Scott Pratt - An Innocent Client

When the dance was over, I quickly made my way around to the back of the stage and asked another dancer to retrieve Lilly from the dressing room. When she emerged, I kissed her on the cheek.

“Thanks, honey,” I said, “that was incredibly beautiful.”

“Are you all right, Daddy?”

“I’m great,” I said. “I’m absolutely fine.”

“Are you sure?”

She stood on her tiptoes, kissed me on the cheek, and pulled me toward her so she could whisper in my ear.

“This is the first time I’ve ever seen you cry.”

June 16

6:00 p.m.

I would’ve preferred concentrating on Angel’s case, but I had to deal with Maynard Bush. Besides Angel and possibly Randall Finch, he was my last death penalty client.

I’d been appointed to represent Maynard by the criminal court judge in Sullivan County, and the trial was quickly approaching. The judge had also appointed a young lawyer from Carter County named Timothy Walker II to help me, but Walker had quickly learned he didn’t have the stomach for dealing with Maynard up close and personal. I couldn’t blame him, but that left the jail visits to me.

Maynard was one of the most intimidating, dangerous men I’d ever had the displeasure of defending. He had a long, violent criminal history and had spent most of his adult life in prison. He was pure predator, always looking for a weakness, always trying to gain an advantage. Dealing with him was a constant game of cat and mouse. The problem was that both Maynard and I wanted to be the cat. As a result, we weren’t getting along.

During a change-of-venue hearing three weeks earlier, Maynard had suddenly told the judge I wasn’t doing my job. He said he wanted a new lawyer. The judge knew better — Maynard was just trying to delay his trial — so he told Maynard he was stuck with me. The judge also granted our motion to change venue. The trial was to be held in Mountain City in June. I had only four weeks to finish preparing, and Maynard wasn’t cooperating. I’d arranged for a forensic psychiatrist to evaluate him. Maynard wouldn’t speak to the doctor. I’d hired an investigator to interview witnesses and check facts. When I sent him to the jail, Maynard profanely told the investigator to get lost. He did the same thing with the mitigation expert.

I’d stayed away from Maynard for three weeks, in part because I was busy, in part to make him think the stunt he pulled in court had genuinely offended me, but primarily because being around him made my skin crawl. Three guards brought him into the interview room at the Sullivan County jail a little after eight in the evening. It had been a long day, but I didn’t want to put off talking with Maynard any longer.

Maynard was about six feet tall, and years of methamphetamine and cocaine abuse had left him as thin as an anorexic. He had shoulder-length black hair he parted in the middle and a dark, smooth complexion. His eyes were almost as dark as his hair. I’d never asked him, but I assumed some Native American heritage, most likely Cherokee or Chickasaw. Both of his arms and his upper torso were covered with tattoos. Their intricate design announced to those who knew about such things that he was a member of the Aryan brotherhood. Most of the white inmates belonged to the brotherhood. It helped them stay alive. The tattoos on Maynard’s chest and back were religious symbols. There was a large dove on his chest and an even larger cross on his back. I’d seen them when a guard brought him in shirtless one day.

Maynard was wearing a standard-issue jumpsuit that was much too large for him. He sat down and folded his long, thin fingers across his stomach. It looked as though he could easily slide his wrists through the handcuffs, which were attached to a chain around his waist. The guards had secured the shackles around his ankles to the legs of his chair, which was bolted into the concrete floor. He didn’t look at me.

“Hello, Maynard,” I said. “How have you been since you tried to ambush me in court?”

Silence.

“There are a couple of things we need to discuss today if you’re feeling up to it. Are you feeling up to it?”

Nothing.

“I’ll take that as a yes. First of all, I need to know why you won’t submit to a psychological evaluation. I’m not insinuating that you have mental problems, Maynard. I just need to have you evaluated to see whether the doctor can find something that might help us.”

Maynard sat there like a stone. I wasn’t even sure he was breathing.

“I’d also like to know why you won’t talk to the investigator or the mitigation expert. They’re trying to help you. Don’t you get that?”

Silence.

“I’ve been through all of the evidence, including your background, Maynard. How about you and I get real with each other? You’ve spent most of your life in prison. Killed your first wife and got the charge reduced, murdered some dude who was screwing around with your girlfriend and got convicted, served fifteen years. Killed at least two men in prison and got away with both of those murders. As soon as you got out, you started hauling cocaine and meth. While you were at it, you sold and smoked and snorted practically anything you could get your hands on. Now you’ve killed and cut up a couple of teenagers. They can prove you tied the girl up and had sex with her before you shot her. They’ve got semen from her vagina; the DNA matches yours. They’ve got both victims’ blood all over that little house you rented. Got your signature on the lease at the storage place where you stashed the bodies. That was bright. Didn’t you think they’d start to smell after a few days? They’ve got the kids’ blood and your fingerprints on the chain saw you used to cut them up. And they’ve got a lot more.”

“I don’t care.”

“Really? Why not?”

“Cause I know I done wrong and I deserve to die.”

I nearly fell out of the chair. I’d defended people who had decided to accept their fate and their punishment, but in a death penalty case, it wasn’t so easy to do. There was no way the prosecution was going to offer Maynard anything. He had raped, shot and dismembered a young girl and shot and dismembered her boyfriend, and he was a career criminal. The only thing they’d accept would be Maynard’s pleading guilty to two murders and agreeing to the death penalty, and there was simply no way I was going to let him do that. If the state was going to kill him, it was my duty to make sure they could prove their case. I couldn’t just walk him into court and say, “Okay, we quit. Go ahead and kill my client.” We were going to trial whether Maynard wanted to or not.

“I can appreciate that,” I said, “but you have to understand that we’re going to trial anyway. Maynard, we just got a change of venue. At least you’ll get a fair trial in Mountain City.”

“I don’t want you to put on no witnesses for me,” Maynard said. “You put me up there, I’m gonna tell them I did it.”

“So what am I supposed to do?” I said. “Sit there like a deaf mute?”

“You just do the best you can. God will take care of the rest.”

“Don’t do that to me, Maynard. Don’t tell me you’ve found God in here. I know he’s here, because everybody in here finds him, but if I’m going to try to defend you, you have to help me a little. Don’t leave it in God’s hands. God helps those who help themselves.”

“There’s only one thing I want you to do,” Maynard said, “and it ain’t got nothing to do with the trial.”

“What’s that?”

“I’d like a little privacy is all.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I been writing to this woman on the outside. Her name’s Bonnie Tate. Me and her have got real close, you know? She’s the one that’s made me realize I don’t have to lie no more, God will forgive me and accept me into heaven. I think maybe I’m in love, Dillard. Can you believe it? Ol’ Maynard falling flat out in love with a woman I ain’t never even met. I even tried to write her a little poetry. But that’s the problem. It’s these guards. They look at my mail. They brought the poetry in and gave it to some of the other dudes in here. Them boys been messing with me ever since.”