My Father and Atticus Finch (12 page)

The men were returning early for a seat, though it would be another fifteen minutes before the trial resumed. No surprise that the men wanted to watch; a rape trial was better than the circus that had already made its yearly visit to Troy. Though, when Foster thought about it, what was it they really wanted to watch? With the circus, there was some suspense; an acrobat might fall from a high wire, a lion might turn on the tamer. Was there any suspense about the fate of Charles White? Would anyone in the courtroom believe Charles was innocent?

Foster removed his pocket watch. He knew he had been at his best defending civil, not criminal, cases—fighting economic power in the cause of fairness. And he did not like sex cases, not even civil
ones. He had gotten through the bastardy case without having to dwell on the boy's intercourse with the girl because the baby looked exactly like his paternal grandfather.

His only other encounter with sex and the law was the time he had served as executor of the last will and testament of a retired judge. The judge had unwisely kept indiscreet letters from a paramour, which Foster found when he inventoried the estate. He had decided that the letters should not be delivered to the bereaved widow. “Why add to her grief?” he said to Bertha. “I tore the letters into bits.”

“But of course you did,” Bertha said reassuringly. ”You did the right thing.”

“Even though, as executor, it was my duty under the law of Alabama to turn over all property to her as the sole heir?”

“I approve,” he remembered her saying with her teasing smile, followed by a sincere hug.

His thoughts returned to Charles and Elizabeth: would even one of the jurors sanction any kind of sexual contact between the races? He recoiled from the image—salved, thrusting fingers, whether they were Charles's callused black ones or her soft pink-white ones. Surely it was not something to ask her about on cross-examination.

“Time,” announced the assistant clerk in his steely Boston accent. At the same moment, Solicitor Ewell Orme confidently strode up and grinned. “You gon' fish some more or cut bait, son . . . 'scuse me,
Mister
Foster Campbell Beck?”

“You'll soon find out,” Foster said, gathering his notes, his mind at last made up.

   Chapter 21

T
HE SALACIOUS TESTIMONY
of Elizabeth Liger had stirred the blood of the white men waiting for the trial to resume; feelings were at a boil. Besides, many had eaten far too much dinner, and gluttony, indigestion, the July heat, and lawyer talk had left some in a bilious mood. A couple of fistfights had broken out over whether seats could be reserved. But it was too hot to fight for long; the stifling courtroom quickly again filled to capacity and was abuzz with anticipation when Foster opened the back door and entered, with Solicitor Orme a step behind.

The impatient humming momentarily fell silent, then resumed. It was just the lawyers.

Again, the humming subsided as the jury entered, but it returned in force a moment later, as a low growl, when Sheriff Reeves brought in Charles White and pushed him into his chair.

“All rise!” the assistant clerk shouted, and Judge Parks solemnly reentered his courtroom, the audience falling silent.

“Mr. Beck?” Judge Parks asked.

“We have no need to ask anything further of Miss Elizabeth,”
Foster announced, trying to sound more confident than he felt. Had he succeeded in raising a reasonable doubt? He stole a look at the jury. They looked disappointed that Elizabeth Liger would not be asked more about her encounter with Charles White.

It soon became apparent to Foster why the State's next witness was Dr. W. D. Sanders. The born-and-raised son of Pike County had practiced medicine for an astounding fifty-three years, “or a little more,” as he acknowledged with a chuckle. In the course of his long career, he had cared for most of the jury's families. Foster knew that when it came his turn, he would have to cross-examine the town's leading citizen with respect.

“Yes, I know Elizabeth Liger. In a way, I might say I have known her all her life,” Dr. Sanders testified in response to Solicitor Orme's opening question. “I made a mental examination of her. I don't remember the date but it was recently.”

“Doctor, as a result of that examination, what would you say her mental—”

“Interrupted,” recorded Mr. McCartha in shorthand. “Defendant objected.”

Foster now understood what the State of Alabama was up to with Dr. Sanders. The State had anticipated he would defend Charles White on the ground that there was consent. So the State would try to show through medical testimony that Elizabeth Liger was not merely slow but mentally incapable of giving consent. “With respect,” Foster said, “the question calls for expert testimony. There is no foundation. The good doctor has not been shown to have the training to give such an opinion.”

There was no ruling by the court on the objection. The witness continued.

“Yes, I have an opinion of her mentality.”

“Now as a result of that examination, what is your opinion as to her mentality, Doctor?”

The defendant again objected and the court sustained the objection. “You will have to show more than that, E. C.,” Judge Parks ruled.

Dr. Sanders wrinkled his aged brow into a frown. It was not the first time in his long career that he had testified in court. He understood the rules of evidence; they were much easier than keeping up in medicine: no foundation had been established yet for his opinion.

Dr. Sanders saw no point in waiting for the State to frame a proper foundation question. “I haven't ever made a specialty of people with different mentalities but I have had the common experience of other men. I have never made a specialty of it. There are some proceedings which doctors use which are recognized by the medical profession as to certain examinations.” From long years of practice, and without moving another muscle, Dr. Sanders cracked open his wrinkled mouth, arched out his shaking lower lip, and blew a stream of breath up and over the tip of his nose, to chase away a persistent gnat.

“Now, Doctor,” Solicitor Orme said. “As a result of your examination of Elizabeth and your observation of her, taking all that into consideration, is she a person of average mentality or a person below average?”

Foster objected, and Judge Parks again sustained the objection. “You will have to have him show there was some affliction of the mind or some disease of the mind,” Judge Parks said.

“I made some examination of her family history,” Dr. Sanders
said. “In my judgment, she suffered from a disease that might have affected her mind—a birth wound, an injury to the brain at birth. That is my opinion.”

The State then asked the witness the following question: “Now, does that produce any effect upon the body or the mind, Doctor?”

The defense objected on multiple grounds, including lack of qualification to answer the question. Judge Parks said, “I think that is the only way I can get at it.” The defense reserved an objection and the testimony continued.

“That was our opinion, that the injury was an injury to her brain. It arrested the development of her mental power. It causes what we call spastic paralysis.”

“Now, Doctor,” Solicitor Orme asked, “Taking the family history and your examination, physical and mental, that you put her through, what would you say her mentality was?”

Before Foster could object, the proceedings were interrupted by a dogfight just outside the open window. The audience chuckled and nodded appreciatively, grateful for a break in the tedium of lawyers and their peculiar ways of pursuing the truth. The fight abruptly ended.

“Your Honor,” Foster objected. Then he paused, aware of a stir in the audience. The murmuring in the crowded, sweltering courtroom grew louder, and it sounded angry. One of the wives whose husbands had allowed her to remain in the courtroom, notwithstanding the risqué testimony of Elizabeth Liger, vigorously fanned herself to show her exasperation with the lawyer from Enterprise and his petty objections. Was preserving an appeal record, Foster wondered, worth annoying the jury? “With respect, your Honor, this witness has not been properly qualified by the State as an expert
to give such an opinion. And the testimony called for would amount to impeachment or disqualification by the State of its own witness.”

Judge Parks frowned and held up his hand to signal the courtroom to silence; for a moment, he appeared to be reading something in a book. At last, Judge Parks said, “Overruled.”

“And it is not proper for the State to put up Miss Elizabeth as a witness for the State to rely on,” Foster continued to argue, “and then seek to show that her condition of mind was not such that it
could
be relied on.”

“Overruled,” Judge Parks said. The transcript reflects that the defendant reserved another exception.

“Dr. Sanders?” Solicitor Orme asked, without repeating the entire question.

“I say her mental development isn't more than ten or twelve years old. In other words, that she is a child.”

The courtroom gasped audibly and Solicitor Orme, showing confidence, returned to his seat without even saying, “Thank you, Doctor.” It was as if the prosecution believed the case was over.

“You have anything on cross-examination, Mr. Beck?” Judge Parks asked, then suddenly wheeled on his assistant clerk. “Wake up that peckerwood!”

The clerk found his feet, hurried over to the sleeping juror and shouted, right in his face, “
Wake up, sir!
” The juror, frightened by the strange Yankee accent, woke up and yelled, “Mama!” Finally having something to really laugh about, the audience relaxed a little as Judge Parks brought down his gavel and again restored order.

On cross-examination, Dr. Sanders said that his examination of the Liger family history went no further than her parents who were “normal.” He admitted, “I am only a general practitioner of medicine.
I studied mental diseases but did not make a specialty of it. My study of mental disease was incidental.”

For the first time, the mood in the courtroom seemed to shift a little. The audience didn't mind a firm cross-examination; they just didn't want to have to put up with all those windy technical objections.

The next witness for the prosecution, Troy doctor C. C. Bowdoin, testified, like Dr. Sanders over repeated objections as to lack of qualification, that Elizabeth Liger's “mentality” was “subnormal . . . about an eight- or ten-year-old mind.”

On cross-examination, however, Dr. Bowdoin admitted, “I have never made any personal examination of Miss Elizabeth.” He believed he could nevertheless give an expert opinion of her mental development: “Just from my observation; she has been around to the house and I have talked with her.”

Foster thought that, as with Dr. Sanders, the testimony was unpersuasive, and took heart from the murmurs in the audience and the skeptical looks exchanged among the jurors.

   Chapter 22

M
UCH OF THE TESTIMONY
by the next witness called by the prosecution, Mance Scarbrough, concerned Miss Liger's interest in fortune-telling.

“If anybody mentions fortune-telling or marrying,” Mance said, “she is a maniac on that subject, if that is the right word to use—”

The record shows that the defendant objected to the word “maniac” and that the objection was sustained.

The witness continued, “Having her fortune told and getting married is practically all her main talk. I mean, she talks it constantly and anybody that claims to be a fortune-teller could—”

The defendant objected and the objection was sustained.

The State then asked the following question: “Well, if there was a fortune-teller in the neighborhood, would she make efforts to go and see him?”

“No, sir, she doesn't make any effort to go; she goes,” Mance Scarbrough testified, continuing when the objection was overruled, “I have known her to go three times a week to my knowing . . . Outside of this peculiarity of fortune-telling, getting married, and this paralysis of her right hand, I know that we have to watch Elizabeth about
the cash and all that sort of thing. She has no idea of the value of a dollar. She will go in the cash drawer and get whatever she wanted. She will tote it out and throw it away.”

At this point it may have occurred to Mance Scarbrough that his employer—Elizabeth's brother—might not have wanted the whole county to know that his sister stole money from the cash drawer, for he added, “That, of course, is more or less amongst the family,” as the audience chuckled and elbowed and winked.

On cross-examination, Mance Scarbrough acknowledged that Elizabeth Liger could read and write and he contradicted her testimony that she told him about seeing Charles White on Monday.

Two neighbors were called by the State and testified about Elizabeth Liger's persistent interest in fortune-telling, and a father and son who had been sitting on their porch on the day of the alleged rape said she looked like she was crying when she walked back from Mary Etta's.

A third doctor was then called by the prosecution. Troy doctor W. P. Stewart, a graduate of Tulane Medical School, was the doctor who physically examined Elizabeth Liger on the day of the incident. Following a series of questions and objections about the possible effect of partial paralysis on the development of the brain, Dr. Stewart testified over objection that in his opinion Elizabeth Liger's mental development was that of “about a ten-year-old child—maybe twelve—not over twelve.” But it was his description of Miss Liger's private parts that held the attention of the courtroom.

“I was called to her house and I went there and examined her on the bed. With the help of her sisters we put her in the tub and gave her a douche. Upon examining her private parts on that occasion I found her hymen, commonly known as maidenhead, was very thick. That it had not been penetrated. It had not been broken.”