Shadow of A Doubt

by William J. Coughlin

The judge turned his cold eyes my way.

  “The defense rests,” I said.

  The judge consulted his watch. “It’s almost quitting time. We will begin at nine o’clock sharp as usual. I want the attorneys here a half-hour before so we can review any request relating to the charge. Then both of you gentlemen should be prepared to make your final arguments. Any problems?”

  I shook my head.

  “No problems,” Evola said.

  “Good,” the judge said, allowing a small smile. “If all goes well, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you may have this case by tomorrow night.”

  He hesitated, then spoke again, this time in a commanding tone. “I am going to order all the attorneys and the people who have appeared as witnesses, all police officers, and anyone else connected with this case not to discuss any aspect of this matter with” — he smiled coldly — “anyone connected with the press or other media.”

  He stood up and the clerk rapped the gavel. “All stand,” the clerk barked as the judge hurried toward his chambers.

  Then the gavel rapped again. “This court stands adjourned until tomorrow morning.”

  *

  ANGEL, circled by a ring of security men, fled the courtroom before I could talk to her.

  I was instantly surrounded by reporters, all snapping questions.

  “You heard what the judge said.” I raised my voice above the din to be heard. “As you know, I am a champion of truth, justice, and the American way, but if I talk to you they will send my well-intentioned ass to jail. I’m sure you don’t want that to happen.”

  They didn’t care, and they let me know it. A couple of the reporters shouted questions about a courtroom trick. Others yelled something about slick lawyers and questionable ethics. I pretended to pay no attention.

  I pushed my way out of the courtroom and was immediately surrounded outside by television cameras and people with microphones demanding I give a statement as they followed me down the stairs and out the door. I repeated my act, smiling all the while, and finally managed to get to my car and drive away.

  I drove to my office.

  I locked the door after me in case any newspeople were in pursuit. Then just sat there for a few minutes.

  If! ever needed a drink, this was the time. But I had one more day to go. One more day.

  Then, I just might do it.

  *

  AFTER a few minutes of watching the river I began to relax.

  I called the Harwell house and Dennis Bernard answered.

  “Bernard, I’d like to speak to Angel.”

  “Mr. Sloan, I’ve been instructed to tell you that phone calls are not being accepted.”

  “Why?”

  ‘I’m not entirely sure of the reason.”

  “Okay. I’ll be over there in ten minutes.”

  “Mr. Sloan, that wouldn’t be wise.” I could hear the embarrassment in his voice. “I’m afraid you aren’t welcome at the moment. The gate guards have been instructed to turn you away if you do come over.”

  “Jesus, what’s going on over there?”

  “Mr. Sloan, all I can tell you is what I’ve been told to say.”

  “Am I fired as Angel’s lawyer?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Tell her to get on the goddamned phone. Now!”

  I heard him draw in a long breath. “Please, Mr. Sloan.”

  “Okay, Bernard. I won’t put you in the middle. Tell those two wonderful women I’ll see them in court in the morning. Tell them to pray that I’ll be good. Got that?”

  “I’ll say a prayer, Mr. Sloan, if that counts.”

  “It counts, Bernard. Thanks.”

  I was angry. But there wasn’t anything I could do. I could go out and get stone drunk. It would serve them right if I didn’t show up in the morning. The idea was stupid and juvenile and I recognized it as just another manufactured excuse to drink.

  It was Thursday night, the regular meeting of the Club. I looked at my watch. I could make the drive to Detroit. I had the time. Then I decided against it. I would use the evening to prepare my final argument.

  I should have gone to the meeting.

  *

  I STARTED my preparation.

  I’m a good workman. I know what has to be done. If I was a bricklayer I would build one hell of a good wall. It might not have the flying buttresses of Notre Dame or the reach of Chicago’s Trade Tower, but it would be a good wall.

  I made an outline of all the testimony heard by the jury. There was a lot of detail. I began to make a diagram of the more important points. But I couldn’t find a theme, a framework suitable for getting everything in. There seemed to be too much to cover.

  A pizza delivery boy brought me a double cheese, double sausage dinner, complete with giant soft drink. It helped, but not all that much. My wall wasn’t getting built.

  I put the argument aside and worked some on what instructions I might ask the judge to give.

  Judges, most of them, worked from a form book of printed instructions. Some had memorized them, some just went ahead and read the damn things to the jury. Attorneys can request additional charges, statements by the judge to the jury about the law, but the judge doesn’t have to give them if he thinks them improper.

  I tried to anticipate what Evola might request. That was the easy part. I could anticipate with some certainty, judging from the direction of his questions during the trial, and I had a number of standard objections at hand for anything damaging he might want. But I couldn’t get a grip on anything specific that I might want the judge to tell the jury. Again, I couldn’t seem to get focused.

  The pizza was gone, as was the cola.

  I tried once more to draw up the main points of what I might say to the jury. Nothing effective would come.

  There was that little bottle of brandy hidden in the desk. I wondered if a few drinks might release the genie of creativity. That was what they call dangerous thinking. I got up and went home.

  I had no idea of what I might say to the jury. I slept, but it wasn’t a restful sleep. In my dreams buildings fell on me, and I swam in a sea of snakes. I was relieved when morning finally came.

  *

  EVOLA wanted the judge to instruct the jury that they could find Angel guilty of manslaughter. He wanted to give them a compromise verdict in case they had trouble with the main charge of murder. I cited my cases opposing it. The judge said he would instruct the jury that they had only two possible verdicts, guilty as charged and not guilty.

  So far, so good.

  Evola then wanted an instruction that they could find Angel guilty but mentally ill. I fought hard on that one. I had the cases, but that really didn’t mean much given the judge’s attitude toward me. Judge Brown seemed to mull it over. Then, to my relief, he said he would not include that as a possible verdict.

  Evola asked for some other special instructions, some harmful, some not. In the end, I knew the judge’s decisions would do Angel no major harm.

  Then the judicial eyes turned to me. “Well, Sloan, let’s hear it. What do you want?”

  “Nothing special, just the standard instructions, the ones in the manual.”

  He looked at me with suspicion. “I have to give them anyway, according to law. Nothing else?”

  “No, sir.”

  “All right. I think we’re ready to go then, gentlemen.”

  Both Evola and I stood up.

  “Sloan,” the judge said sharply.

  “Yes?”

  “I haven’t forgotten, in case you were wondering. We will be meeting, you and I, as soon as the jury brings in its verdict.”

  “Judge, I —”

  He waved his hand to silence me. “Let’s go,” he said.

  Evola turned to me as we walked out of chambers. “Just so you know, your ass is grass up here in Pickeral Point, no matter what happens. You’re a slimy little prick, Sloan. If the judge does decide to hang you I want to be the one who gets to tie the fucking rope. Understand?�
��

  “Are you angry?”

  He didn’t see the humor in it. Neither did I, actually.

  Angel was sitting at the counsel table.

  “How come you wouldn’t talk to me last night?” I whispered.

  She looked at me, but said nothing.

  The gavel sounded and the judge came out.

  27

  MAYBE EVOLA WOULD GET ELECTED TO CONGRESS, or even the White House. His argument to the jury was the kind of dramatic, riveting speech that earned those kind of jobs.

  He was good. Very good.

  He started with the outstretched hand, just as he had in his opening argument. He reviewed the testimony witness by witness. Sometimes you lose a jury by doing that. They get bored. But not this time. He did it as dramatically as any actor. The jurors paid close attention to his every word.

  I listened and made notes as he picked apart my defense of suicide. He picked apart everything else, too. And then he began demonstrating the strength of his case.

  Evola’s theme was pretty simple, really. Harrison Harwell had been stabbed through the heart. Angel’s fingerprints were on the murder weapon. She had confessed that she was responsible for his death. Evola said that the only thing lacking was a videotape of the actual killing.

  But they didn’t need that, he told them.

  Then he started on Angel, although he was careful not to go too far. He went over her long history of emotional problems. He said that the previous wounding in Florida had been a preview of what finally happened; that everything in evidence showed a homicidal pattern of behavior.

  Evola, knowing it was almost lunch time, stretched things out but finished on a high note, telling the jury that Harrison Harwell cried to them from his grave for justice. He demanded they bring in a verdict of guilty. It was the kind of performance that would have drawn a standing ovation if given in a theater.

  Evola’s demand for justice seemed to echo in the packed courtroom.

  I had been watching the jury during his argument. To my dismay several of them nodded in silent agreement with some of the points he made. One even nodded when he asked for the guilty verdict.

  The judge again consulted his watch. He knew what time it was. The gesture was for the jury’s benefit.

  “It’s almost lunch time, Mr. Sloan. Well take a break and —”

  “I respectfully ask that I be allowed to make my argument now,” I said.

  He looked at me, startled. “I think you may want some time to prepare.”

  “I’ve had sufficient time.”

  “There’s no point to beginning, and then taking a break.”

  I didn’t feel like smiling but I made myself do it. “I won’t be long,” I said. “I will finish before we break for lunch.”

  “You’re kidding,” the judge said, then instantly regretted the words. “Well, whatever. If that’s what you want. Go ahead.”

  I looked at Angel. Again, there was no expression, none that I could read. Her icy blue eyes were fixed on mine. I wondered what she might be thinking.

  *

  I STOOD before the jury. I really didn’t know what I was going to say. But whatever came out had to be fast, and organized. A rambling history of the case would just lose them.

  They had seen Angel’s performance. If they believed her, we would win. If they didn’t, we would lose. It was as simple as that.

  I briefly covered the points Evola had raised. The jurors were paying as close attention to me as they had to him. I told them that Angel was innocent. That her father’s death was a suicide, not murder.

  It went quickly enough, perhaps too quickly. But I could think of no other way to do it.

  “It boils down to this,” I told them. “The prosecution must prove every element beyond a reasonable doubt. That’s not just lawyers’ words, that’s what you must find. The judge will tell you that is exactly what the law demands.

  “Did Harrison Harwell kill himself? You heard the proofs. He was depressed, he talked of suicide the night he died. His life was crumbling around him, his personal life as well as his business life. Did he kill himself?”

  I waited, making eye contact with each of them.

  “I think he did, but I don’t really know,” I said.

  I could hear the stirring in the courtroom.

  “Was he the terrible person his daughter described? He was a drunk, perhaps a child abuser, many things. But was he what she said he was?”

  I waited. Then, “I think he was, but I don’t honestly know. Not to a moral certainty.” I said it in the same tone of voice, just a shade louder.

  “Did somebody else kill him?”

  Now I was dancing on the edge of the judge’s warning, but I didn’t care anymore.

  I waited. “I don’t know,” I raised my voice again slightly as I said it.

  “Did Angel Harwell kill her father?” I damn near shouted the question.

  “I don’t know!” I did shout the answer. It echoed.

  Then I waited, knowing that the courtroom was stunned into silence. Several of the jurors were wide-eyed.

  “Frankly, I don’t know,” I said in a whisper. “Ladies and gentlemen, I have perhaps more information than you do, and if I don’t know, how can you know?”

  I waited again. Some of the jurors looked distinctly uncomfortable. “And if you don’t know, then that is what they call a reasonable doubt.”

  Again I waited, but only for a second. “If there is even a shadow of doubt about the basic facts in your mind, it is your sworn duty to acquit.”

  I decided to use the old Tom Chawke close. “Yours is a decision where there can be no room for a guess,” I said. “Yours is a decision from which there is no appeal. There can be no room for a mistake, if justice is to be done.”

  Tom Chawke, a legendary trial lawyer, had practiced his magic before my time, but they said he had been great. He often used the same closing. It worked for him. I prayed it would work for me.

  I stepped back a bit and looked again at each of them. “Ladies and gentlemen, if I make a mistake, it will be a mistake of law, and a higher court can correct it. If my skilled opponent, Mr. Evola, makes a mistake, it will be a mistake of law, and a higher court can correct it.”

  I was raising my voice just a little on every phrase.

  “Even if the learned judge makes a mistake, it, too, will be a mistake of law, and a higher court can correct it!”

  I took a step toward them. “But if you make a mistake, it is a mistake of fact, and no court in this land can correct that.”

  I took a step closer. I was damn near in the jury box. “If you make a mistake,” I said my voice rising, “no one can correct it. If you make a mistake,” I dropped my voice to a hoarse whisper and pointed at Angel, “Angel Harwell will unjustly walk the hard floor of a prison cell for time eternal!”

  I looked from one face to another. No one looked away. I returned to my seat, the squeak of my shoes the only sound.

  “We take an hour’s break for lunch,” the judge said.

  Then it was nothing but sound, or so it seemed.

  I turned to talk to Angel, but she was gone.

  *

  I DON’T know about the jury, but I was filled with doubt. I had violated a prime rule of defense lawyers, to even hint that there is the remotest possibility that a client might be guilty. It had been risky but it seemed like the only thing to do. The case against Angel, when everything was boiled down to basics, was strong. The only thing that would save her was her own performance and the doubt about her guilt it might have raised.

  I was too nervous to eat, not even my usual candy bar. I just sat in the courtroom and waited.

  People began trickling back and everyone was in place when Angel came back, precisely at one-thirty.

  I didn’t get a chance to talk to Angel. Evola made his rebuttal argument. The prosecutor, who had the greater burden of proof, always got two shots at the jury. This speech was shorter, but it was almost as good.
Unfortunately.

  Then the judge immediately began his instructions. He was direct and forceful as he followed the exact language in the book. I was listening to see whether he shaded the instructions to favor either side. I didn’t think he did.

  I listened especially closely as he covered reasonable doubt. “A reasonable doubt,” he said, “is a fair doubt, growing out of the testimony, the lack of testimony, or the unsatisfactory nature of the testimony. It is not a mere imaginary or possible doubt, but a fair doubt based on reason and common sense. It is such a doubt as to leave your minds, after a careful examination of the evidence, in the condition that you cannot say you have an abiding conviction amounting to a moral certainty of the truth of the charge made against the defendant.” He went on, but that was the important part as far as I was concerned.

  I watched the jury. They seemed as emotionless as Angel, their faces set as they listened with strict attention to everything the judge said.

  And then he was finished. The two excess jurors were excused and the remaining twelve went off to the jury room to decide the case.

  “Well, that’s it,” I said to Angel.

  She nodded as she stood up. “Do I have to stay here?”

  “No. But I have to know where you’ll be. If they reach a verdict you will have to come back and be present for that.”

  “I’ll be at the house,” she said, standing. She turned to leave with Robin, then looked back at me.

  “Oh, by the way, Charley, you’re fired.”

  She was gone before I could even reply.

  I just sat there for a moment. When I stood up I was once again surrounded by the media, but the judge’s warning still applied. I heard the shouted questions and I forced a smile, but I didn’t answer.

  I told the clerk where I’d be and then I drove to my office. The first thing I did was call the Harwell house.

  Nothing had changed, Bernard told me. My phone calls and, for that matter, myself, weren’t welcome.

  He apologized and said he still didn’t know the reason for his instructions.

  So I sat there and watched the river. I had done everything I could. All that remained was to wait for the verdict.

  I assumed the judge would keep the jury working until late at night. It was the usual practice. He had told them that if no verdict was reached he would have them work through the weekend.