9

Mace James raced from Nashville to Atlanta, working his cell phone the entire trip. While he drove, nine attorneys at Knight and Joyner worked on the last-minute filings. In the less-frantic weeks and months leading up to this day, Mace had taken the lead. He had argued before the Georgia Supreme Court and the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. He had personally written most of the briefs and had filed, at last count, sixteen habeas petitions. But now, on the final day, he let the big firm take care of the details. His job was twofold: get the press involved and, if all else failed, be there for Antoine.

There were only three chances left—all long shots. They had just filed a habeas petition with the US Supreme Court based on the shortage of sodium thiopental and concerns about where Georgia had obtained its supply. Mace figured he had better odds of becoming pope. They had also petitioned the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles for clemency. The outlook there was dismal but not entirely hopeless. The board had granted clemency in seven cases since 1976, including a 1990 case where a death-row inmate’s sentence was commuted based on an exemplary prison record, demonstrated remorse, a religious conversion, and pleas for clemency from the victim’s family. Antoine had two out of four—a good prison record and a religious conversion. Mace doubted it was enough. Many prisoners claimed dramatic jailhouse conversions. Mace was one of a select few who had stayed the course after his release.

That left the habeas petition being filed that morning with the Georgia Supreme Court. Another Hail Mary, but the best of a meager lot. Mace had flipped Freddie Cooper, leaving only the eyewitness testimony of Robert Brock with no corroborating DNA or other scientific evidence. And Brock’s testimony had been largely discredited on cross-examination.

Despite patches of rain, Mace pushed the speedometer to ninety miles per hour as he raced down I-75 in north Georgia. He held the speed until his truck started shaking and then backed off the accelerator just a little. A few times he saw the state police early enough to slow down to eighty. Once he probably would have been pulled over but got boxed in before passing a state trooper hiding in the median. None of that stopped him from sending text messages and making phone calls. One eye on the road. The other checking the Internet using his BlackBerry, wondering why the press had so little interest in an innocent man’s execution.

Actually, Mace knew exactly why. His client was a three-time convicted felon. A black man convicted of killing a respected white woman in her own home. Antoine had no advocates other than his lawyers and a committed band of death penalty opponents who took up the cause of every death-row inmate. Antoine’s mother had died five years ago, and there were no other family members who would attend the execution. For most of Georgia, Antoine Marshall was nothing more than prisoner 12452, a man destined to make headlines one last time—the local section—before he stopped getting room and board at taxpayer expense. Troy Davis, a former death row inmate, had been executed in 2011 despite recantations from seven of the nine witnesses against him. By comparison, Freddie Cooper’s recantation was nothing special. Only one television station in all of Atlanta had any interest in airing taped footage of it.

Mace arrived at that station at nine thirty and checked in with the receptionist. He had thrown a gray suit coat over his black T-shirt because he hadn’t had time to go home and change. He knew he looked like death, but maybe that was appropriate.

Staci Anderson, the reporter who would be asking the questions, was shorter than she appeared on television but every bit as striking. She had long dark hair and a subtle Latin American look. Like all anchors, she had layered on the makeup, and her teeth nearly sparkled.

Mace followed Staci inside and spent the next few minutes in makeup. A talkative woman dusted his bald head so it wouldn’t create too much glare and caked on some blush. When he was finished, Mace showed Staci and her producer the tape, and the producer mumbled something about it being “good stuff.” Before he knew it, Mace was sitting on the set with cameras rolling and Staci firing questions at him.

“Why did Freddie Cooper wait until the night before the execution to come forward?” Staci asked. “It seems awfully convenient.”

Mace tried not to bristle at the question. He didn’t want to seem like one of those crusaders who thought every death-row inmate should be turned loose on the streets. “We had been looking for him for a few weeks,” Mace said. “He doesn’t exactly have a hyperactive conscience, and if we hadn’t found him, he probably wouldn’t have said anything. I think he was hoping we would get the execution stopped by some other means.”

“But as I understand it,” Staci said, “there is still an eyewitness to this crime—Robert Brock, the husband of the victim, who was also shot by your client. How does Mr. Cooper’s change of heart impact Mr. Brock’s credibility?”

It was a good question, Mace knew. And it was the same question the Georgia Supreme Court would be asking. This might be Mace’s best chance to convince the court. Justices watched television too.

Mace turned away from Staci and looked directly into the camera. “Mr. Brock is a victim of a horrible crime, and my sympathy goes out to him and his family. But he was in shock when he saw his wife bleeding on the floor. He had a moment’s glance at the intruder before being shot himself. Later, the police used suggestive questioning and a faulty lineup to convince Mr. Brock that my client was the killer. At trial, the defense was not allowed to introduce expert testimony about the dangers of cross-racial eyewitness identifications nor about how the police officers, using a bad lineup and loaded questions, had planted false memories about the suspect’s appearance.”

“What happens next?” Staci asked.

“We’ve filed a petition for a stay with the Georgia Supreme Court,” Mace said. “We’ll get a ruling later today.”

“Thank you, Professor James,” Staci said. “I know you’ve got a busy day ahead of you, and we appreciate your time.”

Mace knew he was expected to just mumble his own thanks. The cue cards behind the camera were down to five seconds. But he didn’t have to play by their rules.

“Antoine Marshall, to my knowledge, is the only defendant on death row who’s passed a lie detector test,” Mace added.

The time card was up before Staci could tease the next segment. During the break, she thanked Mace, then started talking to her producer about what was coming up next.

Mace left a copy of the Freddie Cooper tape with the station and checked his watch. It was time to head south to death row.

All morning long, I worked at my desk and, with sweaty palms, hit the button to refresh the various court sites I monitored. I saw the petition with the attached Freddie Cooper affidavit at ten thirty. I immediately called the AG’s office, and they said they were on it. A response would be filed within two hours.

“This happens all the time,” one of the lawyers assured me. “You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

I got a text from a friend about the news report when it aired at noon. I watched a replay on my computer and caught myself grinding my teeth. Mace James had no shame. My dad was lying unconscious in a hospital bed, and James was taking shots at him.

They ran a clip from Cooper’s recantation, and he looked like he had been beaten up. I called the AG’s office a second time.

“Have you watched the video?” I asked. “It looks like they beat that statement out of him.”

“We noticed that,” they assured me. “We put it in our briefs.”

A few hours later, just before I arrived home, I gave Chris a call. “I’ll be there in a few minutes. Have you let Justice out?”

“About a dozen times.”

I knew Justice was taking advantage of my brother and garnering some extra attention. The thought of it made me smile.

When I arrived home, I parked in the driveway, and Chris was out the front door before I even beeped the horn. The sky was still overcast, but it had stopped raining. When Chris reached the car, he took off his overcoat and tossed it in the backseat. My father was a few inches shorter than Chris and before his strokes had outweighed Chris by about twenty pounds. But for this occasion, Chris had decided to throw on one of my dad’s sport coats and my dad’s favorite tie. The tie looked great, but the coat was riding a few inches up Chris’s arms and dwarfed him in the shoulders.

Chris had told me I looked good before I left for work that morning. I had told him that I was wearing Mom’s earrings and necklace. Now, the sight of my brother wearing my dad’s sport coat made me tear up.

Chris got in without saying a word.

“You look great,” I said, my voice hoarse.

“I wish he could be here,” Chris said.

I backed out of the driveway without saying another word.