Conviction

EIGHT

ON THE MORNING RENNELL'S HEARING BEGAN, DEMONSTRATORS slowed the Pagets' progress to the entrance of the Federal Building. Near the glass doors, a clump of anti–death penalty protesters—including a prominent actor and a Pulitzer Prize–winning poet—faced a smaller but vehement group beneath a sign which read JUSTICE FOR VICTIMS. One of its members, a graying woman whose plump face might have seemed pleasant but for its anger, stepped in front of Terri.

"I've seen you on TV," she said in accusation. "How can you be so sick and twisted?"

Chris took Terri's arm, signaling his intention, if he must, to shoulder the woman aside. But Terri would not move. Calmly, she said, "If I'm 'sick and twisted,' so are Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, and the Pope. And every Western democracy but us—"

"Then send all our murderers to France," a man called out, "if they're so morally superior. Lawyers like you are the reason animals like him can force children to have sex."

"Let's go," Carlo murmured. This time Terri did not resist.

* * *

Gazing down from the bench, Judge Bond, dressed in his crisp black robe, spoke so that his voice would carry to the reporters who filled his airy but Spartan courtroom. That and his manner, slightly preening, reminded Terri of the grand inquisitor in a venerable Italian opera.

"The first phase of this hearing," Bond declared, "will focus on whether Rennell Price is mentally retarded and therefore immune from execution. As well as whether—assuming this argument is not foreclosed by AEDPA—mitigating evidence omitted at his original trial militates against imposition of the death penalty.

"I'm limiting each side to a single witness." The judge curtly nodded in Terri's direction. "Unless, Ms. Paget, you've decided to call Mr. Price himself."

"As of now," Terri answered, "we're relying on our expert."

With that, she stood, preparing to place the burden of explaining Rennell Price on the shoulders of Dr. Anthony Lane.

* * *

Facing Terri from the witness stand, Anthony Lane, a double-breasted suit swaddling his bulky frame, looked far more professorial than the casual black man who had first met with Rennell Price. Part of Terri found this disconcerting—it reminded her of the gulf between the rawness of Rennell's life as he had lived it and its translation by a psychiatrist in a sterile courtroom light-years from the Bayview.

As they had planned, Lane tried to bridge the gap, framing the facts for Bond as plainly as he could. "Rennell Price," he said succinctly, "was cursed from birth. Or, more precisely, from the moment of conception.

"His mother was intoxicated during pregnancy, blacking out from poisonous levels of alcohol in her first trimester. His nominal father—whose psychosis rendered him a sadist—gave Rennell beer so he could watch his two-year-old fall off the porch. Then his mother put more beer in his baby bottle so that Vernon Price wouldn't beat her because the child cried.

"When Rennell was seven, Athalie Price took him to the hospital with a head injury, a concussion, clearly inflicted in his home—"

"Which," Bond interjected, "if true, is tragic. But many children get concussions, Doctor—by accident or design. We can't hold them less accountable as adults."

"Perhaps," Lane answered in a respectful tone. "But not many suffer from organic brain damage, caused by fetal alcohol syndrome and aggravated by deliberate blows to the head. In my opinion—based on testing and on his performance from early childhood—Rennell Price does."

"Are these alleged organic problems," Bond inquired, "the cause of his supposed retardation?"

"No," Lane answered crisply. "The damage inflicted by his family was their own special, and quite separate, environmental contribution. But Rennell would have been retarded if he'd been raised in Mister Rogers' Neighborhood—instead of in the Bayview, by a psychotic father and a retarded, alcoholic, paranoid schizophrenic mother—"

"Then do you also infer," Bond asked sharply, "that Payton—on whose deposition so much of your petition rests—was retarded?"

"No, Your Honor. But we think they had different biological fathers. According to their mother, Rennell's father was a 'sweet, slow boy down the street.' She may be mistaken, but she's probably too impaired to make it up.

"It seems that Vernon Price believed that, too—which may be why he despised Rennell." As though recalling that his other audience was the media, Lane raised his voice, infusing it with irony. "Unlike Payton, Rennell derived no benefit from Vernon Price's intellect. Instead, he bore the weight of Vernon's psychosis."

Pell, Terri noticed, had begun to regard Tony Lane with the raptness reserved for a dangerous expert. Behind her, she felt an absence of whispering or stirring, heard a silence so deep that she imagined a reporter flipping the page of a notebook.

"What form did that take?" she asked.

Lane folded his hands, gazing past her at those watching. "Rennell suffers from a sleep disorder: chronic nightmares, broken slumber, fear of falling asleep in darkness. We believe that started because the sounds of his father beating or raping his mother kept Rennell up at night—his bedroom was next to theirs. But no doubt his sleeplessness worsened at the age of four, when his father sat him naked on a white-hot space heater."

One of Bond's law clerks, listening from the jury box, began fumbling absently with the knot of his tie. Bond himself squinted, as though the light in his courtroom had become too bright. But whether this was in sympathy or aversion, Terri could not tell. "What other events," she asked Lane, "may have contributed to Rennell's sleep disorder?"

Lane turned to Bond again, pitching his voice to sound more confiding. "According to Payton's deposition, Vernon Price would rape Athalie in front of the boys, sometimes penetrating her anus or vagina with a broomstick. The only restraint on Vernon's behavior was that the kids were not participants.

"All that changed on the day when Vernon forced Athalie to take the child's penis in her mouth." Lane's tone remained even, allowing the words to carry their own weight. "Once she finished, Vernon lapsed into an alcoholic stupor. That was when Athalie went to the kitchen, got a butcher knife, and stabbed him in the heart."

Bond's pursed mouth formed a small o. Terri could guess his thoughts: So this is where Rennell Price learned to force oral sex on children. "In your view," she inquired, "how did being forced into a sex act with his mother affect Rennell Price?"

Lane seemed to gather himself. "To begin, I believe that Rennell's reaction to witnessing his father's murder—and being an unwilling party to the sex act which caused it—triggered a form of post-traumatic stress disorder, not dissimilar to that of soldiers who've suffered a horrific experience in combat. Except that Rennell was seven, not twenty, and the trauma Rennell wished to repress was that of a child forced into oral sex. From which, in his own experience, a terrible death resulted." Lane slowly shook his head. "Forget conscience, Your Honor, or the normal sexual taboos. In my opinion, for Rennell Price to force oral sex on a nine-year-old girl would have been a self-inflicted wound too difficult to bear. Long before Rennell was raped himself."

With these words, Lane had veered sharply into guilt or innocence—just as Terri had designed—while creating sympathy for Rennell. Bond hesitated, seemingly torn between annoyance at this detour and interest in what Lane had to say.

"What about retardation?" the judge finally demanded. "That's supposed to be the focus of your testimony."

"I'm coming to retardation," Lane promised. "But that's not what makes Rennell Price a tragic figure. It's everything else about him.

"Rennell was genetically predisposed to retardation, substance addiction, and mental difficulties. He was completely unwanted from birth, and suffered chronic neglect, physical illnesses, and extreme abuse since infancy. By early childhood, he was mentally, socially, and emotionally impaired. His history shows severe learning problems, mental retardation, organic deficits, and trauma. He was raised in poverty, in a chaotic environment that lacked supervision, guidance, or any positive role models. He was failed by his home, school, and community, all of which deprived him of a basic foundation for healthy development." Lane paused, his face and manner filled with a sad conviction. "Rennell Price, Your Honor, is the worst case of neglect and abuse I've ever seen."

Bond regarded him, fingertips steepled together. "Perhaps so, Dr. Lane. But I hear any number of habeas corpus petitions, and I can't recall one where the petitioner's childhood was not portrayed as a horror story."

Lane held the judge's gaze. "Perhaps so," he answered quietly. "But Rennell Price's childhood is the perfect storm."

After a moment, Bond's expression became inscrutable. "All right," he said. "We'll recess for ten minutes," he said. "Then perhaps you'd care to address why we would find this man retarded. Which, rather than guilt or innocence, is the proper purview of your profession."

The courtroom stirred, tension released in a Babel of voices and shifting bodies. Terri turned to her husband and murmured, "How do you feel about calling Rennell now?"

With cool eyes, Chris watched Gardner Bond as he retreated from the bench. "Ask me later," he said.