Joe Hill (46 page)

Hilton demanded a new trial. There were errors and decisions of the District Court that stank to high heaven of prejudice, there were irregularities enough to warrant ten new trials. The evidence on which Joseph Hillstrom had been convicted was entirely circumstantial, as the court records showed. And capital punishment, especially capital punishment upon purely circumstantial evidence, was a barbarity unworthy a civilized state. He asked a commutation of the death penalty against Joseph Hillstrom on grounds of a reasonable doubt of his guilt.

“Just a moment, Mr. Hilton,” the square board member said. “Are you asking for a new trial, or for commutation?”

“My client would prefer a new trial,” Hilton said. “If that is not your pleasure, commutation is the least that can be granted him.”

He went on with his brief of the court errors, both in the District Court and in the Supreme Court, and Joe, watching the board members, most of whom were also members of the Supreme Court, saw their eyes wander, their hands cover their careful mouths.
Hilton was getting nowhere. Finally he was interrupted again by the governor, who asked him why he had not filed a petition for a rehearing if he felt that the Supreme Court had committed errors of law. Hilton replied that the state of Utah would be forever blackened if it permitted the defendant to go to his death after a conviction on purely circumstantial evidence, and he cited a half-dozen cases in which the innocence of the accused had been established too late. The young jurist who watched Joe like someone trying to recognize a half-familiar face, turned his head to tell Hilton that in the opinion of the Supreme Court the evidence had been by no means all circumstantial, and that the identification of the accused as the man prowling under the arc light near the store and as the man who ran from the store after the shooting was direct and explicit.

It had begun to rain outside. Across Ricket’s bulk Joe saw the streaked air beyond the gray window. The governor’s mouth was impatient or irritated. It occurred to Joe that he might be scared, and the thought was delicious as a cold drink to a thirsty man. He might be thinking of his family at home right now, exposed to
IWW
retaliation if Joe Hill were not pardoned here this morning. He might be scared for his own hide, and so might the rest of them. Three hundred letters a day, thousands of them altogether—and in the scared little bourgeois minds of people like these the
IWW
was a nest of dynamiters and desperate bomb throwers. Every
IWW
had his pockets full of blasting powder and home-made bombs. He knew from his mail that the accomplices of the McNamara boys were up for trial right now in
L.A.
, and that bombs, perhaps planted by the cops, had been confiscated in a raid on the New York hall. No wonder the board members were sober. They were scared stiff. They had a tiger by the tail.

A little reverie hooded him. He saw himself walking out of the Utah State Pen into the midst of an exulting crowd that marched with banners down Twenty-First South and jammed the streets of Sugarhouse and roared out the songs of Joe Hill as they hoisted him to their shoulders. He felt how their hands came grabbing for his own, and saw their faces by the hundred.

And came out of it to hear the governor snap at Hilton, “Mr. Hilton, you have spoken this morning in uncomplimentary terms of the courts and justice of the state of Utah, and you have spoken
slightingly of the integrity of the gentlemen present here. For some reason, perhaps for lack of anything better, you have adopted your client’s contention that he is innocent until proved guilty and that his refusal to take the stand and testify in his own behalf should not be held against him. I agree with you, it should not, and I think was not. That is the conclusion of those of us who have carefully reviewed the transcripts of the District Court. But you are acquainted with the law, as your client is not, and you should know that once a conviction has been obtained in that court, then the presumption of innocence is no longer valid. If you have evidence to establish your client’s innocence we are prepared to hear it. The burden of proof is now upon the accused. And let me remind you again, the powers of this board are limited. It cannot grant the accused a new trial. It can only commute his sentence or grant him a pardon, and it can do those only upon clear evidence.”

Standing thoughtful, with bent head, Hilton delayed his answer, and Joe saw that he was silent because for the moment he was utterly stumped for something to say. He had never had anything to say to the Pardon Board. The tirade he had read for a half-hour had been a last-ditch, bluff, strong-arm method applied to the law. He watched Hilton rally himself, raise his head, start all over again.

“In view of the irregularities and errors of law …”

“Specifically
what
errors of law?” a judge asked sharply.

“The calling of jurors instead of impaneling them in the regular way.”

“The records do not show that, Mr. Hilton. The Supreme Court considered that claim carefully in reviewing your appeal.”

“Nevertheless if we are granted a new trial I am confident that we shall be able to show …”

“Let me remind you again,” the governor said icily. “You are pleading before the Board of Pardons. This board cannot grant a new trial if it wanted to. It is here to hear evidence, if you have any.”

“Your excellency,” Hilton said, “I think you have the good name of the state of Utah at heart. I think you would not want to see that good name blackened by a cold-blooded judicial murder.”

The governor leaned across the desk with his fists tight together. His cheeks tightened until an unexpected round knob of muscle
bulged at the angle of his jaws. His mouth was small and hard. “Mr. Hilton, for the last time, we are here to listen to evidence, not vilification or threats. There has been altogether too much of both in this case already. If you have no real and actual evidence to offer, please sit down.”

Jud Ricket was on his feet. “Mr. Governor …”

The governor slammed the gavel on the desk, his jaws clamped hard, and Ricket eased himself down into his chair again. The young jurist who had been watching Joe so intently leaned and said something in a whisper. The governor listened with his eyes cold.

“Mr. McCarthy has the floor,” he said.

Now it was no longer possible to be a remote and curious spectator. McCarthy’s gray eyes pulled Joe into alertness, forced him to attend and concentrate. Joe braced himself against some weight of intelligence or power he felt in them, and he realized that though he had been evading McCarthy’s glance, he had been aware of him all the time. Of all the board members he had been least upset by Hilton’s tirade; he seemed to Joe more dangerous for that reason. And he compelled the discussion back into personal channels. It was impossible to evade him any longer, or to dream while his fate was decided.

“I want to ask a few questions directly of Mr. Hillstrom,” McCarthy said. “You understand that your case has become in the public eye something more than the trial of an individual on a murder charge. Your friends have represented you as being framed by certain industrial interests because of your activity as an
IWW
organizer.”

Joe faced him, saying nothing.

“I think I speak for the other members of the board as well as myself,” McCarthy said. “They will correct me if I do not. But I think the last thing any responsible official of the state of Utah wants is the death of an innocent man.”

His eyes compelled such attention that Joe looked over them, at the part in McCarthy’s curly dark hair.

“But no official can be moved by threats,” the justice said. “Your friends are ill-advised in the campaign they have started. They have already done your cause harm.”

Joe shrugged. He knew his part; he knew how the lines must go. “I can’t help what other people think of Utah justice.”

Something had been offered and refused. He felt in himself a kind of gathering such as he sometimes had felt before an intense physical effort. Straight as a stick, wooden-faced, he confronted the steady gray eyes.

“I am aware of that,” McCarthy said, unmoved. “Despite what has been said about Utah justice, every member of this board is beyond thinking you guilty because your friends have made irresponsible threats. It is your guilt, or your innocence, that we are concerned with.”

Just for an instant some obscure impatience seemed to flare in him. He drummed his fingers on the desk blotter. “Mr. Hillstrom, you have refused to testify in your own defense. If you wanted to throw doubt upon the decision of the court, I presume you have succeeded. I think you have also succeeded in embarrassing your attorneys and your friends, by asking them to defend you without the materials to make a case.”

“I didn’t ask them to defend me,” Joe said through his teeth, holding McCarthy’s eyes. It was coming out in the open now.

“Perhaps not,” the justice said. “That’s between you and them. What is at stake now is your life. If you are innocent, as you have persistently claimed, this is your last chance to prove it.”

“I’ve told you all it was up to you to prove I’m guilty,” Joe said. “If your law and your justice is worth anything, why doesn’t it live up to its claims?” He let his hate pour out through his eyes at this one lawyer-mouthed representative of the System, but he did not, as he obscurely hoped to, force McCarthy to anger. The man looked at him coolly, with an intolerable quiet.

“Your counsel has been correct on that point. You have been convicted on evidence in a trial that the reviewing court found impartial. At this point you are guilty unless you prove your innocence.” His white finger tapped the desk, he held Joe to the duel of eyes. “You doubt the integrity of this board. Here is what the board will do. If you will, in strictest confidence, tell any two members of it the circumstances under which you were shot, and to their satisfaction prove what you say, the board is ready to pardon you instantly without making the evidence public. What you tell will never go any farther, even to the other members of the board.”

Joe braced himself against a feeling like slipping in loose sand. His insides twisted; with a suddenness as if something had been thrown in his face he felt himself go red. He saw the faces at the table stiffly watching him, and he saw that some of them hated and feared him and would be glad of his death, but that McCarthy did not hate him. McCarthy might demand his death, but McCarthy did not hate him.

But he knew his part; he knew what words must be said. From a tight throat he said, “I don’t want a pardon. I want a complete vindication or nothing. I want a new trial.”

“We’re past that stage,” McCarthy said. “The board is giving you a chance at life, Mr. Hillstrom.”

The internal shaking had worked outward until it trembled in Joe’s hands and shoulders and knees; his throat was clamped as if in paralysis. For a long time he stood before them and said nothing, while Hilton and Ricket went quickly to the desk and leaned over it and talked in quick sentences with McCarthy and the governor. But when their bodies moved aside again McCarthy’s eyes were on him as if nothing had interrupted their look. It was the imperturbable steadiness of the eyes that infuriated him; they could not be made angry. If there was any expression in them now aside from McCarthy’s judicial calm it was pity, and the very thought that he was being pitied scalded Joe’s mind.

He twisted his hard mouth. “I said I’d get a new trial or die trying. I guess I’ll have to die trying.”

Ricket and Hilton and Christensen pulled him aside. Their faces were anxious and he heard their anxious words: “… last chance.… couldn’t do her any harm … think they mean it … wouldn’t get out …” But he pulled away from them and turned, seeking the eyes of McCarthy. All the rest of them he ignored. It was to McCarthy that he had to justify himself, McCarthy who had to be challenged and defied.

“I won’t tell you anything,” he said hotly. “It’s not up to me to tell you anything. If I’d had a fair trial I wouldn’t have been convicted on such flimsy evidence. I won’t take any offers and I don’t want a pardon. I want a new trial or nothing.”

Hilton’s restraining hand dropped from his arm; he saw the expressive weary lift of the lawyer’s shoulders as he turned away, but he saw them only from the corner of his eye. His glance was
still leveled like a spear with McCarthy’s. He drew himself straighter until he was rigid.

“I want to die a martyr,” he said.

The words were like the striking of a light, for having said them he knew that they were true, and had been true from the beginning.

So he stalemated them with his defiance, and though he was the pawn of forces, furiously defended by one side and stubbornly and repeatedly condemned by the other, yet he imposed his will on them. He imposed it even on Justice McCarthy, who was not like the others on that board. The Pardon Board met to decide his fate, and Judge Hilton prepared a desperate contentious confused brief, but it was Joe Hill who decided his own fate, and he left his lawyers pleading not with the board but with him.

At a certain point they dismissed him (but he knew that even their dismissal was an act of helplessness) and manacled him like a maniac again, and stripped him and frisked his clothes and body for possible weapons, possible escape tools, that might have been slipped to him by his friends in the meeting. Just before noon, aggrandized by his company, two guards took him back to a new cell in the maximum-security section.

He brought his defiance and pride back with him, and he sat with them all the rest of that day. Admiration for his own devious cunning moved him; he felt an awed wonder at the way events had built toward this precise and inevitable end, all the while that he and his friends had been apparently trying to move them in quite another direction.

In his thoughts he defied the Pardon Board and its assumptions of power over his life, its capacity to condemn or forgive. “I don’t want a commutation or pardon, I want a complete vindication or nothing,” he had said to them. Playing the words over and over to himself now to test them for flaws and for anything that might ring false to the legendary resolution of Joe Hill, he found them exactly right.