it. I hoped the closed door would at least buffer the outburst that
was sure to greet the bad news: I wasn't going to drop the charges and
send Melvin home with her.
When she was done saying her piece, I did my best to say mine
sympathetically. For all I knew, she had nothing to do with her son
turning out to be the kind of man he was.
"I can't pretend that I understand how difficult this must be for you,
Mrs. Jackson, but the police have compelling evidence suggesting that
your son, as hard as it must be for you to accept, was responsible for
Clarissa Easterbrook's death. I would not be doing my job if I ignored
that evidence simply because a loving mother told me her son was
innocent. If he claims he's innocent, he has his own attorney to help
him defend against the charges. You might want to call his lawyer and
see how you can help."
In a capital case, the bulk of the defense work often goes into the
penalty phase. If Slip could calm Martha Jackson down long enough to
put her on the stand, a mother's plea for mercy can sway a jury to
spare a son's life.
"Oh, trust me, I'll be talking to that man too, but I know there's only
so much he can do. Only you people can shut off this assembly line of
a court system once it gets to going. You say you wouldn't be doing
your job to ignore evidence, but let me ask you this, Ms. Kincaid.
Isn't part of your job to pay attention to evidence that's looking you
right in the face?"
Given the circumstances her son was in and my role in that process, I
showed her more patience that I normally would. "Of course it is, and
I'm doing that."
"You probably went to some fancy law school, didn't you?" she asked.
"I'm not sure what you want me to say, Mrs. Jackson."
"I'm pointing out that you a smart woman, but you only looking at what
you want to see."
I was getting frustrated. She was going to have to come to terms with
this eventually, so it may as well be now. "I'm very sorry for your
situation, but, ma'am, you know where the police found the murder
weapon, and your son's fingerprints were on the victim's front door."
"C'mon now, my boy was just trying to get the woman to talk to him. He
wanted to sit down, look her in the eye, and ask how in the world
someone can lose his home and children because of something his cousin
did."
"And maybe he finally found a way to do that." I immediately regretted
saying something so mean-spirited, but it seemed to be exactly what
Martha Jackson expected.
The fire in her voice was gone. She clicked her tongue against her
teeth and shook her head. "I don't know why I
bothered. Y'all just ain't usin' the heads God gave you. How that
poor lady's death gonna help my grandchildren? You see a colored man
and assume he ain't got sense, just an animal lashing out at the
world."
I was angry at the accusation, but knew that nothing I said would
change either her perception of the criminal justice system or the many
events in her lifetime that were responsible for it. "I'm sorry, Mrs.
Jackson, but I can't help you." I opened the door to show her out.
She had one more thing to say before she left. "Melvin's living in
Section Eight one step above begging on the streets for a reason. Why's
he all the sudden got regular work at some fancy office development?
And wouldn't you know that's where your poor missing judge turns up.
Believe what you will about my son, but y'alls the ones ain't
thinkin."
She walked past me through the doorway and headed for the elevator. I
assumed she didn't need an escort.
Russ Frist was standing outside the conference room.
"Melvin Jackson's mother," I explained.
"Alice told me about her when I got back, but I didn't want to walk in.
Sounded like you had everything under control."
control," I said. "It's not her fault her son's in a jam."
"More hers than yours, Kincaid. Let it go."
Letting things go never was my forte.
At two o'clock, the members of the death penalty committee gathered to
decide whether Melvin Jackson should live or die if convicted. Even
the boss himself showed up, joining Russ Frist, Jessica Walters, Rocco
Kessler, and me.
Rocco Kessler spoke first. His real name is Richard, but somehow the
macho nickname grew out of his initials. Knowing him, I suspected he
engineered the transition himself.
I hadn't seen him since leaving DVD, where he was most memorable as the
supervisor who wanted me fired. He must not have missed me much, since
he took his chair in the conference room without so much as a hello.
"Let's get this show on the road. Duncan wants to keep things moving,
and I plan to stick to the format we've always used." The dearly
departed Tim O'Donnell had previously chaired these meetings. "The
husband's coming in at three, Kincaid?" he asked.
I nodded. "He's the only one. The trip downtown's too hard for the
parents, and the sister just called her kids are having a meltdown and
she couldn't pawn them off on her folks. For what it's worth, my gut
tells me they'll go either way on the sentence. They know nothing's
going to bring Clarissa back."
"Okay, then. Take as long as you need to tell us about the case and
the defendant, this" he looked down at his notes "Melvin Jackson. What
we usually do is just go around the room and give our initial
impressions, then go from there."
I finished in twenty minutes, spending only half of that on the
evidence itself. What made this meeting a difficult one wasn't the
question of Melvin Jackson's guilt but the balancing of two seemingly
irreconcilable images of the man. I tried to give it to them straight,
covering both the aggravated nature of the crime and the sympathetic
story of a father with no prior criminal history beating a lifelong
addiction to keep his children.
Rocco asked Jessica to speak first.
"I think this is one of the hardest cases we've seen. At first blush,
it's got death penalty written all over it. The guy snatches a woman
off the street, for Christ's sake. But when you think about it, the
reason those cases give you such a visceral reaction is that you think
of a sex offender. You think of the Polly Klaas or Dru Sjodin cases.
Melvin Jackson's not one of those guys. He's not a predator. And we
also don't have any prior acts of violence; I'd be inclined to seek
life."
Rocco looked to Russ.
"I'd go death penalty but accept a plea to life. We might not know
exactly what Jackson did to her, but the ME says the vies shirt was off
when she was beaten. We also know he stalked her. I see where you're
coming from, Walters, but to me this isn't just some guy who snapped.
Think of what it must have been like for the victim in those final
moments, taking her clothes off for him. That's more than
garden-variety murder."
Rocco jumped in next. I was getting th
e impression he forgot I was
there. "I'm with Frist," Rocco said. "The guy might not have any
priors, but that just means no one caught him before. Even by his own
sad story, he's a doper who thinks he deserves a medal for choosing his
kids over heroin."
Jessica shook her head. "Forget for a second that Melvin Jackson's a
black man who lives in public housing and Clarissa Easterbrook's an
attractive, wealthy judge."
Rocco accused her of playing the race card, and the room broke out in a
cacophony rivaling Crossfire. Duncan made a time-out sign with his
hands and told everyone to let Jessica finish speaking, but Jessica
held up her hand. "Never mind."
I, however, minded. She had a valid point, and they should at least
take it into consideration. If this was going to be my case, I
couldn't be afraid to speak up.
"Jessica's right," I said. "When a defendant looks like Melvin Jackson
and the victim looks like Clarissa Easterbrook, that alone pushes
buttons we might not even know we have."
Rocco didn't want to hear it. "That's a PC load of crock, Kincaid."
Aah, sweet memories of my former boss. "Jackson's race has got nothing
to do with this, and I don't want to hear another word about it."
"Well, that's all you're going to hear about if Jackson's not
comparable to other capital defendants. You tell me: Have we ever
asked for a death sentence against a white defendant with no prior
violence?"
The immediate silence at the table was answer enough, but it wasn't the
right one for Russ and Rocco, who began walking through individual
cases, struggling to compare them to Jackson's. Duncan chose to stare
at the ceiling. I couldn't tell if he was seeking spiritual guidance
or picturing himself under fire by civil rights protesters on future
campaign stops.
We were still debating the case when Alice Gerstein rapped on the door
and peeked in. "Dr. Easterbrook and his lawyer are here whenever
you're ready."
From what I'd heard, the usual goal of these meetings was to make the
decision before the family arrived, then use the rest of the time to
get the family on board. But Duncan wasn't going to make Townsend wait
while we continued to argue.
"For now, we'll hear what he's got to say. If I make a final decision,
I'll let everyone know. We may just have to meet again."
I moved to the empty chair between Rocco and Russ. It might have
seemed like a thoughtful gesture so Townsend could sit next to his own
attorney. In truth, it was to ensure that Roger didn't sit next to me.
I wasn't sure I could resist the temptation to kick him in the shins if
he irritated me.
With constituents in the room, Duncan ran the floor. He got about as
far as any government lawyer short of the solicitor general would have
before my ex took over. Roger Kirkpatrick is and always has been a
power lawyer.
"We appreciate your having Dr. Easterbrook here so he can communicate
his views in person. I'm sure you understand that this is not an easy
thing for him to talk about."
As much as Tara and Susan had emphasized Townsend's deterioration, they
had nevertheless understated it. His eyes were puffy, his skin pale;
he looked at the table when he spoke, barely registering our presence.
He mumbled something about being against the death penalty, hating
Melvin Jackson, and being a doctor, before Roger spared him and us
further embarrassment.
Roger placed his hand on Townsend's shoulder. "It's OK. Let me see if
I can explain what you told me earlier." He shifted his attention to
the rest of us. "Townsend has struggled this week with a new emotion a
hatred of Melvin Jackson that is more intense than anything I'm sure
any of us has felt before. When he first heard Monday about the
evidence found in Jackson's apartment, his instinct, and I'm being
frank here, was to kill Jackson himself."
Townsend didn't currently look capable of let alone driven to revenge,
but maybe the change was further proof of what this week had been like
for him.
"I spent a lot of time calming him that night, talking to him about the
court system and convincing him that the case was strong enough that I
was confident your office could convict. I left his house Monday night
certain that he would be lobbying you to pursue this prosecution as a
capital case. But when we talked the next day, Townsend told me he'd
been up all night, trying to picture what the rest of his life would be
like if Jackson were dead or if Jackson were in prison. And, he's
convinced the right outcome is a life sentence not just to spare
Jackson but to spare himself. He's a doctor in the business of saving
lives and was quite frightened, I think, of the emotions that
Clarissa's death triggered in him. I don't think he could live with
himself if another human being even one as despicable as Jackson were
put to death, even in part to console him. Townsend, do you have
anything you want to add?"
From appearances, I wouldn't have thought that Townsend was even
listening, but he responded to the question. Sort of. "Clarissa's
gone. She's not coming back."
I had heard of similar cases, even stories of the families of murder
victims going to bat to save the defendant. But I couldn't begin to
understand it. I wondered if they ever saw the videotape of that guy
who killed all those nurses in Chicago. After his capital sentence was
reversed by the Supreme Court, an investigative reporter caught him on
camera in prison, taking drugs, talking up the joys of prison sex, and
boasting to his fellow inmates about the ways his victims begged for
mercy before he strangled them. The death penalty might not be a
deterrent and might cost a hell of a lot more than a life sentence, but
it meant that a victim's parents never had to go to sleep at night
wondering what their kid's murderer was up to. Townsend was telling us
to ignore the only factor that made me hedge on the death penalty a
survivor's need for what's lamely referred to as closure.
Duncan had launched into "the speech," the one every prosecutor gets
used to giving, the one where we promise to take into account the
person's feelings about the disposition of a case but explain that the
ultimate decision needs to be on behalf of the entire citizenry. Roger
cut him off.
"I've explained all that to Dr. Easterbrook already, Duncan."
Griffith gave me a look across the table at the use of his first name.
No one ever said my ex-husband lacked balls.
"Townsend, why don't you wait for me in the lobby?" When the door was
closed, Roger continued. "I've also explained to
Townsend that you shouldn't have a problem sticking with this as a non
capital case. You're in a liberal county where most people feel the
same way he does about the death penalty. In fact, according to our
research, your office seeks the death penalty in only a third of your
agg murder cases. Let me be blunt here; I'm not real impressed with
wh
at I've seen so far in your office."
I shouldn't have changed seats. Talking me down to my boss was bad
enough. But doing it in front of my coworkers was definitely
shin-kick-deserving behavior.
"Until we essentially served Jackson to them on a platter, the police
were content to sit back and assume this was a textbook case of 'the
husband must have done it." I'm sure you have fine lawyers if given
the appropriate resources, but I also know what can happen when people
are overworked. Maybe to save resources, you go for the death penalty
hoping to plead it out to a life sentence. Given how this case
started, I would hope you would defer to Dr. Easterbrook's wishes. If
anyone has a right to dictate what happens to Melvin Jackson, he does.
If I feel like you've continued to ignore him, I'll follow up again
with the media."
When I was with him, I had actually been attracted to Roger's
confidence. I understood now why everyone else had called it
arrogance, and I felt responsible that he was unleashing it on my
office. I couldn't stand another minute of it.
"Even for you, Roger, you are totally out of control."
The table went silent. Roger looked smug, Duncan looked embarrassed,
every one else looked shocked, and I couldn't stop myself. "What kind
of person can take Townsend Easterbrook's pain and parlay it into
billable hours and a chance for a few minutes in front of the cameras?
Stop thinking about yourself for one minute and you'd realize that the
screw up you keep rubbing in our faces had as much to do with the