Native Son

by Richard Wright

  “Your Honor!” Buckley shouted.

  “Allow me to finish,” Max said.

  Buckley came to the front of the room, his face red.

  “You cannot plead that boy both guilty and insane,” Buckley said. “If you claim Bigger Thomas is insane, the State will demand a jury trial….”

  “Your Honor,” Max said, “I do not claim that this boy is legally insane. I shall endeavor to show, through the discussion of evidence, the mental and emotional attitude of this boy and the degree of responsibility he had in these crimes.”

  “That’s a defense of insanity!” Buckley shouted.

  “I’m making no such defense,” Max said.

  “A man is either sane or insane,” Buckley said.

  “There are degrees of insanity,” Max said. “The laws of this state permit the hearing of evidence to ascertain the degree of responsibility. And, also, the law permits the offering of evidence toward the mitigation of punishment.”

  “The State will submit witnesses and evidence to establish the legal sanity of the defendant,” Buckley said.

  There was a long argument which Bigger did not understand. The judge called both lawyers forward to the railing and they talked for over an hour. Finally, they went back to their seats and the judge looked toward Bigger and said,

  “Bigger Thomas, will you rise?”

  His body flushed hot. As he had felt when he stood over the bed with the white blur floating toward him; as he had felt when he had sat in the car between Jan and Mary; as he had felt when he had seen Gus coming through the door of Doc’s poolroom—so he felt now: constricted, taut, in the grip of a powerful, impelling fear. At that moment it seemed that any action under heaven would have been preferable to standing. He wanted to leap from his chair and swing some heavy weapon and end this unequal fight. Max caught his arm.

  “Stand up, Bigger.”

  He rose, holding on to the edge of the table, his knees trembling so that he thought that they would buckle under him. The judge looked at him a long time before speaking. Behind him Bigger heard the room buzzing with the sound of voices. The judge rapped for order.

  “How far did you get in school?” the judge asked.

  “Eighth grade,” Bigger whispered, surprised at the question.

  “If your plea is guilty, and the plea is entered in this case,” the judge said and paused, “the Court may sentence you to death,” the judge said and paused again, “or the Court may sentence you to the penitentiary for the term of your natural life,” the judge said and paused yet again, “or the Court may sentence you to the penitentiary for a term of not less than fourteen years.

  “Now, do you understand what I have said?”

  Bigger looked at Max; Max nodded to him.

  “Speak up,” the judge said. “If you do not understand what I have said, then say so.”

  “Y-y-yessuh; I understand,” he whispered.

  “Then, realizing the consequences of your plea, do you still plead guilty?”

  “Y-y-yessuh,” he whispered again; feeling that it was all a wild and intense dream that must end soon, somehow.

  “That’s all. You may sit down,” the judge said.

  He sat.

  “Is the State prepared to present its evidence and witnesses?” the judge asked.

  “We are, Your Honor,” said Buckley, rising and half-facing the judge and the crowd.

  “Your Honor, my statement at this time will be very brief. There is no need for me to picture to this Court the horrible details of these dastardly crimes. The array of witnesses for the State, the confession made and signed by the defendant himself, and the concrete evidence will reveal the unnatural aspect of this vile offense against God and man more eloquently than I could ever dare. In more than one respect, I am thankful that this is the case, for some of the facts of this evil crime are so fantastic and unbelievable, so utterly beastlike and foreign to our whole concept of life, that I feel incapable of communicating them to this Court.

  “Never in my long career as an officer of the people have I been placed in a position where I’ve felt more unalterably certain of my duty. There is no room here for evasive, theoretical, or fanciful interpretations of the law.” Buckley paused, surveyed the court room, then stepped to the table and lifted from it the knife with which Bigger had severed Mary’s head from her body. “This case is as clean-cut as this murderer’s knife, the knife that dismembered an innocent girl!” Buckley shouted. He paused again and lifted from the table the brick with which Bigger had battered Bessie in the abandoned building. “Your Honor, this case is as solid as this brick, the brick that battered a poor girl’s brains out!” Buckley again looked at the crowd in the court room. “It is not often,” Buckley continued, “that a representative of the people finds the masses of the citizens who elected him to office standing literally at his back, waiting for him to enforce the law….” The room was quiet as a tomb. Buckley strode to the window and with one motion of his hand hoisted it up. The rumbling mutter of the vast mob swept in. The court room stirred.

  “Kill’im now!”

  “Lynch ’im!”

  The judge rapped for order.

  “If this is not stopped, I’ll order the room cleared!” the judge said.

  Max was on his feet.

  “I object!” Max said. “This is highly irregular. In effect, it is an attempt to intimidate this Court.”

  “Objection sustained,” the judge said. “Proceed in a fashion more in keeping with the dignity of your office and this Court, Mr. State’s Attorney.”

  “I’m very sorry, Your Honor,” Buckley said, going toward the railing and wiping his face with a handkerchief. “I was laboring under too much emotion. I merely wanted to impress the Court with the urgency of this situation….”

  “The Court is waiting to hear your plea,” the judge said.

  “Yes; of course, Your Honor,” Buckley said. “Now, what are the issues here? The indictment fully states the crime to which the defendant has entered a plea of guilty. The counsel for the defense claims, and would have this Court believe, that the mere act of entering a plea of guilty to this indictment should be accepted as evidence mitigating punishment.

  “Speaking for the grief-stricken families of Mary Dalton and Bessie Mears, and for the People of the State of Illinois, thousands of whom are massed out beyond that window waiting for the law to take its course, I say that no such quibbling, no such trickery shall pervert this Court and cheat the law!

  “A man commits two of the most horrible murders in the history of American civilization; he confesses; and his counsel would have us believe that because he pleads guilty after dodging the law, after attempting to murder the officers of the law, that his plea should be looked upon as evidence mitigating his punishment!

  “I say, Your Honor, this is an insult to the Court and to the intelligent people of this state! If such crimes admit of such defense, if this fiend’s life is spared because of such a defense, I shall resign my office and tell those people out there in the streets that I can no longer protect their lives and property! I shall tell them that our courts, swamped with mawkish sentimentality, are no longer fit instruments to safeguard the public peace! I shall tell them that we have abandoned the fight for civilization!

  “After entering such a plea, the counsel for the defense indicates that he shall ask this Court to believe that the mental and emotional life of the defendant are such that he does not bear full responsibility for these cowardly rapes and murders. He asks this Court to imagine a legendary No Man’s Land of human thought and feeling. He tells us that a man is sane enough to commit a crime, but is not sane enough to be tried for it! Never in my life have I heard such sheer legal cynicism, such a cold-blooded and calculated attempt to bedevil and evade the law in my life! I say that this shall not be!

  “The State shall insist that this man be tried by jury, if the defense continues to say that he is insane. If his plea is simply guilty, then the State demand
s the death penalty for these black crimes.

  “At such time as the Court may indicate, I shall offer evidence and put witnesses upon the stand to testify that this defendant is sane and is responsible for these bloody crimes….”

  “Your Honor!” Max called.

  “You shall have time to plead for your client!” Buckley shouted. “Let me finish!”

  “Do you have an objection?” the judge asked, turning to Max.

  “I do!” Max said. “I hesitate to interrupt the State’s Attorney, but the impression he is trying to make is that I claim that this boy is insane. That is not true. Your Honor, let me state once again that this poor boy, Bigger, enters a plea of guilty….”

  “I object!” Buckley shouted. “I object to the counsel for the defendant speaking of this defendant before this Court by any name other than that written in the indictment. Such names as ‘Bigger’ and ‘this poor boy’ are used to arouse sympathy….”

  “Sustained,” the judge said. “In the future, the defendant should be designated by the name under which the indictment was drawn. Mr. Max, I think you should allow the State’s Attorney to continue.”

  “There’s nothing further I have to say, Your Honor,” Buckley said. “If it pleases the Court, I am ready to call my witnesses.”

  “How many witnesses have you?” Max asked.

  “Sixty,” Buckley said.

  “Your Honor,” Max said. “Bigger Thomas has entered a plea of guilty. It seems to me that sixty witnesses are not needed.”

  “I intend to prove that this defendant is sane, that he was and is responsible for these frightful crimes,” Buckley said.

  “The Court will hear them,” the judge said.

  “Your Honor,” Max said. “Let me clear this thing up. As you know, the time granted me to prepare a defense for Bigger Thomas is pitifully brief, so brief as to be without example. This hearing was rushed to the top of the calendar so that this boy might be tried while the temper of the people is white-hot.

  “A change of venue is of no value now. The same condition of hysteria exists all over this state. These circumstances have placed me in a position of not doing what I think wisest, but of doing what I must. If anybody but a Negro boy were charged with murder, the State’s Attorney would not have rushed this case to trial and demanded the death penalty.

  “The State has sought to create the impression that I am going to say that this boy is insane. That is not true. I shall put no witnesses upon the stand. I shall witness for Bigger Thomas. I shall present argument to show that his extreme youth, his mental and emotional life, and the reason why he has pleaded guilty, should and must mitigate his punishment.

  “The State’s Attorney has sought to create the belief that I’m trying to spring some surprise upon this Court by having my client enter a plea of guilty; he has sought to foster the notion that some legal trick is involved in the offering of evidence to mitigate this boy’s punishment. But we have had many, many such cases to come before the courts of Illinois. The Loeb and Leopold case, for example. This is a regular procedure provided for by the enlightened and progressive laws of our state. Shall we deny this boy, because he is poor and black, the same protection, the same chance to be heard and understood that we have so readily granted to others?

  “Your Honor, I am not a coward, but I could not ask that this boy be freed and given a chance at life while that mob howls beyond that window. I ask what I must. I ask, over the shrill cries of the mob, that you spare his life!

  “The law of Illinois, regarding a plea of guilty to murder before a court, is as follows: the Court may impose the death penalty, imprison the defendant for life, or for a term of not less than fourteen years. Under this law the Court is able to hear evidence as to the aggravation or mitigation of the offense. The object of this law is to caution the Court to seek to find out why a man killed and to allow that why to be the measure of the mitigation of the punishment.

  “I noticed that the State’s Attorney did not dwell upon why Bigger Thomas killed those two women. There is a mob waiting, he says, so let us kill. His only plea is that if we do not kill, then the mob will kill.

  “He did not discuss the motive for Bigger Thomas’ crime because he could not. It is to his advantage to act quickly, before men have had time to think, before the full facts are known. For he knows that if the full facts were known, if men had time to reflect, he could not stand there and shout for death!

  “What motive actuated Bigger Thomas? There was no motive as motive is understood under our laws today, Your Honor. I shall go deeper into this when I sum up. It is because of the almost instinctive nature of these crimes that I say that the mental and emotional life of this boy is important in deciding his punishment. But, as the State whets the appetite of the mob by needlessly parading witness after witness before this Court, as the State inflames the public mind further with the ghastly details of this boy’s crimes, I shall listen for the State’s Attorney to tell this Court why Bigger Thomas killed.

  “This boy is young, not only in years, but in his attitude toward life. He is not old enough to vote. Living in a Black Belt district, he is younger than most boys of his age, for he has not come in contact with the wide variety and depths of life. He has had but two outlets for his emotions: work and sex—and he knew these in their most vicious and degrading forms.

  “I shall ask this Court to spare this boy’s life and I have faith enough in this Court to believe that it will consent.”

  Max sat down. The court room was filled with murmurs.

  “The Court will adjourn for one hour and reconvene at one o’clock,” the judge said.

  Flanked by policemen, Bigger was led back into the crowded hall. Again he passed a window and he saw a sprawling mob held at bay by troops. He was taken to a room where a tray of food rested on a table. Max was there, waiting for him.

  “Come on and sit down, Bigger. Eat something.”

  “I don’t want nothing.”

  “Come on. You’ve got to hold up.”

  “I ain’t hungry.”

  “Here; take a smoke.”

  “Naw.”

  “You want a drink of water?”

  “Naw.”

  Bigger sat in a chair, leaned forward, rested his arms on the table and buried his face in the crooks of his elbows. He was tired. Now that he was out of the court room, he felt the awful strain under which he had been while the men had argued about his life. All of the vague thoughts and excitement about finding a way to live and die were far from him now. Fear and dread were the only possible feelings he could have in that court room. When the hour was up, he was led back into court. He rose with the rest when the judge came, and then sat again.

  “The State may call its witnesses,” the judge said.

  “Yes, Your Honor,” Buckley said.

  The first witness was an old woman whom Bigger had not seen before. During the questioning, he heard Buckley call her Mrs. Rawlson. Then he heard the old woman say that she was the mother of Mrs. Dalton. Bigger saw Buckley give her the earring he had seen at the inquest, and the old woman told of how the pair of earrings had been handed down through the years from mother to daughter. When Mrs. Rawlson was through, Max said that he had no desire to examine her or any of the State’s witnesses. Mrs. Dalton was led to the stand and she told the same story she had told at the inquest. Mr. Dalton told again why he had hired Bigger and pointed him out as “the Negro boy who came to my home to work.” Peggy also pointed him out, saying through her sobs, “Yes; he’s the boy.” All of them said that he had acted like a very quiet and sane boy.

  Britten told how he had suspected that Bigger knew something of the disappearance of Mary; and said that “that black boy is as sane as I am.” A newspaperman told of how the smoke in the furnace had caused the discovery of Mary’s bones. Bigger heard Max rise when the newspaperman had finished.

  “Your Honor,” Max said. “I’d like to know how many more newspapermen are to testify?”<
br />
  “I have just fourteen more,” Buckley said.

  “Your Honor,” Max said. “This is totally unnecessary. There is a plea of guilty here….”

  “I’m going to prove that that killer is sane!” Buckley shouted.

  “The Court will hear them,” the judge said. “Proceed, Mr. Buckley.”

  Fourteen more newspapermen told about the smoke and the bones and said that Bigger acted “just like all other colored boys.” At five o’clock the court recessed and a tray of food was placed before Bigger in a small room, with six policemen standing guard. The nerves of his stomach were so taut that he could only drink the coffee. Six o’clock found him back in court. The room grew dark and the lights were turned on. The parade of witnesses ceased to be real to Bigger. Five white men came to the stand and said that the handwriting on the kidnap note was his; that it was the same writing which they had found on his “homework papers taken from the files of the school he used to attend.” Another white man said that the fingerprints of Bigger Thomas were found on the door of “Miss Dalton’s room.” Then six doctors said Bessie had been raped. Four colored waitresses from Ernie’s Kitchen Shack pointed him out as the “colored boy who was at the table that night with the white man and the white woman.” And they said he had acted “quiet and sane.” Next came two white women, school teachers, who said that Bigger was “a dull boy, but thoroughly sane.” One witness melted into another. Bigger ceased to care. He stared listlessly. At times he could hear the faint sound of the winter wind blowing outdoors. He was too tired to be glad when the session ended. Before they took him back to his cell, he asked Max,

  “How long will it last?”

  “I don’t know, Bigger. You’ll have to be brave and hold up.”

  “I wish it was over.”

  “This is your life, Bigger. You got to fight.”

  “I don’t care what they do to me. I wish it was over.”