by Gerry Spence
“Your objection is noted,” Judge Little replied. He smiled at the jury. “The jury is admonished to disregard counsel’s remarks.” The judge adjusted his bow tie, which also tilted to the right. “Proceed, Mr. Sewell.”
Sewell approached the bench and spoke quietly to Judge Little. “May we adjourn to your chambers? Perhaps we can settle this troublesome matter.” With Coker’s agreement, the judge excused the jury until the following morning.
In chambers, the lawyers remained standing. But Lillian dropped into a chair some feet back from the judge’s desk. She was suffering spasms of shivering, like one in the throes of hypothermia.
“Your case is lost,” Sewell said to Coker. “If the jury finds your client guilty, and that’s nearly guaranteed, she’ll find herself in the gas chamber. I’m willing to accept a guilty plea if we can work something out with the judge for a lesser sentence that would provide some remaining life for her on the other side of prison walls.”
Judge Little excused himself and left the room.
Coker sat silent. Without taking his eyes from Sewell, he walked over to Lillian, took her quivering hand, and gave it a fatherly squeeze.
“He wants me to admit I killed Horace?” she asked.
“That’s about it,” Coker said.
She looked away.
“If I agree, will they leave Tina alone?” Lillian whispered.
“The case would be over,” Coker whispered back. “She wouldn’t have to testify.”
“Then I’m going to do it,” Lillian said.
“Who will take care of Tina while you’re lounging in the penitentiary for the next twenty years?” Coker asked.
“Oh God!” Lillian cried. “I keep forgetting.”
She looked at him and saw his eyes were kind. “Sewell will be filing more charges against you,” he said.
* * *
The next morning, all the parties appeared in court, as usual. Sewell was wearing another of his usual gray suits and usual gray ties. Lillian took her seat next to Coker, as usual. As usual, Judge Little called the court to order.
Sewell called his next witness, Tina Marie Ford. She walked in hesitant steps to the witness stand. She was two inches taller than Deputy Huffsmith, who accompanied her.
Benjamin Breslin, the clerk, said tonelessly, “Raise you right hand.”
“Why?” she asked.
“To take the oath.”
“I don’t want to take an oath. Only those in cahoots with the devil take oaths.”
Judge Little looked down at the girl. “Will you tell the truth, Miss Ford?”
“I lie to the devil.”
“Will you tell us when you are lying?” the judge asked.
Tina didn’t answer.
Coker said, “This witness has not been sworn, and she’s not competent to testify in this or any court.”
Judge Little, on the edge of his chair, looked down at Tina. “Overruled. I find that this witness is young but seems to understand the meaning of an oath. I will allow her testimony and instruct the jurors to give it such weight as they deem fit under these circumstances.”
“This is clear and obvious error,” Coker objected. “To permit a witness to testify without taking an oath, whether she understands the meaning of an oath or not, is beyond the pale. And nothing is before us that creates a presumption that she knows the meaning of an oath. Moreover, she appears to be mentally incompetent.”
“Overruled,” Judge Little said as he adjusted his tie. “If we disqualified every citizen from testifying who held beliefs in angels and devils, we would not be able to conduct a trial. We’ll see where this young lady takes us.”
Sewell began his interrogation of Tina by asking, “Where have you been residing?”
“You know where I’m living. You put me there,” she said in a low, angry whisper.
“So, Miss Ford, you are living outside the home of your mother, isn’t that true?”
No answer.
“Answer the question, Miss Ford,” the judge admonished.
No answer.
“Did you hear me, Miss Ford? Answer the question.”
“I don’t want to,” she said, and defiantly shook her head at the judge.
“It is not whether you want to or not. You are required to answer the question.”
“No. I don’t have to.”
“Who told you that?”
“My mother.”
“What did your mother say?” the judge asked.
“Your Honor ought not join the prosecution’s team in interrogating the witness,” Coker said. “Moreover, it’s hearsay.”
The judge scowled down at Coker and readjusted his bow tie.
“I don’t remember,” Tina said.
“You don’t remember what?” the judge asked.
“How can I remember what I don’t remember?”
The judge looked down at Tina and with a slow, stern voice said, “What did your mother say concerning your duty to answer questions in court?”
Coker said, “I renew my objection to the court’s interrogating the witness. This has gone beyond pure preliminaries.”
“Very well,” the judge said. He turned to Sewell. “Mr. Prosecutor, if, indeed, I have preempted you in performing your duties, you may now proceed.”
Sewell nodded to the judge and asked, “Were you advised by your mother not to answer our questions?”
“No. My mother always told me that we should make our own choices in life, and that we should be responsible for the choices we make. I am making my choice, and I am not going to answer your questions. I do not have to talk to the devil.”
“Whom are you referring to as the devil?” Sewell asked.
“You know who you are,” Tina said.
“Did your mother tell you that?”
“No. My mother does not understand. She is innocent, like a little child. She thinks I am the child, but in the presence of the devil, she is the child.”
Sewell took a step forward. “Do you remember being in my office today before I called you as a witness?”
“Yes.”
“And didn’t you tell me that your mother had problems with your stepfather?”
“You are just making all this up to hurt my mother.”
A heavy, low buzz in the courtroom was interrupted when the judge pounded his gavel. “Miss Ford,” the judge remonstrated. “You are required to tell the truth.”
“I am telling the truth.” She pointed at Sewell. “He’s the devil. And I think you know that, too,” she said to the judge. “He came to see me all the time at Mrs. Houseman’s and brought me presents to try to get me on his side so I would testify against my mother. He thinks I am too dumb to understand that.”
“Miss Ford, will you answer any questions concerning the death of your stepfather?” the judge asked.
“He’s not dead. You can’t kill those kind.”
“I renew my objection to this testimony,” Coker said. “This witness is obviously hallucinating.”
“Let us be patient,” Judge Little said in a kindly voice.
“Well, let’s see if there are any questions you will answer,” Sewell said. “Were you home on the night that your stepfather, Horace Adams the Third, died?”
Darkness fell over the courtroom like a heavy, colorless cloud. Tina didn’t answer.
“You have to speak up so that the reporter can get your answer in the record,” Sewell said.
“You made me shoot him,” she said to Sewell. “You made me shoot him,” she said again. The jurors leaned forward. Lillian grasped Timothy Coker’s arm.
“I don’t wish to drag you through the shock of that night,” Sewell said in his most sympathetic voice, “but what time did you last see your stepfather?”
“I just got home. My friend Julie brought me home. She said I was having a spell, and anyway I was supposed to be in by midnight, and so it was a few minutes before.”
“Why did you go into your stepfather’s den?�
�
She didn’t answer.
“I asked you, Miss Ford, why did you go into the den?”
Still she didn’t answer, her face devoid of feeling.
“Miss Ford?”
“I went in there to kill him,” she said in a far-off voice.
Lillian Adams let out a small cry.
“What are you talking about?” Sewell said. He started for the witness.
Coker jumped in front of Sewell, his fists tight and shaking. “Leave her be!” he hollered.
“Step back, counsel!” the judge ordered Sewell.
“That isn’t what you told me,” Sewell said. “You told me—”
“This is his witness,” Coker objected. “He’s not permitted to impeach his own witness.”
“Gentlemen, gentlemen!” The judge was beating his gavel. “Approach the bench.” At the bench, Judge Little turned to Sewell, whispering, “What is your offer of proof, Mr. Sewell? And keep your voice down.”
Sewell spoke in a sharp, angry whisper. “I expected this witness to say she went into the den, looking for her mother, who often spent time in there with her stepfather, and that when she got there, her mother wasn’t there, and that when she saw the dead man on the floor, she went screaming though the house for her mother and her mother came to her out of the bathroom, where, we will show, she’d been attempting to get rid of the blood on her clothes.” He caught his breath. Sewell continued: “I further expected this witness to say that she saw blood on her mother’s clothing. I have been surprised by this witness, and I have the right to cross-examine her.”
“That is totally unacceptable, and prejudicial,” Coker said. “He is not permitted under the law to ask another of his infamous poisoned questions, much less attack with cross-examination this hallucinating girl who has yet to take the oath. My question to Your Honor: Why are you allowing the contamination of this record with this sick child’s delusions under these clearly improper circumstances?”
“Have you forgotten, counsel? I am the judge here. I do not answer questions. I simply rule on them. I’m going to let Mr. Sewell do what may be necessary to straighten this out. We will proceed cautiously. Mr. Sewell, do I have your representation that the witness told you these facts yesterday?”
“Yes, that’s my representation to the court.”
“You may proceed.”
Sewell turned back to Tina. “You’ve been under a good deal of strain these last few days, Miss Ford. But do you remember talking to me in my office?”
No answer.
“You told me then that when you came home, you found your stepfather dead in the den, that you ran screaming for your mother, and that she came out of the bathroom with blood on her clothing, isn’t that true?”
“You’re making that up,” Tina said. Her voice was eerie and chilling. “I told you I killed him, and you know it.”
“You claim I’m making this up?” Sewell asked. “What really happened is that you’ve decided overnight to take the blame for the death of your stepfather in order to save your mother, isn’t that true?”
“I told you I shot him!” She was staring darkly at Sewell, her nostrils flared, her hands in tight fists.
“So how did you shoot him, young lady?” Sewell asked.
“With a pistol.”
“Yes. What kind of a pistol?”
“I don’t know. But I shot him with it.”
“Where did you find the pistol?”
“He had it there on the desk.”
“So how does the pistol work?”
“You pull the trigger.”
“And you know how to shoot?”
“Yes,” she said. “My grandfather taught me how to shoot. I am a good shot. I just walked up, put the pistol to his head, and shot him.”
“And I suppose that your stepfather said nothing and did nothing while you shot him?”
“He looked at me and smiled. He knew I couldn’t kill him. He’s a warlock. I suppose you don’t know what a warlock is.” Her expression turned from hate to disgust. “It is a male witch.”
Sewell went to the clerk’s table and brought the pistol to her.
“I hand you State’s Exhibit seven. Show me how you work this.”
She grabbed the gun, cocked the hammer, and pulled the trigger.
Sewell shrugged his shoulders, as if Tina’s demonstration had been valueless. He returned the pistol to the clerk’s desk with the other exhibits. “What did you do after you shot him?”
“I don’t remember. I just remember shooting him.”
“When you pulled the trigger, what did he do?”
“He fell facedown on the desk, and started to shake all over.” She gave a small, quick shaking of her body to illustrate.
“Why did you shoot him?”
“Because he was evil and ruining my mother’s life.”
“In what way was he ruining your mother’s life?”
“She didn’t laugh anymore. She always used to laugh.”
“Where did the so-called suicide note come from?” Sewell asked.
“I don’t know,” she answered. “I told you in your office that I didn’t see any note there.”
“Your mother wrote a note and put it—”
Coker jumped up. “That’s another one of those poisoned questions, Judge Little. There is no competent evidence whatever that Mrs. Adams wrote anything.”
“That’s for the jury to decide,” the judge said. “Overruled.”
“And how, pray tell, did Mr. Adams get to the chair from the floor?”
“He was sitting at his desk. I put the gun to his head and shot him.”
“How did all those bloody drag marks get on the floor?”
“I don’t know.”
“You lifted a two-hundred-fifty-pound dead man and put him in his chair? You want the jury to believe that?”
“I didn’t put him in his chair. He was already there.”
“You and your mother lifted him from the floor and put him in his chair, isn’t that true?”
“No. That’s another of your filthy lies. But the jury knows. The devil always lies. Always.”
“What time do you claim you shot your stepfather?”
“Just before my mother got home. She got home at midnight.”
“I suppose you wiped the gun free of fingerprints? There were no fingerprints on the gun,” Sewell said.
“I don’t know. I told you in your office yesterday that I shot him.” Her words grew harder and more resolute. She started to get up out of the witness chair.”
“Sit down!” Judge Little ordered.
The girl dropped back into her chair.
“You saw your mother wipe the gun, didn’t you?”
“No. She called the police.”
“I’m going to ask you one more time. You told me in my office yesterday that you found your stepfather dead in the den, that you ran screaming—”
Coker objected. “This is repetitive. It has been asked and answered.”
“Sustained,” Judge Little ruled.
“You’ve decided to take the blame for your mother—”
“That’s been asked and answered, as well,” Coker said.
“Sustained.”
“You know that if I prosecute you for the murder of your stepfather that you will only go to the girls’ reformatory until you achieve the age of majority, but if your mother is convicted of this murder, she will likely be executed. Someone told you that, didn’t they?”
“No,” she said.
“You love your mother and want to protect her, don’t you?”
“Yes. I love her very much. I would shoot you, too, if I had a gun.”
“Why did you go into your stepfather’s den that night, Miss Ford?”
“I had our big kitchen knife. I was going to kill him. Then I saw his gun there, and I used it instead.”
“I have no further questions,” Sewell said.
Judge Little called a recess.
&nb
sp; Coker and Lillian Adams spoke in frenzied whispers at the counsel table. “Well, Lillian, before I cross-examine your daughter, maybe you and I had better have another little heart-to-heart.” Coker sat back in his chair and took in his client like a father about to discipline an errant child.
“You are not going to cross-examine Tina,” she said.
“I have to cross-examine Tina,” Coker said. “It’s not what Tina said. It’s what Sewell said in his poisoned questions that the jury will believe.”
“I suppose you want to make it look like she killed Horace when you ask her one of your own poisoned questions,” Lillian said.
“I have to do something.”
“You forget, Timothy. I’m her mother.”
“It’s you who keeps forgetting: If you’re convicted, it will be your one-way ticket to the gas chamber and Tina’s to an institution for the rest of her life. Why do you continue to forget that?”
CHAPTER 44
WHEN THE TRIAL resumed, Timothy Coker rose from the defense table and stood, intently considering Tina. Finally, he said, “Miss Ford, when you talked to Mr. Sewell in his office, who else was with you?”
“No one.”
“Did he record what was said?”
“I don’t know.”
“You and I have never talked about this case?”
“No.”
“Now, the jury’s been shown what purports to be a suicide note.” He retrieved the note from the clerk’s desk and handed it to the girl. “Have you ever seen this before?”
“No.”
“I want to make sure. That night, before the police came, did you see anything on the desk?”
“The gun.” She looked at Coker as if she saw the death scene spread before her. She spoke in a near-whisper. “Maybe his journal. I used to see him writing in it, but I didn’t want to read it. He was probably writing stuff about my mother. He had her under his evil spell.”
“Did you see a Cracker Jack box on the desktop?”
“I saw an old cardboard box, all beat up, but I didn’t know what it was.”
“Now why, Tina, do you claim you shot your stepfather?”
“Because I shot him.”
“You had a reason to shoot him?” Coker asked.
“Yes, I had a very good reason.” The audience was enraptured. Even Judge Little leaned forward, his eyes fixed on this mere child confessing a killing.
