Antonelli - 03 - The Judgment (4 page)

“I was incorrigible, and worse yet, rather proud of it. ‘If it had not been denied,’ I retorted, ‘there would not be much point in renewing it, would there?’

“Jeffries stared hard at me. ‘Denied again.’

” ‘Why don’t we have a hearing on it first,’ I suggested with an arrogance that not even my youth could excuse. ‘That way, after you have listened to the arguments on the motion, you might be able to accompany your ruling with a reason.’

“Raising his head, he twisted it slightly to the side as he studied me intently. He took a slow, deep breath, and as he did so his nostrils flared and the corners of his mouth turned downward.

For a long time, he did not speak a word.

” ‘You will do well to remember, Mr. Antonelli,’ he said finally,

‘that you are here to try your case, not my patience.’ His voice, never deep, was more high-pitched than I had heard it before, as if only by an effort could he keep it from becoming a shriek.

‘And, yes, Mr. Antonelli,’ he went on, ‘I do provide a reason when I rule on a motion, but only when the reason isn’t obvious on the face of it, and only when the lawyer who filed it might actually be able to understand it.’

“There was nothing I could do. I had gone too far as it was.

Retreating behind a mask of rigid formality, I played the lawyer, hiding my resentment while I nodded my acquiescence in every harsh word he lavished upon me. ‘Thank you, your honor,’ I said when he was finished, mindful that of all the tyrannies ever established on earth, a courtroom is the only one in which abuse is always to be followed by an expression of appreciation.

“I thought that this was the end of it, but it was only the beginning. I had barely begun questioning the first juror on voir dire when he was on me again.

” ‘That question is not germane to whether or not this person is qualified to be a fair and impartial juror,’ he instructed me. I had asked the woman what grades her children were in. ‘The juror questionnaire tells you how many children she has and how old they are. That’s all you need to know about them.’

“It was the same with the next question, and the one after that. Nothing I asked was right; everything I asked was wrong.

He interrupted me so often that I started to hesitate halfway through a question, waiting for him to do it again. He was making me look awkward, indecisive, someone who did not know what he was doing. He was making me look like a fool in front of the very people who had to trust me if I was going to have any chance to win. And he was doing it on purpose. Somehow, despite his constant badgering, his incessant corrections, I kept going. Then I asked the eighth juror the question I should have been asking all of them, the question I’ve asked every juror in every criminal case I’ve tried since: ‘Even if you’re convinced the defendant is probably guilty, will you still vote to return a verdict of not guilty if the state fails to prove that guilt beyond a reasonable doubt?’

“Jeffries practically jumped out of his chair. ‘That question is not permissible. You are not allowed to ask a juror how they might vote on the ultimate issue in the case. You will not ask that question again, Mr. Antonelli. Not of this juror, nor of any other juror. Understand?’

“It was late on the second day, Friday, and I had been beaten on long enough. I turned back to the same juror, and more slowly than I had before, asked the same question again.

” ‘This will be a good time to end for the day,’ Jeffries announced before an answer could be given. ‘We’ll resume Monday morning at nine-thirty.’

“He waited until the last prospective juror left the courtroom.

His eyes were cold as ice. ‘You were told not to do that. I told you that question was not allowable, and yet you immediately asked it again. You deliberately flouted the authority of this court, and I have no alternative but to hold you in contempt.’

“I had expected it, and if the truth be told, had almost looked forward to it. I was in contempt, not of the court, however, but of him and the way he was trying to destroy my ability to put on a defense. I stared back at him and kept my silence.

” ‘I sentence you to three days in jail.’ He nodded toward the bailiff to take me away. ‘You can be released Monday morning, in time for the trial,’ he added as he gathered up his books and papers from the bench.

” ‘Your honor,’ I replied, trying to stop myself from screaming,

‘you can charge me with contempt, but I can’t be put in jail for it—not under these circumstances—unless I’m found guilty after a trial.’

“He knew I was right, and we both knew it did not matter.

The bailiff had his hand on my arm, warning me under his breath not to say another word, while Jeffries rose from the bench and disappeared into chambers.

” ‘He would have added more time,’ the bailiff explained. ‘I’ve seen him do it often enough before. You look cross-eyed at him, he throws the book at you.’

“I was delivered to the county jail and learned what it was like to become one of those who no longer exist. They took my wallet, my watch, my car keys, everything I had in my pockets, and looked at me like I was crazy when I asked if I could keep my briefcase. Apparently concerned that I might use my tie either to strangle someone or hang myself, they made me give it to them. Then they took my fingerprints, grabbing each hand and pushing down on it as they rolled each fingertip onto the paper sheet. When that was done, I stood on a taped line, looking straight ahead into the camera, and then with a quarter turn, gave them my profile. They now had my prints, my photograph, and all the possessions I had brought with me. Most important of all, they had me, and I did not like it one bit.

“I was a model of diplomacy and tact. When they finished processing me, one of the deputies grabbed my shoulder and shoved me ahead. I caught my balance and turned on him.

” ‘You lay a hand on me again, you son of a bitch, and I’ll have you in court for the rest of your natural life.’

“He was a large, bulky man, with small fat hands. I would never have believed he could move as fast as he did. Before I knew what was happening, my face was flat against the cinder block wall and both my arms were pinned behind my back. I felt the cold metal around my wrists and then the clicking noise as he locked the handcuffs tight.

” ‘You’re not in court now, counselor,’ the deputy reminded me.

He grabbed the same shoulder he had before and with one hard push sent me flying. He walked at a steady pace, and each time he caught up with me did it again until we reached a windowless metal door. I braced myself when he opened it, ready for the push that would send me tumbling inside. Instead, he turned me around, and unfastened the handcuffs.

” ‘Nothing personal,’ he said.

“He had that kind of stupid grin that you imagine on the face of the schoolyard bully after he has just flattened some scrawny little kid with thick glasses and a stutter who can’t hit back. It was the first time I had ever actually seen that look. A coward from the cradle, I had learned to avoid that kind of trouble. I suppose it was the fear of being found out for what I really was that made me do what I did next. With both hands, I shoved him in the chest as hard as I could. He did not move, not so much as an inch. I might just as well have tried to move the wall. He stared at me, a blank look on his face, as if he did not quite comprehend what I was doing. Then, in an instant, the heel of his hand came up under my jaw and I was knocked backward into the cell, and the door slammed shut behind me. I was locked in a room, six feet by four, the only furnishing a wooden bench suspended from the wall on two metal chains. There was no window, no source of light, except a single dim light bulb that hung high overhead inside a wire mesh screen.

“Without any means to measure it, time came to a stop. After I had been there for what I knew could only have been a few minutes, I felt as if I had been sitting there, staring into nothingness, for hours. I stood up and started to pace back and forth, three small steps each way, counting out loud. It gave me a strange sense of satisfaction, the sound of my voice tolling off the passage of time, tangible proof that I was not imprisoned in a permanent present. It was a way of protecting myself against the fear that had already begun to gnaw at the edge of my conscious mind, the incipient panic at being shut away in a small confined space, the sense of terror that had always accompanied the thought of being buried alive.

“After a while I stopped counting and began to concentrate on the trial. I tried to think about what I was going to say in my opening statement after we finished selecting the jury. I sat down on the hard bench, and studied as carefully as I could the remembered faces of the jurors with whom I had already talked, and thought about which ones I should keep and which ones I should let go. There was a sound at the door. It swung open and a different guard motioned for me to follow him down another corridor. I asked him for the time. I had been in the cell for less than fifteen minutes.

“I assumed he was taking me to eat, or perhaps to change into the clothing of an inmate. He stopped, opened a door, and I found myself squinting into a glaring light. I was on a kind of stage, standing next to four or five other men in front of a wall with odd markings on it. From somewhere in the darkness on the other side of the light, a voice told us to turn to the left. Then I knew. I was in a lineup.

“As soon as I realized where I was and what they were doing, I became convinced they were looking for someone who had committed either murder or rape, and that their witness would mis-takenly pick me. I was certain of it, and I tried to look like someone else. I rolled my shoulders forward, until I was as bent over as someone who does stoop labor in the fields. I dropped my head and let my chin sag down onto my chest. I knew nothing about the crime and yet I thought I had something to hide.

When it was over, and along with the others I was led out of the room, I almost felt as if I had gotten away with something.

“Instead of taking me back to the small cell, I was led down another corridor and put in what we used to call the tank. It was a large room, perhaps thirty feet by twenty, with benches on each of the four walls. On one side, two dirt-covered windows, so high up you could not reach them, much less see out of them, let in a gray, dismal light. Thirty or forty men were crowded together inside. Most were hunched over, staring down at the cement floor, or leaning back against the wall, their hands lying listlessly at their sides, or locked around an upraised knee, gazing straight ahead, an absent look in their eyes. Several were lying on the floor, arms crossed in front of them, sleeping off a drunk. The air was stagnant with the fetid smell of urine and sweat. Stepping carefully over the bodies on the floor, I found a place on the bench directly under the window. As my eyes adjusted to the light, I made out the figure of a man crouching low in the corner. It took me a minute before I realized that his pants were down around his ankles and he was squatting over the one toilet everyone was supposed to share. I turned away, disgusted. Then, convinced I must have been wrong, I looked again. He was sitting there, black hair matted down on his head, with a thick neck and huge fleshy arms, masturbating. In an instant, I was on my feet, moving across the room. Stumbling over the body of a drunk who woke up just long enough to swing his arm at my legs, I made it to the door and banged on it as hard as I could.

” ‘How long are you going to keep me in here?’ I demanded when the guard opened the peephole.

” ‘Be quiet,’ he shouted back as he closed it in my face.

“I beat on the door again, yelling for the guard to come back, though I knew it was nothing more than an empty gesture of defiance. No one was going to help me, and the only thing I could do for myself was accept my situation without further complaint.

“I spent that weekend—three nights that seemed like three years—surrounded by drunks, derelicts, people who could barely function, men who had lost the capacity to distinguish between what happened forty years ago, before they had become addicts and alcoholics, and what was happening right in front of their eyes. They were the victims of their own self-inflicted madness.

“On the bench next to me, a bleary-eyed old man scratched the gray stubble on his cheek, trying to remember where he was.

He opened his toothless mouth and, glancing up at me, began to talk in a rapid senseless monotone. At best, I could make out every third or fourth word as he rambled along, stopping every so often to ask, in a sudden burst of lucidity, ‘Don’t you see?’ He would wait until I gave some sign, a nod, a shrug, a smile, something that showed him that I understood, that I sympathized with what he was telling me, before he lost himself again in his own incoherence.

“He babbled on and on, stopping every once in a while to see if I was still listening, an endless monologue that had meaning only for himself. Gradually, his voice grew fainter, as if he was slowly drifting away. ‘Don’t you see?’ he asked, suddenly alert.

Then, without waiting for my response, he closed his eyes and a moment later began to snore. His shoulder slid up against my chest until the back of his head, greasy gray hair matted to his whitish skull, was directly below my chin. Careful not to let him fall, I got to my feet and left him slumped on the hard wooden bench, a harmless old man who, when he was not crawling into a bottle, was being shoved into a cell. I found myself wondering what stories he thought he was telling me in that torrent of unintelligible speech.

“I found a place on the other side of the cell, as far away as I could get from the stench that emanated from that shit-splattered toilet. The windows high above were black with the night and the dim gray yellow illumination from the single electric bulb lent a spectral quality to things that even in the clear light of day would have been troubling enough. How was it possible that human beings could of their own volition have been reduced to this? How was it possible that the only thing we could think to do about it was to take them, throw them in jail for a few days or a few weeks, and then put them back out on the street to do the same thing all over again? That old man I had left lying on the bench somewhere in the darkness would spend the rest of his life either drunk or locked up and no one seemed to think a thing about it. That was the first time that I began to think that the law itself could be the worst crime of all.