By Greg Land, From Daily Report

In the end, only two of the 10 Atlanta Public School cheating defendants took the plea bargains—serving little or no jail time in exchange for admitting guilt and waiving their rights to appeal their convictions.

Tuesday’s sentencing hearing and comments from prosecutors and defense attorneys afterward showed that standing before the judge and confessing to the crimes for which they were convicted was too much for many defendants.

“Giving up the right to an appeal was very important,” said Akil Secret, whose client, former Deerwood Elementary School assistant principal Tabeeka Jordan, declined the state’s offer. “No. 2 was having to admit that you were, in fact, guilty. Everybody was willing to apologize, but admitting ‘I am guilty’—my client was not willing to do that.”

Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said his office’s goal never was to send educators to jail when the investigation began.

“Theta’s why we started asking for plea agreements, asking that they take responsibility,” said Howard. Even after being convicted, he said, the preferred outcome was “to give these educators an opportunity not to go to prison.”

But Howard insisted that an acknowledgement of guilt be part of any deal.

“That’s really nothing new,” he said, noting the sentencing guidelines have long held that acceptance of responsibility is among the key considerations for sentence reductions.

In conversation with defense attorneys concerning the proposed sentencing deals, Senior Assistant District Attorney Clint Rucker said there was one key sticking point:

“The refusal to accept responsibility,” said Rucker.

On Monday, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Jerry Baxter had warned the defendants that the failure to take the deals would entail prison time. On Tuesday, former Usher-Collier Heights Elementary School testing coordinator Donald Bullock and Dunbar Elementary School teacher Pamela Cleveland accepted the offers.

Before Bullock was sentenced, his lawyer, Hurl Taylor Jr., began to explain that his client had considered many factors before accepting the deal, including his economic situation, the “political situation” and college tuition for his children, when Baxter cut him off.

“Is he going to take responsibility?” the judge asked. “He’s going to need to ‘fess up. If he doesn’t, ya’ll can go sit down. … If he does I’m going to grant him mercy.”

Bullock read a statement expressing remorse for his part in the scandal, including admitting guilt. Baxter then sentenced him, per the DA’s recommendation, to spend weekends in jail for six months, serve five years on probation, perform 1,500 hours of community service and pay a $5,000 fine.

Cleveland was sentenced to one year of home curfew of 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., although she is allowed to attend to her elderly parents’ health needs. She also received five years of probation, 1,000 hours of community service, and a $1,000 fine.

As he had promised, Baxter dealt prison terms to the rest, coming down particularly hard on the three defendants deemed most culpable of orchestrating the cheating.

Former School Resource team directors Sharon Davis Williams, Tamara Cotman and Michael Pitts each were sentenced to 20 years, with seven to serve and the balance on probation, and ordered to pay $25,000 fines and perform 2,000 hours of community service.

Two others—Jordan and former Dobbs Elementary School teacher Angela Williamson—were sentenced to two years in prison and three on probation, along with $5,000 fines and 1,500 hours of community service.

Former Dobbs Elementary School Principal Dana Evans, former Benteen Elementary testing coordinator Theresia Copeland and former Dunbar Elementary teacher Diane Buckner-Webb were sentenced to one year in prison and four on probation, along with 1,000 hours of community service and a $1,000 fine.

Baxter initially denied some defendants’ requests to be sentenced under the First Offender Act, which would allow them to have their records expunged upon completion of their sentences if they complied with all their terms. But he later relented and granted all of them first offender status.

He also granted appeal bonds for all the defendants, a contrast to last week, when he ordered that most of the defendants be jailed immediately upon being convicted.

After Tuesday’s hearing, some of the defense attorneys said they had been unwilling to accept prosecutors’ “take it or leave it” sentencing proposals, which emerged over the weekend and offered no room for negotiations.

The discussions were “chaotic at best,” said Taylor. Prosecutors had initially refused to consider first offender status, he said, but then placed it on the table Monday—a decision that swayed his client, Bullock, to accept.

Even so, he said, the acceptance of responsibility was a tough one for his client to swallow.

“Many of these others could not handle that,” he said.

Robert Rubin, who represents Evans, said turning down the offer was “a very hard decision,” but “she couldn’t admit to a major conspiracy.”

Rubin is placing his hopes on an appeal.

“We believe there was significant error in this case,” he said.

Williamson’s lawyer, Gerald Griggs, said he refused to allow his client to be “bullied” by the DA’s office into accepting a deal he didn’t like. He said he had been concerned by the appeal waiver, and by the denial of first offender status as originally proposed.

“Now we’ve got our appeal and the first offender status,” he said.

Scott Smith, Copeland’s lawyer, reiterated the concerns he had raised to Baxter that the appeal waiver was a deal-breaker for his client.

“My client was asked to make a decision on her appellate option in 12 hours,” said Smith, noting that he had just spent seven months in a trial and had no chance to review the record for possible error.

“I told her to think long and hard on that,” he said.

IMAGE: Fulton County Superior Court Judge Jerry Baxter describes how the three former SRT directors were at the top of the chain when sentencing them. Former APS SRT Directors Sharon Davis Williams, Tamara Cotman and Michael Pitts were sentenced to 20 years, to serve 7 years, 2000 hours of community service and $25,000 fine. Sentencing continues for 10 of the 11 defendants convicted of racketeering and other charges in the Atlanta Public Schools test-cheating trial before Judge Jerry Baxter in Fulton County Superior Court, Tuesday, April 14, 2015.

KENT D. JOHNSON / AJC

For more on this story go to: http://www.dailyreportonline.com/id=1202723500944/Admitting-Guilt-Was-Sticking-Point-for-8-Jailed-Educators-Lawyers-Say#ixzz3Xac3iXM8