The Case Against Owen Williams

by Allan Donaldson

  Overweight, slightly awkward, shuffling, untidy in his baggy trousers and crumpled gown, he had the true popular touch. He was not just someone whom the jurors could admire but someone whom they could fantasize themselves as having become had a few of the cookies crumbled another way. And he himself, Lieutenant Bernard Dorkin, trim in his officer’s uniform, precise in thought and speech, with the aura of the university still about him, was not someone whom they could imagine themselves being, even if he had not been defending the Zombie Owen Williams. Even if he had not been a Jew.

  Whidden took them through the evidence again, but as he moved around, now staring down at the floor, now up at the ceiling, now at some space above and behind the banked spectators in the gallery, he seemed to be addressing, not just the jurors, but spectators, newsmen, the greater public outside, even history. What Dorkin had struggled to get through to the imagination of the jurors was that the evidence that had been presented to them was a chaos—a tangle of uncertainties on the basis of which no reason-able judgement was possible. What Whidden presented them with was an illusion of order. Weaving an alternate cosmos in which it was difficult not to believe once lured inside, he made vanish with his magic wand all the stubborn, squalid untidinesses that make life unsimple and ungreat and replaced them with something to free the imagination—the mythlike spectacle of a simple girl destroyed by an ogre. It was a myth, Dorkin felt sure, that almost everyone there already wished in some confused way to believe in—a myth that was all the more compelling in that it left open, for anyone who wished to imagine himself stepping into it, the role of winged avenger.

  Dorkin listened with impotent rage at the unscrupulous-ness of what was happening. The context of Williams’s untruths to the Mounties was ignored so that only the untruths remained, Clemens’s evidence was treated as indisputable fact, the absence of any hard evidence against Williams was adroitly kept out of sight or transformed into further proof of guilt, all the shoddy insinuations based on Sachs’s testimony were resurrected.

  “We have been told,” Whidden said, launching into his final peroration, prowling slowly back and forth across the front of the court as if struggling to contain his indignation. “We have been told by the defence, as if it were almost in itself conclusive proof of innocence, that Private Williams showed no evidence of guilt or remorse in the days after the murder as you or I would have done. But you must keep in mind that we are not talking about someone like you or I. We are not talking about an ordinary human being with ordinary reactions. We are talking about someone who could rape, suffocate, and beat to death an innocent girl with a savagery which went far beyond any mere need to kill her. When you are talking about a monster in human shape, is it reasonable to expect him to exhibit ordinary human signs of remorse? The mere fact that he was capable of such a murder means that an appearance of innocence no longer means anything.

  “What happened on that fateful night was really very simple in spite of Lieutenant Dorkin’s valiant attempt to make it appear complicated. Private Williams lured Sarah Coile away from the dance hall. What exactly happened then, how they came to go to the gravel pit, only Private Williams now knows, and as we have seen, he has not been very forthcoming on the subject. The learned defence counsel has tried to present this as a great mystery, but it is not difficult to construct plausible ways in which this could have happened. They could have gone into the churchyard, and Sarah Coile could have attempted to escape from Williams down through the bushes into the darkness. It was a warm summer night, and after they had been seen by Reverend Clemens, they could have continued to stroll along Broad Street and gone down into the pit by the road. Once there, Private Williams raped Sarah Coile. And when he had raped her, he murdered her, not just to keep her from exposing him but out of an insane rage against her because his peculiar background had bred in him a deep hatred of women.

  “When this was done, he walked calmly back to the armoury where he behaved as if nothing had happened. When questioned by the RCMP, he lied. It has been suggested that if Private Williams had been guilty, he would have concocted lies that were more credible and less easily disproven. But it is important to recognize that at the time he told them they did seem credible in terms of what he knew. But he had not calculated on the fact that Sarah had gone to the dance with a friend who had noticed at exactly what time she had left, so that his account of his activities could be shown without question to be false. Nor had he calculated on being seen with Sarah Coile at the corner of Broad Street and the Hannigan Road. It was only after the preliminary hearing, when he knew the full ex-tent of the evidence against him, that Private Williams in meetings with his defence counsel concocted a second story to take account of the evidence which his first story could not account for.

  “Although the defence has sought to cast doubt on that evidence, who cannot believe that it was indeed Private Williams and Sarah Coile whom the Reverend Clemens saw that night? I ask you to think about it. Are we to imagine that in the very short space of time that is supposed to be involved, Sarah Coile parted from Private Williams and was then almost immediately joined by someone else who nevertheless exactly resembled Private Williams in height and build? Or, even more extravagantly improbable, are we to imagine that by some even more miraculous process some totally different couple consisting of a girl who exactly resembled Sarah Coile and a man who exactly resembled Private Williams took their places? I think not, and I am sure you think not.

  “What Reverend Clemens saw that night was Owen Williams and Sarah Coile in the minutes just before Williams led or chased her down into the gravel pit where he murdered her. That, gentle-men, is the very simple set of facts that you have before you and on which you have what I suggest is now the not very difficult task of passing judgement.”

  He delivered the last of this standing directly in front of the jury, looking them straight in the eye. There wasn’t a sound in the court-room. He continued to stand for a moment longer, looking down at the floor now as if meditating, then turned and went back to his place. As he sat down, there was a little explosion of congratulation along the table. McKiel quietly shook his hand. From behind, Dorkin heard someone saying in a stage whisper, “Wonderful. Wonderful.”

  Dunsdale tapped his gavel. There remained now only his charge to the jury. After a ten-minute recess, he began, and for nearly two hours, in a subdued hubbub of people coming and going, he floundered aimlessly through the evidence and such legal matters as reasonable doubt and the propriety of the original police questionings of Williams, all of this well peppered with “you should perhaps consider,” “you should perhaps ignore,” “on the one hand,”

  “on the other hand.”

  When he had finished and the jury had departed, Dorkin took advantage of the first hour, when nothing was likely to happen, to get away, leaving Smith to keep watch and summon him if need be. It was raining more steadily now, and he walked through it to the armoury for some early supper. He found Sergeant MacCrae in the mess drinking coffee—or what passed for coffee in the army.

  “I hear you’ve been out for a walk,” Dorkin said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Your punishment for testifying yesterday?”

  “I expect so, sir.”

  “I’m sorry. I had to do it.”

  “I understand that, sir. No harm done. I expected something of the sort.”

  “It doesn’t do to say bad things about the war. It spreads alarm and despondency among the masses.”

  “I suppose so, sir,” MacCrae said. “What do you think is going to happen to Williams, sir?”

  “I don’t know,” Dorkin said.

  “Not hopeful, sir?”

  “No,” Dorkin said, “not hopeful.”

  He took the staff car back to the courthouse. Smith was still there unfed, and he sent him back to the armoury for good and sat down at the table. Whidden and McKiel had both gone, leaving a skeleton crew of a couple of clerks. The vip rows were empty. Like Whidden and McKiel
—or perhaps with Whidden and McKiel— they would be off having drinks and dinner somewhere. In the seats further back and in the gallery, people came and went, leaving others to hold their seats. It was important to be there for the kill.

  Dorkin turned over the papers on the table—notes, depositions, transcripts. He wanted never to have to look at them again. Now and then, he left the courtroom and went and sat alone in his little room. The corridors were full of people, including newsmen who asked him questions whenever he passed them. ( “Do you have any forecast about the verdict?” “Will you appeal if there is a conviction?” “Do you think that there will be a recommendation for mercy?” “Do you believe in capital punishment?” “In view of Dr. Sachs’s testimony, do you think you should have defended Williams on grounds of insanity?” ) He brushed them off. It was senseless. Even if he answered their questions, his replies would be crowded out by the real news. But if they weren’t filling the air with words, they would be left alone with their own stupidity.

  Once, Dorkin went outside by the back door and stood in the shelter of a little overhang. It was dark by then, and the street was almost deserted because of the rain. As he stood, he saw Constable Hooper come out of the RCMP office across the street and without noticing him lounging there, get into his car and drive off. Somewhere some husband had beaten up his wife, or some son had beaten up his father, or a couple of drunks were beating up each other, or someone had driven a car into the ditch. Life going on.

  Twice while Dorkin was in the courtroom, the clerk who was waiting on the jury passed through and created a little flurry of excitement among the spectators and newsmen, but they were false alarms. It was nearly eleven o’clock when he came in and went first to Whidden’s table and then to Dorkin’s with the message that a verdict had been reached.

  The news had obviously travelled elsewhere by other messengers. Almost at once Whidden and McKiel reappeared, and there was a rush of people into the courtroom—spectators, newsmen, lawyers, but of Meade’s vips only Meade himself and Captain Fraser returned. Colonel Hepworth had evidently seen all he wished of the performance and did not want to break up his evening.

  As the uproar began to subside, Williams was led back to his place, and the jury filed in. Dorkin had heard that if a jury had found an accused innocent, they looked at him as they came in, but if they had found him guilty, they did not. Except for a glance or two, quickly averted, they did not. They settled into their places, awkward and self-conscious. Everyone waited. Then the little door opened, and Dunsdale returned. He too sat without looking at Williams while the jury was polled. When it was done, he turned to them.

  “Gentlemen of the jury,” he said, “have you reached a verdict?”

  The foreman rose. As Dorkin had expected, one of the businessmen had been chosen, the furniture-store owner, grey-haired, grey-faced, grey-souled, self-important, dressed as usual as if for church in a dark suit.

  “We have,” he said.

  “And what is your verdict?”

  “We find the accused guilty as charged.”

  “And is that the verdict of you all?”

  “It is. But I have been asked also to inform you that three members of the jury felt that a recommendation for mercy should be made.”

  “I see,” Dunsdale said. “And the rest of you not?”

  “No, your Honour.”

  “Thank you,” Dunsdale said.

  He turned for the first time to Williams.

  “Will the prisoner rise and stand before the bar,” he said.

  Carvell and the Mountie helped Williams to his feet, and Carvell walked with him to the centre of the court. He seemed stunned, hardly knowing where he was.

  “Owen Williams,” Dunsdale said, “you have been found guilty as charged of the willful and brutal murder of Sarah Coile on or about the first day of July, 1944. Do you have anything to say before I pass sentence?”

  “I didn’t kill Sarah Coile,” Williams said, his voice trembling. “I told the truth. I never saw her after she left me.”

  He looked at the jury, who sat looking down at the floor, avoiding his eyes. It was not, they seemed to be thinking, supposed to happen like this. The prisoner was supposed to receive his sentence, as the newspapers always reported, without emotion.

  Dunsdale shuffled the papers in front of him, embarrassed and irritated.

  “Well,” he said, as if afraid that Williams would go on. “Yes, well. However. Owen Williams, you have been found guilty as charged, and it is therefore my duty to order that you be taken from this court to the George County Jail, where you will be confined. From there on Monday, December 18, 1944, you will be taken to a place of execution and hanged by the neck until you are dead.”

  Williams swayed and almost fell, and Carvell steadied him.

  The jury stared at him openly now, as if he had been in that moment transported across some gulf, to some remoteness, from which his eyes could no longer reach back to them. Without looking up again from the papers in front of him, Dunsdale made a vague, dismissive gesture with one hand at Carvell. He turned Williams around, and the Mountie joined him and between them, they half-walked, half-carried him across the court and out the door that led towards the jail.

  Dunsdale discharged the jury, and they filed down out of their box, very subdued, not speaking, not looking at each other, as if suddenly, belatedly, ashamed.

  CHAPTER

  SIXTEEN

  Dorkin was aware of Dunsdale speaking, distantly, from the bench, then rising, departing back through his little door, unleashing an uproar of chairs, feet, voices, a terrific, unintelligible hubbub, which as the courtroom emptied began to fade so that there floated up out of it from somewhere just behind Dorkin the sound of a professional conversation. He heard the voice he had heard before repeating idiotically, “wonderful, wonderful, wonderful,” then a deep, after-dinner-speech sort of voice mouthing very slowly, “That, gentlemen, was the most brilliantly conducted prosecution that I have ever seen.”

  Across the aisle, Whidden and McKiel were talking while the dogsbodies gathered up their papers and packed the briefcases. Whidden looked at Dorkin, then excused himself to McKiel and came across and held out his hand.

  “A good battle, well-fought, young man,” he said. “You handled yourself very well. Let me be the first to congratulate you.”

  Dorkin looked at him with amazement. Too surprised, too stunned, to have the resources to lose his temper, he rose and shook the proffered hand and sat down again.

  When the courtroom was empty of everyone except a janitor come to clean up, Dorkin gathered up his own papers and went back to his little room to get his coat. He would have to go to the jail to see Williams before he went back to the armoury, but for the moment he couldn’t face that, and he had composed nothing to say to him. He sat down.

  There were two ashtrays on the table in front of him, one with a small chip out of one corner, and he stared at them, half seeing them, half not, realizing that in spite of all the warning signs, there had been a part of him that had continued right to the end not to believe that this could happen. Around the periphery of conscious-ness there hovered an inchoate rabble of reflections on his failure. But at the centre, infinitely more than the cumulative effect of these, there had gathered a sense of undefined, unbounded terror, as if he were lying beyond rescue at the bottom of a deep pit.

  After a few minutes, there was a knock on the door, and before he could get up, it was opened, and Meade looked in. He was carrying his raincoat over his arm, and he had the air of a man who was still turning over in his mind some pleasantry he had just heard. When he saw Dorkin’s face, his expression grew serious.

  “You look, my son,” he said, “as if you were dismayed.”

  “Yes,” Dorkin said. “I guess so.”

  Meade hesitated. He had stood just inside the door in a way that made it apparent that he was expected somewhere. Now he came all the way into the room and sat down across the table from Dork
in. There was something over-deliberate in his movements, and Dorkin realized that he was a little drunk.

  “I can understand your being upset,” he said. “But you have nothing to reproach yourself with. You did very well. Everyone has remarked upon it.”

  “Williams is innocent,” Dorkin said. “I have no doubt about it.”

  “Look,” Meade said. “I know you’re very upset, but in court you said everything on your side of the case that could be said. Whidden did the same, and on the basis of that, the jury made a decision. What else can be done? I know it’s not a perfect system, and I know that sometimes it can fail, but it’s the best there is in an imperfect world. And in a way, you know, the important question is not so much whether someone is justly convicted or not as whether or not he had a fair trial. That’s all the system can hope to guarantee. Nobody is God. And if the system does fail sometimes, that’s the price of being human. It’s something one just has to accept.”

  He stopped, as if aware that he was beginning to ramble.

  “I must say, however,” he went on, “that in this case, I don’t believe the system has failed.”

  “You think that Williams is guilty?”

  “Yes,” Meade said, “I do. I always have. Ever since I saw the evidence from the preliminary hearing. And everything I’ve heard since has only served to confirm it. I never expected you to win. No one did.You’ve let yourself get too close to Williams. When it comes right down to it, you know, all you had to defend him with was his word on everything that mattered.”

  “I don’t think he’s that good a liar,” Dorkin said.

  “You’d be surprised how good a liar someone can be when his life depends on it and he has nothing to do all day but sit and think about it.”

  “With respect,” Dorkin said, “I would like to request the additional time to prepare an appeal on Williams’s behalf.”

  “I’m sorry,” Meade said, “but I can’t do that. On Monday Williams is to be given a dishonourable discharge. After that, he’s no longer any business of the army’s, and your connection with the case comes to an end. As I explained in the summer, there were people who wanted Williams discharged after the preliminary hearing, and I had to explain to them that that would imply that he was guilty before he was tried. Now that he has been found guilty, the discharge will go through. The papers are all prepared.”