Gideon - 02 - Probable Cause (16 page)

Ramrod straight behind the podium, Jill asks, “What is a generalization problem, Dr. Holditch?”

Holditch, increasingly comfortable in the courtroom, nods patiently.

“It is not at all unusual that unwanted behaviors which have disappeared in one setting, for example, the treatment room, reappear in another. If shock is going to have any meaningful application, the child must be able to live in a normal environment. It is nothing short of cruelty to a child if the behavior soon resumes. In other words, children learn to associate the individual who shocks him or her with the stimulus. According to the literature, and in my own experience, when that person is not present, the self-injurious behavior will typically recur. For that reason remote-control devices have been developed which help prevent this problem from developing.”

Jill asks softly, “Is there evidence that any other apparatus or device was used to shock Pam Le Master other than a cattle prod?”

Holditch shakes his head.

“Not from the records I’ve been given to review.”

Jill asks, “What, if anything, is wrong with using a cattle prod?”

Cattle prod. Cattle prod. If Jill is beating it to death today, wait until she has a jury. Holditch frowns, as if the question pains him.

“According to the literature,” he says, “the type of device used on an animal may not regulate the voltage or current. This type of apparatus can deliver more than eighty microamperes, which, if the current travels through the heart, can produce ventricular fibrillation. By the way, the pain produced has been likened to having a dentist drill your teeth without benefit of anesthesia. Before coming here, I applied a shock to myself, and in my opinion, the pain is worse than that.”

Instinctively, I rise to object, but realize once I get to my feet that the severe pain produced by the shock of a cattle prod is intentional. While I am standing, Jill chooses this moment to ask, “Do you have an opinion concerning Dr.

Chapman’s use of shock on Pamela Le Master?”

I can make objections here, but they will do no good at this hearing, and I pop back down in my seat like a jack-in-the-box in reverse, while he says, of course, that he does, and then proceeds to say how reckless Andy’s actions were and more or less repeats his earlier testimony. It is recklessness that the jury will decide this case on, and the room is hushed when Holditch finishes, and Jill says tonelessly, “Your witness.”

There are weaknesses in this testimony, and I have to bite my tongue when I decline to crossexamine him. Even Bruton’s eyes bulge in disbelief when I say, “No questions.”

I call Olivia as my only witness. I had talked with her briefly on Friday (she surprised me by declining to meet with me again before the hearing), but she seemed as resolute on the phone as she had after the plea and arraignment hearing.

Despite my urging, she has made no public statement and has refused all comment to the press. Andy, who has accepted the inevitable outcome of the probable cause hearing with his customary aplomb, had not wanted me to put Olivia through a court appearance any sooner than we had to, and argued as late as last night that she would not waver from the story she had given to the prosecutor’s office and to me in my office. Perhaps, she won’t, but I think I know better than Andy the pressure she will endure between this hearing and the trial. Getting her on the record now will remove the worry once and for all.

For the hearing she is dressed surprisingly informally. She has donned a navy blue picnic skirt with a simple indigo sleeveless top. Because of their general stylishness, I had not thought to ask her or Andy to wear something more formal.

We do not have to impress a jury, but the press and TV are sure to pick up on their seeming casualness.

Her testimony, as I had secretly feared, is cooler than it was in my office. Though the words do not vary, her tone is quite different. I do not know if she is sounding this way intentionally, but she seems detached, almost as if she has begun to question her own involvement. Though she admits that it was she who had suggested shock to Andy her words are tentative, as if it was a treatment she had only heard mentioned, instead of one that she had spent some time trying to find out about from others. I now feel as if I am tiptoeing through a mine field. I ask her if she was aware that he had never tried shock before; and, as she had in my office, she talks about the difficulty she had finding anyone who would even admit it was an option; but this time there is uncertainty in her voice instead of conviction. I rush her through the actual event, fearing she will say something that will implicate Andy; but her story, when she is finished, is almost identical to Leon’s. She does volunteer that Andy tried mouth-to-mouth resuscitation; but, had her direct testimony been given in front of a jury, the impression would have been that she was a reluctant witness.

Jill appears almost gleeful that Bruton had denied her objection that the mother’s consent was irrelevant as she steps in behind the podium to crossexamine Olivia. Yet now that Olivia has performed miserably on Andy’s behalf, she proves an obstinate witness to Jill. Instead of agreeing that Andy had failed to inform her of the dangers of shock, Olivia says that, on the contrary, Andy had warned her that electricity was always dangerous. Jill asks her if Andy had told her that he was going to use a device designed for use on animals.

“Absolutely,” Olivia says.

“He gave me an article to read showing the results of prior experiments. I knew that what he was trying to do was to show the administrator that shock would work so that he could get permission to buy and use remote-control equipment. He explained that the pain would be intense and that I should experience it, and I did. He said the research showed that if the stimulus wasn’t painful enough, some children it had been tried on had adapted to the pain. He explained about the tape being wrapped around the metal part when I asked if it was safe.”

Burned worse than I have been, Jill decides not to push any further, and I also decline the opportunity to redirect.

Olivia leaves the witness stand dry-eyed and cool. So much for my star witness. I had hoped for a stirring defense of Andy, and only got it when I wasn’t asking the questions.

Yet maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. Putting a person under oath in a witness box has an unpredictable effect.

After brief arguments from Jill and myself, Bruton rules almost in a perfunctory manner that there is probable cause, and he binds the case over to circuit court. Once we are outside the courtroom the media engulf us, but Andy obeys my instructions to make no comment. Despite my best intentions I can’t keep myself from saying that it was pointless to crossexamine the state’s witnesses.

John Winter of Channel 4 eggs me on.”

“Was your decision based on your belief that your client can’t get a fair hearing in Judge Bruton’s court?”

Now that we are in circuit court, I have nothing to lose, but instead I ignore the question and say that we will present the case to a jury. No matter how much they might agree with me, the other members of the judiciary in Blackwell County will resent it if I continue to go after Bruton.

It is only afterward upon entering the Hardhat Cafe, a local burger place, with Sarah that I find myself at a loss for words. Ignoring the stares of men twice and three times her age (though I can’t), she asks, “If you think the judge was biased against your client, why didn’t you say so?” She seems annoyed with me even though I had told her our strategy on the way downtown this morning.

I squint in the smoky room, trying to find a table. I think of several rationalizations I could offer up to her. She folds her arms and waits. I could tell her I have to make a living;

I don’t want to get in trouble with the professional-ethics people; I don’t want to hurt my client. Finally, I say weakly, “The practice of law is mostly one compromise after another.

I guess it’s a habit.”

Men in suits (professionals enjoying the illusion of a macho atmosphere) are shooting pool with construction workers in the back of the restaurant, and I get us a table so we can watch. Sarah is interested in talking about the hearing and asks me questions until I fear she is beginning to think about becoming a lawyer.

“Dr. Chapman seems to me like a really nice guy,” she says as the waitress brings over fries, cheeseburgers, and Cokes.

I agree. Before we left the courthouse I had introduced her to Andy, and he went out of his way to treat her like an adult instead of a child. I reach for the bottle of ketchup.

“He’s pretty sophisticated,” I say, thumping it on the side. Clan, who must run through a bottle a week, has instructed me, after a lifetime of thumping, that a law of physics prevents ketchup from coming out if you hit it on the bottom. Clan would be hard-pressed to name the law, but typically he is right about the results. Like a river of lava from an active volcano, the ketchup flows thickly but steadily.

Sarah carefully removes the onions from her patty.

“You sound surprised. Can’t a black male be sophisticated?”

“Of course,” I say hastily. Sarah still thinks of me as a liberal. Her own idealism, which has mushroomed in the last three weeks, seems almost quaint to me these days. I have to be careful not to sound like a racist.

“But you have to admit there’re not many black psychologists in Arkansas.”

Sarah, about to bite into her sandwich, puts it down and replies, “That’s not their fault.”

Why the hell not, I think, irritated by Sarah’s knee-jerk response. I bite down on a piece of gristle and have to reach into my mouth with my thumb and forefinger to remove it.

What’s wrong with me? I should be proud of her defending blacks. After all, how many whites really believe blacks are ever going to catch up or really even give a damn whether they do or not? I can count the ones I know on one hand, and it’s not mine. What happened to me? It’s the times, I guess. Still, I can’t bring myself to tell my daughter I’m no longer a child of the sixties, not that I really ever was. But she has this image of my going off to save the world which I am loath to disturb. Despite my recent soul baring, I feel that Sarah needs a few illusions, and, if she wants to think I’m still a defender of the underdog, I’m not going to disabuse her. She’ll find out the truth soon enough. I sip at my Coke to rid my mouth of the taste of grease and say, “You’re right about that.”

She nods, though I think a little disappointed I won’t argue with her. Why should I? There’ll be plenty of people to do that.

As I am paying the bill, Martha Birford, my partner in humiliation at Mays & Burton, accompanied by a man I do not know, comes through the door. I wonder if she’s found a job. I hope so. The times I saw her in court Martha was quicker on the draw than her opposition. As we make our way out through the crowded tables, I introduce Sarah, who pleases me by lighting up the joint with one of her hundred-watt smiles.

Acknowledging my daughter with only the barest of nods, Martha says coldly, “Gideon, I see you’ve landed on your feet as usual.”

Too stunned by her rudeness to think of a comeback, I mumble, “I got lucky,” and hurry out the door. Martha and I were, if not close, in the same boat as middle-aged associates who didn’t make the grade. Maybe she has resented me all along, and I was too stupid to notice.

“What was that all about. Dad?” Sarah asks.

“She didn’t seem very friendly.”

“I don’t know,” I say truthfully, squinting into the bright glare. Jealousy, maybe. She knows she’s a better lawyer, but as a woman she might never have an opportunity to prove it.

Outside on Davis Street, as we walk back to the Layman Building where Sarah will call a friend to come pick her up, an old black woman is commanding the center of the sidewalk.

Obviously mentally ill, she is muttering to herself.

Wearing blue scrub pants underneath a tight knit dress with holes in it, she is cursing every other word as she pulls at her wild white hair, which explodes from her head as if she had set off a bomb by biting into it. There is something disturbingly familiar about the woman, but it is impossible to work downtown and avoid these people. I probably have seen her half a dozen times and only notice her now because of Sarah who is staring in fascinated horror at her. As we pass her, the old woman squints at me and croons, “You the white man that got me out of jail!” She smiles at Sarah, revealing jagged gray stumps that once were teeth. A hideous stench reminding me of rotten Chinese food permeates the damp air between us. Instinctively, I grab Sarah’s arm and say in a low voice, “Don’t look at her. Keep walking.”

The old woman calls after us, “You defendin’ that ho, white man?”

Sarah giggles nervously, and I take her arm and march her across the street against the light at the corner so we can get away from the old woman.

“Dad, was she really your client?”

The raspy voice and wild hair come together. I saw her in the jail cell across from Andy the day he called me.

“She’s insane,” I explain needlessly.

“She saw me once down in the jail and for some reason must think I helped her get out.”

Sarah looks back over her shoulder. Even now almost a block away we can still hear her.

“How awful! Why isn’t she in the hospital?”

“I don’t know,” I say, unwilling to pursue this subject.

There are no good answers to most of her questions, but I am reluctant to tell her that, since I still want her to think somebody’s in charge in this country.

from a distance the Blackwell County Human Development Center looks like a college campus or some fancy prep school. Ancient brick the color of a four-day-old hematoma is stacked in institutional splendor in front of me as I drive under a silver arch onto the grounds. As I wind around a narrow asphalt street, I wonder how often the residents try to run away into the wooded area that surrounds the campus for miles. Trees give Arkansas its natural beauty, but here I wonder if they could be a hindrance to the security of the residents. Surely a severely retarded person would in some ways be safer lost in the city than in the country. But I suspect few residents, judging from the lack of activity outside on this unusually mild July day (it must be no more than eighty degrees and it is almost eleven), spend much time outside these musty old buildings I am passing.