Under the same theory, the prosecution would exercise one of its arbitrary, peremptory challenges and strike her from the panel. Not so, said Chick Elliot, the oldest and drunkest of the gang. “I’d take her if I were prosecuting,” he argued, then knocked back a potent shot of bourbon.
“Why?” Baggy asked.
“Because we know her so well now, thanks to the Times. She came across as a sensible, God-fearing, Bible-quoting patriot, who raised all those kids with a heavy hand and a swift kick in the ass if they screwed up.”
“I agree,” said Tackett, the youngest of the three. Tackett, though, had a tendency to agree with whatever the prevailing theory happened to be. “She’d make an ideal juror for the prosecution. Plus, she’s a woman. It’s a rape case. I’d take all the women I could get.”
They argued for an hour. It was my first session with them, and I suddenly understood how Baggy collected so many differing opinions about so many issues. Though I tried not to show it, I was deeply concerned that my long and generous stories about Miss Callie would somehow come back to haunt her.
After lunch, Judge Loopus moved into the most serious phase of questioning — the death penalty. He explained the nature of a capital offense and the procedures that would be followed, then he yielded again to Ernie Gaddis.
Juror number eleven was a member of some obscure church and he made it very clear that he could never vote to send a person to the gas chamber. Juror number thirty-four was a veteran of two wars and he felt rather strongly that the death penalty wasn’t used often enough. This, of course, delighted Ernie, who singled out individual jurors and politely asked them questions about judging others and imposing the death sentence. He eventually made it to Miss Callie. “Now, Mrs. Ruffin, I’ve read about you, and you seem to be a very religious woman. Is this correct?”
“I do love the Lord, yes sir,” she answered, as clear as always.
“Are you hesitant to sit in judgment of another human?”
“I am, yes sir.”
“Do you want to be excused?”
“No sir. It’s my duty as a citizen to be here, same as all these other folks.”
“And if you’re on the jury, and the jury finds Mr. Padgitt guilty of these crimes, can you vote to put him to death?”
“I certainly wouldn’t want to.”
“My question was, ‘Can you?’ ”
“I can follow the law, same as these other folks. If the law says that we should consider the death penalty, then I can follow the law.”
Four hours later, Calia H. Ruffin became the last juror chosen — the first black to serve on a trial jury in Ford County. The drunks up in the Bar Room had been right. The defense wanted her because she was black. The State wanted her because they knew her so well. Plus, Ernie Gaddis had to save his jury strikes for less-appealing characters.
Late that night I sat alone in my office working on a story about the opening day and jury selection. I heard a familiar noise downstairs. Harry Rex had a way of shoving open the front door and stomping on the wooden floors so that everybody at the Times, regardless of the time of day, knew he had arrived. “Willie boy!” he yelled from below.
“Up here,” I yelled back.
He rumbled up the stairs and fell into his favorite chair. “Whatta you think of the jury?” he said. He appeared to be completely sober.
“I only know one of them,” I said. “How many do you know?”
“Seven.”
“You think they picked Miss Callie because of my stories?”
“Yep,” he said, brutally honest as always. “Everybody’s been talkin’ about her. Both sides felt like they knew her. It’s 1970 and we’ve never had a black juror. She looked as good as any. Does that worry you?”
“I guess it does.”
“Why? What’s wrong with servin’ on a jury? It’s about time we had blacks doin’ it. She and her husband have always been anxious to break down barriers. Ain’t like it’s dangerous. Well, normally it ain’t dangerous.”
I hadn’t talked to Miss Callie and I would not be able to do so until after the trial. Judge Loopus had ordered the jurors sequestered for the week. By then they were hiding in a motel in another town.
“Any suspicious characters on the jury?” I asked.
“Maybe. Everybody’s worried about that crippled boy from out near Dumas. Fargarson. Hurt his back in a sawmill owned by his uncle. The uncle sold timber to the Padgitts many years ago. The boy has some attitude. Gaddis wanted to bump him but he ran out of challenges.”
The crippled boy walked with a cane and was at least twenty-five years old. Harry Rex referred to anyone younger than himself, and especially me, as “boy.”
“But with the Padgitts you never know,” he continued. “Hell, they could own half the jury by now.”
“You don’t really believe that, do you?”
“Naw, but a hung jury wouldn’t surprise me either. It might take two or three shots at this boy before Ernie gets him.”
“But he will go to prison, won’t he?” The thought of Danny Padgitt escaping punishment frightened me. I had invested myself in the town of Clanton, and if its justice was so corruptible then I didn’t want to stay.
“They’ll hang his ass.”
“Good. The death penalty?”
“I’d bet on it, eventually. This is the buckle of the Bible Belt, Willie. An eye for an eye, all that crap. Loopus’ll do everything he can to help Ernie get a death verdict.”
I then made the mistake of asking him why he was working so late. A divorce client had left town on business, then sneaked back to catch his wife with her boyfriend. The client and Harry Rex had spent the last two hours in a borrowed pickup behind a hot-sheets motel north of town. As it turned out, the wife had two boyfriends. The story took half an hour to tell.
Chapter 15
Tuesday morning, almost two hours were wasted as the lawyers wrangled over some hotly contested motions back in the Judge’s chambers. “Probably the photographs,” Baggy kept saying. “They always fight over the photographs.” Since we were not privy to their little war, we waited impatiently in the courtroom, holding our seats. I wrote pages of useless notes in a chicken-scratch handwriting that any veteran reporter would admire. The scribbling kept me busy and it kept my eyes away from the ever-present stares of the Padgitts. With the jury out of the room they turned their attention to the spectators, especially me.
The jurors were locked away in the deliberation room, with deputies at the door as if someone might gain something by attacking them. The room was on the second floor, with large windows that looked upon the east side of the courthouse lawn. At the bottom of one window was a noisy air-conditioning unit that could be heard from any point on the square when it was at full throttle. I thought of Miss Callie and her blood pressure. I knew she was reading the Bible and maybe this was calming her. I had called Esau early that morning. He was very upset that she had been sequestered and hauled away.
Esau was in the back row, waiting with the rest of us.
When Judge Loopus and the lawyers finally appeared they looked as though they had all been fistfighting The Judge nodded at the bailiff and the jurors were led in. He welcomed them, thanked them, asked about their accommodations, apologized for the inconvenience, apologized for the delay that morning, then promised that things would move forward.
Ernie Gaddis assumed a position behind the podium and began his opening statement to the jury. He had a yellow legal pad, but he didn’t look at it. With great efficiency, he rattled off the necessary elements the State would prove against Danny Padgitt. When all the exhibits were in, and all the witnesses were finished, and the lawyers were quiet, and the Judge had spoken, it would be left to the jury to serve justice. There was no doubt in his mind that they would find Danny Padgitt guilty of rape and murder. He didn’t waste a word, and every word found its mark. He was mercifully brief. His confident tone and concise remarks conveyed the clear message that he had the facts, the case, and he would get his verdict. He did not need long, emotional arguments to convince the jury.