by Rose Connors
“Look, we don’t need to decide anything right now. But we had to keep our options open. I’ll arrange to see you at the end of the day. We can talk then.”
The matrons hover.
“Try to get some sleep between now and then.”
Sonia gets to her feet and faces me, surrendering her wrist to the metal cuff attached to a matron. “Thank you,” she says.
“For what?”
“For telling the judge I didn’t do it.”
I nod.
“I know you probably don’t believe me, but I didn’t.”
Sonia turns away, crosses the room, and disappears with the matrons through the side door.
I’ll tell her tonight, I guess. She should know. For whatever small comfort it might bring, Sonia Baker should know that I believe her.
The District Courtroom is empty when I leave, the nine-o’clock cast of characters not in place yet, still milling around in the lobby. I see through the courthouse doors that the snow is already falling steadily. I pull my hood up and head out into the frigid morning, steeling myself for the day ahead. In ten minutes, jury selection for Commonwealth versus Hammond will begin in Superior Court, Judge Leon Long presiding.
The Barnstable County Complex looks almost festive in its new white blanket, an appearance that belies the grim business conducted here. Small, heavy flakes drift down as I cross the parking lot. It occurs to me, as I reach the back door of the Superior Courthouse, that my new career is off to a rather humble beginning. I have two clients, and neither one is much interested in being defended.
Chapter 12
Judge Leon Long is the only black judge ever to sit in Barnstable County. He has been on the Superior Court bench for more than eighteen years. A liberal Democrat who began his legal training during the turbulent sixties, Judge Long is the favorite draw among criminal defense lawyers. He is immensely popular with the courthouse staff and the bane of Geraldine Schilling’s existence.
I met Judge Long more than a decade ago, on Christmas Eve of my first year as an assistant district attorney. I handled only the small matters that year. Geraldine tried the serious cases, as she had for eight years before I was hired. Because of that arrangement, I knew all of the magistrates and judges in the District Court but almost no one from the Superior Court bench.
That Christmas Eve, though, the magistrate assigned to hear traffic offenses in District Court was down with the flu, and Judge Leon Long from Superior Court volunteered to fill in. Insisted on it, the bailiff reported. A civil trial in progress before Judge Long had settled on the courthouse steps that morning, the judge explained, freeing him to step in for his ailing colleague.
It was odd, I thought, for a Superior Court judge to seize the reins so eagerly in traffic court, especially on a Thursday morning, the slot set aside in Barnstable County for contested parking tickets. Every Thursday morning, the county’s aggrieved citizens packed into District Court to argue about how far their cars were, or were not, from the hydrant or the neighbor’s driveway. Not exactly the stuff that great judicial opinions are made of.
There he was, though, a portly man of average height who somehow filled the entire courtroom the moment he walked through the door. He wore his robe, but he didn’t take the bench. Instead, Judge Leon Long strode the length of the cavernous room, took my hands in his as if we were old friends, and flashed a dazzling smile. “Judge Leon Long,” he said. “Leon when it’s just us.”
Leon’s smile disappeared before I could answer. His eyes moved to the courtroom’s side door, and I turned to follow his gaze. There she was, glaring at the judge, just three feet away. Geraldine.
“Sit down, Martha,” she said.
I did, thinking that an odd situation had just taken a turn toward the bizarre. A Superior Court judge appeared more than eager to review parking tickets. And the First Assistant District Attorney, buried up to her eyeballs in violent crime, apparently intended to prosecute traffic infractions instead. I half expected F. Lee Bailey to show up at the defense table.
Judge Long retrieved his radiant smile for Geraldine. “Attorney Schilling,” he said, beaming at her. “Always a pleasure.”
In her spiked heels, Geraldine was almost as tall as the judge. She planted herself squarely in front of him, crossed her arms over her tailored jacket, and cocked her blond head to one side. “Go ahead,” she said to Judge Leon Long, “get it over with.”
The judge turned to the crowded gallery, his arms in the air like a televangelist addressing the living-room masses. “Brothers and sisters,” he bellowed, “how many of you are…”
I swear I thought he was going to say “without sin.”
“…here because you have been accused of a parking violation?”
I felt sorry for him then. I thought he didn’t realize they were all accused of parking violations.
They raised their hands. Every person in the jam-packed room put a hand in the air, but not one of them made a sound. Their eyes were glued to the judge.
“Brothers and sisters,” Judge Leon Long repeated, his bellow louder now, his drawl thicker, “I can’t hear you. Tell me. I want to know. How many of you stand accused of parking your automobile where it did not belong?”
“I am.” “Me.” “Me, too,” came from the gallery, the voices hesitant and low.
“And brothers and sisters,” Judge Long boomed, “how many of you stand wrongly accused? How many of you know in the depths of your soul that you had the right to park your automobile exactly where you did?”
Geraldine glowered at him as the answers began.
“I’m wrongly accused,” ventured one brave soul. “I am, too,” said another. “Me, too.” “Nothing wrong with where I parked.”
They all started talking at the judge then, a chorus of voices growing to a full crescendo in about ten seconds.
“Just as I thought,” the judge announced, his booming Baptist minister’s baritone silencing the room once more. “We are here today, brothers and sisters, to right the wrong that has been done to each and every one of you.”
At this point I thought I had seen it all. But I was wrong. Judge Leon Long turned his back to the crowd and, for the first time, ascended to the bench. He took a small figure from the pocket of his robe and wound the key in its back, set it on the edge of the raised judge’s bench, released his grip on it, and music began. Judge Long stepped back to enjoy the show, his smile enormous.
Santa Claus. An instrumental version of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” lilted through the courtroom as the small mechanical Santa Claus marched the length of the judge’s bench, turned around, and marched back.
The judge’s arms were in the air again, this time brandishing a blank parking ticket. “Brothers and sisters,” he implored, “dispose of these false allegations.”
With that, the judge ripped his parking ticket in half, in half again, and again, until he held nothing but tiny squares of white confetti. After just a moment of stunned silence, those in the gallery began shredding their own tickets, hooting and hollering in the process.
I left my seat and joined Geraldine, who hadn’t moved a muscle. “He does it every goddamned year,” she said, her face like stone.
“Every year?”
“It’s his little Christmas gift to the citizens of Barnstable County,” she told me, her voice barely audible above the ruckus from the gallery.
“But the magistrate?” I questioned. “The flu?”
“No flu. Just a day off.”
“But the settlement-on the courthouse steps?”
“No settlement,” she said, “just a brief recess.”
Judge Leon Long threw his handful of confetti in the air then, and everyone in the room followed suit. Tiny squares of white paper snowed down on us as Judge Long left the bench and joined the crowd in the gallery, shaking hands, clapping shoulders, and exchanging wishes for happy holidays. Santa Claus continued his march and the music played on.
Even then, even as a
prosecutor, I liked everything about Judge Leon Long. Now that I’m defending Buck Hammond, I view Judge Long as a godsend. In Judge Long’s courtroom, the presumption of innocence is more than a constitutional protection. It’s a sacred guarantee. And that means Buck Hammond has a fighting chance.
Judge Leon Long flashes his radiant smile when he takes the bench for jury selection, and I laugh out loud. I can’t help it. I still remember Geraldine’s final words that day, as she headed for the courtroom door. “Proceed, Martha,” she called over her shoulder. “Convict the bastards. I just stopped by to make sure you and the good judge were properly introduced.”
Chapter 13
In some courtrooms, jury selection in a case like Buck Hammond’s would take days. In Judge Leon Long’s courtroom, we’ll wrap it up before lunch. I know this from experience. “People are fundamentally decent,” Judge Long is fond of announcing. “No need to search for skeletons in the average citizen’s closet. Oh, you’d find plenty. But old bones won’t tell you anything about a person’s ability to be fair and impartial.”
During my decade as a prosecutor, I tried at least a dozen cases before Judge Long. I am used to his rapid-fire approach to jury impanelment. And to tell the truth, I tend to agree with his assessment of the average person’s ability to judge fairly. J. Stanley Edgarton III, though, does not. The scowl he wears this morning makes that abundantly clear.
We all agreed there was no need to interrogate the potential jurors about what they’ve seen on television or read in the newspapers. They’ve all seen the footage dozens of times. They’ve all read the reports and the editorials for weeks on end, first when it all happened, again as the trial date approached. We’d have to go to Mars to find a juror who hasn’t been saturated with media opinion about the now infamous shooting on live TV. The tabloids are calling it a modern-day public execution.
Instead, Judge Leon Long asks the first prospective juror if he can disregard what he has heard from the press, and base his verdict solely on the evidence presented in this courtroom. Of course he can, the juror claims. The entire panel nods in agreement.
Judge Long asks the next candidate in the box if she understands that Buck Hammond is presumed to be innocent as he sits here in the courtroom today. She is dumbfounded. “But he isn’t,” she blurts out. “We all saw him do it.”
Buck stiffens between Harry and me. Stanley gets to his feet, but Judge Leon Long doesn’t acknowledge him. “Thank you, Mrs. Holway,” the judge says. “Thank you for your candor. You are excused with the sincere thanks of the court.”
Mrs. Holway appears to take offense at her dismissal.
Stanley intervenes on her behalf. “Your Honor,” he says, his voice rising in pitch, “perhaps I should voir dire this juror?”
Stanley is hoping to rehabilitate Mrs. Holway, get her to say that of course she has an open mind, of course she won’t make a decision until all of the evidence is in. Mrs. Holway is a juror J. Stanley Edgarton III wants to keep. He likes the way she thinks.
Harry and I agreed that I will handle jury selection and he will deliver the opening statement. That way the jurors will hear from both of us on day one. Ordinarily, I’d be on my feet by now to oppose Stanley’s request for voir dire, to state my opposition on the record before the judge has a chance to rule. But Judge Leon Long is shaking his head at Stanley-losing patience, if I’m reading him correctly-so I stay put. Never argue with opposing counsel if the judge will do it for you. I have to remember to thank Geraldine.
“Mrs. Holway is not a juror, Mr. Edgarton,” the judge says. “I just excused her.”
“But Your Honor…”
“That’s all, Mr. Edgarton.”
Stanley has the good sense to sit down, and Mrs. Holway leaves the courtroom in a huff.
Judge Long’s courtroom clerk, Wanda Morgan, selects a new name from the glass bowl on her desk. The new potential juror comes from the gallery to the box to replace Mrs. Holway. His juror résumé identifies him as a fifty-six-year-old restaurant owner. More important, he is the father of three adult sons.
We will select fourteen jurors this morning, including two who will be told-only at the close of the case-that they are alternates. Judge Long addresses the panel first. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he says, smiling at them, “let me tell you at the outset that the lawyers handling this case have assured me that this trial will take three days, no longer.”
The judge points at Stanley, then at Harry and me, and we all nod our acquiescence.
“That means,” the judge continues, “that they’ll finish not later than Thursday afternoon, at which time the case will be turned over to you. Now, no one can predict how long your deliberations may take. But I believe it’s safe to assume we’ll all be home for Christmas on Saturday morning.”
Stanley leans over his table and stares at Buck, his expression suggesting that Buck shouldn’t include himself in the judge’s assumption. Buck doesn’t look back at him.
Next, the judge conducts a general inquiry into matters such as the presumption of innocence, the burden of proof, and reasonable doubt, then asks each potential juror a series of more specific, and more personal, questions. Only then do Stanley and I get our turns.
Each of us is allowed just two follow-up questions per juror. Judge Long is clear about the two-question limit, but Stanley doesn’t seem to believe it. No such cap exists, apparently, in any New Bedford courtroom. Stanley begins a third question with every candidate, and the judge cuts him off every time. Stanley whines like a thirsty dog each time it happens, but the judge shuts him down anyway, always with that dazzling smile.
After our questions are asked and answered, the judge calls upon Stanley and me to state our challenges for cause. I have none. Stanley has just one. Juror number nine should be excused, he says, because she has a seven-year-old son.
“Denied.” Judge Long shakes his head and rules while Stanley is still talking.
“But Your Honor,” Stanley protests, “I’m not finished.”
“But Mr. Edgarton,” the judge replies, his smile enormous, “you most certainly are.”
The jurors laugh at this exchange, and Stanley glares at Judge Long. No prosecutor wants a panel laughing at any point during a murder trial.
“But Judge,” Stanley persists.
“Mr. Edgarton, let me be perfectly clear about this. No juror will be removed from this panel-or from any panel, in my courtroom-because she is a parent.”
“But that’s not it, Judge. That’s not it at all. It’s not that juror number nine is a parent. It’s that her child happens to be a seven-year-old boy.”
“Denied, Mr. Edgarton.”
“But Judge…”
My gut tells me Stanley just uttered one “But Judge” too many. Judge Leon Long dons his half glasses, lifts Stanley’s trial brief from the bench, and pretends to examine the signature line. Judge Long has done this before, more than once. Harry and I both know what’s coming.
“Oh, pardon me,” the judge bellows, his voice thick with sarcasm. “I must be using the wrong name, sir. You don’t seem to understand that I’m talking to you. Mr. J. Stanley Edgarton the Third,” the judge roars, “your challenge for cause is dee-nied.”
If he is true to past pattern, the judge will call Stanley “Mr. Ed-gar-ton the Third” for the rest of the trial. I put my hand over my mouth and swallow a laugh. Buck Hammond watches me, his eyes saying he doesn’t know what to make of this. Harry, of course, looks like the Cheshire cat.
In the end, Stanley gets rid of juror number nine by using one of his three peremptory strikes, challenges each side may exercise without cause, without explanation. The new juror number nine is a young construction worker who does not have a seven-year-old son. But he does have a three-year-old daughter.
Stanley’s concerns about the first juror number nine tell me that Harry and I are on the right track. We agreed weeks ago to keep as many parents as we could on the panel, more men than women, if possible. We us
e all of our peremptory challenges to oust three of the four candidates who don’t have children of their own. The one we opt to keep is an elderly woman who never married. She did, though, teach English literature at a private girls’ school for thirty-eight years.
We impanel nine men and five women. We have twelve parents, the retired schoolteacher, and a young male pharmacist engaged to be married, planning a family. These fourteen people will be outraged by what happened to Buck’s son, by Hector Monteros’s crimes. But they are law-abiding citizens; they’ll be outraged by Buck’s crime as well. And his is the only one they will watch played out in living color.
We’re not elated with our panel, but we’re satisfied. No criminal defense lawyer can ask for more. We explain all of this to Buck Hammond before the guards lead him away for the one-o’clock lunch break, but he doesn’t seem to care.
Chapter 14
I was gone only ten minutes-fifteen tops. I filled a paper cup at the watercooler and downed it, then stood on the courthouse steps for thirty seconds of fresh air. Between the subfreezing temperature and the wind-whipped snow, that was about all I could stand. But now that I’m back in Judge Leon Long’s courtroom, it’s clear that I’ve missed something.
Court’s in recess, of course. The room is quiet and the lights are dim. The judge, the press, and the curious onlookers are gone. But Harry, who normally mows down anything in his path to get to lunch, is seated in the front row of the gallery, not going anywhere, surrounded by Buck Hammond’s family.
Buck’s wife, his parents, two of his three brothers, even his in-laws are here. They all look up at me expectantly, then turn their eyes to Harry. He’s supposed to do the talking, it seems.
“You have to open,” he says.
“What?”
Harry arches his eyebrows. He knows I heard him.
“I can’t open,” I tell the family members. “I’m not prepared to open. Harry’s ready. He’ll open.”
Harry stands and stretches, loosening his tie. “They think you should open,” he says. “And I think they’re right.”
