Gideon - 04 - Illegal Motion (44 page)

Sarah tugs anxiously at her hair and glances up at me with a wan, scared look on her face. Are things that bad?

Probably. I can’t read this jury at all. I look at the sole black juror. Her dark, brooding face is a study in concentration as Binkie, jamming his hands in his pants pockets for the time being, begins.

“Ladies and gentlemen, when we began this morning, I said you’d be tempted to throw up your hands and say it was too hard to decide whom to believe in a case like this,” Binkie says, positioning himself at the middle of the jury rail. He has stopped in front of the oldest retiree and wags his head from side to side.

“But after hearing the testimony, I don’t think it is really all that hard if you use your common sense. Why would Robin Perry, a varsity cheerleader, an outstanding student, a girl who is from a deeply conservative family, tell a story this humiliating and embarrassing to herself if it wasn’t true? For the sake of argument, let’s assume for a minute that she consented to the sexual act. Why claim she was raped, when all she had to do was keep quiet? If Dade started talking about it, she merely had to deny it. Nobody was there to see. It was her word against Dade’s. Common sense tells you that if she denied it vigorously enough, most people would have chalked it up to sexual posturing on a young man’s part, assuming Dade would even have talked about it. After all, by both accounts she left as soon as it was over. There wasn’t much to brag about.

What we tend to forget in our concern with the judicial system and justice and due process for the accused is the victim. It is excruciating to go through this. The fear, and shame, and emotional pain are terrible. Some of you may be thinking that Robin Perry can’t be believed because it appears she didn’t tell the truth to you about an attempted kiss that she resisted by the accused. I ask you to consider what realistic alternative she had if she hoped to convince you she was telling the truth about what happened the second time she went to the house on Happy Hollow Road. If she admitted the man who later raped her had tried to kiss her even months earlier, you would think she couldn’t have possibly driven out to that house alone unless she had changed her mind about him. So, like many of us, she told you a lie when she would have been better served by an embarrassing admission that, in fact, shows she was pathetically naive and trusting. She thought she and Dade were friends. She thought she could trust this boy that she was helping. This kind of faith in human nature is so oldfashioned, Robin herself knew it would make you doubt that a girl can actually be this naive in this day and age. Well, you heard her tell you. Her parents are so conservative they didn’t want her even dating someone who wasn’t from the South. A different race was out of the question. Robin went along with it, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t help somebody who needed it. Mr. Page told you that you didn’t have to check your brains at the door, and I couldn’t agree with him more….”

As Binkie talks, my heart sinks. At least two of the damn jurors are nodding, and all are listening as if he is saying the most obvious thing in the world. Sweet, innocent Robin lied to make the truth believable. I helplessly watch faces as Binkie grinds his argument into their gullible brains. Unfortunately, I find myself believing him, too. What could be worth the hassle of saying you were raped unless you were? Binkie tells the jury that all his witnesses’ testimony pointed to rape.

“Not one person who saw her afterward, whether it was her friend and roommate Shannon Kennsit, or three strangers, including an experienced nurse and physician, had any doubt mat Robin had been forced against her will to have sex. We haven’t heard one word from a single witness today that anyone questioned her story except the accused….”

Dade has begun to sink inside his suit coat and I wonder what I can say to counter Binkie. He can think on his feet better than I can.

When Binkie finally is done, I begin my argument standing by Dade.

“Ladies and gentlemen, you’ve heard the old saying “Necessity is the mother of invention.”

Well, the prosecutor desperately needs to explain away Robin Perry’s lie, and he has come up with as good a rationalization of it as you’re going to hear.”

I walk over to the jury rail.

“The trouble with lying is that one leads to another and we all know it, because at one time or another everybody has told a lie about some thing. Granted, it is not outside the realm of possibility that Robin Perry could be lying about one thing and telling the truth about another, but what her lie tells me is how conflicted she was about Dade Cunningham. He was the forbidden fruit, and Robin had been warned away from it. What I think probably happened that night is that Robin told herself another lie, and one that was perfectly understandable. She and Dade were going to work on a speech, but what she was really going out there for that night was to do something she had wanted to do back in the spring and that was to kiss Dade Cunningham.”

I stop and catch the eye of the unemployed waitress, who has begun looking sympathetic.

“What happened next was that these two very attractive young people ended up making love, but when it was over, the guilt Robin Perry felt was intolerable to her. She left immediately, and finally after nine sleepless hours decided that the only way she could handle her feelings was to tell another lie and that was to say she had been raped.”

I stop and walk back to the podium to give them a moment to absorb what I am saying. I’ve got everyone’s attention, but a couple of the retirees on the jury are frowning. Hell, this argument is not everyone’s cup of tea, but I don’t need them all. I’ll take a hung jury at this point. I pick out the professor and start again: “When it comes to sex, none of us, at a given moment, likes to admit what we’re really thinking, even to ourselves, probably because we’ve been told much of our lives our feelings are bad and wrong, and so we lie. It’s human nature. Part of the problem is there’s so much freedom these days, and it’s hard to accept the consequences of it.

We get mad at our kids and say they’re all going to hell in a handbasket when maybe it’s our fault for allowing them to do practically anything they want. The plain fact is, I don’t know for sure what happened that night on Happy Hollow Road and neither does Mr. Cross. The only people who know are telling totally opposite stories when it comes to the most important part whether there was consent or not. Based on the evidence, I can’t swear to you that Dade Cunningham did or didn’t rape Robin Perry and neither can the prosecuting attorney. None of the other witnesses for either the prosecution or the defense can really help us, because there is no physical evidence in the case. All any of them can do is speculate about what happened, whether it was a nurse, counselor, or her roommate Shannon who, by the way, admitted that Robin is kind of a private person. Let’s face it, folks, this girl is close to being a professional actress. If she wanted to lie, she was fully capable of it. Despite what Mr. Cross told you or will tell you when he gets up on rebuttal, I don’t think there is a naive bone in Robin Perry’s body.

She was a Razorback cheerleader; she got up and spoke in front of several hundred people at a women’s rally; she is a communications major and an excellent student, so she is fully capable of pushing whatever buttons she needs to push. It comes down to one thing: there is reasonable doubt in this case….”

By the time I am finished and sit down again by Dade, I feel okay, but, as usual, since the prosecutor has the last word, it doesn’t last. Binkie storms up and down in front of the jury box like a preacher at a tent meeting.

“Folks,” he exhorts them, “you weren’t born yesterday! Mr. Page wants you to ignore what you saw and what you heard Robin Perry say and psychoanalyze her motives like she was some patient in a mental hospital. He doesn’t want you to do the one thing that will put away his client: decide who is telling the truth about whether there was consent or not—Robin Perry or Dade Cunningham. I didn’t believe Dade Cunningham when he said he didn’t threaten her; I didn’t believe him when he said Robin wanted sex. What Mr. Page wants you to forget is that both the accused and the victim testified they were meeting on Happy Hollow Road to work on a speech. If Robin had decided for some reason she was attracted to Dade Cunningham, do you think for a minute she would have needed to pretend in her own mind she was meeting him to study? That’s nonsense. Dade Cunningham would have been telling you a totally different story. He would have been saying they simply agreed to meet at the house on Happy Hollow Road. Folks, you don’t have to be Sigmund Freud to decide this case. You just have to remember to use your common sense in deciding whom to believe and whom not to believe….”

Finally, Binkie is done, and the court lets the jury file out and goes into recess. As Judge Franklin disappears into his chambers, Dade turns to me and asks hopefully, “What do you think they’ll do?”

I watch his mother whisper something to Sarah as the spectators begin to stand and talk in normal tones.

“It’s hard to say,” I hedge. Again, I am reminded that there is so much that the jury wasn’t allowed to hear.

“I don’t know,” I say honestly.

“It could go either way.”

Sarah and Lucy pass through the gate that separates the spectators from the trial area. My daughter hugs me.

“You did good. Daddy.”

A warm feeling rushes through me. I will myself not to begin thinking of the mistakes I have made today. There will be time for that soon enough.

“Thanks, babe,” I say into her curly ebony hair. For years she has been too shy to hug me in public. Maybe one of us is finally growing up.

After embracing her son, Lucy extends her hand and says formally, “Thank you, Gideon.”

I let my eyes linger on her face as I shake her hand.

She looks even sadder than usual, which gives me a pre monition that Dade will be convicted. Better to thank me now. She may not feel very thankful in a few hours.

“It went okay, I think,” I say, unwilling to give her hope I don’t feel.

She nods, but it is more of a shrug. She doesn’t expect an acquittal. Spectators, even if they aren’t objective, can sometimes pick up vibes from the jurors that the lawyers can’t. Defense lawyers always hope for miracles. The job would be too depressing if we didn’t. A couple of print reporters stand like vultures, but I wave them off, saying that we will have no comment until after the jury comes back. After I send Sarah off to McDonald’s with a twenty to get us something to eat, I leave Dade and Lucy at the counsel table and go sit down in the back with Barton, whom I didn’t see come in.

“Have you been here all afternoon?” I ask, resentfully noting that Barton’s brown overcoat, which is draped neatly over a chair beside me, looks like it cost twice as much as my new suit. If he had been trying this case, he couldn’t have gotten two words out without throwing up all over his two-hundred-dollar shoes.

“Man, that Binkie can talk,” he says admiringly.

“He looks so damn country that you don’t think he’s got it in him, but he’s hell on wheels once he gets going!”

Thanks for the encouraging words, I think. Yet, Barton, once he quits babbling, will tell it to me straight.

“You think he’ll be acquitted?”

“Well,” Barton hedges, “I didn’t hear all of it.” Noting my expression, he blurts, “Actually, I heard a couple of people saying as they left that they thought Dade was lying through his teeth. One of them did say he thought the jury would be out a long time.”

That’s a wonderful consolation. Hell, I just think I want to know the truth. Sarah returns with our food, but, } too nervous to sample more than a couple of fries, I give mine to Barton, who scarfs down my McDLT so fast that I am reminded of Clan, who has been my sidekick in some of my big cases. No two people could be less alike.

I can’t imagine Barton getting involved with a woman like Gina. I take Barton over to meet Dade and’ Lucy and am amazed that he is reduced to jelly at the prospect.

“He’s already the greatest wide receiver I ever saw, and that includes Lance Alworth!”

People never cease to amaze me. Instead of seeing a kid from the poorest region of the state who any minute may be pronounced a convicted rapist and about to spend the best part of his life in prison. Barton would be delighted to get his autograph.

“This is the man who gave me free office space,” I say by way of introduction. Now I know why he did. He wanted to meet Dade. It turned out that he was always with a client or on the phone when Dade came by and never met him. Barton begins to gush so much about Dade’s career that it is embarrassing, but Dade and even Lucy seem to be relieved to have something to talk about other than what the jury is doing.

Why not? Good of’ denial. Life would be unbearable without it.

At this moment the bailiff rushes in and tells us the jury is returning. I look down at my watch and try not to grimace. They’ve barely been out an hour. How embarrassing.

People begin to stream back into the courtroom, and I catch sight of all three Perrys, who understandably seem elated by this quick decision. I watch the faces of the jurors as they troop back in. I’ve never seen twelve people look so solemn. The lone black juror won’t even look at me. She studies her feet as if she’d never seen them before.

Judge Franklin, who seems equally ready to get home, asks the bailiff to take the verdict form from the foreman, who turns out to be the oldest person on the jury.

Franklin fumbles with the piece of paper and then, frowning, reads in a loud voice, “We, the jury, find Dade Cunningham not guilty of the charge of rape.”

I catch the expression on Lucy’s face as the courtroom erupts in the back when two of the WAR protestors (one of them Paula Crawford) who have smuggled in signs under their coats, begin to shout, “No justice for women!

No justice for women!” For one brief instant Lucy’s eyes gleam with unmistakable joy as Judge Franklin begins banging his gavel and orders the courtroom cleared.

Dade turns to me and offers his hand, and says, smiling, “I thought I was gone.”