"All rise!"
Judge Harold Rooney entered his courtroom, sat behind his bench, and put on his reading glasses. The first entry on that day's docket sheet read The State of Texas v. William Tucker, Motion for Reinstatement and Reduction of Bail. He glanced over at the district attorney at the prosecution table and then at the defendant at the defense table with his lawyer.
Scotty Raines.
"I see a new face. Mr. Raines."
Scotty stood. "Your Honor, I've been retained by William Tucker to represent him in this case."
"I see. And what about his prior counsel? Ms. Campbell and Mr. Tucker?"
"He no longer needs their services."
Harold turned to the defendant. "Is that correct, Mr. Tucker? You no longer need Ms. Crawford? Or your father?"
The boy smiled. "No, sir. I don't need them."
Harold grunted. The boy didn't need his father.
"All right, Mr. Raines, you're now counsel of record. You are aware that this is a death penalty case?"
"Yes, Your Honor."
"You have submitted a motion to reinstate and reduce bail to ten thousand dollars."
"That's correct, Your Honor."
"Mr. Dorkin, your response."
"State has no objection, Your Honor."
Harold sighed and thumbed through the document before him. The motion cited all the cases and made all the arguments for the defendant's release—a canned motion. Harold had seen the same one a thousand times. But the most compelling argument favoring the defendant was not written in the motion: Scotty Raines' law firm had contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the district attorney's political campaigns—and to Harold's. You don't write those things down. And now Scotty expected to be repaid. To collect a favor. Dick Dorkin owed him and had paid his debt off. Harold owed him, and Scotty now expected the debt to be paid in full.
Scotty Raines's law firm had bought the district attorney, just as the firm had bought Judge Harold Rooney. In Texas, district attorneys and judges were politicians elected in partisan elections. Democrat or Republican. Conservative or liberal. It wasn't about justice or injustice, it was about getting reelected. Democracy and justice were often distant relatives. Because elections cost money. But citizens did not contribute to judges' campaigns because ninety-nine-point-nine percent would never see the inside of a courtroom. Lawyers would. They did. Courtrooms were their playing fields and judges the referees. It was good to have the law and the facts on your side, but it was better to have the judge. Lawyers have a vested interest in which judges they face each day, and they want the judges they face to be indebted to them. Some years back, the Texas supreme court proposed a judicial rule that would have allowed either party to disqualify a judge if the other party or lawyer had contributed $5,000 or more to his last campaign. Lawyers in Texas voted down the proposal overwhelmingly. Therein lies the truth: as Scotty Raines himself often quipped (to much laughter) at bar meetings, "Texas has the best judges money can buy."
So Scotty stood there with a smug look on his face, knowing that he had bought this judge and this judge would give him what he wanted: freedom for his client.
Or would he?
Harold Rooney had sat on the bench in Travis County for sixteen years now. He had won four elections. He had collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from lawyers. He had paid them all back.
But he had never saved a life.
The typical criminal defendants who came before him—gangbangers, drug dealers, sex offenders, child abusers—their lives were beyond saving. The only lives he could save were their future victims. And they were not represented by the Scotty Raineses of the bar. They were represented by public defenders who could not afford to contribute to his campaigns. So he locked their clients up for as long as the law allowed and then some. He was a judge but he couldn't save their lives.
Just as he couldn't save his own son's life. He had called in his own favors, back when he was practicing with a large firm that made generous campaign contributions to judges, and gotten his own son released on PR on a drug charge. His son had promptly overdosed on heroin. Died. Twenty years old. If he had only left his son in jail, practiced a little tough love instead of hard lawyering, his son might be alive today. Harold had never forgiven himself. A father can't forgive that kind of mistake.
Now he saw the same mistake being played out again, in his own courtroom this time. A connected lawyer calling in favors.
William Tucker's life might be saved. Could be saved. If he were innocent; and in his gut, Harold thought he was. Of course, he had thought the same about Bradley Todd. And he had been wrong. Dead wrong.
But if he were innocent. If he came out of this trial a changed man. If this experience taught him the value of life—his life and other people's lives. If he learned that he was not special, just lucky. Lucky to have been born in America where pro athletes make $20 million a year. Lucky to have been blessed with unusual size, strength, and speed and remarkable athletic ability. Lucky to have been given the chance to succeed as an athlete.
Lucky to have Frank Tucker as his father.
Five weeks behind bars, William Tucker had learned nothing. So Judge Harold Rooney would try again to save the boy's life.
"Motion denied."