Illegal Alien

by Robert J. Sawyer

“On the contrary, I’m sure they will. It’ll be a fight, but we’ll win—at least on that point.”

  “You’re sure?”

  Rice took another bite of his sandwich. “Well—nothing’s ever completely certain.”

  Frank frowned. “I was afraid of that.”

  Pretrial motions were supervised by the same judge who would preside over the actual trial: Drucilla Pringle. Pringle was forty-nine years old. She was the kind of woman usually referred to as “handsome” rather than “beautiful,” with smooth, cold features. Her skin was white; her hair chestnut brown, cut short. She wore wire-frame glasses and little makeup.

  The biggest fight at this stage was over whether the trial should be televised. Judge Pringle ultimately ruled that it would be, given the extraordinary interest the peoples of the entire world had in the outcome of the case. But there were dozens of other motions as well:

  “Your Honor,” said Dale, “we move that the jury be sequestered. The media interest in this trial will be huge, and there’s no way to keep the jury from being exposed to possibly biased coverage.”

  “Your Honor,” said Ziegler, “I think we’ve all been conscious ever since Simpson of the incredible hardship sequestration poses. Surely with a trial that may go on at great length, we can’t make prisoners out of all the jurors and alternates.”

  “I’ve read your brief on this, Mr. Rice,” said Drucilla Pringle, “but I agree with Ms. Ziegler. The jurors will be instructed to avoid media coverage, but they will get to go home and sleep in their own beds each night.”

  “Very well,” said Dale. “We move that no photographic evidence of Dr. Calhoun’s corpse be introduced. Such evidence could only serve to inflame the jury.”

  “Your Honor,” said Linda Ziegler, rising, “the People vigorously oppose any limitation on photographic evidence. The jury questionnaire will enable us to screen out particularly squeamish individuals. Obviously, a significant portion of our case hinges on demonstrating that the method of killing is one no human would employ. There’s no better evidence of the method than the crime-scene photos showing the mutilated corpse.”

  Judge Pringle frowned while she considered this. Finally: “You lose this one, Mr. Rice. But, Ms. Ziegler, I will shut you down so fast it’ll make your head spin if your use of the photos ever goes beyond the merely probative.”

  “Very well,” said Dale, “but we further move, Your Honor, out of deference to Dr. Calhoun’s family, that only the jury be shown the photos of the corpse and removed organs.”

  “The public is entitled to something, Mr. Rice,” said Pringle.

  “We suggest stylized drawings be made, representing the injuries.”

  “You’re setting me up for another battle with the media lawyers,” said Pringle, “and I’m not convinced your concern is over the family’s feelings. You’re hoping for a hung jury, and don’t want to inflame the potential jurors for any second trial.”

  Dale spread his arms. “You do me a disservice, Your Honor.”

  Pringle scowled, unconvinced. “Pending review of the arguments from the media attorneys, I’ll agree to a ban on publication of the pictures while this trial is in progress; I’ll reserve judgment on whether the ban should remain in place following the handing down of a verdict.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” said Dale. “Next, the defense moves…”

  The jury questionnaire, prepared jointly by the prosecution and the defense, contained three hundred and eleven questions. It started off predictably enough, asking for information about age, ethnicity, marital status, employment, level of education, spouse or partner’s background, previous legal or courtroom experiences, political affiliation, organization memberships, and so on. It also asked if the potential juror knew the defendant, the decedent, any of the lawyers, the judge, or any of the courtroom staff.

  In addition, it asked about the prospective juror’s beliefs concerning the legal process:

  Do you believe that a defendant in a criminal case should testify or produce some evidence to prove that he or she is not guilty? If yes, please explain why.

  To each of the following statements, indicate if you strongly agree, agree, disagree, disagree strongly, or have no opinion:

  “If the prosecution goes to the trouble of bringing someone to trial, the person is probably guilty.”

  “Celebrities are treated better by our court system than other people.”

  The questionnaire also looked at possible bias from exposure to the extensive news coverage of the Calhoun murder:

  Which of the following best describes how you would describe the media coverage overall? Biased in favor of the prosecution? Biased in favor of the defense? Basically fair to both sides?

  It also asked about the Tosoks:

  What was your first reaction to hearing that one of the Tosok explorers was a suspect in this case?

  Have you ever seen a Tosok in person? If yes, please explain the circumstances.

  Will you hold the prosecution to a higher standard than is legally required because the defendant is from another planet? Because of possible repercussions for the human race?

  Does the fact the defendant comes from a civilization more technologically advanced than our own make it unlikely in your mind that he could commit murder?

  And then came what Linda Ziegler had dubbed the “space-cadet questions”:

  Before the arrival of the Tosoks on Earth, did you read any nonfiction books, articles, or magazines concerning life on other worlds? If yes, please specify, and briefly describe what you recall having read.

  Have you ever read any fiction (including science fiction) dealing with life on other worlds, or with aliens having come to Earth? If yes, please specify, and briefly describe what you recall having read.

  Which of the following TV series have you watched regularly now or in the past? For those that you have seen, indicate whether you agreed with, disagreed with, or had no opinion about the portrayal of alien lifeforms:

  ALF

  Babylon 5

  Lost in Space

  Mork & Mindy

  Any Star Trek series

  The X Files

  Members of LASFS, the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, helped in putting together a series of such questions. Apparently, anyone who agreed with the ALF, Star Trek, or Mork & Mindy portrayals of aliens would be biased in favor of the defense, whereas those who liked the Babylon 5, Lost in Space, or X Files portrayals would be biased toward the prosecution.

  Regardless of which way they leaned, any out-and-out SF fans or space buffs had to be disqualified, hence these questions:

  What’s the name of Mr. Spock’s father?

  Do you know what the initials SETI stand for?

  Have you ever attended a science-fiction convention?

  Have you ever seen a UFO?

  As with most Los Angeles trials likely to generate considerable media interest, The People of California v. Hask was scheduled into the main downtown Criminal Courts Building. That meant that jury pool had to be drawn from residents of central L.A. A thousand people were summoned. Of course, not all of them showed up. Men, in particular, often simply disregard jury-duty notices; since little follow-up is ever done, they usually get away with it.

  Every one of those who did show up was asked to fill in the jury questionnaire. Over seven hundred prospective jurors were eliminated based on their responses.

  Among the reasons potential jurors were excused: they were single parents, or had an elderly relative living with them, or were in a precarious financial situation. One man had the irritable bowel syndrome—and a doctor’s note to prove it. Another was on a waiting list for a kidney transplant and could not guarantee he’d remain available until the end of the trial. A woman in her seventh month of pregnancy was let go as well.

  Also struck from the list: all those who had difficulty seeing or hearing, or who couldn’t read or write English effectively. Five people were dismissed because they knew one of the l
awyers or court staff members—one had been to a lecture Dale had given once and had gotten him to autograph a book.

  The remaining one hundred and eighty-five potential jurors—as always in central L.A., predominantly black, predominantly female, predominantly blue-collar or unemployed—were then examined by the lawyers during the process known as voir dire. And, at long last, a total of twelve jurors and six alternates were selected.

  Kelkad, captain of the starship, had just returned to Valcour Hall from a meeting at Rockwell International. Frank was in the lounge on the fourth floor with Hask, and they greeted Kelkad as he came off the elevator. “How are the repairs going?” the human asked.

  Kelkad’s tuft waved in a way that signaled disappointment. “Slowly.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” said Frank.

  “I suppose it cannot be helped,” said Kelkad. “But, although your race is backward technically, I am most impressed by the speed with which your engineers have grasped our concepts. They really are remarkable.”

  Frank grinned. “Darn clever, these humans, eh? Better watch it, Kelkad. Before you know it, we’ll leapfrog right past you.”

  Kelkad didn’t laugh. But there was nothing unusual about that.

  CHAPTER

  16

  Judge Pringle’s courtroom was on the ninth floor of the Los Angeles County Criminal Courts Building—the floor the Simpson criminal trial had been held on, the floor that required all persons to be searched before entering it.

  The walls were paneled in California redwood. Pringle’s bench was mounted against the back wall, beneath a carved wooden version of the California state seal. The California flag, with its brown bear, was hanging from one pole to the judge’s right of the bench, and a U.S. flag hung from another. On the bench the judge had a computer monitor, an open laptop computer, and over a dozen law books held up by black metal bookends.

  Facing the bench was the defense table, on the judge’s right, and the prosecution table, on her left. Each of the tables had a computer monitor and a video monitor mounted on it. In between them was a lectern where the lawyer asking questions could stand—the days when attorneys loomed right into the witness’s face, à la Perry Mason, were long gone.

  The jury box was next to the prosecution table. It held a double row of seven padded chairs; two of the alternates would sit with the main jurors. The actual jurors—seven women and five men; six blacks, three Latinos, two whites, and an Asian—all wore bar-coded badges.

  Next to the jury box, the camera for Court TV was set up; it was actually controlled by a technician at the back of the room, using two little joysticks.

  At the side of the room, behind the bailiff’s desk, six Tosok chairs had been installed so that Kelkad, Rendo, Torbat, Dodnaskak, Stant, and Ged could watch their shipmate stand trial; the Tosoks had spent the last several weeks screening videotapes of various previous murder trials so that they would understand procedures and proper conduct.

  Frank Nobilio had a seat in the first row of the public gallery, directly behind where Dale Rice was sitting. Frank had been allowed this spot as a courtesy; he didn’t have to line up overnight along with the other members of the public. On Rice’s left sat Hask, in a special chair. As always, he was wearing a grayish-brown tunic covered with many pockets. On Rice’s right sat Michiko Katayama, his associate, a slim thirty-five-year-old woman.

  Judge Pringle, clad in black judicial robes, wrote something on a legal pad, then looked up. “Are counsel ready to proceed?”

  “Ready, Your Honor,” said Linda Ziegler.

  “Ready, Your Honor,” said Dale Rice. As was his tradition on the first day of trial, he was wearing an absolutely pristine white silk tie; he wouldn’t get to speak, except for objections, until after the prosecution’s opening statement, but he wanted to send a message of innocence to the jury in those crucial first moments.

  “You may begin, Ms. Ziegler,” said Pringle.

  Ziegler got up from the prosecution table and came over to stand in front of the jury box. She was wearing a navy-blue jacket over a white blouse. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, as you know from voir dire, my name is Linda Ziegler, and I’m a senior deputy district attorney for Los Angeles County. My associate in this case is Trina Diamond; you’ll hear from her later in the trial.

  “You don’t need me to tell you that this is an unusual case. The defendant in this trial is not a human being. Rather, he is an alien, an extraterrestrial, an entity from another world. We’re all sophisticated people, ladies and gentlemen. We’ve all been around. But, still, I know from our discussions during voir dire that you are like me. You might have believed that life on other worlds was theoretically possible—we live in a big universe, after all, and it seemed unlikely, if we stopped to think about it, that this one tiny planet orbiting an unremarkable star, might be the only home of life in all of creation—but you never thought that the question would be anything more than the subject of documentaries on The Learning Channel, or shows like the decedent’s Great Balls of Fire!

  “But all that’s changed in the last few months, hasn’t it? Aliens have come to Earth! As a species, we rose remarkably well to this event. Perhaps remembering all of our own botched encounters between formerly isolated peoples on this world, we managed to deal with the arrival of the starship in a civilized manner.

  “And, you know, it was wonderful to meet the Tosok aliens, wasn’t it? We extended the hand of friendship to these new arrivals.

  “But things did not stay wonderful for long, ladies and gentleman, and that’s why you’re here today. Dr. Cletus Calhoun was—there’s no other word for it, is there?—was butchered, his body carved up, his organs scattered about. I see some of you wincing, and I do regret, dear people, that we will have to dwell on the details of this grisly crime during the course of the trial.

  “As you know, Hask, one of the seven Tosoks who have come to Earth, has been charged in the death of Dr. Calhoun. Ms. Diamond and I, on behalf of the People of California, will demonstrate to you, beyond any reasonable doubt, that Hask did, willfully, knowing full well what he was doing, murder Dr. Calhoun. We are seeking a conviction on the charge of first-degree murder. To substantiate such a charge, we have to demonstrate that the method was within the reach of the defendant—and it was, and we shall prove that to you, beyond all reasonable doubt. And, because we are seeking a first-degree conviction, we must also demonstrate that this crime was no spontaneous act of self-defense, nor a momentary lapse into unthinking rage, but rather was premeditated, was contemplated in advance, was planned by the defendant, and carried out—indeed, was executed—with purposeful deliberation—and this, too, we shall prove to you, beyond all reasonable doubt…”

  Eventually, it was Dale’s turn. He rose slowly and crossed in front of the prosecution’s table as he made his way over to stand in front of the jury box. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “my name, as you may recall, is Dale Rice, and I’m representing the defendant, Hask. My co-counsel is Ms. Michiko Katayama.

  “Now, I bet all of you have seen Perry Mason, but I don’t want you to have any unrealistic ideas about what a defense attorney does. Good ol’ Perry, he used to browbeat everyone on the witness stand until someone other than the defendant confessed. Well, that’s unlikely to happen in this trial. The State has accused my client of murder, but as the judge will instruct you, the simple fact that he’s been accused is not to be taken at all as evidence of guilt. My client has pleaded innocent. And you must understand that he has no obligation—absolutely none—to prove that innocence.

  “Nor do we, as his defense lawyers, have any obligation to provide an alternative explanation of how Cletus Calhoun came to be dead. The most natural thing in the world for you to ask yourselves is, ‘Well, if Hask didn’t do it, who did?’ But you cannot convict based on that question. You can only convict based on the actual evidence in this case. And if that evidence leaves a reasonable doubt in your mind about my client’s guilt, then you
must acquit him, even if that means the murder of Cletus Calhoun remains unsolved. Yes, the crime in question was horrible and brutal, and yes, we all want someone to pay for it. But you are in a tricky position: the only person you can make pay for it is my client. So, you must exercise great caution and great restraint: you must be sure that your natural desire to see someone pay, combined with the fact that the only person you have the ability to punish is Hask, does not sway you to find him guilty when there is still doubt in your mind about whether he really did commit the crime.

  “There’s another unusual circumstance in this case. It’s conceivable that if Hask did not commit the murder, then perhaps one of the other Tosoks did. But you can no more allow the wrong Tosok to be punished than you could allow the wrong human to be punished. The mentality that ‘one of them did it, so one of them should pay’ can have no place in your deliberations. Each of the seven Tosoks is an individual. You must be convinced beyond reasonable doubt that this specific Tosok, my client Hask, committed the murder if you are to find him personally responsible for it…”

  CHAPTER

  17

  Opening arguments consumed an entire day. At ten A.M. the next day, the prosecution’s case-in-chief began.

  “On the record now in California v. Hask,” said Judge Pringle, taking her place at the bench. “The defendant is present, as are his attorneys, Mr. Rice and Ms. Katayama. The People are represented by Ms. Ziegler and Ms. Diamond. The jury is present. Are the People ready to proceed?”

  “We are, Your Honor,” said Ziegler.

  “Very well. You may call your first witness.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” said Ziegler, moving over to stand in front of the lectern. The Court TV camera panned to follow her. “The People call Dr. Anne Flemingdon.”

  Flemingdon was a tough-looking white woman in her forties, broad shouldered, round-headed, with short-cropped hair that she was content to let show its gray. She was wearing a dark-blue jacket over a pale green blouse, and matching blue pants.