Act of God

by Susan R. Sloan

  “He’s biased against the media,” they proclaimed, eventually jumping at any opportunity to discredit him.

  “He’s using Hitler tactics!” one of the more careless thought it opportune to suggest.

  Abraham Bendali, Holocaust survivor, did not bother to respond to that. He designated two rows at the back of his courtroom, which would accommodate approximately forty properly accredited members of the press, to be seated on a first-come-first-served basis, and then turned his attention to other matters.

  Brian Ayres was philosophical about the ruling. He knew Bendali well, had appeared before him many times, and had anticipated his decision.

  “It would have helped us, of course, to keep emotions running on high,” he told his assistant. “But it won’t hurt us that much.”

  Dana McAuliffe was delighted. Since the jury was not going to be sequestered, the less dramatic the recounting of the trial was on every evening newscast, the better it would be for her client.

  “Secondhand verbal accounts are far less exploitive than full-color moving pictures of the actual event,” she told Joan Wills. “This way, the case will have a better chance of being decided by twelve hopefully emotionally stable people than by two hundred and sixty million potential hysterics.”

  “Yes, but which twelve people?” Joan wondered aloud.

  “Well, idealistically, we’re looking for twelve open minds,” Dana said. “But realistically, the chances of finding them are slim to none. So, absent neutrality, well try for as many pro-life supporters as we can get.”

  “Which of course means the other side will be going after all the pro-choicers,” Joan observed, wrinkling her nose at the irony.

  “In an adversarial system,” Dana conceded, “that’s the way it works.”

  Abraham Bendali’s courtroom suited him well. A large and airy rectangle located on the ninth floor, it was one of only several to have escaped the major remodeling fervor of the 1970s. It still boasted its original linoleum tile flooring, worn by time and use, and its heavy dark oak woodwork, scarred and stained with age.

  The room’s walls were hung with portraits of half a dozen of His Honor’s formidable predecessors, whose somber expressions spoke legal volumes as they looked silently down upon current proceedings. On more than one occasion, the present occupant had been observed engaging in one-sided conversations with the paintings.

  The bench itself was large and impressive, and almost managed to dwarf Bendali, which was no small feat. Three steps below him, his staff buzzed around like a colony of ants. It was said that he had been assigned this courtroom because it was the only one in the building big enough to hold him.

  Directly in front of him were two large rectangular tables with captain style chairs drawn up to them. The defendant and his attorneys would occupy the table to Bendali’s right, while the prosecution team would sit at the table closest to the jury.

  Beyond the tables, and of considerably less interest to the judge, were the spectator seats, which must surely have been designed with repentance in mind. There were six rows of high-backed wooden benches on either side of a center aisle, all uncomfortable in their uprightness.

  At eight o’clock on Tuesday morning, the judge was in his courtroom, ensconced in his oversized leather chair, with a coffee mug at his elbow. As he looked out across the empty seats, he was quietly contemplating the beginning of his final trial. He had already made the decision to retire, although no one else knew it yet. And what a trial to go out on, he was thinking, whichever way it went.

  Bendali was neither deaf nor blind. He knew what was going on, what had been going on for months now, outside his windows, and it had little to do with the bombing of Hill House. Moreover, he knew it was just a matter of time before it would spill into his courtroom, and he would have to deal with it. Without doubt, the Hill House trial was going to be the most difficult of his career.

  He took a long sip of his coffee. After forty years in the legal profession, he knew he wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

  At fifteen minutes before nine, Robert Niera quietly entered the courtroom. The thirty-year-old bailiff rather resembled a marmot, with large dark eyes in a pleasant face. He cleared his throat softly, inducing Bendali to look up.

  “It’s a quarter to, Your Honor,” Robert said.

  “Oh, is it already?” the judge murmured. “Thank you, Robert.” He heaved himself out of his chair, and with a last look around at what had been his home away from home for more than two decades, retreated to his chambers, his bailiff snatching up the coffee mug and following in his wake.

  It would not have done for Robert to have his judge in sight when the first comers began to arrive.

  Dana entered Abraham Bendali’s courtroom and walked down between the rows of spectator seats, her heels clicking along the polished linoleum.

  This was the ninth time that she would be appearing before this judge, and there was something about his courtroom that always reminded her of growing up with her father. Something intangible, that spoke of history, and tradition, and old-fashioned integrity. It was a place where she had always felt safe, and confident of finding justice.

  As she reached the defense table, she found herself hoping, more than at any other time, on any other occasion in her career, that it was not just an illusion.

  “Why do I feel like I should whisper whenever I come in here?” Joan Wills whispered, coming up behind her. “Like I’m in a church, or something.”

  Dana smiled, delighted. “You feel it, too?” she asked.

  “Scared out of my mind? You bet I do,” Joan replied. “It’s like God Himself is going to come down on me just for having the temerity to enter.”

  Dana shook her head. “No, hopeful,” she said. “I always feel hopeful in here.”

  Promptly at nine-thirty, court was called to order.

  “All rise,” Robert Niera recited in a rich baritone. “In the matter of The People of the State of Washington versus Corey Dean Latham, Department 65 of the King County Superior Court is now in session, the Honorable Abraham Bendali presiding.”

  In addition to the attorneys for both sides and their associates, there was a handful of spectators in the court, mostly reporters. It took less than thirty seconds for them all to scramble to their feet. Then the door to the judge’s chambers opened, and with proper ceremony, Bendali took his place on the bench and peered down at those assembled before him.

  Representing the defendant was lead counsel Dana McAuliffe, and Bendali was secretly pleased to see her. Corey Latham, standing nervously at her side, was going to need a strong advocate. To the defendant’s left was Dana’s supporting cast, not the least among them the venerable warhorse Charles Ramsey.

  On the other side of the aisle stood Brian Ayres, his young associate, and two other gentlemen, all looking well pressed and confident, which befitted the representatives of the people.

  “Be seated,” the judge intoned.

  Yesterday, Bendali had dealt with the usual flurry of last-minute motions before turning to the matter of the jury. With Joan Wills and Mark Hoffman in attendance, he had spent the afternoon interviewing the hardship cases; those for whom protracted jury duty would severely impact either their livelihoods or their personal living conditions. Of the one hundred and twenty registered voters summoned to serve, only six had claimed hardship, and after brief examinations, the judge released them all.

  Now would begin the actual process of selecting the twelve jurors and four alternates who would hear the case. Bendali turned to his bailiff.

  “Let’s get started,” he said.

  Robert Niera picked up the telephone. Twenty minutes later, the first group of twenty prospective jurors, whose numbers had been randomly selected from a large, rotating drum, was escorted from C701 to the ninth floor, and installed in the adjacent room. One by one, they would be brought into court, asked to take a seat in the jury box, and called upon to answer questions posed by attorneys on both sid
es.

  “Are we ready?” Dana whispered to Lucy Kashahara, seated to her right for this phase of the trial.

  “As ready as we’re going to get,” Lucy replied.

  Craig Jessup leaned forward. “Don’t worry,” he said with a glance at one of the well-pressed gentlemen seated at the prosecutor’s table. “I’m familiar with the opposition. We’re going to be fine.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  At the end of three weeks, only five members of the jury had been seated by the prosecution and the defense, and the snail’s pace was beginning to grate on everyone, especially Abraham Bendali.

  “I have reservations at Rosario starting on September 9,” the judge announced. “That’s two weeks with my nearest and dearest. That may not sound like much to you, but I have not had the opportunity to spend two weeks with my family for at least ten years, and I do not intend to miss it.” He glared down at the array of attorneys and consultants before him. “Do I make myself clear?”

  Brian Ayres and Dana McAuliffe glanced at each other across the aisle, and then nodded solemnly to the judge.

  The game they played was legal chess, and they were both masters at it, neither of them willing to make a move without first considering every possible countermove. But Bendali had now put them both in check, and they had barely two weeks left to select seven more jurors and four alternates.

  At the age of seventy-seven, Rose Gregory was the oldest member of the jury pool. The sprightly, diminutive grandmother, who was referred to as Juror Number 68, had lived in her Queen Anne home for going on sixty years. A lifelong Republican and devout Christian, Rose was morally opposed to abortion. She was also a faithful follower of the Reverend Jonathan Heal, and never missed his nightly Prayer Hour.

  “What about other kinds of murder?” Brian Ayres asked her. “Are you opposed to them as well?”

  “Certainly, young man,” Rose replied crisply. “I believe that only God can take a life.”

  “So you would agree that committing a murder in order to somehow prevent a murder is wrong?”

  The elderly woman fixed the prosecutor with a sharp eye. “Murder is always wrong, young man,” she declared.

  “Then let me ask you, as this is a capital case, how do you feel about the death penalty?”

  At that, Rose sighed. “I’m not sure,” she replied. “I understand the government’s need to deter certain people from committing violent crimes against others, and I also believe that every man should be held accountable for his deeds. But on the other hand, Romans, Chapter 12, Verse 19, makes it very clear: ’Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.’”

  “Does that mean that you would be unable to sentence the defendant in this case to death, even if you were convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that he had cold-bloodedly murdered one hundred and seventy-six innocent people?”

  “No,” Rose conceded after a pause. “It doesn’t mean that. It just means I would have to think about it, and pray on it, very carefully.”

  On that note, Brian was finished with the prospective juror.

  “Have you formed an opinion about the defendant in this case?” Dana inquired.

  “Well, from everything I’ve read in the newspapers and seen on the television, I gather I’m supposed to think the young man is guilty,” Rose replied. “But I think I’d rather decide that for myself, if you don’t mind.”

  A smile tugged at the corner of Dana’s mouth. Rose Gregory was an ideal juror for the defense. “No, I don’t mind,” she said. “I don’t mind a bit.”

  Juror Number 103 taught history at the McKnight Middle School in Renton. It was not an easy age to motivate, so Stuart Dunn was ecstatic to learn that his jury summons was for the Latham trial. What better civics lesson could he provide his students, he reasoned, than a firsthand account of the justice system in action?

  “Would you like to serve on this jury?” Dana asked.

  “Oh yes,” the soft-spoken, balding educator replied enthusiastically. “This is the most exciting legal event to take place here in the twenty-one years I’ve been teaching.”

  “And from what you’ve read and heard, what do you think about the case so far?”

  “As I’ve cautioned my classes when we’ve discussed jury trials, we don’t know enough about the particulars to think one way or the other, and we won’t know until all the evidence comes out.”

  “And you think you can keep an open mind until then?”

  “Of course,” Stuart said. “As I tell my students, that’s what makes our system work.”

  Brian stood up as Dana sat down. “You’re a married man, aren’t you, sir?” he asked.

  “Yes, I am,” the teacher replied. “Nineteen happy years and counting.”

  “And you have children?”

  “I sure do, six of them.”

  “That’s quite a lot of mouths to feed.”

  “Oh, we manage, thank you,” Stuart said with dignity. “I know you’re thinking that teachers don’t get paid very much in this state, which unfortunately happens to be the case. But my wife went back to finish up her master’s degree in psychology after our youngest started school, and she’s working full time now.”

  “I’m sorry,” Brian said hastily. “I didn’t mean to imply that you… I mean, most of us can’t make it on one income these days.”

  “How true,” the teacher said.

  The prosecutor turned on the charm. “In my blundering way,” he said a bit sheepishly, “I was just trying to set up a scenario here, a hypothetical, if you will.”

  “Go right ahead.”

  “Well, what I was getting to was, let’s say your wife became pregnant with number seven. And let’s say that for whatever reason—physical, or financial, or psychological—she didn’t feel she could handle having another child at that point, and decided to have an abortion without telling you. How would you feel about that?”

  “I think I’d feel absolutely terrible,” Stuart replied, playing along. “Angry and confused, and certainly sick at heart. I admit, having six kids hasn’t been easy at times, but my wife and I, we’ve always rejected the idea of abortion for ourselves.”

  “Would you feel an appropriate response to your wife’s action would be to bomb the facility where the abortion had been performed, and to kill as many people as possible in the process?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Then that leaves me with just one more question. How do you feel about the death penalty?”

  “Another thorny issue, and one that’s frequently debated in my classroom,” the teacher responded. “Well, whether we like it or not, it’s the law of the land, isn’t it? And I suppose, if it should come to it, I’ll abide by the law.”

  The prosecutor was satisfied. Absent an out-and-out advocate for women’s rights, a committed neutral would do.

  “What’s your position on the subject of abortion?” Brian asked a forty-year-old, divorced real estate agent from Bellevue.

  “I think what a woman does with her own body should be up to her,” Karleen McKay, Juror Number 14, responded.

  “Have you been following this case?”

  The still shapely brunette shrugged. “How could I not? I’d have to be deaf and blind to avoid it. It’s been crammed down our throats for months now.”

  “Well then, do you believe that what you’ve heard has influenced you in any way?”

  “Not particularly. Especially when you consider that everything put out there has been pretty much one-sided.”

  “So you think you would be able to keep an open mind if you were selected for this jury?”

  “Yes.”

  Brian gave her an appreciative smile, as much for her appearance as her responses, and took his seat.

  “You just said that everything you’ve heard about this case so far has been pretty much one-sided,” Dana began. “May I take that to mean you didn’t see the Barbara Walters interview in July?”

  “No, as a matter of fact, I did see t
hat,” Karleen replied.

  “Well then, compared to everything else you’d been exposed to during the past few months, how did that come across to you?”

  “Well, to be honest, it was the first positive thing I’d heard about your client,” the Realtor said. “Everything else was so negative. And it made it seem like he was very nice, with a good upbringing and good values and all. Of course, it was his parents doing the talking, so it stands to reason they would want to show him in the best possible light.”

  “Do you think that the interview in any way tempered some of the other perceptions being circulated about this case?”

  “Yes, I think it did. The police and the prosecutors have really gone out of their way to try to demonize the defendant, you know. And don’t get me wrong, I can understand that it’s their job to do that sort of thing. But the interview with the parents was sort of sweet, and it tried to humanize him. I liked that.”

  “I understand that you’re pro-choice,” Dana continued, changing direction.

  “That’s right.”

  “Tell me, is that a personal conviction or a political one?”

  The Realtor shrugged. “I’m not sure I understand where the line gets drawn. I believe that the right of free choice is fundamental to freedom. I would hate to think what would happen if we lost that right. Do I believe that abortion should be used as a convenient method of birth control? No, I absolutely don’t. Would I campaign to keep abortion legal? Yes, if it came to that, I think I would. But would I get all militant about it, like some people out there do? Probably not.”

  “May I ask, have you ever had an abortion?”

  “Yes, I have,” Karleen replied, not at all defensively. “It was some years ago, and I believe it was the right thing for me to do at the time. Would I make the same decision today?” She shrugged. “I’m not sure. But I certainly wouldn’t want anyone telling me I couldn’t.”

  “Thank you,” Dana said softly, sincerely. “I appreciate your candor. Now, you told the prosecutor a few moments ago that you felt you could keep an open mind during this trial. Forgive me, but I must ask—do you truly believe you can keep your own personal experience from influencing you?”