CHAPTER FOUR
All rise. The honorable Chief Judge James Joseph Brant presiding. You may be seated.
And that began the long, drawn-out process. Tish Payton and the rest of the prisoners sat in the holding room as they could see and hear on the monitors as the judge disposed of cases ahead of theirs: mainly those defendants who made bail or were not otherwise incarcerated. And the way they heard him go after the other defendants stopped the festive atmosphere in its tracks. He was showing no mercy. Especially toward the whites, who all seemed to have brokered plea bargains for their opioid offenses that was nothing more than a slap on the risk community service type deals.
But that judge wasn’t having it. He was sending all of their cases to trial. “Those defendants with crack cocaine convictions weren’t given community service,” they heard him say. “Why should I give that to you?” Then he’d dismiss the plea deal and give the defendant a chance to withdraw his guilty plea. It was only right that he should treat everybody the same, and all the prisoners listening knew it was right. And their own lawyers had already told them that the judge could reject their plea agreements and send the case to trial. But it was scary too. He was going hard in the paint on everybody!
Then Tish heard a white boy say, “They don’t call him Plenty Time Judge for nothing. He gives the harshest sentences of all the judges in this courthouse. We’re all unlucky fucks getting him as our judge.”
Tish closed her eyes. All she needed! Her Public Defender had already worked out a deal with the prosecution. They would drop the felony murder charge and charge her with manslaughter instead, although she never killed anybody, but was supposedly in the commission of a crime (as the getaway driver) when somebody got killed. She was looking at five years in prison. But if she wasn’t careful, Plenty Time Judge might give her the full fifteen years she could serve. Which would take her over. She was already losing her mind in that hellhole jail for the past eight months where she had to beat back those bitches every single day who all were trying to make her their girlfriend and get next to her in those ridiculous let’s be a family slickness they came up with. But fifteen years of that bullshit? There was no way.
Then she heard her name called and nearly jumped out of her own skin. Her heart, already pounding, began to hammer.
She was escorted, in foot and hand shackles, to the defense table. Her lawyer, a ruffled-looking, overweight public defender, had met with her only once, and that was to tell her to accept the bench trial plea deal or go to trial by jury and get worse because the State would reinstitute the felony murder charge. That charge could bring her Life without the possibility of parole, or even Death. In Florida, those were the only two options in a felony murder case, he told her. When he added that every client he ever had that decided to plead not guilty and go to trial instead, were always convicted, and always received the maximum.
With stats like that, she felt she had no choice but to cop a plea.
When she walked into his courtroom, JJ glanced at her and looked back down, but then looked again as she made her way to the defense table. She was the woman he couldn’t stop staring at on that monitor in his chambers. Even smaller in person and with even more devastation on her face, he suddenly felt a sharp ache in his own heart when she stood before him. It was so odd and so uncharacteristic for him to feel anything when a prisoner stood at that defense table, that he looked back down at her file. To review it. “You may be seated,” the bailiff said, and Tish and her lawyer sat down.
LaTisha Payton. Was the driver of the getaway van when her boyfriend, Terrell Donte Dixon, better known as Shake, robbed a gas station. The original charge was felony murder, pled down to manslaughter with a five-year recommendation. He glanced over at the defender. No way was that young lady going to be able to do even five years, he thought. Then he continued to review the file.
As Tish sat there, what struck her most about the place was how huge the bench was, and how Plenty Time Judge seemed to be so high up and the defendants so low down that it just highlighted for her how unfair it all was. A poor, black, nobody like her didn’t stand a chance in a place like that. And he gave out the harshest sentences too? What if he didn’t accept her plea deal, either, and threw the book at her?
“I’ll hear the State’s case,” JJ said and the woman at the prosecutor’s table stood up.
“Your Honor, good morning.”
JJ looked back up. “Good morning, Miss Zaks.”
“We have reached a plea agreement, sir.”
Although JJ had read the file, he had to be clear for the court record. “On what original lead charge?”
“Felony murder, sir.”
“And what is the agreement?”
“As you know, Your Honor, there are only two options if we were to institute the original charge: Life without parole, or Death. We pled down to manslaughter and will recommend five-to-eight years in prison, sir.”
Tish looked at the prosecution. Her lawyer said it would only be five years, which was horrific enough. But they were talking five to eight? She leaned over to her Public Defender, and asked him what were they talking about eight years, but he shooshed her.
JJ found himself staring at the defendant. “Miss,” he looked down at her file again, “Payton, is it?”
Tish’s defense attorney motioned for her to stand up. He stood up with her. “Yes, sir,” she said nervously.
“Who died?”
“Sir?”
“During the commission of the crime, who died?”
Tish had to steady herself. “Shake. I mean Terrell, sir.”
“What was he to you is what I’m asking you?”
“My boyfriend.”
“You shot him?”
“No sir! The cops, I mean, the Police shot him.”
“You were in the service station when it was robbed?”
“No, sir.”
“But you knew he was going inside to rob it?”
The public defender whispered in Tish’s ear. “Say yes, Your Honor or he could send your case to trial. And you could get the death penalty.”
But Tish was upset by what her attorney was saying. Why would they kill her when she didn’t kill anybody or knew anything about what Shake was up to?
“You heard me, Miss Payton?” the judge asked. “Did you or did you not know that your boyfriend was going to rob that station?”
“Say yes, Your Honor,” the public defender whispered to her again.
“No, Your Honor,” Tish said.
Her Public defender dropped his head.
JJ was staring at her. “Are you saying to me that you did not know your boyfriend was going to rob that service station?”
Tish was going to tell it now. They never gave her a chance to tell her side of the story. Nobody wanted to hear it. Now she was going to tell it all. “That’s what I’m saying, yes, sir. I had just got to work at the Norris Daycare Center when Shake called and told me to come to that station to give him a boost because his car wouldn’t crank. I tried to get him to find somebody around the place to give him a boost, but he claimed it was too early in the morning and nobody was around. When I got there, I didn’t even see his car. So I’m figuring he must have gotten a boost from somebody else, or whatever he needed, and I can go back to work. But then I see the doors to that filling station fly open and he comes running out of that store with a plastic bag in his hand.”
“You see him running out with a bag in his hand, but yet you allow him to get in the vehicle, and then you fled with him?”
“I wasn’t gonna go anywhere until he explained to me what was going on, but then Big Mo, the man that owns the store, came running out with this rifle and he started shooting at us! I had to speed away to save my life. I wasn’t trying to take Shake away from there. I was trying to take myself away from there. I didn’t know nothing about what Shake had done. Nothing, Judge.”
JJ was astonished to hear what she’d just said. And he believed her. Somehow he believed every word she had just spoken to him. “Did you tell this story to your attorney?”
“Yes, sir, I sure did. But he didn’t wanna hear it.” Then she scrunched up her face. “He said I was nothing, a nobody. Who was gonna believe me?”
JJ was fuming inside. This woman was about to face years in prison over this? He looked at the prosecutor. “Did you review the video footage at the crime scene?”
“Yes, Your Honor, we did.”
“And what did it show?”
“It showed the defendant’s boyfriend running out of the store, hopping into the van the defendant was driving, and then both of them fleeing.”
“Was the storeowner firing shots at them?” JJ asked.
The prosecutor seemed unsure of what to say. Then she leaned over as the second chair whispered in her ear. Then she stood upright again. “Yes, Your Honor, he was shooting in their direction, yes.”
JJ frowned. “And you didn’t think at least once that maybe that’s why she fled?”
Another hesitation. “No, Your Honor, we did not view it that way.”
“And why not? Is she a career criminal?” He began flipping through her file.
But since the prosecution wasn’t speaking up, nor Tish’s lawyer, she spoke up for herself. “No, sir, I am not,” she said forcefully. “I’ve never been convicted of a crime in my life.” She then looked angrily at the prosecution when she made that statement.
JJ couldn’t believe it. “Is that true?” he asked the prosecutor.
“Yes, Your Honor, that is accurate.”
“Let me get this straight: You slap a charge of manslaughter on her even after reviewing that footage? Even after knowing she was a first-time offender?”
Again, the prosecutor hesitated. “Yes, Your Honor.”
“Shame on you!” JJ all but yelled at the State. “This is outrageous! On both sides,” he added, looking angrily at that sorry excuse for a public defender the young lady had defending her.
Then he calmed back down. He was shocked by his own outburst. But it was justifiable. This was outrageous. And he wasn’t going to let it stand. “I am reducing her sentence to Reckless Endangerment.” He looked at her file. “She’s been incarcerated for eight months, correct?”
“That is correct, Your Honor,” said the public defender.
The judge looked at the prosecutor, of whom he had asked the question.
“That is correct, Your Honor,” the prosecutor responded.
“I am sentencing her to time served plus one year’s probation,” JJ said to audible gasps of surprise from the out-on-bail defendants in the courtroom. They’d never heard of the Plenty Time Judge giving anybody a break.
“Court’s adjourned,” JJ said, banging his gavel once. Then he looked at the attorneys. “I want to see both counsel in my chambers forthwith!”
He said it so angrily that even a shocked Tish figured out what forthwith had to mean. And then he left the bench, with the bailiff yelling all rise again.
Tish could not believe what she’d just heard. She was free to go? She wasn’t going to go to prison for all those years? Not even the five years of the plea deal? It was a sobering reminder at how close she came to five long years locked up had that judge not questioned those lawyers. And a judge like that to set her free? It was beyond belief!
Her lawyer was giddy with excitement, as if her great reversal of fortune was all his doing. He even moved in to hug her, as if he knew she appreciated him. She was happy too, and giddily so as well, but she wasn’t so overjoyed that she couldn’t see what her own attorney almost did to her.
She backed away from any hug from him. “You could have fought to have my charge reduced too,” she said to him. “But you didn’t even try. You just went along with whatever the prosecution wanted to do. Now you want a hug? Now you expect me to forget all that? Get your ass away from me!” she said to thunderous applause from those out-on-bail defendants waiting in the courtroom for their chance before the judge too.
And then Tish, leaving her red-faced lawyer alone at the defense table, was escorted back into the holding room to finally be processed out.
When she got back in that room, she could hear a pin drop. Nobody was happy for her or sad for her. They didn’t give a shit about her circumstance. They were too worried about their own necks.
But Tish was relieved. So relieved that she was inwardly thanking God. So relieved that she would be out of jail after eight months in that filthy place that she wanted to scream hallelujah.
But she looked around and knew that wouldn’t be well-received either. She survived all those months by clamping down and keeping to herself. She planned to keep on surviving that way.