The Color of Law_ A Novel - Mark Gimenez [63]
But Scott wasn’t thinking about what was good for his client; he was thinking about what was good for himself. Which was Shawanda’s pleading out, for twenty or thirty or forty years, he didn’t give a damn. Because if she pleaded out, he wouldn’t have to make a big decision. Scott, I need an answer for McCall. Soon.
“Twenty years? Mr. Fenney, Pajamae, she be twenty-nine by then, I won’t even know her. She all I got.”
Shawanda was pacing the small room, around and around, circling Scott and Bobby in their chairs.
“I understand, Shawanda, but if you’re convicted of first-degree murder, you might get the death penalty.”
“Twenty years in prison, I die anyway. Mr. Fenney, why don’t you believe me? I didn’t do it! I didn’t kill nobody!”
In civil litigation, judges routinely order the parties to mediate their disputes before going to trial. Mediation allows the lawyers to hammer their clients into settlements they don’t like, force them to pay amounts they don’t want to pay, and make them end lawsuits they don’t want to end. But there is no court-ordered mediation in criminal cases. So all Scott could do to try to convince his client to take the plea deal was stand and shout: “Shawanda, please think about this!”
She stopped short.
“I don’t gotta think no more about it, Mr. Fenney. I told you before, I ain’t coppin’ no plea!”
Ray Burns was not happy when Scott and Bobby informed him of their client’s decision to reject the plea offer.
“That bi—” Ray’s eyes met Bobby’s. “That woman is making a big mistake. And her lawyers are making an even bigger mistake if they go public with Clark’s past.”
“What about ten years?” Scott asked.
“No way. We don’t give ten-year deals to people who stick a gun to a guy’s head and blow his fucking brains out!”
Scott was back in his office, sitting behind his desk, his elbows on the top, his head in his hands, his eyes closed, and his mind a jumble of thoughts and images: Scotty Fenney, number 22, racing down the field, scoring the winning touchdown, the campus hero…two little girls, one white, one black, sleeping side by side in the big bed, their faces smooth, their hair in cornrows…Rebecca, beautiful and naked and angry…Shawanda, alone in her cell, crying for her daughter and heroin…and Dan Ford, who had replaced the father who had died when Scott was just a boy. What son wouldn’t do what his father asked? Scott, I need an answer for McCall. Soon. But the boy had a mother, too, and just as the image of a mother reading to her son flashed across his mind’s eye, Scott opened his eyes to find Dan Ford standing over him. And he knew what his senior partner had come for.
“She turned down the deal?”
Scott leaned back in his chair. “Word travels fast.”
“The U.S. Attorney called Mack, Mack called me.”
“And now you’re calling on me? What’s that saying, shit rolls downhill?”
“Something like that.”
Dan strolled around the office and stopped at the huge framed photograph of Scott Fenney, number 22 for the SMU Mustangs, running the ball against Texas. “One hundred ninety-three yards…unbelievable,” he said. After a moment, he broke away and sat on the sofa. Finally, he turned to Scott.
“Scott, I need an answer for McCall. Now.”
“I don’t know, Dan.”
“What’s there to know? We know what Mack wants.”
“And I know what my client wants.”
Dan chuckled. “Your client? Clients pay us fees, Scott. Ms. Jones isn’t paying us anything. She’s costing us. She’s an expense to this firm. And she’s expendable.”
“Dan, I’m her lawyer!”
Dan stood. “Scott, do you really believe she’s innocent? Do you really believe she didn’t kill Clark?”
Scott shook his head. “No.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“The problem is, Dan, if I don’t introduce that evidence about Clark’s past, she’s gonna die!”
A look of absolute puzzlement came over Dan’s face. He said, “And how does that affect your life?”
And that had been the guiding principle of A. Scott Fenney’s professional life since the day he joined Ford Stevens: How would it affect his life? Or, more to the point, his income. Any event—a lawyer