Ed. Note: Our intrepid TV and Movie Critic, Harris County Public Defender Alex Bunin, reviews the final episode of Better Call Saul, which turned out to be a TV show and not a completely unethical actual lawyer. My bad. But I digress.
As someone who practiced in the federal courts for many years, the final episode of “Better Call Saul” (BCS) was somewhat disappointing. It was not the resolution that bothered me, just some basic misunderstandings of how federal criminal cases are disposed. Spoilers will follow.
The six-year program was a “prequel” to “Breaking Bad.” Both series were exciting crime dramas with just enough humor to keep them from being grim. Each had excellent writing and acting. BCS featured a character from “Breaking Bad,” Saul Goodman, a lawyer who worked mainly for a drug cartel. The series chronicled his arc from mail room worker at his brother’s law firm to flashy drug lawyer, and then fugitive. There were many fascinating characters and cliffhanger endings. Early in his law career, he took court appointed cases and there were some realistic depictions of attorney-client relations.
Saul Goodman (not his real name – i.e., “It’s all good, man”) is represented in both the post and pre “Breaking Bad” eras. In the former, he is living under a different alias in Omaha as a Cinnabon manager, after escaping from the various racketeering charges he accumulated in Albuquerque. Some very self-destructive behavior causes him to be discovered and extradited back to face prosecution.
Saul has an elaborate plan to negotiate his criminal exposure from a certain Life+ sentence to something he can do. Please understand that the drug conspiracy in which he participated involved thousands of kilos of methamphetamine and many dead bodies, including two federal agents. His bargaining chip turns out to be a sincere speech detailing how he was coerced into his actions and only continued for fear of being murdered himself. Therefore, he argues, he may be able to hang the jury. Huh?
The very experienced federal prosecutor who hears Saul’s speech buckles and offers seven and a half years on the premise that “juries can do anything.” However, nothing in Saul’s speech is a defense to conspiracy and is only mildly mitigating under federal sentencing guidelines. At best he would get a downward departure that would still require him to spend his dotage behind bars. Saul also wants his short confinement to occur at FCI Butner, a real place that does not actually have golf for its residents. The Federal Bureau of Prisons also rarely follows directions by prosecutors or judges about where to house persons in their custody.
For reasons too complicated to explain here – and I do not quite understand them myself – Saul chooses to use his sentencing hearing to confess to all the allegations and more. The premise is that this will protect his estranged wife from a civil lawsuit and show he still loves her. The judge, who does little to question whether he should be representing himself, ultimately gives him 86 years. He is then designated to someplace called “ADX Montrose” in Colorado. I assume this is a pseudonym for the actual ADX Florence. However, there are only two ways to get sent there – (1) the word “bomber” is attached to you (e.g., Unabomber, Shoe Bomber, Atlanta Bomber, etc.), or (2) you are considered too incorrigible or dangerous for lower level prisons. A drug cartel lawyer meets neither of those criteria.
I once had a client at ADX Florence who was appealing his conviction. Although, his underlying charge was merely being a felon in possession of a firearm, he worked his way up the security ladder by being considered so litigious, rule-breaking and obnoxious, that he was rewarded with the honor of being at a facility that is mostly underground. Unlike “ADX Montrose,” persons confined there do not wander around the kitchen fist-bumping one another, nor do they get unescorted visits from females.
At the end of the episode, he tells his wife Kim that you never know how early he might get out for good behavior. Actually, you do. It is in Title 18 of the U.S. Code – 54 days a year. That will take him from 86 to 73 years. Absent compassionate release, he still comes out in a box.
It was a great series. I just wish it did not end with so much misinformation. However, this review is mild compared to my dissection of “Law & Order.” Those writers truly do not care.
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“ But I digress.”
I wish violence on no one, but if your mean-ass editor kicks your butt, well, you kinda have it coming. SHE KNOWS WHAT YOU MEAN. Just some food for thought from an admiring subscriber.
I interpreted it as Jimmy confessing because that was the only way Kim would ever have any respect for or even contact him again, and that the “good behavior” line was a morbid joke. He knew he was done. If he really believed that he would have started outlining his plan to Kim and trying to get her on board with some insane scheme to make it happen. Instead they just had a smoke. And I think they chose a real prison as Saul’s first choice but a fictional one for where he actually ends up because they couldn’t show things at Florence going that way. ADX Montrose being a fictional prison gives them wiggle room.
The acronym ADX removes all wiggle room. It is the highest level of security. No private contact visits. No smoking either– neither there, nor at any other BOP facility.