The courtroom was tense and somber. The media vultures had already filled the jury box. James and Rita Miller, Johnny Wayne’s in-laws, were sitting on the front row. Rita was crying. James looked away when I tried to catch his eye.

I walked over to the defense table to wait for the judge, who finally teetered through the door in his black robe a half hour later. His hair was snow white, medium length, and chaotic. He wore tinted reading glasses that made it difficult to see his eyes. His clerk helped him up the steps and into his chair. The clerk called the case, and the bailiffs brought Johnny Wayne in through a door to my right and led him to the podium ten feet in front of the judge.

I stood at the podium next to my client while the judge went through a lengthy question and answer session to ensure that Johnny Wayne was competent to enter a guilty plea, that he understood what was going on, and that he wasn’t under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Lisa Mayes, the prosecutor, then stood and read the litany of evidence that would have been presented had Johnny Wayne gone to trial.

I could hear Rita Miller sobbing uncontrollably behind me as she was forced, one last time, to listen to a detailed description of her daughter’s brutal murder while her grandson hid beneath the bed. I felt ashamed to be representing the man who had caused her such misery.

When Lisa was finished, Judge Glass stiffened.

”Johnny Wayne Neal,” he said in a voice made gravelly from booze and tobacco, ”how do you plead to the charge of first-degree murder?”

The moment of truth. The point of no return.

”Guilty,” came the answer, barely audible. I breathed a sigh of relief.