Reversible Errors

by Scott Turow

  “We’re dead,” Pamela said, on her cell phone. “Well, he’s dead literally. We’re just dead legally.” She read Arthur the decisive portions of the opinion.

  “‘In connection with his effort to file a second habeas corpus petition, Mr. Gandolph was granted a brief period to adduce evidence of actual innocence that could not have been discovered at an earlier date. Although Mr. Gandolph’s court-appointed counsel—’ That means us,” said Pamela, as if Arthur, after thirteen years of practicing law, might not know. “‘Although Mr. Gandolph’s court-appointed counsel has scoured out a new and material witness to Gandolph’s innocence, the testimony of Erno Erdai is uncorroborated by forensic evidence of any kind—’ Funny they don’t care about forensic corroboration when it comes to the case against Rommy.”

  “Go on,” Arthur told her.

  “‘In addition, Mr. Erdai is a convicted felon with a perceptible motive to punish the same law-enforcement authorities who punished him, and also admits having made statements ten years ago that fully contradict his present version of events. It is also noteworthy that another witness against Mr. Gandolph has been uncovered by the state, Genevieve Carriere, who has related a highly incriminating statement by petitioner Gandolph, and pointed up important new evidence of Mr. Gandolph’s motive to kill one of the victims. Unlike petitioner’s new witness, Ms. Carriere’s account is consistent with other evidence of record. We are aware that a respected District Court judge—’

  “I’m surprised they didn’t put ‘respected’ in quotation marks,” interjected Pamela, referring to the appellate judges’ distaste for Harlow. Arthur made no effort to conceal his impatience this time when he told her again to go on.

  “Right,” said Pamela “‘ … a respected District Court judge made limited credibility findings concerning Mr. Erdai, but that took place before Ms. Carriere’s testimony was known, clearly lessening the significance of those findings.

  “‘Mr. Gandolph has waited nearly a decade to make any claim of innocence. Although that obviously casts doubt on the verity of this new contention, under the law it is more important that petitioner had the opportunity to raise this claim and bypassed it at trial, as well as in subsequent collateral attacks. A habeas corpus petition, particularly a repetitive request, is limited solely to remedying a violation of a defendant’s constitutional rights so grievous as to amount to a miscarriage of justice. There is no basis to believe that Mr. Gandolph will satisfy that standard. We agree with the state that the direct evidence of Mr. Gandolph’s guilt, on which the trier of fact long ago relied, has gone unquestioned; indeed the quantum of evidence against petitioner has only increased through the process to date. Accordingly, we conclude that there is no basis in law to allow the filing of a second habeas corpus petition. To whatever extent our prior order, allowing a brief discovery period, might be construed as permitting that filing, we conclude such permission would have been improvidently granted. The appointment of counsel to assist Mr. Gandolph in this process is, as a result, terminated, with the thanks of the Court. Our prior stay is hereby dissolved and no longer bars the Superior Court of Kindle County from setting a date certain for execution.’”

  After he hung up, Arthur faced the river, feeling very much as if he were drowning in its dark waters. Execution. His mind ran to the consequences for Rommy, but his heart was submerged in sorrow for himself. The media would not pick up the drift, but he detected the court’s message. They thought he’d ginned up Erno’s story, or at least had not been appropriately skeptical. As appointed counsel, his assignment was to conduct himself with a moderation they appeared to feel he’d abandoned. And he realized that was true. It was not news to Arthur Raven these days that he was a person of passion. What Rommy had helped him discover was that those passions had a place in the law. The light had gone forth, and now by court order, it would be shuttered again.

  LARRY HATED JOURNALISM. There were several reporters whom he found good company, but he could never buy into their enterprise. They barely saw the flames, never felt the heat, and still tried to tell everybody else about the fire. Which was why he took such pleasure watching Muriel duke it out with them today.

  The P.A.’s pressroom had been carved out of the former grand jury chamber. The rear wall had been painted in the electric blue favored as a backdrop, and a raised podium had been erected, with the county emblem emblazoned just below the mike in plastic, rather than brass, so there was no distracting gleam from the rack of high-wattage studio lights installed overhead. Beneath their intense whiteness, Muriel was calm and pleasant, but commanding. She introduced everyone on either side of her, mentioned Larry specially, then serenely praised the judgment of the U.S. Court of Appeals and hailed the laborious but accurate workings of the legal process. She said, as she had for months now, that it was time to proceed with Mr. Gandolph’s execution. Several of the reporters wanted her to comment again on Erno’s story and she simply referred them to the court’s opinion. Gandolph, not Erno, was the issue. Squirrel had been proven guilty and the court had said unequivocally the proceedings had been fair. Three faceless judges several blocks away had now become tireless advocates on Muriel’s behalf.

  As soon as the lights were off, Larry loosened his tie. The Chief shook his hand, and then Larry kidded around for a second with Molto and Carol. Muriel was waiting to walk out with him and together they crossed the marble entryway of the County Building, which was teeming in the lunch hour. Surrounded by the crowd, it seemed somewhat harmless when she took his arm.

  “You did a great job on this case, Larry. I’m sorry it’s given us such heartburn this summer, but this is it.”

  He asked her what would happen next and she described the various legal hand grenades that Arthur or his successor could lob. All, she promised, would be duds.

  “Is Arthur really gone from this case?” Larry asked.

  “That’s up to Arthur. The court is clearly giving him a way out.”

  “I say Arthur is the Energizer Bunny. He won’t quit.”

  “Maybe not.”

  “So,” he said. He faced her, with emotion swelling as they came to a standstill amid the throng comprised of lawyers and citizens with business here, as well as denizens of the building coming or going from lunch. “I guess this is so long.”

  She laughed pleasantly. “Hardly, Larry.”

  “No?”

  “You’re going to have to fight to get out of my life again, bub. Give me a call. We should have a drink to celebrate. Seriously.” She reached up and hugged him. A master of the outward look of things, like most good courtroom lawyers, Muriel managed the gesture with a certain sterile composure. To the stream of passersby it could not have appeared to be more than the appropriately fond farewell of respected colleagues. But there was more in the instant her body lingered against his. “I expect that call,” she said as she let go. She walked off, and then waved cutely over her shoulder, the first and only moment that someone watching might have called her a flirt. He’d been getting the message for a while now, but this was the first moment he’d been dead certain he wasn’t mistaken.

  Dazzled, he passed between the long Doric columns that fronted the County Building. On instinct, he reached for his shades, then saw the dim sky. The air, in fact, held the heavy scent of rain.

  Once before, he’d thought this case was pretty much over, although he’d not taken much joy in it at the time. He’d just finished sitting next to Muriel for two weeks, during Squirrel’s trial and sentencing in early ’92. Muriel and he were kaput by then and she was getting ready to marry Talmadge. Larry had gone into the weeks of trial preparation with a boy-meets-girl movie once more showing in his head, in which just rubbing elbows with him would restore Muriel to her senses. When that hadn’t happened, he’d been so far down he wasn’t sure who it was the jury said was going to die.

  Goofing or flirting, Muriel had passed a remark a few weeks ago that he missed her, and if she’d stayed on the line he probably would ha
ve said something dumb like, ‘I do.’ But he didn’t want to go through any of it again—it was like volunteering to take a forty-story fall. It was just ironic, was all. From start to finish, the two things had been synonymous: the end of Rommy and the end with Muriel.

  From the sidewalk, he looked back at the solid red-brick block of the County Building and saw the words chiseled in the limestone over the columns. Veritas. Justitia. Ministerium. If his parochial-school Latin was any good, that was something like truth, justice, service. He felt prickling across his body. Those were still the right words, still what he was about, still what had kept him going on this case, despite the personal crap and Rommy’s revolving defenses. But somehow, standing here, he was certain of only one thing.

  He still wasn’t happy.

  GILLIAN DID NOT HEAR of the ruling until midafternoon. She was at the Center City store and Argentina Rojas, who came in for the late shift at the counter, told her what she’d learned on her car radio. It was the first time Argentina had indicated any awareness of Gillian’s prior life and she’d clearly broken her own taboo in the expectation she was bringing welcome news, after what had been printed about Gillian in the days following Erdai’s testimony. Gillian did her best to thank Argentina, then went as soon as she could to the employees’ lounge to phone Arthur.

  “Alive,” he answered, when she asked how he was. “Sort of.” He described the decision. “I didn’t expect to get slammed.”

  “Why don’t I take you out to dinner, Arthur?” She had not calculated this in advance, but her desire to console him was intense and she knew how badly he’d wanted them to escape the apartment. Even trampled by disappointment, he was clearly pleased by the prospect. She said she would meet him at the Matchbook, a Center City standby where Arthur could get the steak and potato that remained his preferred fare. When she arrived at eight, he was already slumped at the table, a visible wreck.

  “Have a drink,” she told him. When they were together, he refused alcohol for her sake, but if there was ever a man in need of a brisk scotch, it appeared to be Arthur.

  He had brought her a copy of the opinion, but he did not allow her to read much of it before he let loose his misery. He’d told her several times they would lose, but the reality of it was more than he could bear. How could the judges have done this?

  “Arthur, I learned something on the bench. Lawyers see one another in far more accepting terms than they see judges. How many times have you forgiven another attorney—Muriel, for example—saying she’s just doing her job? But when it comes to judges, lawyers express outrage. Judges, too, are merely doing their jobs. Doing their best. Someone has to decide and so you decide. You decide even though you’re secretly convinced that several of the people whom you pass on the street on the way to work might do better on particular questions. You decide. At first you’re terrified that you’re going to make a mistake. Eventually you know you often will, that it’s expected, that there would be no need for courts of review if judges were infallible. So you decide. Humbly. Humanly. You do your job. They’ve decided, Arthur. But that doesn’t mean they’re right.”

  “That’s comforting. Because it’s essentially the last word.” Legally, there was more skirmishing left. But as far as Arthur was concerned, only writing on the wall of Rommy’s cell would have foretold a more certain doom. “And I can’t believe they had the gall to fire me,” he added.

  “With thanks, Arthur.”

  “Halfhearted would probably overstate their enthusiasm. And it was so slimy. They just don’t want anybody who has the resources to devote to the issues to be handling the case.”

  “Arthur, they were trying to relieve you and your partners of the burden. Nothing prevents you from representing Rommy directly on a pro bono basis. He can retain you, rather than the court.”

  “Right. That’s just what my partners want. Me in a pissing match with the Court of Appeals.”

  Accepting the fact that no words would comfort him, she fell to a familiar gloom. She was certain that what existed between Arthur and her was fragile. There were a thousand reasons—but now she saw one more. A beaten Arthur would not be able to maintain this relationship. In his misery, he would see less in himself and soon, in consequence, far less in her.

  In the few hours she spent back home at Duffy’s house each day, Gillian frequently asked herself the question that Arthur had not yet dared to pose. Did she love him? He was, without doubt, the lover of her life. But love? She was startled how quick she had been to conclude that the answer was yes. With him there was something renewing, eternal, essential. She wanted to be with Arthur. And it was with terrible sadness that she had realized again and again that in the long term she would not be. She had wondered for weeks if she would be willing to struggle when the inevitable unraveling began, or simply accept her fate. But no, she would not stand still to be mowed down again. Arthur at his best made better of her. She needed for both their sakes to provide some resilience.

  “Arthur, may I ask you a question?”

  “Yes, I still want to make love to you tonight.”

  She reached across the table and slapped his hand. But she was encouraged that his libido had outlasted his disappointment.

  “No, Arthur. Is the court right?”

  “Legally?”

  “Is your client innocent, Arthur? Truly, what do you think?”

  Arthur’s scotch had arrived now, and he cast a heavy-hearted look toward the glass, but did not touch it.

  “What do you think, Gil?”

  It was an apt riposte—although she hadn’t anticipated it. She had not tested herself with that question in weeks. In the interval, the reasons to disbelieve Erno, whom she’d suspected from the start, had multiplied. And yet for her the facts of the case remained a swamp— the records suggesting Gandolph might have been in jail, Erdai’s account, Luisa’s thefts, the question of whether Gandolph had violence in his character. Today, despite her effort to apply cold reason, there were doubts, reasonable ones, and thus, on the current evidence she could send Rommy Gandolph neither to death nor even to the penitentiary. By whatever means, Arthur had persuaded her of that much, although she would hesitate to vouch for Gandolph’s innocence, or to criticize her decision of ten years ago, given the proof she saw at the time.

  “But I’m of no account now, Arthur,” she said, after explaining her views. “What’s your opinion?”

  “I believe Genevieve. Even Erno admitted that she’d told him that Rommy had threatened to kill Luisa. And every time I go over it, I see that Erno was lying about something else. But I still need to believe Rommy’s innocent. And so I do.” He wrung his head in misery at the absurdity of what he had said.

  “Then you have to go forward. Don’t you? As an attorney? Could you really face yourself if you deserted an innocent client at this stage? Do what you can, Arthur. At least try,” she said.

  “Try what? I need facts. New facts.”

  Whenever Arthur spoke of the case, as he did constantly, she listened with interest but confined her commentary to encouragement. Yet she’d made her own calculations and there seemed no point tonight in keeping them to herself.

  “You know I hesitate to make suggestions,” she began.

  He waved off her apologies, inviting her to continue.

  “You haven’t told Muriel that Erno was also stealing tickets, have you?” she asked.

  “God, no,” said Arthur. “It only makes Erno look worse. What of it?”

  “Well, Erno said that was why he confronted Luisa at Paradise— because he was afraid her activities might lead to discovery of his own. Correct?”

  “So?”

  “But Erno had had Luisa searched and found nothing. So why did he remain so certain of what she was up to? And if he wasn’t having an affair with her, then what brought him out at midnight on a holiday weekend to confront her?”

  “That’s what I meant about Erno,” Arthur said. “I can’t even fight my way through his lies anymor
e.”

  “Well, perhaps I’m fresher on this, Arthur. But thinking it over, I suspect Erno was watching Luisa—on his own, because he couldn’t tell his underlings about his suspicions, for fear it would reveal something about his own thefts. And with his eye on her, he must have caught her in the process of stealing.”

  “Makes sense. He said he went to Paradise to stop her.”

  “But why didn’t Erno stop her at the airport?”

  “He probably wanted to see who she was delivering the tickets to. That’s the usual routine in a surveillance, isn’t it?”

  “Which brings you back to her buyer. Pharaoh?”

  “Pharaoh. What about him?”

  “Well, he must have been there, Arthur. At Paradise. At some point.”

  She could see Arthur, almost against his will, revive. His posture improved and his face brightened, but after a second he once more shook his head.

  “We can’t find him. Rommy said Pharaoh took a major conviction, but Pamela matched the name against court records and we got nothing. Even Erno said he’s vanished.”

  “I know, but one thing caught my attention. Genevieve said she couldn’t figure out how Luisa and Pharaoh were able to get away with this. Is that right?”

  “That’s what she said.”

  “So Pharaoh had a far more sophisticated means of disposing of the tickets than peddling them on a street corner.”

  “Rommy said he was pushing them through some company.” Arthur took a second to follow her. “What are you thinking? A corporate travel department?”

  “Something along those lines.”

  Together they began to plot possible approaches, and Arthur became more himself, enlivened with hope of the improbable. Then, quite abruptly, bleakness settled in again and his small, soft eyes suddenly stuck on her.

  “What?” she asked, thinking there was some new flaw in their reasoning.