The Reversal

penalty. Montgomery wasn’t sure he would make it.
    “I don’t know what to tell you,” I said. “It’s a good offer. The DA doesn’t want to go to trial on this. He doesn’t want to put a victim on the stand who doesn’t want to be there and may hurt the case more than help it. So he’s gone as low as he can go. But it’s up to you. Your decision. You’ve had a couple weeks now and this is it. We have to go out there in a couple minutes.”
    Montgomery tried to shake his head but his forehead was pressed between the two bars.
    “What’s that mean?” I asked.
    “It means shit. Can’t we win this case, man? I mean, you a prosecutor now. Can’t you get a good word in for me on this?”
    “They’re two different matters, Cash. I can’t do anything like that. You got your choice. Take the three or we go to trial. And like I told you before, we can certainly do some stuff at trial. They’ve got no weapon and a victim who won’t tell the story, but they still got his blood on the door of your car and they got video of you driving it out of Rodia right after the shooting. We can try to play it the way you said it went down. Self-defense. You were there to buy a rock and he saw your roll and tried to rip you off. The jury might believe it, especially if he won’t testify. And they might believe it even if he does testify because I’ll make him take the fifth so many times they’ll think he’s Al Capone before he gets off the stand.”
    “Who’s Al Capone?”
    “You’re kidding me, right?”
    “No, man, who is he?”
    “Never mind, Cash. What do you want to do?”
    “You’re cool if we go to trial?”
    “I’m cool with it. It’s just that there is that gap, you know?”
    “Gap?”
    “There is a wide gap between what they’re offering you right now and what you could get if we lose at trial. We’re talking about a minimum twelve-year swing, Cash. That’s a lot of time to gamble with.”
    Montgomery backed away from the bars. They had left twin impressions on both sides of his forehead. He now gripped the bars in his hands.
    “The thing is, three years, fifteen years, I ain’t going to make it either way. They got hit men in every prison. But in County, they got the system and ev’rybody is separated and locked up tight. I’m okay there.”
    I nodded. But the problem was that any sentence over a year had to be served in a state prison. The county system was a holding system for those awaiting trial or sentenced to short terms.
    “Okay, then I guess we go to trial.”
    “I guess we do.”
    “Sit tight. They’ll be coming back for you soon.”
    I knocked quietly on the courtroom door and the deputy opened it. Court was in session and Judge Champagne was holding a status conference on another case. I saw my prosecutor sitting against the rail and went over to confer. This was the first case I’d had with Philip Hellman and I had found him to be extremely reasonable. I decided to test the limits of that reason one last time.
    “So, Mickey, I hear we are now colleagues,” he said with a smile.
    “Temporarily,” I said. “I don’t plan to make it a career.”
    “Good, I don’t need the competition. So what are we going to do here?”
    “I think we are going to put it over one more time.”
    “Mickey, come on, I’ve been very generous. I can’t keep—”
    “No, you’re right. You’ve been completely generous, Phil, and I appreciate that. My client appreciates that. It’s just that he can’t take a deal because anything that puts him in a state prison is a death penalty. We both know that the Crips will get him.”
    “First of all, I don’t know that. And second of all, if that’s what he thinks, then maybe he shouldn’t have tried to rip off the Crips and shoot one of their guys.”
    I nodded in agreement.
    “That’s a good point but my client maintains it was self-defense. Your vic drew first. So I guess we go to trial and you’ve got to ask a jury for justice for a victim who doesn’t want it. Who will testify only if you force him to and will then claim he doesn’t remember shit.”
    “Maybe he doesn’t. He did get shot, after all.”
    “Yeah, and maybe the jury will buy that, especially when I bring out his pedigree. I’ll ask him what he does for a living for starters. According to what Cisco, my investigator, has found out, he’s been selling drugs since he was twelve years old and his mother put him on the street.”
    “Mickey, we’ve already