The Letter Of The Law

CHAPTER 10

Judge Rawlins's large courtroom evoked a stern tradition of justice. The dark wood, the heavy beams and columns, and the worn white marble floors gave it a feeling of permanence, as if it had always been there and always would be. Casey much preferred the former judge, who had presided there until a heart attack forced him from the bench. Walter Connack had been the antithesis of Van Rawlins, a big, powerful black man who was respected as much for his compassion as he was for his sense of justice. But all the wishing in the world wouldn't change the fact that the bailiff was calling for everyone to rise for the Honorable Van Rawlins.

After the usual formalities, Glen Hopewood, the DA, began his opening argument. While a competent lawyer, he was a heavy man who tended to sweat and whose black plastic glasses slipped down his nose every few minutes only to be reset by thick, doughy fingers that fluttered to his face from the distant regions of his paunch. It was a distraction that Casey knew had an effect on the jury. Still, he painted a grim picture of a diabolical killer whose exceptional knowledge of the law and whose intellectual arrogance made him think he was beyond punishment. Sitting there between Casey and Patti Dunleavy, as dapper and handsome as a distinguished model from GQ magazine but also just as aloof, Lipton did nothing visually to contradict the prosecutor's image.

Hopewood then went on to chronicle the crime. Taking advantage of his position as her professor, the DA claimed, Lipton had convinced Marcia Sales to allow him into her apartment. Once inside, he strangled her until she was unconscious, bound her with duct tape, and cut her to pieces. What was particularly shocking was evidence that proved the girl wasn't dead when the killer cut her open and began to remove her insides.

While the DA conceded that the crime scene itself was bereft of any concrete evidence linking Lipton to the murder, he told the jury that Lipton, like most people who think they are above the law, had made a crucial mistake. In his rush to abandon the scene, the professor had struck another automobile on his way out of the victim's driveway. Although he fled the scene immediately, the other driver was able to get a description of Lipton's car as well as his license plate number.

"But you will hear police testimony that Lipton claimed not to have been in the area," Hopewood dramatically stated. "And then, after lying to the police, he tried to escape. He was followed and caught on his way to the airport with packed bags, a passport, twenty thousand dollars in cash, and a plane reservation to Toronto.

"And while Lipton may have left nothing behind at the exact scene of the crime, that doesn't mean he didn't take something with him. He took a trophy, ladies and gentlemen, something to remember his victim by, something not uncommon to a particularly depraved sort of psychopathic murderer. Yes, the most chilling evidence in this case, ladies and gentlemen"-Hopewood paused to look them over, then, pointing his finger back at Lipton, said in a seething tone-"is that this man… this… man, when the police arrested him, had Marcia Sales's underwear in his possession. And they were covered, ladies and gentlemen, covered with her blood…"

The jury's collective gasp made Casey shudder. She stole a look out of the corner of her eye at Lipton. He seemed unfazed and stared disdainfully at the prosecutor. Then Hopewood made a tactical error. He went on longer than he should have about the details of other evidence and the witnesses he would produce. If Casey had been on the other side, she would have stopped after the jury's gasp. But Hopewood hammered away, unnecessarily burdening them with the minutiae of the case and putting some comfortable distance between the emotional shock of the bloody underwear and Casey's own version of the events surrounding Marcia Sales's death.

In fact, when Hopewood finally sat down, Casey waited until Rawlins impatiently asked if the defendant's counsel was waiting for Christmas.

"No," Casey replied calmly to the judge before standing to face the jury. "No, I was just wondering if the prosecutor was finished with his story…

"You see, ladies and gentlemen," she said, opening her arms with palms facing up, welcoming them to her point of view, "that's all Mr. Hopewood's words were, a story. Oh, we've all heard stories before. In fact, we're barraged with stories every day. Most of them are in the news. They come to us by way of the media, which sensationalize and twist reality to give us something we can sink our teeth into, something salacious, something scandalous, something shocking, violent, or horrible.

"And sometimes these stories have a semblance to the truth," she continued, moving closer to them now, addressing them one by one, face to face. "But sometimes they don't. You see, Mr. Hopewood's job is to tell you a sensational story that will get you to convict someone. That's how he wins. He gets a conviction, he chalks up a win. An acquittal to him is a loss.

"But you… you, my friends, are seeking the truth. You want justice. And in order for you to find that truth, and mete out that justice, you have to realize where the police and the prosecutor and even the victim's own father stand. Where do they stand?" Casey asked, with her eyebrows raised.

Then, gesturing toward Lipton, she said in a gentle tone, "Professor Lipton is an intelligent man with a peerless reputation in the academic world. He is financially secure. He works with the best and brightest that this state has to offer in the legal field and they revere him. I revered him, Marcia Sales revered him, nearly anyone who has taken his classes at the University of Texas School of Law feels the same way. He has been a champion for the rights of an individual unjustly accused by the police and public prosecutors and they don't like it.

"Now not all police are corrupt or malignant, we all know that," Casey said, eyeing the white members of the jury. Then, with special connection to the five minority jurors, she said, "But some of us also know that there is an underside to the police, a vicious, mindless beast that only wants to punish someone, anyone, for a criminal act. And it is that very beast, the one he has railed against, that has been unleashed on Professor Lipton.

"Yes, he was at Ms. Sales's apartment the day of her death, but not as the killer. No. He was there to visit her as a friend, a confidant, a lover. And what he found shocked and scared him beyond reason. He raced from that place, and when he was faced with the bullying, accusatory attitude of the police, he was frightened. You see, Professor Lipton knows only too well how many innocent men and women have spent lifetimes in jail, or have even been executed, killed, murdered by the state in the name of police justice.

"How many times have we heard stories of people being freed after years on death row because truthful evidence finally emerges? Well, this man is intimately familiar with almost every one of those cases. That's his field of expertise! So when he realized that the beast was poised to strike out against him, that it had fixed its eyes on him, despite his innocence he panicked. He ran! Anything, he knew, was better than spending years or maybe all of his life in jail, hoping, praying each day that the truth would finally be revealed. And then they say they're sorry, but that didn't help Henry Tasker, a man we all heard of in the news recently who was released after spending thirty years of his life in a state prison. And sorry wouldn't help Professor Lipton, either, so he ran.

"You'll also hear from another man during this trial, and I want you to consider his story as well…"

Casey paused to look back toward the first row behind the balustrade in back of the prosecutor's table. Donald Sales sat staring malignantly at her. His jet black hair was pulled back into a ponytail. His large frame and pale, scowling eyes cut an angry and imposing figure. Although his glare was exactly what she wanted, its intensity made Casey swallow involuntarily before she went on.

"While those of you who are parents will naturally identify with Mr. Sales's grief," she told the jury in her most compassionate voice, "I must ask you to remember that anything he says will be clouded by unfettered hatred for Professor Lipton. And that hatred, ladies and gentlemen, did not spring from his daughter's death. No, that hatred burned long and hard before the day of the unfortunate tragedy because Mr. Sales was enraged over the affair his daughter was having with her professor. So when he tells you his story, you have to realize it's just that, another story…

"Finally, the prosecution will make much of Ms. Sales's underwear…" Here Casey paused to look modestly down at her own feet. "Now… I have a sex life. You have your sex lives. And we don't expect that anyone else will be privy to that part of our existence, do we? No. No, we expect that what goes on in the privacy of our bedrooms will stay there. The way we look, what we say, what we do… we expect these things to be private. But remember, the DA is telling a story, and won't it make people sit up and listen if he talks about a man with a woman's underwear? And if there's blood on that underwear? How sensational! What a story!

"But… what if that garment was nothing more than a private bedroom thing between two adults? What if it was no one's business? What if the blood came, not from the commission of a crime, but from someone wiping her mouth after biting her tongue during some lively consensual sex."

"You bitch!"

The words rang out in the courtroom, leaving a tremendous silence in their wake. Donald Sales was up from his seat and over the balustrade before anyone else could move. Casey instinctively retreated back toward the bench. Luckily, the bailiff, who was a young, tubby three-hundred-pounder, hadn't yet fallen asleep, and when he stepped forward, Casey ducked behind him to screen herself from the raging father. The bailiff grabbed the storming Sales in a bear hug and held tight until help could come from the hallway. Rawlins hammered indignantly with his gavel while two armed officers helped the bailiff subdue Sales in a scuffle in which no one threw a punch.

"Get him out!" Rawlins wailed. "Get that man out of my courtroom!"

Out-muscled and realizing his mistake, Sales allowed the officers to lead him out of the court without resistance.

"Would you like to go on, Ms. Jordan?" Rawlins asked derisively. "We have a trial to conduct here."

Casey checked herself from rebuking Rawlins. It was absurd to continue without at least a brief recess, but Casey quickly decided to turn the situation to her advantage. She wouldn't try to hide the tremble in her voice. She wanted them to see she was frightened, that Sales was an uncontrollable, vicious, and violent man capable of almost anything.

She stood, shaking and scared, until Rawlins badgered her again.

"Please, Ms. Jordan," he barked. "Continue if you have anything more to say. If not, I will direct the prosecution to proceed with its case."

Casey drew a breath, cleared her voice, and said, "As you see, Mr. Sales is a furious, unpredictable man… And, as I said, you will hear from him and the police and the prosecutor and all of his other witnesses in an attempt to construct a story that is far from the truth… But you must remember this: The most important charge the judge will give to you will be the words 'beyond a reasonable doubt.'

"That means, my friends, that a reasonable person would have not a single doubt that the prosecutor's story is true. But you will see, I will show you, that his story is remarkably doubtful. I will show you a police force so aggressive and a father so bent by hatred that you will understand why they were so eager to point the finger at Professor Lipton. At first glance, yes, his actions are suspicious. But as I said, there are good reasons for why he acted as he did. They make sense, and they will convince you that he is nothing more than a man in the wrong place at the wrong time."