"And maybe he finally found a way to do that." I immediately regretted
saying something so mean-spirited, but it seemed to be exactly what
Martha Jackson expected.
The fire in her voice was gone. She clicked her tongue against her
teeth and shook her head. "I don't know why I
bothered. Y'all just ain't usin' the heads God gave you. How that
poor lady's death gonna help my grandchildren? You see a colored man
and assume he ain't got sense, just an animal lashing out at the
world."
I was angry at the accusation, but knew that nothing I said would
change either her perception of the criminal justice system or the many
events in her lifetime that were responsible for it. "I'm sorry, Mrs.
Jackson, but I can't help you." I opened the door to show her out.
She had one more thing to say before she left. "Melvin's living in
Section Eight one step above begging on the streets for a reason. Why's
he all the sudden got regular work at some fancy office development?
And wouldn't you know that's where your poor missing judge turns up.
Believe what you will about my son, but y'alls the ones ain't
thinkin."
She walked past me through the doorway and headed for the elevator. I
assumed she didn't need an escort.
Russ Frist was standing outside the conference room.
"Melvin Jackson's mother," I explained.
"Alice told me about her when I got back, but I didn't want to walk in.
Sounded like you had everything under control."
"Sure, if you consider being an insensitive prick having things under
control," I said. "It's not her fault her son's in a jam."
"More hers than yours, Kincaid. Let it go."
Letting things go never was my forte.
At two o'clock, the members of the death penalty committee gathered to
decide whether Melvin Jackson should live or die if convicted. Even
the boss himself showed up, joining Russ Frist, Jessica Walters, Rocco
Kessler, and me.
Rocco Kessler spoke first. His real name is Richard, but somehow the
macho nickname grew out of his initials. Knowing him, I suspected he
engineered the transition himself.
I hadn't seen him since leaving DVD, where he was most memorable as the
supervisor who wanted me fired. He must not have missed me much, since
he took his chair in the conference room without so much as a hello.
"Let's get this show on the road. Duncan wants to keep things moving,
and I plan to stick to the format we've always used." The dearly
departed Tim O'Donnell had previously chaired these meetings. "The
husband's coming in at three, Kincaid?" he asked.
I nodded. "He's the only one. The trip downtown's too hard for the
parents, and the sister just called her kids are having a meltdown and
she couldn't pawn them off on her folks. For what it's worth, my gut
tells me they'll go either way on the sentence. They know nothing's
going to bring Clarissa back."
"Okay, then. Take as long as you need to tell us about the case and
the defendant, this" he looked down at his notes "Melvin Jackson. What
we usually do is just go around the room and give our initial
impressions, then go from there."
I finished in twenty minutes, spending only half of that on the
evidence itself. What made this meeting a difficult one wasn't the
question of Melvin Jackson's guilt but the balancing of two seemingly
irreconcilable images of the man. I tried to give it to them straight,
covering both the aggravated nature of the crime and the sympathetic
story of a father with no prior criminal history beating a lifelong
addiction to keep his children.
Rocco asked Jessica to speak first.
"I think this is one of the hardest cases we've seen. At first blush,
it's got death penalty written all over it. The guy snatches a woman
off the street, for Christ's sake. But when you think about it, the
reason those cases give you such a visceral reaction is that you think
of a sex offender. You think of the Polly Klaas or Dru Sjodin cases.
Melvin Jackson's not one of those guys. He's not a predator. And we
also don't have any prior acts of violence; I'd be inclined to seek
life."
Rocco looked to Russ.
"I'd go death penalty but accept a plea to life. We might not know
exactly what Jackson did to her, but the ME says the vies shirt was off
when she was beaten. We also know he stalked her. I see where you're
coming from, Walters, but to me this isn't just some guy who snapped.
Think of what it must have been like for the victim in those final
moments, taking her clothes off for him. That's more than
garden-variety murder."
Rocco jumped in next. I was getting the impression he forgot I was
there. "I'm with Frist," Rocco said. "The guy might not have any
priors, but that just means no one caught him before. Even by his own
sad story, he's a doper who thinks he deserves a medal for choosing his
kids over heroin."
Jessica shook her head. "Forget for a second that Melvin Jackson's a
black man who lives in public housing and Clarissa Easterbrook's an
attractive, wealthy judge."
Rocco accused her of playing the race card, and the room broke out in a
cacophony rivaling Crossfire. Duncan made a time-out sign with his
hands and told everyone to let Jessica finish speaking, but Jessica
held up her hand. "Never mind."
I, however, minded. She had a valid point, and they should at least
take it into consideration. If this was going to be my case, I
couldn't be afraid to speak up.
"Jessica's right," I said. "When a defendant looks like Melvin Jackson
and the victim looks like Clarissa Easterbrook, that alone pushes
buttons we might not even know we have."
Rocco didn't want to hear it. "That's a PC load of crock, Kincaid."
Aah, sweet memories of my former boss. "Jackson's race has got nothing
to do with this, and I don't want to hear another word about it."
"Well, that's all you're going to hear about if Jackson's not
comparable to other capital defendants. You tell me: Have we ever
asked for a death sentence against a white defendant with no prior
violence?"
The immediate silence at the table was answer enough, but it wasn't the
right one for Russ and Rocco, who began walking through individual
cases, struggling to compare them to Jackson's. Duncan chose to stare
at the ceiling. I couldn't tell if he was seeking spiritual guidance
or picturing himself under fire by civil rights protesters on future
campaign stops.
We were still debating the case when Alice Gerstein rapped on the door
and peeked in. "Dr. Easterbrook and his lawyer are here whenever
you're ready."
From what I'd heard, the usual goal of these meetings was to make the