Cruel Doubt

by Joe McGinniss

  * * *

  Judge Thomas Watts was only fifty, but looked at least ten years older. He was balding, bespectacled, and since birth, had suffered from hemophilia. He walked with a cane and wore a hearing aid. His grandfather had been a Baptist minister (a distinction shared, it sometimes seemed, by approximately half the population of the state), and he had grown up in western North Carolina, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains.

  “I’m a bleeder,” he once said. “One of the few that makes it to this age. When I was born, my parents were told I had a life expectancy of well under a year. So I sort of operate under the philosophy that every time the sun comes up, that’s another one on the plus side of the ledger. I had bad knees, I had joint injuries, and there were no treatments in those days except to immobilize the area that was bleeding and put ice on it. I spent probably forty percent of my first ten years in the hospital.”

  His physical infirmities caused Thomas Watts to become a voracious reader at an early age, and the habit had stayed with him. He grew up a Democrat and still claimed Franklin D. Roosevelt as one of his greatest heroes. He graduated from Davidson College, then Wake Forest Law School, and worked as a district attorney before being appointed to the bench in 1982.

  He had Scottish blood in him, even owned a kilt, which he wore to folk festivals in the mountains. He’d been married to the same woman for twenty-seven years and had a twenty-five-year-old daughter who worked in public relations. But the law was perhaps his greatest passion. He read about it, he thought deeply about it, he approached it with a respect bordering on reverence.

  His favorite necktie was imprinted with images of the statue of justice from the Old Bailey courthouse in London. “That statue,” he once explained when asked, “has three unique things about it. She obviously has the scales, and it’s appropriate that justice should have the scales to finely weigh and balance the equities of a case. But she also carries in her right hand an upright sword, because justice should have the power to impose punishment if necessary. That is her strength; the majesty and force to impose the rule of an orderly and civilized society upon the public.

  “But the most unique thing about the British figure of justice—which is absolutely different from the statues of justice you see in the United States—is that she is not blindfolded. Her eyes are open, so she can see the truth. And that summarizes my philosophy: justice should have her eyes open and should always be looking for the truth.”

  * * *

  It was before Judge Watts that Jim Vosburgh stood at ten A.M. on January 2 and said, “Your Honor, we have entered into a plea agreement with the district attorney. We would like to withdraw our pleas of not guilty and enter pleas in accordance with the plea arrangement and transcript, which will be taken by the court.”

  Judge Watts, speaking in a deep, scratchy voice heavy with the accent of western North Carolina—more of a flat, slow drawl than the thicker, more purely Southern accent common to the eastern part of the state—told Chris Pritchard to step forward and to place his hand on a Bible that was passed to him, and to swear to tell the truth.

  Chris, looking pale and nervous, ill at ease in suit and tie, stood and did so. Then Judge Watts looked down at him with an expression in which no glimmer of sympathy was apparent.

  “Just remain standing, if you will, Mr. Pritchard,” the judge said, “and answer my questions in a good, loud voice so that the court reporter and all of us can hear what you have to say. First of all, are you able to hear and understand me?

  “Yes, sir,” Chris said, his voice not loud at all.

  “Do you understand that you have the right to remain silent and that any statement you make may be used against you?”

  “Yes, sir, I do.”

  “Are you now under the influence of alcohol, narcotics, medicines, pills, or any other form of intoxicants?”

  “No, sir.”

  “How long has it been since you used or consumed any intoxicating substance of any type?”

  “I had a beer last night, sir.”

  “Is that still in your system?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Do you feel any effects of that?”

  “No. I had it with my food.”

  Judge Watts asked Chris if he’d discussed his case fully with his attorneys (yes), and if he was satisfied with their legal services (yes), and if he understood that he was pleading guilty to two felony charges—aiding and abetting murder in the second degree, and aiding and abetting an assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill and inflicting serious injury (yes), and if he understood also that on the second-degree murder charge he could be imprisoned for a possible maximum sentence of either life or fifty years (he did), and that the presumed fair sentence for murder in the second degree as set by the state’s General Assembly was fifteen years (he did), and that the second charge carried a maximum punishment of twenty years, and that the presumed fair sentence for that one was six years (he did), and if he understood that he had the right to plead not guilty and to have each of those charges decided by a jury, and at such a trial he would have the right to confront and cross-examine any witness who would testify against him (he did), and that by pleading guilty he was giving up those rights and all other important constitutional rights relating to trial by jury (he did).

  “Do you now personally plead guilty to the charge of aiding and abetting in the second-degree murder of Lieth Von Stein?” Judge Watts asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Are you in fact guilty of that charge?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you now personally plead guilty to aiding and abetting an assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill and inflicting serious bodily injury upon Bonnie Von Stein?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And are you in fact guilty of that charge?”

  “Yes, sir, I am.”

  The judge then accepted the change of plea and permitted Chris to remain free under the conditions of his original bond until he was sentenced.

  And so Bonnie’s new life began. Even as Chris and Angela and Jim Vosburgh left the courthouse and Elizabeth City, Bonnie remained.

  Alone in the courtroom, she was approached by John Taylor. He said that now that Chris had pleaded guilty, Mitchell Norton was wondering if perhaps, despite their past differences, Bonnie would sit on the prosecution side of the aisle. It was, after all, Lieth and Bonnie whom the State was representing, and the jury might find it peculiar to have her sitting on the “wrong” side of the courtroom, with the defense.

  It was still so hard for her to recognize that the “defense” no longer included her. That these people, whom for so many months she had considered the enemy, were now her friends. Or even if she could never come to consider them friends, that at least they were no longer seeking to do her harm.

  She gathered her notepaper and pocketbook and coat and moved in front of the railing that separated the trial’s principals from courtroom spectators. There, on the left side, she took a seat alongside Taylor and Lewis Young, directly behind the table at which Mitchell Norton and Keith Mason sat.

  The realignment, however, would not prove simple for either side. Grudges long nursed are not easily dissipated, especially when the aggrieved party must, at least implicitly, admit to having been wrong.

  The problem worsens when the aggrieved party is a mother whose son has just told her he really did try to have her murdered, and when the district attorney still harbors a faint suspicion that this apparently pitiful victim might be something other than what she seems.

  * * *

  Late in the week, after the jury had been selected and with the trial in recess until the following Monday, Wade asked Bonnie to come to his office. Like Lewis Young before him Norton had turned to Wade for help in solving what he feared could be a serious problem.

  Wade explained to
Bonnie that Norton would be calling her as one of his first witnesses, but that the district attorney was extremely concerned about what she would say about the shape of the shadowy figure in her bedroom. Her insistence that it could not have been Upchurch would undermine the prosecution from the start.

  She arrived at Wade’s office, as requested, at nine A.M. Friday, January 5. To her surprise, Mitchell Norton, Lewis Young, and John Taylor were already there. Wade told her he’d been meeting with the three of them since eight-thirty.

  Wade said he was almost finished talking with the three members of the prosecution team, and that as soon as he was, they could all talk together. Bonnie sat in the waiting room outside his office and began to make notes. She didn’t like this. Even if she was now, in theory, a member—or at least a supporter—of their “team,” she didn’t like them talking to her lawyer behind her back when she couldn’t hear what they were saying.

  “9:10 A.M.,” she wrote. “He asked for about ten minutes with others.

  “9:37—Conference without me still in progress.

  “9:50—Same situation. I am still sitting in lobby, waiting. This is no surprise as far as prosecution group. It is a surprise from Mr. Smith.

  “9:55—As the minutes pass by, I become increasingly dismayed.

  “10:00—All four pass by and enter elevator. Mr. Smith says, ‘Bonnie, we’ll be ready for you in just a little while. Don’t go to sleep!’ I made no response other than to nod my head in acquiescence. Actually, I don’t quite trust my voice at this point. I really do not want to reveal my total dismay.

  “10:05—It’s time to release the building tension. I ask Mr. Smith’s secretary for a cup of hot tea to help pass the time and calm the rising frustration.

  “10:20—Situation has not changed. At 7:45 A.M. Wade Smith said Mr. Norton wanted to meet with him at 9 A.M. and then with me and him at 9:30. I stated this was not desirable to me since I was footing the bill and there was nothing Mr. Norton could not say in my presence. We agreed (Mr. Smith and I) that all would meet at 9:00 together.

  “10:35—Same situation exists.

  “10:40—No change in situation. I still sit here with the clock running. I do not feel there can be any satisfactory explanation for this disregard of our previous agreement that I would be included in the conference I will be expected to pay for.

  “10:45—I made a trip to the ladies’ room.

  “10:50—No change in situation.

  “10:55—Finally, Mr. Smith calls me into his office.”

  By then, Bonnie said, the thought paramount in her mind was, “What’s this conspiracy here? They’re going to ask me to do something I’m not going to be capable of doing. At that moment, I felt betrayed. On the other hand, I still trusted Wade.”

  Once again, Wade Smith found himself in the uncomfortable position of balancing what he perceived to be his client’s best interests against what she herself might think they were. Wade feared that if the man who stood accused of murdering Lieth went free because of Bonnie’s testimony, she would be plagued by doubt and fear for years to come.

  She knew now, from Chris, that Upchurch had plotted with him. Upchurch had been with him the night before, waiting in the shack, planning to burn down the house. Upchurch had wanted to buy the machete. Upchurch had the prior criminal record for breaking and entering. Upchurch had tried to flee when the police had come looking for him, in contrast to Henderson, who had stepped forward voluntarily to cooperate.

  In fact, even in the absence of physical evidence, the case against Upchurch seemed most persuasive to Wade, especially now that Henderson’s testimony could be bolstered by that of Bonnie’s own son. The only serious impediment to conviction seemed to be Bonnie’s insistence that it could not have been Upchurch whom she’d seen.

  And so, when Norton asked for a chance to meet with him and his client prior to her testimony, Wade decided that such a conference might serve both her interests and the interests of justice.

  * * *

  During the two hours that Bonnie spent brooding and fretting, Norton and Taylor and Young were explaining to Wade every aspect of their evidence, and lack of evidence.

  One new factor was particularly troubling, they said. The story Chris told deviated, in significant ways, from the statement Henderson had given them. They almost felt as if they’d been duped. The murder plot could not have unfolded the way Chris said it had, if Henderson’s story—to which they were thoroughly committed—was correct in all details. The basic elements of the two accounts were similar, but especially in the area of timing, glaring contradictions existed.

  Norton feared that Chris’s confession might have introduced more problems than it solved. This, he said, made it all the more urgent for Bonnie to, at the very least, soften her view that Upchurch could not have been the person she’d seen in her room.

  It was bad enough, Norton emphasized, that she would probably insist, on telling the jury how back in September she’d jumped up and run from the courtroom in terror upon first laying eyes on Henderson, while the sight of Upchurch had provoked no reaction whatsoever.

  Lewis Young argued that Bonnie’s increasing certainty about Henderson’s being the person in her room had arisen from the fact that she was, and would always be, defensive about her son’s involvement. Despite what Chris had confessed to, she would continue to search for ways to minimize and excuse the extent of his guilt. And she’d never forgive Neal Henderson for having been the one who had first pointed the finger at her son. In Young’s opinion, her view that Henderson had been the attacker was a function of his cooperation with law enforcement, rather than an honest recollection.

  “She couldn’t say doodlysquat” about the shape or size of her assailant, Young said, when he had first questioned her in the hospital. This whole “no-neck” business, in his view, had only sprung up after Henderson’s statement had led to Chris’s arrest. Now, Young said, she didn’t care about Upchurch getting convicted. Her own son had been caught, and any other chips could fall where they may.

  Bonnie, of course, remained adamant that absolute truth and honesty—as she defined those concepts—were what she owed to herself and to the memory of Lieth. She was not the sort to be bent by pressure. The harder they pushed, the harder she’d resist, as she’d already shown. This was what Wade spent most of the morning explaining to Norton, Taylor, and Young.

  Eventually they agreed that Wade and Wade alone would try to find a way to help Bonnie persuade herself that she might not be quite as positive as she thought she was about the identity of the assailant.

  And that’s what Wade began to do, when, after keeping her waiting for two hours, he led her into his private office and closed the door.

  * * *

  It was, perhaps, the strangest encounter he’d ever had with a client. After apologizing for the long delay, he explained that he wanted to replicate, as closely as possible, the conditions that had existed in her bedroom the night she’d been attacked.

  This had already been a very upsetting morning for her, coming after a very upsetting week, which had concluded a very upsetting month, which had come after almost a year and a half of unremitting anguish, which had flowed from as terrifying a moment as anyone could possibly experience. And now the one person left on earth in whom she had absolute faith wanted to reproduce that moment.

  He asked Bonnie to lie on his office floor. He then stepped behind his desk and pulled his heavy draperies closed. He turned off the lights. Then he asked Bonnie, who was terribly nearsighted, to take off her glasses.

  Then he loomed over her, as had the man who’d tried to kill her.

  “What would it take to make me look like the person in your bedroom that night?” Wade asked.

  She said he would need more bulk in the upper body and less of a neck. Even in the darkened office, even with her glasses off, even Wade—w
ho did have the barrel-chested look of the Carolina halfback he’d once been—did not resemble the figure she’d seen. But if he stepped back a bit, increasing the distortion caused by her nearsightedness, maybe then she would not be quite so sure.

  He took two steps backward.

  No, she said, he still didn’t look like her attacker. He needed more bulk and less neck.

  So he went to his office closet and took out his overcoat and put it on, bunching the shoulders up high and squeezing his neck down into the collar of the coat. Then he held his hands clasped high above him, as if preparing to swing down with a bat.

  “How about now?”

  “Well,” Bonnie said doubtfully, “that might be a little closer.”

  “All right,” Wade said, “you see, you can’t really be certain of exactly what you saw that night. Under the right circumstances, even I can wind up looking like the person who attacked you.”

  “Well,” Bonnie said, “I’m not sure.”

  That, Wade said, was just the point. She couldn’t be sure. And not being sure, she could then truthfully testify that it was at least possible that the person she’d seen in her room that night was James Upchurch. And that was all that anyone wanted her to say. Just that, and no more. Just leave open the possibility, so that the case against Upchurch would not totally collapse.

  Wade went through the motions again: raising his hands and clasping them over his head, so his neck almost disappeared.

  “Yes,” Bonnie said, “under these circumstances, and after all your contortions, I would honestly be able to say you’ve changed your appearance enough so you do bear some resemblance to the person I saw that night.”

  “That’s fine,” Wade said. “That’s all you’ll ever be asked to say. Nothing untruthful, nothing you don’t honestly believe. Just that it is a possibility.”