35

Mace James spent the next three days fielding collect calls from his new client. Milton County gave prisoners liberal phone privileges, and Caleb Tate took advantage of the freedom.

Mace’s cell phone would ring, showing the jail’s number. He would answer to an automated operator that explained this was a collect call, what the rate would be, and that the call might be recorded. Mace would accept the call and inform anyone who was listening that this was an attorney-client conversation and that all monitoring devices must be turned off immediately.

Even with those precautions, Caleb seemed reluctant to share much information. The attorneys at his firm were pulling together the collateral to secure the three-million-dollar bond, Caleb said. He spent much of his time complaining about banks who had been all too eager to take his money when times were good but were not willing to lend money now. There was no equity in Caleb’s mansion. His firm’s equity lines were all tapped out. Some of his friends were putting together a “Caleb Tate Defense Fund.” Mace started wondering whether his ten-thousand-dollar retainer had been way too low.

“I may be in here through the weekend before we can get together the bond money,” Tate said. “And I’m going nuts.”

On Saturday, four days after Tate’s incarceration, Mace went to visit his client.

The jail was a large brick building located on the outskirts of Alpharetta, a few blocks from the courthouse. It had a small concrete yard in the back, surrounded by shiny barbed wire. The place was always overcrowded. The inmates stayed together in pods based loosely on the types of crimes they had been charged with and their perceived level of danger to the guards and each other.

The facility, completed in 2002, was state-of-the-art. The guards sat behind bulletproof glass in a control room of sorts overlooking the pods. The inmates’ cells opened into a small common area with bolted-down tables and televisions mounted high on the walls. Each pod was separated from the others by thick steel doors. In the event of a riot, individual pods could be isolated and the fights easily contained. The guards could activate tear gas or sprinklers in the pods by remote control.

The inmates spent an hour together during an afternoon recess, which was when gang alliances were cemented and new fish and outcasts were bloodied up. Mace had never served time in Milton County, but he knew the typical jailhouse routine and had the scars to prove it. Even in an environment like Milton County, which was a far cry from the state pen where hard-core felons served real time, a white-collar guy like Caleb Tate could be easy prey for other prisoners.

But Caleb Tate had a secret weapon every inmate desired—the know-how to exploit loopholes in the legal system.

Any worries about whether Tate would survive his time without being victimized were alleviated when Mace met with him in the private attorney conference room on Saturday morning.

“There are basically three gangs running this place,” Tate explained. He looked pale and haggard, his body swallowed by the orange jumpsuit. “My firm is now representing two of the gang leaders. I’ve promised to personally handle their cases when I get out. I talked one of my buddies at another firm into representing the third one.”

“How’s your roommate?” Mace asked.

Caleb made a face. “Burned out. Brains fried on meth. Snores like a freight train.”

The two men discussed what Caleb had learned about the evidence presented to the grand jury. Mace didn’t yet have a transcript, but Caleb had his sources.

“It all comes down to Rafael Rivera,” Tate explained. Mace could read the hatred in Caleb’s eyes. “Former client. Told the prosecutors that he provided me with drugs.”

“Is he serving time here?”

Caleb lowered his voice though it was just the two of them in the conference room. “Nope. They transferred him to Gwinnett County—at his request. With good reason. The boys here don’t like snitches.”

Mace wasn’t too worried about Rivera’s testimony. A three-time felon—how much credibility could he possibly have?

“When do you think you’ll get the bond money together?” Mace asked.

Caleb waved the question off with a flick of his wrist. “Early next week. I’ve settled down, and I’m making good use of my time.” He placed his forearms on the table and hunched forward, closer to Mace. “You ever hear of the prisoner’s dilemma? You ever teach that in law school?”

“The prisoner’s dilemma?”

“Yeah. It’s what greases the system. The idea is that you take two co-conspirators, and the police interrogate them in separate rooms. The cops tell each suspect that if he confesses and testifies against the other, they’ll cut him a deal. One year in prison. But if he doesn’t deal quickly and the other suspect beats him to the punch, the other guy gets the one-year deal. The noncooperating suspect could be looking at trial and ten years if convicted.

“Now, both suspects know that if neither one of them squeals, neither one of them goes to jail. But if you don’t squeal and the other guy does, you’re looking at ten long years. What do you think happens?”

“They both try to cut the deal. There’s no honor among thieves.”

“Exactly. And that’s how most of the crimes in our country get solved. You know what percentage of cases plead out in Milton County?”

Mace hadn’t given the idea a moment’s thought, but he knew Milton wasn’t much different from other jurisdictions. “Probably 90 percent or so.”

“Ninety-four percent.” Caleb’s voice took on a conspiratorial whisper. “What do you think would happen if the defendants all got together and decided none of them would plea-bargain anymore? What do you think that would do to the system?”

Mace didn’t like where this was headed. “It would overwhelm the system. Chaos.”

“Exactly,” Caleb said, tapping his finger on the table. “The prosecutors would be swamped. Public defenders would drown. The state’s already cut everybody’s budget. Every defendant could ask for a speedy trial and then scream on appeal because they got ineffective assistance. The system would be backlogged for years. If every single prisoner in this jail right now insisted on full trial rights, the prosecutors would have to let half of them out because they couldn’t try everyone fast enough to fulfill their constitutional right to a speedy trial. The other half would have great issues to bring up on appeal. Heck, government workers and teachers have unionized. Why not felons?”

Caleb leaned back in his chair, pride beaming from his thin face. Mace knew jail had a way of playing with your mind. Confinement created paranoia and conspiracy buffs. But Mace couldn’t tell if this was just typical jailhouse bluster or something Caleb could actually orchestrate.

“Now, of course, this could only work if all the prisoners played along. And the prosecutors would probably start offering up some sweet deals to break the logjam. So you’d have to have all the gang leaders on the same page and ready to punish anyone who cut a deal. And that would require—hypothetically speaking, here—somebody to quarterback the whole thing. Somebody the gang leaders trusted. Of course, since these rival gang leaders hate each other so much, it could never happen. But if it did, just think how much it would help us. Because I’m taking my case to trial no matter what. And it wouldn’t hurt if the prosecutors were busier than one-armed paperhangers with all the other prisoners who suddenly decided to quit plea-bargaining.”

Caleb Tate sat there for a moment with a look on his face that really worried Mace. Either the man was losing it or the plan was already in place.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Mace said, his uneasiness about the case expanding. “Any plan like that would require some pretty serious enforcement. You don’t need to be tied in with any of that.”

“You’re right. That’s why I’m just speaking hypothetically. But it sure would be fun to watch.”