47

Jimmy Brandywine was a loser in every sense of the word. He was soft and pasty with a chipped tooth and curly brown hair. Even at thirty-one years old, he couldn’t grow a proper beard—just a few strands of chin hair. He had been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and had lashed out at his previous two lawyers when his medication hadn’t been right. Prior to his arrest, he had lived with his mother and collected unemployment intermittently for fourteen months. The police busted him as part of a pornography sting and found hundreds of pictures of child porn on his computer.

Jimmy had been in jail for six months when, one month before trial, his new lawyer claimed Jimmy wasn’t competent to assist in his own defense. Rowena Guilford, one of the hardest-working public defenders I knew, argued that Jimmy had been repeatedly abused by other prisoners. That abuse had aggravated his preexisting psychiatric issues, pushing him over the edge. According to her motion, Jimmy now thought the entire world had conspired against him—including his own lawyer. “The defendant can no longer separate his own psychotic ideations from reality and therefore is not competent to stand trial,” she wrote.

Shortly afterward, Dr. Aaron Gillespie evaluated Jimmy and declared that the defendant was fit to stand trial after all. The court agreed. And so, on Tuesday morning, the case began.

Judge Whitaker was a massive African American judge who was known to be deliberate and evenhanded. Following Rowena Guilford’s advice, Jimmy had waived his right to a jury trial; judges generally went easier on pornography cases. But before Whitaker took the bench and called the court to order, Rowena approached me at counsel table. “I want to talk about a plea,” she said.

At any other time, this would have been expected. We had a can’t-lose case—the police had conducted a lawful search of Brandywine’s computer and found the pornographic pictures of underage girls. But in the past two weeks, not one defendant had attempted to cut a deal.

I tried to play it coy. “What’s the use? We’ve got him dead to rights.”

Rowena frowned. “Cut the crap, Jamie. We all know things are out of control around here. My client’s willing to step up, plead guilty, and put his life on the line when he walks outside those prison walls. He’s asking you to recommend that the judge sentence him to three years and suspend all but the six months he’s already served.”

I scoffed. “You want him to plead guilty and walk without serving another day?”

Rowena lowered her voice. “He’s willing to play ball. I haven’t had one client willing to play ball in almost three weeks. This could break the logjam, Jamie.” She hesitated and frowned, as if trying to talk herself into something. “Look, if you want him to serve a few more months, and you can make sure he’s in isolation with a twenty-four-hour watch, I can probably work that, too.”

I looked around the courtroom. There were a few folks in the gallery, but nobody could hear us. The defendant had not yet been ushered in by the deputies. “You know I don’t do pleas, Rowena. Especially not on pornography cases.”

“He didn’t hurt anybody. He’s a nonviolent offender.”

That made me bristle. Didn’t hurt anybody? “There are photos of hundreds of naked girls on his computer, and some of them are eleven and twelve years old. Don’t tell me he didn’t hurt anybody.”

“That’s not what I meant, Jamie. At least talk it over with your boss. This guy is getting abused so much in jail that he’ll do anything to get out, even if people will be gunning for him once he does. We aren’t going to have a perfect case to break this deadlock.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

I stepped out in the hallway and called Bill Masterson. I quickly filled him in on the details, expecting him to demand that I take the deal. Instead, he had the same concerns that I did.

“We can’t make our first deal with a guy downloading child porn,” Masterson said. “We’ve been busting our butts for two weeks trying to keep up with this new caseload. We can’t cave in now and start dishing out deals that we wouldn’t have made before the defendants started this nonsense.”

“I agree,” I said quickly. “I just wanted to make sure you were on board.”

I relayed the message to Rowena, who said I was making a big mistake.

A few minutes later, when the trial started, Jimmy Brandywine pleaded guilty to the child pornography charges and took his chances with Judge Whitaker.

Both sides stipulated to the facts; then Rowena had Jimmy testify about how sorry he was for what he had done. Jimmy’s mother took the stand and gave a sob story about the impact on her son’s self-image from being laid off three times in the twelve months before his arrest. She had sacrificed on a fixed income so he could have a place to live. She slipped in testimony about how Jimmy had been abused in prison. I had seen it all a hundred times before—a mother’s love for her son was willing to forgive all sins.

When it came time for our closing arguments, I urged Judge Whitaker to show no mercy. If it wasn’t for men like Jimmy Brandywine, sex traffickers and Internet pornographers could not exist. Everybody in the chain was equally reprehensible, leading to the abuse of eleven- and twelve-year-old girls. Lots of men had been laid off from multiple jobs—that wasn’t a license to prey on kids. “Some of these girls should be in the fifth grade, Your Honor.” The fifth grade! What kind of animal sits at his computer all day and stares at pictures of naked fifth graders?

“The state is suggesting an eight-year prison sentence without the possibility of parole,” I concluded. “We are also asking for an additional ten years of supervised release and that Mr. Brandywine be required to register as a sex offender when he’s released from custody.”

I could hear Brandywine’s mother gasp at my suggested sentence. Brandywine would be nearly forty years old by the time he got out. I would have asked for more if I thought Judge Whitaker would go for it.

When Rowena rose to argue, she reminded the court that Brandywine had no priors. He had taken full responsibility for his crimes and apologized to the court. “If it were left to Ms. Brock, every convicted felon would die in prison.” It was a cheap shot, but I didn’t give her the satisfaction of a response.

“Let me address the elephant in the room,” Rowena continued. “No defendant has had the guts to come into a court in Milton County in the past two weeks and plead guilty to anything. None of my clients have done it. Everybody in this county knows that plea bargains and guilty pleas have become a thing of the past. Why? Because men like Mr. Brandywine, who are willing to take responsibility for their crimes, end up being killed within thirty-six hours of their release. As the court considers its sentence, I think the court should take into account the fact that Mr. Brandywine pleaded guilty today because it was the right thing to do, even though he is risking his life to do it.”

Judge Whitaker gave me a chance for rebuttal, and I went off. “Judge, I cannot believe what I just heard. This defendant—Jimmy Brandywine—just pleaded guilty to leering over hundreds of images of young girls on his computer, and now his attorney wants the court to treat him like some kind of hero? Ms. Guilford can’t be serious! Just because the defendants in this county have entered a conspiracy to backlog the system doesn’t mean we should reward somebody involved in child pornography.”

I calmed down. Took a breath. “Each one of these pictures is a separate crime. Ms. Guilford is right; I do want Your Honor to keep this man in jail for the rest of his life. Because this man is evil. And there’s no guarantee that a man as selfish and exploitative as him will not prey on young girls again the day he gets out. But I know a life sentence isn’t possible. Eight years is a bargain, Your Honor. Anything less is an insult to the lives of these young victims.”

When I sat down, Judge Whitaker made a face as if he didn’t get paid enough to make these kinds of decisions. “Ms. Brock makes some very good points,” he said. “And as the DA’s office knows, this court has been very tough on sex offenders in the past. But Ms. Guilford is also right. This defendant had a clean record before his arrest. And there are no allegations that he distributed child pornography or produced child pornography. As Ms. Guilford also suggests, this court must take into account the overcrowding of our county correction center and give this defendant some credit for coming forward and admitting his guilt. No other defendant has been brave enough to do that in any Milton County courtroom for the past two weeks.”

Whitaker stopped and made some notes on his yellow legal pad. I felt the hair on the back of my neck bristle. I knew I wasn’t going to like the sentence.

“As Ms. Brock suggests, the court will require the defendant to register as a sex offender. In addition, the court will impose the eight-year sentence suggested by Ms. Brock but will suspend all but the six months that the defendant has already served. The court will require supervised probation for an additional two years and order payment of five thousand dollars into the Victim Restitution Fund.”

“Praise God,” I heard Brandywine’s mother say behind me. I considered her comment blasphemous.

Judge Whitaker banged his gavel, and Guilford thanked the court for its ruling. I shook hands with Rowena, glared at Brandywine, and stalked out of the courtroom.

Things were out of control in Milton County. I couldn’t remember another child pornography case where the defendant had gotten off so easy. The inmates were now officially running the asylum.

When I told Masterson about the verdict, he suggested we call the Milton County police and park a vehicle in front of Brandywine’s house for the next few days. I reminded Masterson that Brandywine was a porn addict, not a city dignitary. But I knew Masterson was right. If anything happened to Brandywine, there wouldn’t be another guilty plea in Milton County for months.

It was two o’clock on Wednesday morning when a phone call woke me out of my Ambien-induced sleep.

“You don’t have to worry about Brandywine getting off easy,” LA said. “He and his mother just died in a house fire. They say the explosion was set off by a remote-controlled device.”

I sat up straight in bed and tried to clear the cobwebs out of my head. “I thought they put Brandywine under surveillance.”

“They did. But the explosive device was apparently planted in the house a couple of days ago.”