The Last Plea Bargain by Randy Singer

Staci and looked directly into the camera. “Mr. Brock is a victim of a horrible crime, and my sympathy goes out to him and his family. But he was in shock when he saw his wife bleeding on the floor. He had a moment’s glance at the intruder before being shot himself. Later, the police used suggestive questioning and a faulty lineup to convince Mr. Brock that my client was the killer. At trial, the defense was not allowed to introduce expert testimony about the dangers of cross-racial eyewitness identifications nor about how the police officers, using a bad lineup and loaded questions, had planted false memories about the suspect’s appearance.”
    â€œWhat happens next?” Staci asked.
    â€œWe’ve filed a petition for a stay with the Georgia Supreme Court,” Mace said. “We’ll get a ruling later today.”
    â€œThank you, Professor James,” Staci said. “I know you’ve got a busy day ahead of you, and we appreciate your time.”
    Mace knew he was expected to just mumble his own thanks. The cue cards behind the camera were down to five seconds. But he didn’t have to play by their rules.
    â€œAntoine Marshall, to my knowledge, is the only defendant on death row who’s passed a lie detector test,” Mace added.
    The time card was up before Staci could tease the next segment. During the break, she thanked Mace, then started talking to her producer about what was coming up next.
    Mace left a copy of the Freddie Cooper tape with the station and checked his watch. It was time to head south to death row.

    All morning long, I worked at my desk and, with sweaty palms, hit the button to refresh the various court sites I monitored. I saw the petition with the attached Freddie Cooper affidavit at ten thirty. I immediately called the AG’s office, and they said they were on it. A response would be filed within two hours.
    â€œThis happens all the time,” one of the lawyers assured me. “You’ve got nothing to worry about.”
    I got a text from a friend about the news report when it aired at noon. I watched a replay on my computer and caught myself grinding my teeth. Mace James had no shame. My dad was lying unconscious in a hospital bed, and James was taking shots at him.
    They ran a clip from Cooper’s recantation, and he looked like he had been beaten up. I called the AG’s office a second time.
    â€œHave you watched the video?” I asked. “It looks like they beat that statement out of him.”
    â€œWe noticed that,” they assured me. “We put it in our briefs.”
    A few hours later, just before I arrived home, I gave Chris a call. “I’ll be there in a few minutes. Have you let Justice out?”
    â€œAbout a dozen times.”
    I knew Justice was taking advantage of my brother and garnering some extra attention. The thought of it made me smile.
    When I arrived home, I parked in the driveway, and Chris was out the front door before I even beeped the horn. The sky was still overcast, but it had stopped raining. When Chris reached the car, he took off his overcoat and tossed it in the backseat. My father was a few inches shorter than Chris and before his strokes had outweighed Chris by about twenty pounds. But for this occasion, Chris had decided to throw on one of my dad’s sport coats and my dad’s favorite tie. The tie looked great, but the coat was riding a few inches up Chris’s arms and dwarfed him in the shoulders.
    Chris had told me I looked good before I left for work that morning. I had told him that I was wearing Mom’s earrings and necklace. Now, the sight of my brother wearing my dad’s sport coat made me tear up.
    Chris got in without saying a word.
    â€œYou look great,” I said, my voice hoarse.
    â€œI wish he could be here,” Chris said.
    I backed out of the driveway without saying another word.

10
    Mace James arrived at the Diagnostic and Classification