crime in Milton County. But God help anyone who breaks the law right now.”

39

Our enthusiasm for locking up the bad guys and throwing away the keys lasted less than a week.

The deputization of private-firm attorneys proved problematic for a number of reasons. The state legislature took its time debating the idea, and it became clear that the Democrats didn't want to make a Republican attorney general nominee look like a hero.

In the meantime, Masterson had encouraged us to begin the training process with two or three private-firm associates each while we awaited legislative approval. That made my job twice as hard. Much of a prosecutor's work is done in her office or in the hallways of the courthouse. Having another lawyer tag along only complicated things and, because the defense attorneys wanted to look tough for the new kids, made working with the defense bar even tougher.

But the plan's true Achilles' heel became apparent when private-firm attorneys showed up to be appointed as lawyers for the defendants. The prisoners had been well coached by somebody. They would all ask their new lawyers how many years of experience they had trying criminal cases. The prisoners would then object to the judge's appointing the rookie lawyers to their cases. Everybody knew what was really going on—the felons were setting up an ineffective assistance of counsel claim for appeal.

At the end of a long and frustrating week spent trying to unclog the system, Masterson called another meeting and announced that he was withdrawing his legislative initiative. “We're just going to have to handle this in-house.”

My colleagues and I grumbled, but we were secretly happy. It would be easier to do it ourselves than to train first-year lawyers who hadn't been outside their big-firm offices.

But by the second week, things started slipping through the cracks. I lost a motion to suppress because a witness hadn't been subpoenaed. My legal assistant blamed the avalanche of cases she was handling and cried when I told her we couldn't let it happen again. The judges started getting frustrated and abrupt in court. Reporters showed up at the arraignments to watch one defendant after another plead not guilty and demand a jury trial.

Every day I promised myself that I would work on Caleb Tate's case in the evening, but I would get home too late, drained from fourteen hours of chaos. I would feed Justice, veg out in front of the computer or TV, and fall asleep. Five or six hours later, I would wake up and start the whole routine again.

For his part, Masterson became something of a cult hero. His tough-on-crime stance generated interviews on Fox News, CNN, and all the local stations. Even the stories about defendants who slipped through the cracks only enhanced Masterson's status. What could he do? He had asked for the ability to deputize private-firm lawyers and been stonewalled. His minions were now working virtually around the clock.

The worse things got, the more folksy and comfortable Masterson became, staring into the camera, promising he would get to the bottom of how this started, warning the thugs they would regret this gamble with every fiber of their being. The public was now seeing the Bill Masterson I knew. “You can't hold justice hostage,” he said. “We don't take kindly to extortion.”

Always an opportunist, Masterson also announced that he was suspending campaign fund-raising and would instead ask his donors to give directly to the Milton County DA's office. He would use the funds to pay a small bonus to overworked lawyers, legal assistants, staff members, and investigators.

Bill Masterson soon became a household name with skyrocketing approval ratings. He shot from a distant third place in the polls to a five-point lead over Andrew Thornton, the assistant AG who had led the race since day one.

It was in the middle of this hypercharged environment, on May 21, that I took the morning off to attend oral arguments in the state Supreme Court for the case of
Marshall v. Georgia
.