Chapter 31
Knock, knock.
A door slowly opened, and a pair of distrusting eyes peered out of the aperture at the visitor as if the setting were a besieged castle rather than a private home.
“Oh . . . it’s you,” said the voice, with all the enthusiasm of a loafer welcoming the jingling of his alarm clock in the morning.
“May I come in?” Counselor Megders inquired.
Sigh.
The door opened.
Megders walked in cautiously to his client’s home.
“Is it safe to talk, Mr. Stephenson?”
Mr. Stephenson looked at his attorney with a mixture of anger and confusion. Seeing him here in person was clearly the last thing he had expected . . . or wanted.
“Martha,” he said calmly, giving her a look.
“Come along, kids,” she said, sweeping up a rug rat with each hand and then carrying them away.
Mr. Stephenson crossed his arms and looked at Megders sternly. “Well, I trusted you, Mr. Rottweiler, and now it looks like I’m facing a forty-year sentence. Does that about sum it up, or am I failing to see some hidden silver lining?”
“May I sit down?” Megders asked.
Stephenson looked at him long and hard. The two looked like men sizing each other up before a nasty fight.
Slowly, Stephenson sauntered over to the kitchen table, pulled out a chair and said, “Be my guest.”
“Thank you,” Megders replied calmly.
He went and sat down, and Stephenson did the same.
“All right, now what do you want?” Stephenson asked with some hostility in his voice.
Megders hoisted up a briefcase and set it on the table.
“Your next brilliant legal strategy?” Stephenson inquired.
Megders opened it and noticed that Stephenson’s eyes increased to roughly double their previous size.
“It’s $200,000 falons,” Megders said matter-of-factly, then closed the briefcase and shoved it towards Stephenson. “You didn’t get it from me, the words I’m about to speak were never really spoken, and I was never here tonight.”
Stephenson looked at him suspiciously, neither grabbing the briefcase and claiming it nor shoving it back towards Megders with righteous indignation.
“What are these words that were never really spoken?” Stephenson asked reluctantly, but with apparent interest.
“You got screwed,” Megders said.
“Yeah, by you; tell me something I don’t already know, why don’t you?!” Stephenson said, in an angry voice. Then, he looked a bit unnerved by the intensity of the expression in Megders’ eyes.
“Do you really think I would be in here handing you $200,000 falons just because I screwed up? When I could just turn my back on you and let you spend the next twenty years to forty years in prison?”
“No, I don’t suppose you would,” Stephenson said.
“Truth be told, I did screw up. I should have let you take the plea.”
Stephenson’s face softened a bit. “Look, I’m no saint. And I’m no stranger to screwing up. I’m the one who sold Smokeless Green to the chief of police!” he said, and for a moment his face looked like it might even smile, but the gravity of the situation prevented it.
“But you won one round of the fight, and honestly I thought you had the second one tucked away too,” Stephenson said. “You fought like hell with those appellate judges. I know you tried.”
There was a pause, and then Stephenson looked like a man who had suddenly remembered something he had been meaning to ask. “But just what do you mean exactly that I got screwed?” he asked, with an uneasy voice.
“Do you want to hear it even though I can’t prove any of what I’m about to tell you . . . at least not yet?”
“Shoot.”
“I’ve been doing this a long time, Mr. Stephenson. I’ve argued before those appellate judges many times, and I swear to Kasani something was fishy with Justice Haufensehn, maybe even with Justice Beckle.”
“Fishy how?”
“Usually, Justice Beckle is a textualist and originalist, very suspicious of any statute that seems to go even slightly beyond what is permitted by the Constitution. Yet that day he sounded like an expansionist liberal.”
Megders realized he may as well be speaking in Ridervarian. “What I’m saying is either someone bribed him or someone blackmailed him.”
Stephenson looked flabbergasted, which emboldened Megders to continue.
“It’s nearly unprecedented for an opinion to be written the same day as oral argument, which in and of itself would be strong cause to conclude at least Justice Beckle was not acting without outside influence.”
Stephenson looked intrigued but said nothing.
“As for the Supreme Court not hearing our appeal, that’s also rare. While it’s understandable they might want to see how this pans out in other circuits, they usually only take such a wait-and-see approach in non-criminal matters. When a man’s liberty is at stake, they usually hear the appeal if a legitimate constitutional question has been raised, which is certainly the case.”
There was another long pause. Stephenson looked very distressed.
“This breaks numerous ethics rules, not to mention criminal laws, but my sincere advice to you is to abscond. I will hunt like a bloodhound for a SISA case in a different circuit, after which several things could happen. If the district court judge denies my motion to dismiss for violation of Article 8, I will appeal it all the way to the Supreme Court. What will be crucial is a circuit court victory.
“If I can get that, the prosecutor will probably file an appeal to the Supreme Court, and I am confident I can win there. And if the prosecutor doesn’t appeal to the Supreme Court, the circuit court victory would give me a basis to re-file your appeal. It would be very bad for the Supreme Court’s image to deny the appeal if there is a circuit court split.”
“What if you can never get a circuit court victory?” Stephenson asked soberly.
“It would make things very hard. If I can at least get another district court victory or two, that could help my chances, but frankly if I can’t get a circuit court victory, the Supreme Court will probably continue to refuse to hear the case. On the other hand, another attorney might get a circuit court victory, and that would also give me a basis for re-filing your appeal to the Supreme Court.”
“How long could all this take?”
“Years. Or it might never happen.”
Stephenson’s face looked gloomy.
“For a lawyer, you’re mostly a straight shooter,” Stephenson said, grudgingly. “Do you think it will happen, and if so, how long do you think it will take?”
“I think it will happen, and I think it will probably happen within two to five years.”
“So, why don’t I just go serve my time and hope that you pull this off? Why should I complicate things by absconding? What is that, anyway, a felony?”
“Actually, the offense is failure to appear, and it’s only a Class C misdemeanor, for which the maximum sentence is six months. Ironically, I’m running far more risk by giving you this money and encouraging you to abscond. In a peculiar quirk of our laws, defendants only commit the Class C misdemeanor of failure to appear if they have not yet been convicted, yet those encouraging them to abscond and aiding them in the process can be charged as accomplices in the underlying crime itself if the defendant is found guilty—even in absentia. This means I could be charged with a Class B felony SISA offense.”
“We could be cellmates!” Stephenson said, laughing.
“Not if you’re on the run,” Megders replied, with a slight smile.
“But if they caught me,” Stephenson riposted.
“Yes, I suppose it’s possible,” Megders conceded.
“And then I would also be serving a sentence for the Class B felony SISA offense, plus the Class C misdemeanor failure to appear offense.”
“That’s right. And as fo
r why you shouldn’t just plead guilty and start your sentence now . . . .”
Stephenson noticed Megders looked unsure as to whether to continue.
“Heck, just go ahead and say it. You’re telling me to commit felonies. Are you afraid I’ll laugh at a conspiracy theory?”
“Perhaps I am,” Megders said with an icy concern in his voice that sent shivers down Stephenson’s spine. “Perhaps I’m afraid you won’t take me as seriously as you should and will end up dead.”
Stephenson’s smile dissipated quickly.
“I believe powerful men are at work behind the scenes on this, Mr. Stephenson. If I were to go win in the 3rd Circuit, for example, and the prosecutor decided not to appeal, there would still be a circuit split that I could use to re-file your appeal, right?”
Stephenson nodded with uncertainty, not sure why his attorney was asking him a legal question.
“Well, what if you were to get depressed and hang yourself in your cell? I couldn’t file your appeal at all. The circuit split would be irrelevant.”
“Hah!” Stephenson said, laughing. “That is crazy. There would still be plenty of other SISA convicts by then. Even if someone killed me in my cell, any other SISA convict in the District of Selgen could file an appeal!” Stephenson said, still laughing. “Sorry, you warned me you were afraid I would laugh at your conspiracy theories; I guess I should have heeded your warning.”
“What if those prisoners die in an unfortunate riot or simply one by one? A suicide here, a fatal brawl there.”
“Who could get that kind of muscle? And if they have it, what good would it do for me to be on the run?”
“Under Seleganian law, an attorney can re-file an appeal for a person convicted in absentia, provided the original appeal was filed before the conviction occurred.”
Stephenson’s smug sneer mostly vanished, as he realized he had underestimated his attorney.
“As long as you’re on the run, you’ll be harder for them to get to. And with a $200,000 falon head start and these new identification documents here for you and your family, which I can assure you are of superb quality,” (Megders pushed them forward on the table towards Stephenson) “I think you will be a rather hard man to find.”
Stephenson began scrutinizing the documents carefully.
“I still have a hard time buying that these people, however powerful they are, can take out any potential appellant and thereby prevent anybody from filing an appeal here in the capital once there’s a circuit split.”
“You could be right. There will soon be a lot of SISA prisoners. But they don’t have to take out every prisoner who wants to appeal. They could go after the individual attorneys. Not too many attorneys like getting into criminal appeals. They are very time-consuming, and most defendants can’t afford them. Those who can are typically wealthy enough to be defined as a ‘gentleman’ under SISA, which means they are permitted to use Smokeless Green and wouldn’t be punishable under the law anyway.”
Stephenson’s face grew very attentive.
“Thus, the only prisoners they will have to worry about are ones just wealthy enough to afford to pay an attorney to file numerous appeals but still below the wealth required for SISA ‘gentlemen’ status. In such cases, they might encourage the prosecutor to offer an incredibly light plea bargain or even dismiss the charges completely. Regardless, there will be very few prisoners they have to contend with that are both wealthy enough to hire an attorney to file numerous appeals and still below the ‘gentleman’ threshold.”
“Then, why are you doing this?” Stephenson asked. “I couldn’t have afforded to pay you for those numerous appeals.”
“It’s partly personal,” Megders admitted, “but I do strongly oppose SISA on constitutional grounds and believe it is going to cause our country unspeakable destruction.”
“Well, are there other attorneys like you?”
“Maybe some, but not many. And I’m lucky because I was born into wealth, you might say. I was given some land in an inheritance that yields enough annual income to just barely put me into ‘gentleman’ status. Thus, I have the luxury of occasionally taking legal cases pro bono that I feel have a significant societal importance or involve an individual in particularly unjust circumstances.”
“I’m guessing I squeezed in via the first option, considering that as someone stupid enough to sell Smokeless Green in his store to the chief of police—not that he was wearing a name tag, mind you—I’m probably not the most sympathetic client you’ve ever had,” Stephenson said laughing, and Megders joined him while shrugging his shoulders slightly.
“Who do you think is behind this then?” Stephenson asked.
“At least one senator, but I’d prefer not to name names or speculate beyond that.”
Stephenson looked as if he had a question he wasn’t sure would be appropriate to ask, so Megders prodded him to.
“Well, it’s just that if there aren’t too many clients that can afford to file these kinds of appeals, and there aren’t too many attorneys who do pro bono cases of this nature, then what’s to stop these men from taking you out of their path?”
“That’s a chance I feel obligated to take. I told you that when you hired me you would have a Rottweiler attorney, did I not?” Megders said.
“Yes, you did,” Stephenson said, nodding.
“Well, this is a fight, Mr. Stephenson, and I intend to keep my word. I’ve hired a bodyguard, something I never thought I would have to do. He’s outside right now, in fact. Also, taking a senator out of one’s path can be a trickier business than taking out a prisoner, no offense. The investigations tend to be much more thorough. But I realize I’m potentially putting myself in danger. It’s a risk I accept. It should be that way. I came to you, not the other way around. I intend to see this through to the end.”
Stephenson looked embarrassed as he faked a sneeze and quickly wiped his eyes in the process. He stood up and extended his hand to Megders: “You’ve restored my faith in humanity, counselor. I’ll pay back every last falon. I’ll write you once my family and I get settled in some place new, and then I’ll just be quiet until either I hear from you or I see in the papers that a circuit has ruled SISA unconstitutional. You take care of yourself, sir.”
“You do the same, Mr. Stephenson.”
Megders shook his hand firmly and then walked outside into the night.