Gideon - 03 - Religious Conviction (38 page)

At ten I send Leigh on to the Excelsior and tell her I will see her at 7 a.m. in the restaurant. By two o’clock, Dan and I are finished or probably so exhausted that we just quit. We have conversed as much as we can. Leigh will testify, and her credibility will be the ball game. In bed, trying to get comfortable, I begin to have doubts about Leigh’s innocence. Mary Patricia’s words come back to me in the darkness. Shane wouldn’t have killed anyone, but he could have talked someone into it. Who?

Leigh obviously. He might have incited Leigh to do what he didn’t have the guts to do. After Leigh and her father finish testifying, that might be plain as day to the jury. It might also be obvious that I have been set up by both of them. The last thing Dan said as he was going out the door was that Mr. Woo, our motel manager, had said that I was a “great rawyer.” At least I’ve fooled somebody. I flatten my lumpy pillow and try to sleep.

“just keep smiling and don’t answer,” I whisper to Leigh as Dan bullies his way ahead of us into the courthouse through the media and the onlookers. I don’t have to worry. Although she appears almost regal (her hair is swept up and gorgeous), she looks too scared to speak.

If ever I wanted some publicity, I’ve got my wish. All I can do is hope that when this trial is over, the headlines don’t read: “Bracken’s Replacement Blows Big One.” Though it is a beautiful spring day, my T-shirt is already drenched with sweat and my heart is pounding as if I had never tried a case before. I haven’t, not like this one.

Inside, the action is considerably quieter. Jury selection could take quite a while, and with the trial recessing for the funeral this afternoon, Dan and I will have the weekend to work. Judge Grider’s courtroom is relatively small, and I’m a little surprised, publicity hound that he is, that he didn’t ask to switch with Judge Raferty, who would have readily yielded his territory for the asking.

Grider, each white hair perfectly in place, gets started with an announcement that stuns all of us. His docket is crowded, and he wants to work on Saturday. Why didn’t he tell us yesterday, the bastard? I had counted on the weekend to work on the case.

Dan whispers, “I hear the Judicial Department has rapped his knuckles recently for letting his criminal cases stack up. He’s supposed to have an opponent next year.”

Jill, dressed in a funereal black double-breasted suit, rises quickly to address the court.

“Our office has no problems with Saturday, Your Honor, but I am concerned that some otherwise qualified potential members of the jury may have some scheduling difficulties.”

I pop out of my chair, pissed at Grider but more irritated at myself for letting Jill beat me to the jury. One of the first rules a trial attorney is supposed to learn is to show the jury he cares about their problems so they’ll be more sympathetic to his client’s.

“Your Honor, a lot of folks might have been planning to shop for their Easter outfits tomorrow,” I improvise. Good Baptists aren’t supposed to care about their holiday wardrobes.

Actually, the problem is that Easter is still two weeks away.

“Mr. Page,” Grider says snidely, “why don’t we let the panel tell us whether they will be inconvenienced if we work on Saturday instead of you making that judgment?”

He turns to the panel members and quizzes them. Only two people raise their hands.

“Damnation!” Dan says in amazement.

“They want to be around to hear the dirt.” Why the hell not, I think gloomily. Chet’s suicide, Leigh’s beauty, and Christian Life’s prominence have made this trial the hottest ticket in town. Grider excuses them on the spot, and we get down to the business of winnowing the panel down to twelve jurors through the process of voir dire, which permits the lawyers to ask questions of prospective members.

I watch carefully as Jill runs through her questions.

One of the trickiest problems is how to handle the six people on the panel who are members of Christian Life.

If I have to make the argument that their minister killed Art Wallace, I have no doubt how they would choose up sides. I wish I could hear Shane conduct Chet’s service before I had to make any decisions. I lean over to Leigh and say, “Chet’s notes say you know a couple of these people personally.”

“Just slightly,” she says, her warm, minty-flavored breath in my right ear.

I needn’t have worried, because Jill seems more concerned than I am and makes a motion that all six be stricken for “cause,” which would automatically eliminate them if the motion is granted by Grider.

I stand and argue against it, knowing Jill will be forced to use all but four of her peremptory challenges if I am successful. Grider summarily denies her motion, holding that if any of the six contributed to Leigh’s bail or signed an affidavit on her behalf, he will strike that person for cause, but church membership alone is not sufficient.

The two women who know Leigh personally admit to Grider that they gave a few dollars for the bond, and Grider tells them they are excused. They seem disappointed. Jill returns to the prosecution table and flashes a smug smile at Dick Harvey, her main deputy, who is second-chairing the case. Obviously, she has no inkling that I would love to argue to the jury that the wrong family member is on trial.

By eleven-thirty we have seated a jury composed of six Baptists, two African-Americans who belong to an AME church, one Charismatic (according to Chet’s notes) Catholic, and three who attend other so-called Bible churches in Blackwell County. As Grider dismisses the other panel members, I have second thoughts about Chet’s position about who should serve on the jury. It is deeply conservative and will be shocked if Leigh admits to the video. They may forgive her but still send her to jail. Until now, I never questioned Chet’s strategy. Too late, I wish I had chosen the most liberal jury possible. Dan was right. If Chet had told me that he was going to recite the Gettysburg Address as part of his opening statement, I would have told him it sounded like a good idea. In retrospect, Chet wasn’t thinking clearly about this trial, and I should have challenged him. For all I know, it was deliberate.

I ask the court to break for the funeral, which is at three, but Grider instructs us to give our opening statements now, saying he wants to complete the trial by tomorrow afternoon if at all possible. Jill seems about to protest (Grider has us both off balance), but comes forward to the podium and tells the jury that while this case is circumstantial, the lies told by the defendant will convict her of the first-degree murder of her husband.

Standing calmly in front of the jury rail, Jill, without a single note, tells the jury that it won’t be able to understand this case until it understands Leigh’s upbringing, and begins by tracing Leigh’s devotion to her father and to Christian Life.

“The defendant’s parents will tell you what their youngest daughter was like before she met the victim. As a child and as an adult until she married Art Wallace, the defendant was devoted to her father and his church, making numerous trips overseas with him to help those less fortunate….” As Jill catalogs Leigh’s Christian virtues before she met Art, I watch the faces of the jury, who already seem intrigued by the story. Tales about the Devil’s work fascinate all of us, and this is where I assume Jill is going with it.

“However, the defendant began to change,” Jill continues, “after her marriage. Pastor Norman will tell you that her husband turned out to be something other than a devout convert to Christian Life. In fact, only weeks after his marriage to the defendant. Art Wallace began to withdraw from the church, and soon so did his wife.

Christian Life, Pastor Norman will tell you, is a way of life. It’s not just a matter of showing up on Sunday.

Laura Partrain, a member of the defendant’s ‘church family,” as they are called in Christian Life, will tell you also that a few months after the defendant’s marriage, Leigh Wallace not only quit her job in the church office but participated less and less in the activities in the church to the point where she only saw her on Sunday mornings, when before she had seen her four or five times a week. Mrs. Partrain will tell you that more than once she confronted Leigh about her absence but was met with a defensive and guilty attitude. Her father and mother, who, by the way, will tell you they believe their daughter is innocent, will also tell you of many conversations with Leigh on the subject of her husband and their near total withdrawal from church activities. Their daughter’s reaction over several months was one of denial and excuses, which brings us down to the night before Art Wallace was murdered.”

Having effectively set the stage, Jill retreats behind the podium, where she has her notes, and begins to summarize the testimony of the witnesses, beginning with the next-door neighbors, the Wheelers, who “over heard the defendant from a distance of several feet admonish her husband to quit saying ugly things about her father.”

The jury noticeably reacts to this bit of information.

Several shift in their seats and lean forward as if they are about to hear some particularly juicy gossip.

“The afternoon after her husband of less than a year is shot to death in his study with a twenty-two-caliber pistol with out a sign of any forced entry suggesting an intruder, the defendant is questioned by the police. She tells them a series of lies designed to mislead them into believing she had actually been at Christian Life at the time of the murder and only discovered her husband’s body when she brought home an older acquaintance to have lunch.”

**

Jill stops speaking and walks quickly over to a chalk board and writes in a large clear hand: “Lie #1 what the Defendant told her father the day before the murder.” Walking up to the jury rail, she drops her voice almost to a conversational tone and tells the men and women, who are listening as avidly as children to a ghost story, that Shane will testify that he had encouraged Leigh the day before to come the next morning to a workshop led by a Guatemalan missionary and she had assured him that she would. Returning to the chalk board, Jill writes: “Lie #2 Defendant’s story to the police.” Now, moving slowly from one end of the jury box to the other, Jill recites Leigh’s story to the cops and summarizes the testimony of each witness who will contradict it.

Jill concludes by hitting hard at the absence of signs of forced entry.

“Forensic investigators have been all over the house and study where the victim died. They will testify they found absolutely nothing to suggest that anybody was there that morning except Leigh Wallace and her husband. The only reasonable conclusion you can come to, ladies and gentlemen,” Jill winds up, leaning on the jury rail, moving her head from side to side, “is that Leigh Wallace, perhaps in anger, perhaps for some other undisclosed reason, walked into her husband’s study and shot him through the heart with a twenty-two-caliber pistol. Then, disposing of the pistol who knows where, she drove to her father’s church, where she pretended to have been all morning. To divert suspicion from herself, she invited an unsuspecting friend home to help discover her husband’s body, and thus began the web of lies I’ve just told you….”

As I get to my feet, I fight the usual temptation to begin arguing the case, which, of course, is not permitted in the opening statement. Concentrating primarily on the most sympathetic-looking member (a Mrs. Holland seated in the middle of the second row and the only Catholic), I announce to the jury that Leigh will admit that she lied to the police but that she did not kill her husband.

“Leigh will tell you her reasons for her deception, and you will learn they had nothing to do with the murder of her husband. In some respects, Leigh’s testimony will be similar to what you’ve just heard the prosecutor say her father and other witnesses will tell you.

It is true that Leigh grew less active in the church due to her husband’s influence, and Leigh herself will tell you that she felt guilt over this, but none of that proves she’s a murderer. Unfortunately for Leigh Wallace, her husband was not what he seemed when she met him.

You will learn that Mr. Wallace had recently stolen two hundred thousand dollars from the owner of a video store in San Francisco that specialized in pornography.

You will further hear a taped conversation with an investigator from a fire insurance company in San Francisco that the owner of the same video store in San Francisco hired an individual to burn the store of a competitor. And Leigh Wallace will tell you she was afraid for their lives as a consequence of her husband’s theft.”

I pause to let this sink in and move over to the blackboard and take the eraser and wipe out Jill’s questions.

I have decided not to mention Shane in my opening statement. I want to keep him guessing. When I finish, I write on the board, trying to make the words legible:

“Who wanted Art Wallace dead?”

“The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that Art Wallace had enemies who played rough. The medical examiner will put his death no earlier than ten-thirty that morning, and it is undisputed that Leigh wasn’t even at home most of that time.

Leigh will tell you that she was frightened for herself and for her husband, but that she loved him and wanted to please him. She will also tell you that she loved her father and wanted to please him, too. Neither action makes her a murderer.”

I walk to the front of the podium and scan the jury.

Every one of them has secrets, Chet pointed out the night we worked on jury selection. The trick, he said, is to get as many as possible to identify with some part of your client. We’ve all done shameful things, but those acts don’t make us murderers. According to Chet, if a couple of people can imagine themselves in your client’s situation, you’re halfway to an acquittal, no matter how bad the evidence appears. I home in on Mrs. Holland, a solidly built woman in her thirties with large brown eyes that seem to melt a little every time she looks over at Leigh. As a nominal Catholic, I know she is familiar with guilt.

“The evidence will show there is no record that either Leigh or her husband owned a gun.

If she shot Art,” I slip in, though it is argument, “where did she hide it in the few minutes between the time her father talked to Art and her appearance at Christian Life?” I discuss the lack of physical evidence and then sit down, knowing I have done a less than impressive job. Perhaps I should have gone right after Shane in my opening statement. Dan had me convinced about midnight last night that I had no alternative. Yet, once Shane hears, as he surely will, that I have not argued he killed his son-in-law, his guard will be down during cross-examination.