The judge had dispensed that advice a hundred times, and Jim wholeheartedly believed it.
After all, his father was on the boards of two major corporations that contributed heavily to the judge’s campaign…a campaign that was never fully waged because of C.C.’s surprise appointment to the bench, rendering voters unnecessary. Jim happened to know that for reasons mysterious and unspoken, the judge held on to all the campaign money to create his “war chest,” as he called it.
“Sorry to say it’s not the sports page, Judge,” he told C.C. “It’s the research for that opinion pending on the docket.”
The judge looked momentarily blank.
“You know,” Jim prodded, “the one we talked about? The death penalty appeal.”
Ah. The light dawned in C.C’s eyes.
“Son, I’m going to let you handle that on your own. It’s time you took on more responsibility and I think you’re ready for it. I’ve taught you what I know on the subject. Make me proud, boy.”
Maybe Jim should have been thrilled with the idea of changing the course of legal history by writing the judge’s opinions totally unsupervised. But the truth was, he didn’t want to be responsible for a political hot potato.
Still, if Jim did as he was told, he figured the clerkship with Judge C. could set him up for an associate position over at Lange and Parker, the South’s premier law firm, the crown jewel of the Georgia Bar.
His Mercer Law Review cronies would be livid.
“So, Judge, we affirm, right?”
With shifting support for the death penalty, Jim thought he should at least get Carter’s okay before taking the judge’s usual hang-’em-high position and affirming the death sentence. He’d worry about finding a legal basis later.
“Son, which slimy SOB is it this time? These days you got to be a real bastard to get the chair.”
“It’s the chef. You know, the Atlanta chef that posed all those hookers after he strangled them.”
“Shit, son. He must’ve been one mean son of a bitch to get a death sentence out of a bunch of intellectual left-wing snoots and all the rest… Well, you know who sits on Atlanta juries. They wouldn’t even give Wayne Williams the chair. He strangled how many boys…twelve, before they caught him?”
“No sir. Twenty-one.”
“Twenty-one what?” It had clearly been a rhetorical question because C.C. had no idea what Jim was referring to.
“Wayne Williams allegedly murdered twenty-one little boys and teens before they got him, based on fiber evidence. But Williams still says he didn’t do it…that he was set up.”
“Set up? Son, you scare me when you talk like that. Allegedly. Allegedly, my ass. A jury convicted him.”
“So, Judge, we affirm?”
“Did you say he says he was set up? Set up by who? God? Sit in jail long enough, and they all think somebody set ’em up.”
“The chef, Judge, you want to affirm the DP on the chef, right?”
“Hell, yes, affirm it, by God,” Judge Carter bellowed, slapping his beefy hand on the desk so hard the obligatory framed family photos rattled. “You want me to lose my spot on the bench? The voters would burn down the Court if we let that one go. He’ll never see nothing but the inside of the bus on the way from Reidsville Prison to Old Sparky at Jackson.”
“Sir, just to be clear-it’s a constitutional challenge to the use of DNA without obtaining an additional warrant on each separate murder charge. They also claim overzealous prosecution against the State. It was Hailey Dean again.”
“Son, you’re botherin’ me, now. You know I have to affirm…both the guilty verdict and the death penalty sentence. It ain’t the liberals keeping me on the bench, son. Remember that.”
“But the DNA-”
“I’m fine by DNA and there is no such thing as overzealous prosecution. Unless it’s against me. That’s a joke, son. Lighten up.”
Jim nodded woodenly, but managed to laugh at just the right volume and with just the right amount of heartiness.
“Yes, sir. It’s affirmed. He’s headed to Old Sparky.”
“That’s right, son. It’s between him and the Lord now. And son,” the judge added, dipping his right hand back into his top drawer, “could you bring me that Sports section? I wanna find out how the Dogs look for the weekend.”
“Will do, sir.” Jim closed the door behind him and exhaled. C.C. wouldn’t know the law if it jumped up on the bench and bit him right in the neck.
He headed down the quiet hall outside the judge’s chambers to his own office.
Well, that was done…the appeal was over. The death sentence was affirmed.
The prosecution at trial could rest easy.
9
“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT?” CRUISE SPIT THE WORDS through the wall of glass that separated him from Leonard.
The attorney’s lips curved into a thin smile. “Not happy to see me? What’s wrong, Clint? I thought you’d be happy. Come on, show some enthusiasm…it’s not like you’re flooded with visitors.”
If it weren’t for a wall of thick plate glass that separated them, Cruise would have made a lunge for him. As it was, all he could do was sit here, chained in shackles, waiting for his useless lawyer to say whatever he had to say and make Cruise read or sign whatever he had to read or sign.
Useless. That was what Cruise thought of Matt Leonard and his weak, pathetic performance at trial. Damn him, the way Hailey Dean walked all over him. Cruise knew the deal. Leonard wanted the celebrity of being the big-time death penalty hero, but he just couldn’t deliver. Cruise had read up on him, found out his firm was rolling in federal and state grant money for the so-called Death Penalty Project.
Cruise didn’t know exactly how much money, but he did know both Leonard and even his paralegal drove Mercedes. Thanks to Google and the penitentiary law library Internet, he also knew Leonard lived in a huge three-story on Habersham near the governor’s mansion. Leonard’s crapper was probably bigger than Cruise’s whole cell.
Damn Hailey Dean, too.
The day of the verdict, he went for her in court and made it all the way to where she stood, alone in the middle of the courtroom. Because of her, he was clubbed in the head from behind. Then, they nearly tore his arms off pulling him from the courtroom. He turned back for one last look, and saw a juror had actually made it around the jury rail and was hugging Hailey Dean, right there at the podium. Over the juror’s shoulder though, Dean was staring straight at him, watching when they hooked the leg irons on him.
The moment the sheriffs got him alone in holding just outside the courtroom, they cursed him out and punched him over and over, right in the stomach. The walls were soundproofed, though, and Cruise knew no one in the courtroom heard a damn thing.
“This is for Hailey, you sick little perv,” one of them said, landing a punch that knocked out one of Cruise’s teeth. The beating went on.
At the end, Hailey’s investigator, Fincher Henson, sauntered back into the holding pen. The other sheriffs got real quiet when he strolled through the door, like the damned President walked in.
Cruise remembered it like it was yesterday.
“Uncuff him,” Henson said.
The cell went quiet and nobody moved. Not one sheriff so much as shifted his weight. Who the hell did he think he was…God?
Cruise would be damned to hell if he’d have given him the courtesy of looking up.
“Uncuff the son of a bitch,” Henson turned and barked at the nearest sheriff, who stepped up to Cruise, jangling the cuff keys attached to his belt.
The cuffs were unlocked and removed.
“Stand up, asshole,” Fincher growled low in his throat.
Cruise had stayed doubled over against the wall. No way would he stand on command.