The Reversal

this that Jessup case that’s in the news?”
    “That’s right.”
    He knew she would be interested. He could hear it in her voice.
    “All right, well, bring by whatever you’ve got. How much time are you giving me? I’ve got my regular job, you know.”
    “No hurry this time. Not like with that Echo Park thing. I’ll probably be out of town tomorrow. Maybe longer. I think you can have a few days with the file. You still in the same place above the Million Dollar Theater?”
    “That’s it.”
    “Okay, I’ll drop the box by.”
    “I’ll be here.”

Nine
    Wednesday, February 17, 3:18 P.M .
    T he holding cell next to Department 124 on the thirteenth floor of the CCB was empty except for my client Cassius Clay Montgomery. He sat morosely on the bench in the corner and didn’t get up when he saw me come back.
    “Sorry I’m late.”
    He didn’t say anything. He didn’t acknowledge my presence.
    “Come on, Cash. It’s not like you’d be going anywhere. What’s it matter if you were waiting here or back in County?”
    “They got TV in County, man,” he said, looking up at me.
    “Okay, so you missed Oprah. Can you come over here so I don’t have to shout our business across the room?”
    He got up and came over to the bars. I stood on the other side, beyond the red line marking the three-foot threshold.
    “Doesn’t matter if you shout our business. There ain’t nobody left to hear it.”
    “I told you, I’m sorry. I’ve been having a busy day.”
    “Yeah, and I guess I’m just a no-count nigger when it comes to being on TV and turnin’ into the man.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “I saw you on the news, dog. Now you a prosecutor? What kinda shit is that?”
    I nodded. Obviously, my client was more concerned with me being a turncoat than with waiting until the last hearing of the day.
    “Look, all I can tell you is that I took the job reluctantly. I am not a prosecutor. I am a defense attorney. I’m your defense attorney. But every now and then they come to you and they want something. And it’s hard to say no.”
    “So what happens to me?”
    “Nothing happens to you. I’m still your lawyer, Cash. And we have a big decision to make here. This hearing is going to be short and sweet. It’s to set a trial date and that’s it. But Mr. Hellman, the prosecutor, says the offer he made to you is good only until today. If we tell Judge Champagne we’re ready to go to trial today, then the deal disappears and we go to trial. Have you thought about it some more?”
    Montgomery leaned his head in between two bars and didn’t speak. I realized he couldn’t pull the trigger on a decision. He was forty-seven and had already spent nine years of his life in prison. He was charged with armed robbery and assault with great bodily injury and was looking at a big fall.
    According to the police, Montgomery had posed as a buyer at a drive-through drug market in the Rodia Gardens projects. But instead of paying, he pulled a gun and demanded the dealer’s drugs and money roll. The dealer went for the gun and it went off. Now the dealer, a gang member named Darnell Hicks, was in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
    As is usual in the projects, no one cooperated with the investigation. Even the victim said he didn’t remember what happened, choosing in his silence to trust that his fellow Crips would handle justice in the matter. But investigators made a case anyway. Picking up my client’s car on a video camera at the entrance to the projects, they found the car and matched blood on the door to the victim.
    It wasn’t a strong case but it was solid enough for us to entertain an offer from the prosecution. If Montgomery took the deal he’d be sentenced to three years in prison and would likely serve two and a half. If he gambled and took a conviction at the end of a trial, then he’d be looking at a mandatory minimum of fifteen years inside. The add-on of GBI and use of a firearm in the commission of a robbery were the killers. And I knew firsthand that Judge Judith Champagne wasn’t soft on gun crimes.
    I had recommended to my client that he take the deal. It was a no-brainer to me but then I wasn’t the one who had to do the time. Montgomery couldn’t decide. It wasn’t so much about the prison time. It was the fact that the victim, Hicks, was a Crip and the street gang had a long reach into every prison in the state. Even taking the three-year sentence could be a death