5
“We must start with the founding documents,” Millie said. “All men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.”
“The Declaration of Independence is not the Constitution,” Riley snapped.
“That is not the view of the Court in the past,” Millie said, marveling at her own words. A year ago such a sentiment would have been unthinkable coming from her. “Our decisions throughout the 1800s consistently called the Declaration ‘part of the fundamental law of our nation.’ Only in the last forty years have we drifted from that view. Are we going to say now that our predecessors on the Court were wrong or naive?”
Millie glanced left and saw Larry Graebner watching her, a look of complete bafflement on his face. He seemed to be thinking, Are you absolutely crazy? That only emboldened her. “I am calling upon this Court,” she said, “to reaffirm the basic tenets of our founding. Without those principles, we will continue to be a nation on a collision course with itself. This case makes that clear. That a young woman can be denied – ”
“We’ve guided our ship of state pretty well under the law of the past thirty years,” Weiss interrupted. “Shouldn’t we consider the drastic political consequences of changing course?”
“The decisions of this Court do have political consequences,” Millie said. “We all know that. But the Court was never meant to have political intentions. In a Constitutional democracy, this Court was not conceived as the institution that creates law. Or that overturns laws duly passed, so long as such laws do not violate any Constitutional provision.”
For the next few minutes several of the justices asked questions about that very thing – the constitutionality of the informed consent law and its various sections. The larger issue Millie had begun to argue was lost. But she knew she had to answer the questions asked. In the back of her mind, she was hoping for – praying for – one more chance to return to the issue.
Oddly, Justice Riley was silent now, though Millie sensed he was deep in thought.
Finally, just before her time was up, Riley leaned forward in his chair. “Aren’t you asking this Court to decide in such a way that will tear at the very fabric of our nation?”
Millie saw in him a real anguish. How well she understood it. “Your Honor,” she said, “like one of my judicial heroes, I believe truth conquers all things. It may be a long struggle before the conquest, but ultimately it is the only struggle that counts. It counts for Sarah Mae Sherman, and for all the future Sarah Maes. But it also counts for the soul of the law, and for this great edifice we call justice – ”
The red light on the lectern illumined. “Thank you,” Chief Justice Atkins said. “Your time has expired. This Court is now adjourned.”
The nine justices stood and filed slowly out of the room. Millie watched them, her former colleagues, as they disappeared behind the velvet curtain.
She had never felt so spent. She turned and looked into the gallery. Her supporters were all there, nodding in affirmation.
And then she looked up. Her gaze fell on the marble frieze depicting the eternal struggle for justice, the one she had come to know so well when she was sitting on the dais. She smiled, and silently thanked God that she had had the chance to be part of the struggle.
6
Sheela came in from her yard time, holding something. “Hey,” she said to Anne, “you were a lawyer, right?”
Why the sudden questioning, Anne wondered. “I never finished law school,” Anne said. “Started working in D.C.”
“Honey, you sure did take a wrong turn.”
Anne heard herself admit, for the first time in her life, “Yeah, I messed up pretty bad.”
Then Sheela tossed her some papers. “Got that at the chapel,” she said. “Thought you might be interested.”
Anne looked at it. It looked official, like a legal brief.
“Maybe you want to come hear the Word sometime with me,” Sheela said. “Keep you from cryin’ so much.”
Sheela was into Jesus. Talked about him constantly. Anne didn’t want to hear it. Now, she thought, maybe sometime she’d go to chapel with Sheela, if for no other reason than to break the monotony.
Anne lay down and took a look at the brief. The first page had a section called “Statement of Facts.”
I have been in jail. I have nearly died. I have lost the people I loved more than anything in the world. I wonder sometimes why I didn’t take my own life. I think I know why now. God isn’t finished with me yet.
What was this? Anne looked for a name on the brief and found it on the last page. Some guy named Jack Holden. Now who was…
Then it hit her like a rifle shot. Wasn’t that the guy’s name, the minister, the one who had been tied up with Hollander when Dan Ricks was on the job?
Same guy! Had to be. She looked back at the page. It was blurred and Anne realized, once more, she was crying. Only this time the tears were not out of deep despair. She had no idea what they were from, but it was like her heart knew – beyond the edge, better than the edge – there was something other, out there, as if on the other side of a door.
Anne wiped at her eyes, amazed, and started once more to read.
CHAPTER TWENTY
1
Friday, December 3
The Supreme Court’s 4-4 deadlock in an abortion rights case earlier this week raises serious issues of national policy, experts say. What is baffling, leading court watchers note, is that the Court announced its decision in Sherman v. National Parental Planning Group by way of a short, per curiam opinion, meaning it came from the Court as a whole with no individual justice signing an opinion.
“It’s obvious one of the justices refused to rule,” said Yale Law Professor Lawrence I. Graebner, who argued on behalf the NPPG before the high court. “Frankly, I can’t imagine which justice would do that. What’s worse is that this leaves the door open to a possible rollback of Roe v. Wade sometime in the future. I’m very troubled.”
The court’s decision has no national effect. It leaves in place the decision of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals which had remanded the case for trial.
“This is a victory for the one who counts most, Sarah Mae Sherman,” said Millicent Mannings Hollander, the former chief justice who argued Sherman’s case before her one-time colleagues. “She will have her day in court, and the NPPG will be held accountable for its actions.”
Speaking by phone from her office in Santa Lucia, California, Hollander added, “The larger debate must also continue. We now have an opportunity to engage in a new national discussion about what’s best for us as a nation of laws.”
Helen Forbes Kensington, president of the National Parental Planning Group, could not be reached for comment.
2
“Who do you think it was?” Jack Holden said.
“I have a feeling,” Millie answered.
They were outside on the basketball court behind the church. The warm winter had preserved the wildflowers of the Santa Lucia valley, and today they seemed to have dropped directly from the palette of God.
Across the valley the sleeping giant was still flat on his back. Sometimes, as a girl, Millie had wondered what would happen if the giant suddenly woke up, stood, and made his way toward the town. How would the people react? Would they run, or would they welcome him as an old friend?
Then she wondered – if enough people awoke from their moral slumbers and began to return to the true source of all law, what would the rest of the country do? Scream? Or recognize a forgotten friend? She knew much of her future work was going to be tied up with those questions.