The Court
Authors: William J. Coughlin
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Contents
Extraordinary Acclaim for William Coughlin
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To the Spartans ⦠we have obeyed
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The author would like to acknowledge the guidance, tact, and encouragement of a very talented lady, Ruth Bridget Pollack.
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INTEGRITY:
As occasionally used in statutes prescribing qualifications of public officers, trustees, etc., this term means soundness of moral principle and character, as shown by one person dealing with others in the making and performance of contracts, and fidelity and honesty in the discharge of trusts; it is synonymous with “probity,” “honesty,” and “uprightness.”
In re Bauquier's Estate,
88 Cal. 302; 26 Pac. 178.
CHAPTER ONE
He pushed the worn bell button at the entrance.
A nun quickly answered the door. She was young. Dressed in a light blue blouse and dark skirt, only her headdress, a mixture of black and white cloth, identified her as a nun.
“I'm here to see Sister Agatha Murphy,” he said. “My name is Michael Wright. I'm one of her attorneys.”
The young woman forced a polite smile. “Of course. Please come with me, Mr. Wright.” She led him down an empty hallway to a sparsely furnished sitting room. “Please have a seat. I'll tell Sister you are here.”
“Thank you.”
This was not his first visit. He had learned the building was the “mother house” of the order of nuns called the Sisters of Help, a nursing order founded in France. The mother house served as the headquarters of the order and also as a refuge for those sisters who could no longer carry out their duties.
He hoped the inner quarters were more cheerful than the waiting room for visitors. It contained only three hard-backed chairs, a table, and a lamp. A picture of the crucified Christ was the only decoration that adorned the drab beige walls. A worn rug covered a part of the wooden floor.
Michael Wright sat down in one of the chairs and waited. The red brick building was large, four storied, long and wide, of simple institutional design. He had been told that it housed a permanent population of over one hundred nuns. However, he could hear nothing. There was no hint of human life, no strains of music, no squeaking floors, only barren silence. He detected no cooking odors, no lingering reminders of cabbage or other foods, not even a whiff of furniture polish although everything in the room gleamed under heavy coats of shining wax. The still, sterile atmosphere of the room made him uncomfortable.
But she had asked him to come. He was reluctant, but he was handling her appeal and he considered it his duty to at least maintain some minimal contact with the woman. Sister Agatha Murphy had been tagged as Sister Death by the media. She was in residence at the mother house, out on bond pending appeal. Aiding and abetting a suicide was a felony in this state and a jury had found her guilty. It was his job to reverse that outcome.
The chair creaked as he shifted his weight. He welcomed the sound. It broke the dreamlike silence in the stark room.
Wright speculated that prison well might be preferable to entrapment in this brick tomb. If her conviction stood up and she was sent to prison, Sister Agatha Murphy at least would have the solace of sounds, odors, and contact with the hustle and pulse of living humanity. He had never thought that noise in itself might possess any positive quality until he had visited the mother house.
She swept into the room. The hall carpeting had muffled any warning of her approach and despite himself he jumped. He quickly stood up.
“Sit down, sit down,” she said irritably. Although she always spoke softly, there was the unmistakable quality of command in her tone. She was accustomed to giving orders.
Sister Agatha Murphy was wearing a modification of the old habit once worn by her order and now forbidden. Stark black with only a starched white piece at the throat, it was unmistakably a nun's habit. Her headdress was full and concealed everything except her round bland face and some stray strands of her graying hair.
She sat opposite him, primly tucking her hands beneath a cloth fold in her habit. She looked at him, her clear blue eyes slightly enlarged by the thick lenses of her plain square glasses. She had put on some weight since his last visit and was bordering on stout. Her skin was smooth and she looked younger than her age, which he knew was fifty-six.
“How have you been, Mr. Wright?” she asked.
“Just fine, Sister. And you?”
She did not reply immediately, but hesitated for a moment. “I have no work to do. I am accustomed to being busy. They will not allow me to even work in the infirmary here at the mother house. However, putting aside the inactivity, I am well.”
“Perhaps if I spoke to your supervisor, the ⦠the⦔
“Mother General,” she finished for him. “I rather doubt that would help, Mr. Wright. It is only a rumor, you understand, but I am told she is under direct orders from the Pope himself in this matter.” Sister Agatha Murphy smiled wryly. “As you know the church has been taking a rather unrelenting position on assisted suicide.”
“What about other work?” he asked. “Surely there must be other things to occupy you besides nursing duties?”
Her blue eyes flashed. “I am a nurse,” she said firmly. “May I remind you, Mr. Wright, that I hold three degrees in my profession. I have run hospitals. I doubt very much that peeling potatoes would prove entirely satisfying.”
“How are you being treated otherwise?”
She again smiled wryly. “Oh, some of the younger sisters have been kind. The older ones regard me as a murderer. Very few people here talk to me. They are, however, polite for the most part.” She sighed. “I miss my hospice.”
“It's been closed. Your order closed it right after your arrest.”
She nodded slowly. “That, I think, is the only thing I truly regret. Those poor dying people needed the help we could give them in their final hours. I have been able to handle everything, the implications of madness, the silly examinations by psychiatrists, the condemnation by the Church, but I carry a sense of guilt for all those who were in the hospice. They should never have been turned out just because of me.”
“I can appreciate your feelings,” he said, eager to change what was obviously a painful subject for her. “Now, is there something you wanted to see me about? You did call and ask to see me.” He forced a smile.
She looked out the window for a moment, as if gathering her thoughts. Then the cool blue eyes once again swung toward him. “You stated before, Mr. Wright, that one justice seems to control the outcome of many of the cases before the United States Supreme Court, is that not correct?”
“Yes, Justice Howell.”
She nodded. “As I recall in our last conversation, you hoped he might rule for us. What was it you called him, the swing man?”
He started to reach for a cigarette then changed his mind. There were no ashtrays in the room. “You have an excellent memory,” he said. “And accurate. Justice Howell's vote often decides the issues before the Supreme Court. Sister, I'm sure you realize we don't know what the Court will do, we can only base our thinking on what they have done in the past concerning similar cases. We believe your conviction, like the abortion decisions, will divide the Court. If that happens, Howell's vote would probably decide the case.”
“And you thought he might vote in my favor, at least that was your guess,” she said.
“Yes.”
“But that's only a guess.” Her voice was flat, a hint of defeat coloring her usual commanding manner.
It would be unwise to give her any false hope. Still, Wright felt pity for the woman. He paused for a moment to choose the correct words. “I suppose âguess' is the proper way to express it. But we have obtained some additional information. Quite encouraging, at least in my opinion.”
Her placid features revealed no emotion, but her eyes expressed some curiosity.
“Sister, I don't want to mislead you. But you're an intelligent woman so I'll just tell you what I know and you can then make your own judgments.”
The cold blue eyes narrowed with increased interest.
“There's a professor at the University of Oregon. He's not a lawyer, he teaches political science. However, he has made a study of the Supreme Court and the justices. Over the years he has developed a database of court decisions and an uncanny ability to predict how each justice will vote, particularly on this kind of case, the kind that attracts wide public interest.”
“Sounds like a soothsayer.”
“If he is, he is a very accurate soothsayer.” He made an effort to conceal his irritation. “The basis for his predictions is quite scientific. He knows the justices' backgrounds and what kinds of attitudes they have displayed in the past. He tracks their public speeches and published articles. Inputs it all. He knows exactly how they voted on similar cases. He has developed quite a feel for the individual thought and character of each member of the Court.”
“And what has all this to do with me?”
“At first, this professor made these analyses merely for his own satisfaction. However, he received enormous publicity when he began to call each important decision exactly. He became nationally known, at least among lawyers. He no longer does it for free. He now demands and gets very substantial fees for his computer-assisted predictions.”
The nun sighed. “Superstition still plagues the human race.”
Wright merely shrugged. “He has a better than ninety-five percent ratio of success, so it matters little if he does it with a computer or chicken bones, does it? The result is the same, and that result is valuable.”
“And he has a prediction of how the court will deal with me, I suppose?”
“He does.”
“As you know, Mr. Wright, I have no money. Even if I did, I certainly wouldn't waste it on buying the prophesy of some Oregon sorcerer.”
The lawyer forced a smile. “The costs of your appeal are being paid by various organizations, people, and groups who agree with your position.”
A flash of anger briefly crossed her features. “I don't want their support. I merely helped desperately ill people stop the pain that was tormenting them. Some of the people and groups you mention are Godless monsters whose views are diametrically opposed to my own.”
“Still, they do pay the bills.”
Her face once again became placid and emotionless. “I did not ask them to do so. That is their choice.”
“Well, they got up the money to pay the professor for his prediction.”
“Foolish.”
Once again Wright had to control his irritation. She had no idea of the huge fee the man had demanded. “As you know, there are nine justices on the United States Supreme Court. It takes a majority of those nine to overturn any lower court decisions. As it stands now, three justices are classified as liberals, and three as conservatives, one leans left, one leans right.”
“And that makes Justice Howell, the ninth man, the deciding vote. The swing man.”