Tuesday The Rabbi Saw Red

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Judge Visconte's head nodded slightly as he read the complaint. When he put the paper aside, his head continued to nod, for he was an old man, well over seventy, with snow-white hair surrounding a high, slanting forehead. His handsome Italian face with its long Roman nose looked benign and grandfatherly.

He turned to Bradford Ames. "The Commonwealth has a recommendation on bail?"

"The Commonwealth has a recommendation. Your Honor." said Ames. "It is the Commonwealth's opinion that since a man was killed as a direct result of the explosion of a bomb, this is a case of felony murder and hence that bail should be denied."

The judge nodded vigorously in apparent agreement, then he inclined his head and nodded at a somewhat different angle, which the clerk interpreted as a sign that His Honor wanted to confer with him, he leaned over the judge's desk and they whispered together. It looked as though it was all over.

Paul Goodman rose beside the attorney's table. "May I be heard, Your Honor?"

The judge nodded graciously.

"To save the time of the Honorable Court, I am speaking not only for myself but for my three colleagues who are each representing one of these young defendants. It seems to me. Your Honor, that the recommendation of the Commonwealth is punitive rather than designed to insure the appearance of the defendants at their trial, these young people are not professional criminals; they have clean records, they are enrolled in college; if they are prevented from attending classes they will be unable to pass their courses. To hold them in jail pending their trial is to punish them before they have been proven guilty."

The judge nodded benevolently. "It's always punitive, isn't it?" he said gently. "A workman loses his wages; a businessman sometimes has to close down his business or office, and in every case, the family suffers."

"If I may, Your Honor." said Goodman. "Isn't that all the more reason not to hold these young people unnecessarily, since the danger of their not appearing for the trial is slight?"

"But the charge is murder. Counselor."

"I recognize that it has been the prevailing practice in the Commonwealth to deny bail to prisoners charged with murder. But my understanding is that the rationale—"

"Did you say rationale?"

"Yes. Your Honor. I was saying that the rationale behind denying bail in such cases is that money becomes secondary when a man's life is at stake. However, since the Supreme Court of the United States has held the death penalty to be cruel and unusual punishment, that fear no longer obtains."

"On the other hand," the judge interposed, "these young people— and I have had a lot of experience with them; oh yes— are apt to be rather cavalier about money. If I were to set bail, even very high bail, which their parents might arrange to meet, there is a strong possibility— and I speak from experience— that they may fail to appear, having no regard for the loss which their parents would thus incur. No, Counselor, I think I'll go along with the Commonwealth recommendation and order them held without bail."