Read The Executioner's Song Online
Authors: Norman Mailer
Dennis said, "Look, I can't cooperate if you don't put your evidence of good faith on the line. Money," said Dennis, "is not to be considered not of the essence," and giggled. "What do you want?" asked Susskind. "Well, now," said Dennis, "it's getting to be a worldwide case." "How can I," asked Susskind, "be sure you have all the releases you say you have?" "You," said Dennis, "have to start somewhere. You better start by trusting me. I have exactly what I told you I have. If you don't believe me, there are ten other people out here who want it. It's just that I like your reputation, Mr. Susskind. I'd like to give you first crack at it." He wanted a goodly sum, in the neighborhood of $50,000 for the rights of all the principals involved in the case, and asked Susskind to put that into a telegram, which David did, and sent it off.
Susskind also enclosed a legal package. It had a contract and release forms. Boaz might have told him that he had it all but when Susskind asked him in what form were the releases, Dennis said, "One- and two-sentence quitclaims."
"Oh, look," said Susskind, "that doesn't work at all, you're going to have to use established legal forms, waiver of rights for the payment, all such. It has to conform to what we do in the motion picture and television business."
Dennis said, "I don't understand why you have to have all that folderol."
"It's not folderol," said Susskind, "it's of the essence. People can change their minds. A one- or two-sentence release probably contains language too loose to bear up under scrutiny. I'm sorry, I have to send you release forms." He did. Susskind went to his lawyers and they sent off the package.
By pure coincidence, Stanley Greenberg arrived at the Salt Lake Hilton on the 16th, the afternoon of the double suicide saga, and so precisely the busiest day of the month for the media. Stanley had telephoned the night before from Kensington in California, where he lived just north of San Francisco, to confirm an appointment with Boaz, but under the circumstances, in all the brouhaha at the Hilton over the double suicide, he never expected the lawyer to keep his date. To Greenberg's surprise, however, Dennis did show up, and just late enough to have given Stanley Greenberg time to look carefully at the network news at six o'clock. Right after, to his astonishment, Boaz knocked at his hotel room door.
If not for this dramatic event today, they would almost certainly have met, Greenberg thought, as adversaries, or at the least, he would have felt obliged to deal with Boaz as a bizarre specimen of a lawyer willing to kill off his client. Now, however, Boaz seemed to have gone through a considerable shift of opinion in the greatest hurry. So their conversation proved to be more productive than Stanley could have hoped.
As he explained to Boaz over the course of a drink, his hackles went up about a week ago when it became apparent there was a real danger of Gilmore being executed. Stanley explained that he found capital punishment personally repugnant. He simply couldn't sit around and let it happen. This might seem a romantic reaction, but he had felt obliged, nonetheless, to gather his forces and get together with David Susskind, who was the right producer in an endeavor like this.
Credentials established, Greenberg was now ready to discuss the case. He led off by saying he just didn't see where any criminal had the right to tell society what to do to him. By his lights, a criminal had no more right to demand capital punishment than to demand his immediate release. Society, after all, set the rules.
Dennis, who had been looking oddly subdued, given Stanley's preconceptions of him, now seemed fired up a bit. He replied that Gary wasn't demanding anything. He simply didn't want to appeal.
Appeal law was based on the premise that nobody wanted to be executed, and so it offered all sorts of possibilities for relief, but Gary didn't want to pursue those possibilities.
It wasn't that simple, Greenberg argued back. The Supreme Court had said capital punishment could be resumed, but only if certain legal steps were taken. If you were going to execute people, it was important to kill them only under guarded and truly hedged-about circumstances.
At this point, Dennis again looked gloomy and said that he wasn't so sure he had done a very competent job. In any case, his feelings were undergoing a radical change. Up to now, he had supported Gilmore's plea because he felt the man had a right to determine his own life. Now, however, push had come to shove, and he had realized for the first time that Gary was actually going to die and that made him so upset he didn't know if he wanted to be a part of the process.
Greenberg had the impression Dennis was slightly stoned. Feelings of inadequacy certainly began to pour out. Greenberg even found himself liking Boaz more than he expected. On some levels he was quite attractive, sort of a free spirit. Of course, he was extremely and obviously disorganized, and not the sort of attorney Greenberg might want to entrust his fortune or future to. Still, he was likable, so likable. "Have you been in touch," Stanley asked, "with the local ACLU?"
Hosts of feelings poured forth. No, Boaz had not become involved with them. That was against his client's wishes. His client had this peculiar mélange of right-wing ideas and left-wing emotions.
Gary hated blacks, for instance, but that, Boaz explained, was because they were a dangerous majority in a prison. All the white prisoners were in danger of being raped by blacks. Gary also hated the ACLU. That was because they preached freedom of the individual but wouldn't give Gilmore the liberty to choose his death. So, Boaz had not gotten in touch with them. But just an hour ago, talking to Geraldo Rivera, he had had a brilliant conception. Only he would need some help with it, in terms of paperwork. There were many motions that would have to be filed, for which he would need a Utah lawyer. So, now he wanted to get in touch with the ACLU. When Greenberg encouraged this, Boaz called up a representative named Judy Wolbach, and she agreed to come over to the room for a drink.
Before it was over, Greenberg decided it had to be one of the bizarre conversations of all time. An absolutely marvelous dramatic play. Simply couldn't have imagined it better. This thin, vibrant, intelligent woman, very high strung, very liberal, very suspicious of Boaz on the one hand, and on the other side, Dennis pouring out his soul at how he had been harassed by the legal community and was the number-one suspect at the prison for smuggling in Seconal.
There were tears in Boaz's eyes from time to time, and it was hard to know if he was more worried about himself—"I'll take a polygraph test," he said—or more worked up over poor Gilmore, dying, for all they knew, in Salt Lake right now, and Nicole somewhere else—was she also dying? Here, Greenberg thought, is this mad, churning young lawyer, and then this Judy Wolbach glaring at Dennis as if he were a specimen. She was completely distrustful of the auspices. Even the little bar in the corner of the room must have looked to her, under these circumstances, sinister.
Stanley could hardly blame her. Reading about Dennis in the newspapers, she must have seen him as some sort of hippie hustler.
Now, there he was before her, agitated, smiling, arrogant, modest, first dejected, then haranguing her. Stanley couldn't imagine what he would be like at a time of less agitation.
Almost immediately, Dennis came up with this impossibly attractive and hopeless notion. He wanted to get Gary transferred to a Medium Security prison in some state where they allowed connubial visits.
Oh, it would work, he exclaimed. Nicole could get a job in the local town and bring up her children. On weekends they would have their married life, two nights a week. That could give Gary a motive for living. Why, if the court really understood what a fine person Gary was, they would do it. Gary could write and draw. Cottage incarceration was what he was talking about.
Greenberg noticed that Boaz was now happy again. It was apparent: give him an original idea and some remote possibility of achieving it, and he couldn't be happier. It didn't matter if the conditions were unattainable—just give him a novel approach to the pursuit of happiness, and he was happiness itself.
Judy Wolbach didn't seem very impressed, however. Dennis had ended his presentation by saying that the ACLU should provide the services to accommodate this legal action. Judy Wolbach gave him a speech back. The ACLU in Utah, in case he didn't know, was very underfunded.
"Don't you want him to live?" asked Boaz.
Have you looked, she inquired, into the ways that his life might actually be saved? She began to talk about relevant law in Supreme Court cases, and civil rights procedures under Federal and State law.
When Boaz admitted he had not read such cases, she shook her head, and asked if he was familiar with Gilmore's psychiatric file. In reply, Boaz became critical. Why was she not forthcoming? Why did she emphasize the legalistic rather than the humanistic? Greenberg couldn't believe his good fortune: what a play!
Boaz now said he viewed himself as a man of literature, rather than a lawyer lost in procedure. "In the Renaissance, man knew he could be a poet and a lawyer both."
"Well," said Judy Wolbach, "think about which hat you're going to wear, and stay in touch."
Showing Judy down the hall, Stanley Greenberg felt obliged to remark, "I really don't believe Boaz is the person to represent Gilmore."
Over breakfast, next day, he saw Dennis on "Good Morning America."
GERALDO RIVERA Dennis Boaz . . . a man who up until now has supported his client's wish for the right to die. Dennis, welcome.
You've argued in court, sometimes eloquently, that Gary Gilmore deserves the right to die. Do you still believe that?
DENNIS BOAZ (long pause) I believe he has the right to determine his own fate. I can no longer support, uh, the execution by the State.
GERALDO RIVERA Are you saying that you've changed your position, Dennis?
DENNIS BOAZ Yes.
GERALDO RIVERA Why?
DENNIS BOAZ (long pause) Well, yesterday was a moment of truth for me and I had a remarkable emotional experience which I reflected upon. And . . .
GERALDO RIVERA Are you saying you came to the realization . . .
what, tell me . . .
DENNIS BOAZ Well, I see there's some possibility for . . . Nicole and Gary (his voice sounds shaky here) perhaps to be together, and as long as I can see that possibility, know it's there, I know Gary would want to live and Nicole also.
GERALDO RIVERA After the discussion we had yesterday, and we talked for a long time, you don't even strike me as a man who believes in capital punishment. I want to know why you've gone through this dreadful charade?
DENNIS BOAZ Well, I got into the case not because I was an advocate of capital punishment, but because . . . he needed support, and I did support his own wish to, in a sense, take more responsibility for his own life and death at that time. And he was attempting to take responsibility by accepting judgment.
GERALDO RIVERA But now you think because of what's happened the situation has changed?
DENNIS BOAZ Well, it certainly changed with me . . .
NEW VOICE Mr. Boaz, David Hartman in New York. Mr. Boaz, you said you had an emotional experience yesterday. How exactly has your mind changed in the last 24 hours?
DENNIS BOAZ Well, it's gotten in line with my heart.
DAVID HARTMAN Be more specific, Dennis.
DENNIS BOAZ I just can no longer be an effective advocate for this execution. I know we can't stop Gary from killing himself if he decides that's what he wants to do now. I can no longer be part of an official process that wants him to die.
GERALDO RIVERA Will you withdraw from the case if necessary?
DENNIS BOAZ I'll talk to Gary as soon as I can. We'll make a decision together.
GERALDO RIVERA He'll probably attempt suicide again.
DENNIS BOAZ I don't know.
DAVID HARTMAN Geraldo, we have a little less than a minute left.
What's the next step, and what do you see happening in the next 24 to 36 hours?
GERALDO RIVERA Well, the Parole Board hearing has to happen presumably, once Gilmore is in sufficiently recovered physical condition for that to happen. He has to be conscious. They can't execute a man who is comatose, David . . . I think that our story is going to be held in abeyance, at least while these two people recover.
DAVID HARTMAN Thank you, Geraldo, very much, and thank you, Mr. Boaz, very much for being with us this morning.
Later that morning, Greenberg drove out to Provo with Dennis and visited Vern Damico whom he rather liked, he told Dennis later, rather a strong man, something of the self-made small entrepreneur about him, a man who could move in his own neighborhood, so to speak.