Mark Gimenez - The Color of Law

“Good girl.”

Karen departed and Scotty said, “Nice body, but she’ll never make it as a lawyer. What’s up?”

Ten minutes later, they were driving to the federal building.

“Scotty,” Bobby said, “twenty years is a good deal. I’ve had two-bit dealers go down for life.”

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 fired, a client dumped, a case won or lost, a law enacted or repealed, a natural disaster, a stock market crash, a war, a presidential election-that affected his life and income was, by definition, important. Any event that did not affect his life or income was unimportant, irrelevant, as inconsequential to him as another gang murder in South Dallas. Now, driving home to his $3.5 million mansion in a $200,000 automobile, Scott found himself wondering: How would Shawanda Jones being sentenced to death affect his life and income?

The answer was obvious: not at all. The day after her conviction, he would be back at his desk, working to make rich clients richer and bringing home $750,000 a year. As he would the day after her execution. She would quickly become part of his past. A year from now he wouldn’t even remember her name.

Scott had always followed Dan Ford’s advice, and he knew he should follow Dan’s advice now. He should chalk up Shawanda’s pathetic heroin-addicted life as unimportant and irrelevant and inconsequential to his life. He should lose her case and move on, as he had with other clients whose cases he had lost. Even Scott Fenney couldn’t win every case. Those few times he had lost, he had moped around, cursing the judge and jury for a few days, but once the client paid his final bill and the check cleared, he had gotten over it and moved on.

But there was a difference.

Scott Fenney had never thrown a case. Or a contest. Or a game. He had always played to win. Every game he had ever played-football, golf, lawyering-had been a test of his manhood, so he had played every game to win. All-out, no-holds-barred, win at all costs-that’s what made him a winner. Every cell in his body was infused with the desire to win, a desire that had taken him from being the poor kid on the block to owning a mansion on Beverly Drive in the heart of Highland Park. But Dan Ford was now telling him to play to lose. Could Scott Fenney play to lose and still be a winner?

That thought bothered him all the way home. But as he pulled into the motor court behind his mansion, a new more bothersome thought had invaded his mind: How would Shawanda’s death affect Pajamae’s life?

Scott had said bedtime prayers with the girls, tucked them in snugly, and was standing to leave, but he needed to ask Pajamae a question.

“Pajamae, do you think your mother could hurt anyone?”

“No, sir, Mr. Fenney. Mama, she’s got a good heart. She cares about people. Her problem is, she doesn’t care enough about herself. She’s always telling me to love myself, but she doesn’t love herself. My daddy made her like that, hitting her, making her sick. So don’t blame her, Mr. Fenney, it’s not her fault.”

Then she turned her big brown eyes up at Scott and asked him a question.

“Mr. Fenney, are the po-lice gonna kill my mama, too?”

Execution of the defendant would violate her civil rights under the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States…

The defendant. Her mother. Execution. Damn.

Pajamae was playing in the pool with Boo; they were standing in opposite shallow ends and tossing a Frisbee back and forth across the deep middle part of the pool. Scott was sitting on the patio reading Bobby’s brief that argued Pajamae’s mother should not be put to death if found guilty of murdering Clark McCall.