Sidebar

by Carsen Taite

  She paused and watched while Sylvia squirmed in her seat, apparently believing she’d lost this round. Time to put them out of their misery. “I’m granting and denying portions of the government’s motion.” She turned to squarely face Kyle Merrin. “I will not allow you to put on a mini rape trial during this case. If you want to try Mr. Wilson for rape, indict him on that charge. However,” she turned back to defense counsel. “I will allow the government to call these women to testify about their interactions with Mr. Wilson as it pertains to drug sale, use, etc. That evidence is relevant. The government shall instruct their witnesses that they cannot mention the rape allegations or even consensual sex with the defendant without a proper foundation. If the government establishes the defendant’s action were part of a pattern, motive, or other exception to Rule 403, then and only then, will I consider allowing testimony about sexual assault. I will not let this case devolve into a circus. Understood?”

  “But, Your Honor, it’s going to be pretty hard for these women to distinguish,” Merrin said. “They often received drugs for sex. If they are going to testify about their drug use with the defendant, then the next natural subject is the sex they used to pay for it.”

  “Nonsense. These college girls should be well versed in boundaries. Just tell them I set all the boundaries. If they’re in doubt about what they can say, then you can make a proffer to the court. Out of the presence of the jury. Understood?”

  They grumbled their assent, but it was clear neither side was entirely pleased, which told Camille she’d probably made exactly the right decision. While the lawyers filed out of the room, she asked Lloyd to hang back. “Here are my notes, and this,” she handed him a flash drive, “this is the draft of the opinion. Just needs some cleaning up, and I’d like you to insert the citations and make a full table of the annotations. We can count on some or all of these issues going up on appeal, and I want to make it as easy as possible for the next judge to see how I reached my conclusions.”

  Lloyd stood still for a moment, a puzzled look on his face. “You know, most judges have their clerks write their opinions and then they review the draft, not the other way around.”

  And most judges don’t lust over their law clerks. “Let’s try it my way.” Camille’s desk phone rang. “Get that to me this afternoon. Thanks.” She picked up the line, and Ester let her know Stroud had called to cancel the lunch he’d arranged with the other judges to welcome her to the courthouse. While she was relieved not to have to spend valuable work time socializing with the other judges, she couldn’t help but notice Stroud had been acting a bit cooler to her now that she was a colleague. Just as well since she could do without the distraction of office politics. It was eight thirty in the morning, and she’d already accomplished the most dreaded task of her day. She walked into her office and looked longingly at the couch in the corner. Too bad she couldn’t curl up in the corner and take a nap until lunch. Instead she slipped on her robe and scanned her desk for any last minute to-dos.

  The interoffice envelope was bulging with mail, typical for a Monday morning. She thumbed through the contents, giving each piece a quick scan until her gaze landed on an envelope with the words PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL printed in neat, big block letters across the top. She reached into her drawer and pulled out the message she’d received the week before and compared the handwriting. Identical.

  She’d never gotten around to reporting the first note to the marshals. She’d shoved it in her drawer and gone into the courtroom, and after a few days had passed the threat had faded. She was new. She didn’t want to make waves. The note could have been intended for anyone, considering it hadn’t been addressed to her specifically. Now she cursed her stupidity. This new letter was most certainly for her since the envelope was addressed to the Honorable Camille Avery. She should take it directly to the marshal’s office along with the first and let them sort it out, but she couldn’t resist the urge to see inside. Hand trembling, she reached into her desk and pulled out a letter opener, slit the envelope, and shook out the contents.

  Like the first note, this one was on a plain white sheet of paper and the message was brief. QUIT THE BENCH. YOU HAVE NO BUSINESS HERE. LEAVE NOW OR ELSE.

  Or else. Vague, but ominous enough to cause her gut to churn. She picked up the phone and buzzed Ester’s phone, speaking before Ester could get out a hello. “I need to check on something. Please let the lawyers know I’ll be in court in about fifteen minutes.”

  Peter Donovan was walking toward the door of the marshal service when she approached and she waved him over. She’d placed both of the messages she’d received in another interoffice envelope and handed it over. “I only have a minute, but I wanted to bring these by. I received the notes inside on two separate occasions, and only one of them appears to have come through the postal service. Both of them urge me to quit the bench, although the first one wasn’t actually addressed to me, it just appeared in my office. I seriously doubt there’s any real danger, but I wanted to make sure you had these just in case. I included a full statement with the pertinent information, including dates and times. Let me know if you need anything else.” She turned to walk away, but he reached out to grab her arm.

  “Hang on a minute. We take threats on federal judges pretty damn seriously. How about I come back to your office with you and take a full statement?”

  Camille started to edge away. “You know, I’ve received threats before and these fall pretty low on the danger meter. Do I like getting hate mail? Of course not, but it comes with the job. I really need to get back to court. Just keep me posted if you find out anything, okay?” She didn’t wait for an answer before turning to leave. She knew he was only doing his job, but she’d provided all the information she had along with the letters. The best thing she could do was get back to work and not let the jerk who’d threatened her keep her from her job.

  * * *

  “Good morning, Ester,” West called as she walked into the office with a box of donuts in hand.

  “Hi, West. Are you holding what I think you’re holding?”

  West lifted the tall white box up out of reach. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She made a show of following Ester’s gaze. “Oh, you mean this box? The one that smells like cinnamon and is still warm?” She brought the box down and set it on Ester’s desk. “Well, let’s take a look.”

  Ester barely waited for the box to hit the surface of her desk before she dug in. “Best apple fritters in Dallas.” She took a bite and moaned. “I can’t remember the last time I had these.”

  West smiled, happy to see the donuts were having their desired effect even if it was really Camille she’d planned to surprise. “Glad you like them, but don’t eat them all. I brought enough for everyone to share. Speaking of which, is the judge in yet?”

  Ester wiped away a trace of glaze from the corner of her mouth. “Don’t worry. I only think I could eat them all, but I’d probably pass out by number three. These are as good as I remember. Judge Blair brought them in for Secretary’s Day, or Administrative Professional’s day,” she finger quoted the last words, “last April, and I haven’t had any since.”

  “Speaking of judges…” West prompted again, cautious about being too direct, but anxious to see Camille. She’d been up half the night contemplating their interaction the day before. She’d definitely had a reaction to the facts of the Wilson case, but that was natural. She could even see why Camille might be concerned about her ability to compartmentalize her feelings, especially since Camille didn’t really know anything about her experience and all she’d done to get past it. By now she was the queen of walling off parts of her life from others. She’d had to assume the role or risk self-destruction, but if her circumstances in life so far hadn’t brought her down, then this case didn’t have a chance. Still, it was probably best she tell Camille what had triggered her reactions so they could have everything out in the open.

  “Judge Avery is already in the courtroom, s
o I’ll take her share if that’s why you’re asking,” Ester said, her voice jarring West from her introspection.

  “Oh, it’s kind of early, isn’t it?”

  “For donuts?”

  “Ester, are you trying to drive me crazy?”

  Ester pointed to the double doors of the courtroom. “Judge is on a roll this morning. She’s already met with the attorneys on the Wilson case, and she’s probably on the second case of the docket. In fact, She…”

  West stopped listening because she could barely digest the words she’d heard already. Why had Camille met with counsel on the Wilson case? West was in the process of finalizing a memo based on the information they’d discussed the night before, and she’d fully expected to discuss it with Camille after docket this morning. She muttered an “I’ll be right back” to Ester and walked toward the courtroom.

  She slipped into a seat in the back, not wanting to draw attention to her entrance, but Camille locked eyes with her within seconds. West raised her eyebrows in question, but Camille’s expression was fixed and neutral. What did she expect? Just because they’d shared a day alone at the office, didn’t mean Camille would suddenly start confiding in her, checking with her before she made decisions on her cases. West had no right to expect any such things from Camille, especially when she clammed up every time Camille broached any subject that might touch on her past.

  Out of the corner of her eye, West saw Lloyd, seated in the jury box, paying more attention to her than the proceedings. She forced her attention away from Camille and onto the hearing. The attorneys in the Wilson case occupied both counsel tables, but instead of a contentious debate over the legal issues in the government’s motion, they were engaged in a fairly civil discussion about scheduling, not unlike the one that had been going on right before Judge Blair had his stroke. Both sides were telling the judge how long they anticipated they would need to put on their case at trial, what additional motions might be filed, and other routine housekeeping matters. For anyone not directly involved with the case, it was boring.

  Instead of tuning in, West looked around the room, making a game of sorting the people in the gallery into groups. Two guys dressed in boots and blazers she pegged as cops, probably DEA, since FBI agents tended to be a little more buttoned up. She recalled that some of the law enforcement types who’d worked on the Wilson case were Texas Rangers so it was entirely possible they’d been called to court expecting to testify for the motion hearing and were not aware the case had already been decided in chambers.

  Over to her left, she spotted a woman seated by herself, in what looked like her Sunday best, a navy blue dress with a white collar and a brooch shaped like a cross. She sat with her hands crossed over a Bible in her lap, staring straight ahead, but she didn’t appear to be engaged in what was going on in front of her. West scanned the rest of the room. There weren’t any in-custody defendants present for the docket, and if this woman had a family member who wasn’t in custody, West would have expected to see him or her seated next to her. Maybe she was a witness. West wasn’t sure why she cared, but the more she looked at the woman, the more she thought she looked familiar.

  Her musings were interrupted when Lloyd slipped into the seat next to her. “Where did you come from?” she asked, startled that she’d been so absorbed she hadn’t noticed him leave his seat in the jury box.

  “I cut through the holdover,” he whispered, referring to the rooms next to the courtroom where defendants were held before the docket started. “Where were you this morning?”

  “What are you talking about? I got here the same time as usual. I even brought donuts, but apparently everyone decided to start work without me.”

  Lloyd’s expression was smug. “I figured you overslept. Judge called me last night and asked me to notify counsel on the Wilson case she wanted to meet with them. When I got here this morning, she told them her decision and said they’d get her full opinion on Wednesday. She practically already wrote the entire thing herself.”

  West didn’t bother trying to hide her surprise. So Camille not only decided how to rule, but wrote up her opinion yesterday after they’d parted ways. No matter how things had shaken out between them, she’d fully expected to have a heads-up about the ruling and even imagined she’d author the opinion for Camille. “Do you have it?”

  “What?”

  “The opinion. Do you have it with you?”

  “It’s on my desk. I planned to get back to it right after this. Want to cite check it when I’m done?” he asked, referring to the process of making sure all the supporting decisions in the opinion were properly formatted and still good law. “I know it’s not exactly rocket science, but it is the kind of thing a more junior clerk should do.”

  So that was why Lloyd was suddenly being nice to her—he wanted her help, but a bigger revelation than that was the fact Camille had put Lloyd in charge of the opinion. The realization left West speechless. Lloyd hadn’t come in on a Sunday to work. Lloyd was smart, but not inventive. Was Camille’s decision to give the opinion to him a sign she was going to take the safe route and keep out the evidence about the defendant’s priors? Without even knowing what the opinion said, West was disappointed in Camille and hurt she’d been left out, but her desire to see the finished opinion outweighed her other emotions. “Yeah, I’ll do your grunt work.”

  At that moment, the courtroom came alive with the sound of movement to signal the hearing had ended. The bailiff called the next case while the attorneys on the Wilson case filed out of the courtroom. Anxious to see Camille’s draft of the opinion, West decided now was the perfect time to escape back to their office. She nudged Lloyd in the side. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  He didn’t respond, his gaze transfixed on something across the room. West followed his sightline and honed in on the woman she’d noticed earlier. She was standing now and was way taller than she’d first appeared when she was hunched over her Bible in the gallery. A maroon copy of the Bible was raised high in her right hand, and an angry scowl marred her face.

  “What the hell?” Lloyd said in a barely concealed whisper.

  “Who is that?” West asked, but before Lloyd had time to respond, the woman’s booming voice commanded the attention of everyone in the room.

  “Where is the justice?”

  “Holy hell,” West muttered. She watched as one of the marshals ducked into the holdover, certain he was calling for backup.

  “Where is my brother?” the woman shouted. “Why are you keeping him from these proceedings?”

  Camille leaned over the bench, gavel in hand, but opted to make a simple request rather than bang out her order. “Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. We have important matters going on in here, and your actions are disruptive.”

  The woman made no move to leave. “Yes, there are important matters.” She pointed at the rear doors of the courtroom, where Wilson’s attorneys had exited only seconds before. “My brother is Darryl Wilson, and those people are supposed to be representing him. Darryl told me to come and be with him this morning since your decision would change the course of his case. But you haven’t made any real decisions. Two weeks for trial, when everyone should exchange witness lists, what the attorneys can and can’t say outside of this courtroom. Little details that don’t change anything. Where is Darryl and what is going on?”

  West looked around the room. The marshals up front would cover Camille in the event this woman whipped out a weapon, but it looked like she was here for information, not vengeance. West could relate. She’d been in court plenty of times with teams of lawyers, wondering what was going on with her life while decisions about her future were made by strangers. She pushed past Lloyd and walked over to the woman, deliberately placing herself between her and the front of the courtroom. “I’m West Fallon. What’s your name?” She stuck out her hand.

  The woman stared at her hand for a moment and then pulled it into hers. “Gloria Wilson.”

  W
est placed her other hand on top of their joined hands and smiled, thankful very few people were able to resist an outstretched hand. “Nice to meet you, Gloria. I’m one of Judge Avery’s clerks. If you want to walk outside with me, we can talk about the case, but the judge has another pressing matter right now that she needs to attend to.”

  Gloria shot a look toward the front of the room. Camille was glaring at both of them, and West caught sight of the marshal who’d returned from the holdover. He gave her a slight nod, and she took it as a sign to keep going. “Gloria?”

  Gloria moved like she was in a trance, but all West cared about was getting her out of the courtroom as quickly as possible to avoid a potential physical altercation. Once they were outside the double doors, a team of marshals descended, including Peter Donovan. The marshals escorted Gloria down the hall, and West turned to go back into the courtroom when she heard Peter call her name.

  “Hey, West, what was that all about?”

  “Good question. Probably nothing. Disgruntled family member. She came to see a show and there wasn’t one, so she held her Bible in the air. She was probably about to smite the judge.” She shrugged. “Couldn’t let that happen, could I?”

  “Hell no.” He jerked his chin toward the door. “She working out okay?”

  The question was loaded, but since only she knew how much, she feigned indifference. “Sure. I mean, what do I know about being on the bench? I’m barely out of law school.”