Resurrection Walk

Silver nodded and went back to the document. The top sheet was boilerplate, listing the reasons why the U.S. district court should hear the motion. The second page was more case-specific and outlined how my efforts to secure cooperation from the FBI for a habeas motion in state court had been thwarted by a blanket denial of requests from the district’s U.S. Attorney’s Office. Silver nodded as he read as though agreeing to the facts outlined on page two. When he saw the notation about the attached exhibit he flipped to the back of the document and read the short, terse letter from the Central District of California U.S. Attorney’s Office denying my request to speak to FBI agent Tom MacIsaac and warning that any effort to serve him with a state court subpoena would be blocked.

“Perrrrfect,” Silver said, drawing the word out.

He went back to the second page and then moved on to page three. This was what I was waiting for. Page three was the meat of the document. It contained the reasons why the petition should be granted and a habeas hearing scheduled. I watched closely as Silver continued reading and nodding, acting like he was checking off boxes and approving as he went.

But a few seconds later he stopped nodding.

“What the fuck, Haller?” he said. “This says ‘ineffective assistance of counsel’ and you said you weren’t going that way.”

“I told you, things have changed,” I said.

“How the fuck have they changed? You think you’re going to file this and then leak it to the press? That’s a big nonstarter, buddy boy. That isn’t happening.”

I was still standing. I didn’t want to sit down for this. I didn’t want to be in this room and in front of this guy any longer than I had to. I put my hands down on his desk after shoving some of the clutter out of the way. I leaned down but was still above Silver’s level.

“Things changed when I found out about you,” I said.

“Me?” Silver exclaimed. “What are you talking about? Found out what?”

“That you sold Lucinda Sanz down the river. That you took a dive.”

“Bullshit.”

“No bullshit. You could’ve beaten this case easy. But you folded, and that woman’s been sitting in Chino for five years.”

“Are you nuts? None of that is true. I got her a great fucking deal. But even if it was a bad deal, I didn’t take it. She did. It was her call.”

“You talked her into it.”

“I didn’t have to. She knew they had her. And she knew it was a good deal. I just had to lay it out for her and she did the rest. You ask her, she’ll say the same.”

“I did ask her. She did say it was her call, but she didn’t know at the time that a few months earlier, you’d represented a client named Angel Acosta.”

Silver failed to keep the surprise out of his eyes.

“That’s right,” I said. “Angel Acosta, the guy your new client’s ex-husband shot during a firefight at a hamburger stand.”

“It’s not a conflict of interest,” Silver said. “It’s a coincidence. Definitely not ineffect—”

“Acosta told you that was no ambush. It was some kind of meeting between the gang and a corrupt cop. I don’t know the details yet, but you do. Whatever it was, it went bad fast and the shooting started. Sanz was no hero and you knew it. That was the ace up your sleeve with Acosta. Your leverage. That’s how you got him the sweet deal. You threatened to put it all out there, put the sheriff’s department on trial.”

“You really don’t know what you’re talking about, Haller.”

“I think I do. You then saw the opportunity to double dip with Lucinda. Get the case from the public defender, then use the same intel from Acosta to get a deal. But the reality was you had an innocent client. And you had everything you needed to go to trial and win. But, no, you’re Second-Place Silver. You took a dive.”

Silver shoved the food container to the side of his desk but he pushed too hard and it fell off and showered the floor and wall with fried rice.

“Goddamn it!” he said.

He started to bend down to clean it up but then sat back up straight and looked at me.

“It was a judgment call,” he said. “We make them every single day and no judge will grant you a habeas on a judgment call. You file this and you’ll be laughed out of federal court.”

The document I had prepared that morning was simply a prop. Silver was right about one thing: Going for a habeas in federal court with just ineffective assistance of counsel was a nonstarter. It would go nowhere and I wasn’t planning to file it. It was just a tool to help me get to Silver and get him talking.

“I might be laughed out of court,” I said. “Or the public might learn that you took a dive on an innocent client’s case.”

“As I said, you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” Silver said.

“Then here’s your chance to school me, Frank. Tell me what I don’t know.”

“I was fucking threatened, you dumbass. I had no choice.”

There. I had broken through. Now I pulled out the chair in front of his desk and sat down.

“Threatened by who?” I said.