A Knock at Midnight(67)



    She was right. If there was a chance it would work, I had no other choice. I called every criminal defense attorney in Dallas I knew, asking for advice on how to approach a motion to reconsider. No one had any. Lots of people offered me unsolicited advice, though. “Don’t do it, Brittany. You’ll offend the judge. You don’t want to frustrate the court. Think of your other clients that may come before him. Think of your career.” I thanked them politely and ignored them. Mike’s life hung in the balance. Offending the court was a risk I would have to take.

Just days before I had been congratulating myself on what was a major victory. Now I was back to basically making up a motion that I had no clue how to draft. The memory of Mike’s painful efforts to express his gratitude despite his profound disappointment at the thought of four more years in prison propelled me forward. I filed a motion to reconsider, thanking the judge for his merciful consideration in the first reduction but arguing once again that there had been no reason to sentence Mike to the high end of the guidelines. I kept my arguments brief and succinct. After all, the judge had already read and considered the first motion. I stressed Mike’s failing health, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ inability to provide him with the care and therapy he needed. I emphasized that Mike had already served nearly twenty-three years. Finally, I pointed out that De-Ann and Donel had received clemency and that Mike’s continued incarceration would create an extreme and unwarranted sentencing disparity among codefendants. I urged the judge to reconsider his decision from just two weeks before and grant time served.

    I hoped I wasn’t making a huge mistake.



* * *





NOBODY DOES A flower arrangement like the Ritz-Carlton. Long-stemmed tulips, all white, arched dramatically from elegant vases in the center table of the grand lobby. Not a terrible location for a professional conference. I had just come out of a lecture on risk allocation delivered by partners from prominent international law firms. It was the University of Texas School of Law’s renowned Mergers and Acquisitions Institute, and the lobby of the Ritz was brimming with some of the country’s top deal lawyers and investment bankers. As I made my way toward my next session, greeting familiar faces as I went, my phone buzzed with an email alert. I stopped just short of the glossy conference room door. The judge had issued an order on my motion to reconsider.

I took a deep breath. I’d submitted the motion only a couple of weeks before. After waiting months on the first decision, I’d expected a far longer waiting period. Maybe the judge had been so offended by my request to reconsider that he’d wanted it off his desk. Fast.

My heart was beating hard in my chest. Come on, Brittany, have faith, I thought. Believe.

I opened the order and read.

Before the court is the defendant’s motion to reconsider sentence (docket entry 158). For the reasons stated in the motion, the motion is GRANTED, and the defendant’s previously imposed sentence of imprisonment is REDUCED from 365 months to 292 months.

SO ORDERED.



Granted! 292 months was time served. Time served! I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I backed away from the conference room door, tears welling in my eyes as I scrolled to find Marc’s number. I wanted to cry, to shout, but surrounded as I was by lawyers and business executives, I held it together. Barely.

    “Granted!” I said without even a greeting when I heard Marc’s voice. “The judge granted the motion to reconsider! He’s free!”

Marc sounded like he had just rolled out of bed. “What? Brittany, what did you say?”

“Your dad. The judge granted my motion to reconsider. It’ll take a little time to process but—your dad is getting out!”

There was silence on the other end of the line, and then Marc broke into wild whoops that echoed what I was feeling inside. When we hung up I raced back to ORIX to get everything moving. The latest deal trends in mergers and acquisitions could wait.

In between calls to Mike’s mom, his sons, and De-Ann, I tried in vain to get hold of Mike himself at the prison. His counselor was off that day, and no one I talked to seemed interested in setting up an emergency legal call. Mike’s ordeal was over and he didn’t even know it.

Running on elation and adrenaline, I made a call to an attorney I knew at the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ regional office in Grand Prairie. I read him the order and offered to email it to him. “Given the circumstances,” I said, “is there any way we can expedite this order to have his new release date calculated? It should be but a week or so out—his sons sure would like him home.”

“I’ll send this to the Sentencing Computations Department,” my friend said. “But, Brittany, if the order reads the way you said, this is a time served order effective as of today. We cannot keep Mike Wilson in prison another day or it will be considered unlawful confinement. He must be released immediately.”

“I don’t think I understand what you’re saying,” I said. “What does this mean for my client?”

“It means that as soon as we can get word to Victorville, your client will be released. Today.”

If I hadn’t tipped them off, the order would have taken at least a week to get into the system. But now, in fear of lawsuits and liability, the corroded machinery of the prison bureaucracy ground into high gear.

Brittany K. Barnett's Books