Patrick and Mary jumped away from each other.
Unconcerned, cradling a stack of files to his chest, Rob announced, “I got a pretty good offer.” He motioned for them to come sit at a table, and they obeyed.
“Is there really going to be a trial?” Kiera came back into the room. “Twelve strangers? From here? With your name? Patrick Browning? Naw,” she said definitively. She made a clucking sound. “They know your daddy,” she said.
Patrick said, “I ain’t going to no trial.”
I was surprised. Patrick’s family assumed that jurors would be prejudiced against him because of his father’s record. But the prosecutor’s charge—first-degree murder—seemed quite clearly an overcharge. A jury would likely lower that charge.
“Isn’t there good evidence for a self-defense strategy?” I asked. “Marcus was drunk and aggressive, on your porch. And Marcus got—” I stopped myself. “Marcus’s death happened because Patrick got scared, and Marcus was really drunk. I just think, you know, the real story we could tell is that Patrick was protecting his younger sister, who’s a little slow.” I was relieved Pam wasn’t here. “And the jury might think that the guy on the porch was—”
“There’s some material here for character assassination,” Rob said carefully.
Rob was an old hand. He understood there was no need to pressure a client into a deal: They were ready to take the plea even before they knew the terms.
Impossible assumptions of human behavior were embedded in the plea bargain: It envisioned a self-possessed rational actor who would assess his choices, argue, push back, calculate the risk of a trial. But Patrick and his family didn’t think the justice system could help them. Nor had their lives provided evidence that they might have any power over a trial’s outcome.
Nobody in Patrick’s family wanted to fight. Even now, sixteen months later, it was too painful to speak about what had happened that night or to parse out fault. Patrick’s mother had cried with Marcus’s mother, and that had been, for her at least, enough of a resolution. So instead of a trial, which might have forced everyone to ask questions and attempt to answer them, the family took the deal. Patrick would sign the plea.
Now Rob spoke, not hiding his tone of triumph. “I got the charge reduced from first degree to manslaughter,” he said. “That means anywhere between three to ten years. I think you can get out before five. The prisons are overcrowded; I got clients serving five who are out in three.” Rob added, “This is one of the best deals I’ve gotten.”
Rob’s assurance sealed their decision.
I tried to understand why I felt so troubled. It was a good deal, yes. But what was the relationship between a “good deal” and justice? Had Patrick gotten what he deserved? Or—and more unnerving to consider—what if he had somehow cheated the system, getting away with something even “better” than what he deserved? The law wouldn’t tell us. Afraid to condemn Patrick, none of us dared to ask this question out loud.
Rob put a piece of paper in front of Patrick. Its litany of questions included: Do you fully understand that you have a constitutional right to a trial by jury on the charges against you and that by entering a plea of guilty to the charges you are waiving your constitutional right to an appeal of issues involved in the charges placed against you? Have you discussed all possible defenses with your lawyer?
Rob read these aloud.
I could tell Patrick was not listening or reading. Usually he used his index or pinkie finger to follow along. But the language was too technical. It wasn’t meant to be read by an ordinary person. This was a language spoken primarily by those who paid to learn it.
Patrick waited politely as Rob read, knowing he couldn’t sign until Rob reached the end.
The last line:
I HAVE READ EVERYTHING ON THIS PAPER. I UNDERSTAND WHAT IS BEING TOLD TO ME, WHAT MY RIGHTS ARE AND THE QUESTIONS THAT HAVE BEEN ASKED. MY ANSWER IS “YES” TO ALL 7 QUESTIONS, I KNOW WHAT I AM DOING AND AM VOLUNTARILY PLEADING GUILTY.
Now Patrick turned to me. “Ms. Kuo,” he said urgently, “you sure they know I already served sixteen months?”
“It’s automatic,” I said. “By law.”
“They gone forget; that how they is.” I knew his suspicion was justified; you never knew in Helena. “You gone make sure I get credit for serving the sixteen months? Don’t forget.”
Rob handed him the pen and Patrick took it. Patrick signed his name.
Then Rob shuffled the paper into a folder, shook everyone’s hand, and left. After that day, none of us spoke to him again.
—
MURDER IS DISTINCT from manslaughter because the murderer has a “guilty mind.” The guilty mind deliberates and plans. The more thinking one does, the more culpable one is. A gun is purchased; an alibi is arranged; the killing is plotted.
What is the opposite of the guilty-mind charge? A situation driven primarily by chance. A crime with a plausible alternate reality. Manslaughter is a death that occurs nearly accidentally. Manslaughter is killing without intent to kill.
Manslaughter presents a meditation on chance. If the timing and day had been different. If certain people hadn’t crossed paths. If X’s mother hadn’t asked him to look for Z, his younger sister. If X’s mother felt that Z was safe in the hands of neighbors. If Z, a minor enrolled in special-education classes, hadn’t been at a party where alcohol was being served and older men were present.
If a particular kind of ethics did not rule X’s neighborhood, so that he didn’t feel he had to win fights, or to fight at all. If someone had called the police; if someone had reason to believe the police would show up. If the knife had nicked rather than sliced through the vital organ. If the knife had nicked a place below a vital organ, missing it: the spleen but not the ventricle. If the ambulance had not been slow.
But because X and Y crossed paths, because Y was drunk and walking Z home, because X told Y to get off the porch, because X had a knife—what was a boys’ fight is now a classifiable legal entity. Y is now a person who has completed the process of dying—i.e., the decedent.
Misfortune can present people with moral tests they simply cannot pass, writes philosopher Nir Eisikovits. The basic premise of criminal law is that you are guilty only if you’re responsible. Yet factors that contribute to the crime are pure accident—here, the misfortune of being born in Helena, on the intersection of Garland and 4th. Those who do not grow up here do not get presented with certain tests. Patrick was tested, and he failed.
—
PATRICK TURNED TO Kiera. “What time you got work?”
“Two. I got to change.”
He looked sorry. He didn’t want her to miss work because of him. “Y’all can go home,” he said. “Thanks for bringing those clothes.” Then, as if he couldn’t help himself, he added, “You can tell Daddy I’m mad at him. For not coming.”