Dying Declaration

by Randy Singer

  Nikki nodded her head, never taking her gaze off the professor. This level of commitment to even a scoundrel like Buster Jackson only confirmed that Charles Arnold was the right guy for the Hammond case.

  “So if I could have a show of hands of those who might be interested. I’ll send around a sign-up sheet but just wanted to get a feel . . .”

  Hands darted up all over the classroom. Nikki noticed that all five of the African American students volunteered, as did a couple of Hispanics. The whites were about evenly divided. Nikki suspected there were some who secretly hoped their professor would lose.

  “Thanks,” the professor said. “We’ll have plenty. Now let’s turn to the case of State v. Cromwell, page 409 of your text.”

  While the pages shuffled, Nikki decided to make her play. Her hand shot up but appeared to go unnoticed. She cleared her throat a few times until some of the students turned around to give her disdainful looks. Professor Arnold tried to ignore her but finally gave in.

  “Ms. Moreno?”

  “Yes, um, I’m new at this constitutional law stuff. But I was just wondering, do you think that this guy Buster is guilty? I mean, do you think he really was selling drugs?”

  Eyes began rolling up into foreheads all over the classroom. These were sophisticated law students aching to be aggressive lawyers. They could not afford the luxury of getting hung up on guilt or innocence.

  “That’s a good question that many of us have wrestled with at some point,” the professor explained patiently. “But at the end of the day, it’s not a question for us to answer as criminal defense lawyers. Our job is to vigorously represent the defendant. That’s our only job. And part of that job is to ensure that the Constitution is followed.

  “If you’re going to be a criminal defense lawyer, Ms. Moreno, then you must believe in your heart of hearts that it is better for ten guilty men to go free than for one innocent man to go to jail. If you can’t buy that notion, then maybe you should be a prosecutor.”

  He turned back to his book, signaling his intention to move on. This time Nikki didn’t even bother to raise her hand. “So what you’re saying then, Charles—” he shot her a look—“I’m sorry, I mean Professor Arnold, is that a good criminal defense lawyer has to be willing to take cases that are unpopular?”

  “Exactly,” the professor said.

  “Even if you might dislike the defendant?”

  “Yes, particularly if you dislike the defendant and particularly if there’s an overriding constitutional principle at stake.”

  “Then let me pose you a hypothetical situation,” Nikki said, ignoring the professor’s sigh, “to make sure I understand this. Let’s say there’s a fundamentalist white redneck whom you don’t like as a person, but you’re pretty sure that he is being prosecuted for political reasons. Let’s just say that a deputy commonwealth’s attorney, who will probably run for the top prosecutor’s job in November, decides to prosecute this man simply because he failed to take his son to the hospital for medical help when his son first got sick. And let’s also suppose that the reason this man didn’t take his son to the hospital is because he has strong religious convictions against receiving any kind of medical treatment, which means there is an important constitutional principle at stake, namely the principle of religious freedom. Now let’s assume this hypothetical redneck asks you to be his lawyer.” She paused for emphasis—the whole class had turned and was looking at her, some shaking their heads. “Would you take that case?”

  Charles smirked and shook his head too. “That’s quite an elaborate hypothetical, Ms. Moreno. And here’s my hypothetical answer: Part of being a good lawyer is realizing that you can’t personally handle every case, that you’ve got to trust the system to mete out justice in most situations. You can only pick and choose those cases where you would make the most difference. In this case, I would assume, hypothetically speaking of course, that our alleged criminal would have a public defender who could make the necessary arguments to ensure that justice was done. So you can therefore tell your hypothetical redneck friend, Ms. Moreno, that I would not be available to offer my assistance.”

  The professor took his penetrating brown eyes from Nikki and glanced down at his class roster. He ran his finger down the page while the classroom fell into a tense silence. “Mr. Bircham,” he said, “could you please tell us the facts of State v. Cromwell?”

  This time the hand raising and throat clearing didn’t seem to work, so Nikki stood up at her desk and just projected her voice loud enough to drown out Bircham.

  “But let’s suppose, Professor, just for the sake of argument, that the public defender is totally incompetent and can hardly stay awake during the hearings. What then? Does the Constitution protect only people of color, like Buster Jackson, while white men have to rot in jail while a stranger raises their kids?”

  Bircham stopped talking as Professor Arnold placed his heavy textbook on the podium, thrust his hands in his pockets, and took a few steps toward the students, staring at the ground. He stood there for a couple of seconds, allowing the silence to make a resounding point. The students stared at their books or computers.

  Then, very deliberately, the professor lifted his eyes and locked on to Nikki, the taut lines on his face revealing a smoldering frustration. When at last he spoke, it was in a soft and steady tone, conversational but curt, as if it took every ounce of his self-control not to lash out at her.

  “In my classroom, Ms. Moreno—and make no mistake, this is my classroom—we have certain customs. They’re pretty simple, really. One of those customs is that the students raise their hands when they have a question or comment, and typically they even wait for me to recite their names before they speak. Now you may not have spent much time in classrooms in your day, or maybe where you went to school, people were a little more rude. I don’t know. But I do know this, right now you’re in my classroom, wasting my class time, on the pretense of raising a hypothetical question. If you want to hire a lawyer, I suggest you go to the yellow pages. But if you want to learn about constitutional law, you’ve come to the right place. Now, if you’ll excuse us, this is a law school class, and we’ve got work to do.”

  The students nodded their agreement. Nikki could see them out of the bottom of her peripheral vision, but she kept her unblinking focus on the intense brown eyes of Charles Arnold. She would not be intimidated. She would meet his most intense stare—a look that could melt steel—with one of her own. This might be his turf, but she would not back down.

  “And if you don’t mind,” he said, even softer than before but with greater intensity and professorial authority, “please take your seat and raise your hand if you have any further questions.”

  He turned and walked back behind the podium, and Nikki, despite herself and against her every intention, sat down quietly in her seat. A few other students turned to stare at her, so she took advantage of the professor having his back turned momentarily to sneer at them. “What are you staring at?” she whispered menacingly.

  Nikki behaved herself the rest of the hour, never once even raising her hand to join the discussion on the intricacies of Fourth Amendment search-and-seizure law. But when class was over, she hung around and waited for Professor Arnold to answer the questions of the other students so she could have a personal word with him.

  When the last student left, she stepped forward. “Well,” she said cheerily, “that seemed to go well.”

  The professor tilted his head and eyed her suspiciously for a second, then relaxed his gaze. “I’ve got to maintain a certain amount of decorum in my classroom.”

  “I’m sorry,” Nikki said. “I didn’t know how else to get your attention.”

  “Let’s see, you could try the telephone, e-mail . . . I hear the post office still delivers.”

  “Will you take the case?” Nikki hated this; she didn’t like begging. And the professor wasn’t making it any easier. “Please.” She tilted her own head and batted her eyes a little�
�men loved that approach.

  “No.”

  Huh? Nikki quickly decided it was time to get more direct. The professor obviously didn’t appreciate the subtle approach. “Why are you being so stubborn?”

  “Ms. Moreno, I’m a law school professor, not a trial lawyer. There are tons of good criminal defense lawyers in the phone book.” The professor packed up his stuff. Case closed. Desperate, Nikki quickly donned her best on-the-verge-of-crying look, took a deep breath, and dropped her gaze to the floor. He gave her a long sigh. “Give me one good reason I should take that case.”

  Nikki perked up immediately. “I’ll give you two. First, your potential client, a man named Thomas Hammond, is convinced that this is God’s will—his words, not mine. He said he saw you in action on the day he was arraigned, and then he met you again in a Bible study at the jail. This man is absolutely convinced that this is not coincidence, that you are the man God has appointed to represent him.”

  A light clicked on in the professor’s eyes. “Mr. King James Only,” he muttered.

  “What?”

  “Not important. What’s the second reason?”

  “This,” Nikki said, thrusting an envelope at him. “But before you read it, let me just tell you it wasn’t my idea. I’m just the messenger.”

  The professor took the envelope and raised an eyebrow.

  “I really am sorry about being such a jerk in your class today. It’s just that I’m emotionally involved in this case. The kids that were taken from Thomas Hammond and his wife are living with me pending trial.”

  This fact brought a smile to the professor’s face. “You?”

  “It’s a long story, but I’m a special advocate appointed by the court. And these kids, well, they’re special. Just read the letter. You’ll understand.”

  “I’ll think about it,” he said, looking at his watch. “But no promises.”

  “Here’s my card,” Nikki said, flashing another pearly smile as she wrote her cell phone number on the back. “You can call me anytime.”

  Charles returned to his office, opened the end of the envelope, shook it to slide the letter out, and retrieved a photo and handwritten letter. The photo showed an all-American family of five. A huge dad that he recognized as Mr. King James Only and a mom who looked haggard and tired but happy. On their laps were three of the cutest kids he had ever laid eyes on. A pudgy little baby dressed in blue. A precocious young blonde girl with a big bubbly smile and a pretty Easter dress. Sitting next to her on her dad’s lap was her younger brother, dressed in a white shirt, fake tie, and blue pants he had outgrown the year before. He was pouting for the photo, but the fire was still sparking in his “dare me and I’ll do it” eyes.

  The letter was penned in the large block letters of someone who had just learned to write, using the paper with the solid blue lines spaced far apart and separated by dashed blue lines to guide the tops of the small letters. The penmanship was careful and precise, the product of a slow and methodical job. The words were brief but to the point.

  Dear Mr. Arnold,

  Please help my daddy and my mommy in court. The mean lawyer said they kilt my brother. Joshua. But they did not. My dad telled me you are the best lawyer that can help. He said you are the answers to our prayers.

  Will you help us?

  I have given you a picture so you will know which ones we are. There are lots of people in court.

  Love,

  Hannah Hammond

  P.S. My brother John Paul wants you to help too. We pray for you every night accept for Monday when we both felled asleep in the car on the way home from McDonald’s and forgot to pray.

  Charles folded the letter and stuffed it inside his constitutional law textbook. He didn’t have time to add even one more thing to his plate, regardless of how meritorious the case might be, regardless of how many cute little kids might see their parents go to jail.

  Then why did you go to law school? he asked himself. To turn down the Hannah Hammonds of the world so you can help drug dealers like Buster Jackson—felons who actually threaten their own lawyer?

  He stared at the wall and thought about the earnest face of Nikki Moreno pleading from the back row of his con law class. Though he had already tried to banish the incident from his mind, the words of Moreno came echoing back.

  “Let’s suppose, Professor . . . that the public defender is totally incompetent and can hardly stay awake at hearings. . . . Does the Constitution protect only people of color . . . while white men have to rot in jail while a stranger raises their kids?”

  Charles rubbed his forehead thoughtfully and looked again at the picture. His wife was becoming a federal court judge—campaigning so she could help “her people”—and just what was his contribution to justice? Buster Jackson? Another class of law students passing con law so they could go out and prosecute the downtrodden?

  The test of true justice was whether it could reach out evenly—like the statue of the blindfolded lady holding the scales—and embrace the most unfortunate and unsympathetic among us on the same basis as the rich and privileged. And what have I done recently to advance that cause?

  If you’re saying your prayers every night, young lady, then you deserve better than a sleeping lawyer, he silently told Hannah Hammond.

  Then Charles Arnold, law professor and street evangelist, reluctant defender of the just and the unjust, guardian of the Constitution, and answer to the prayers of an innocent young child, pulled out Nikki’s card and gave her a call.

  31

  “ARE YOU SURE you don’t just want me to have Ms. Crawford give you a call?” the receptionist asked for the fourth time.

  Erica Armistead had been waiting for nearly two hours and was not about to leave now. It had taken half the morning to work up the nerve to come in the first place and another hour to get dressed and primped. She wasn’t sure she could muster the nerve or the energy to do it again.

  She looked up from her book and forced another smile. “No, it’s pretty time sensitive. I’ll just wait.” She said it pleasantly enough but with an air of finality that did not invite comment.

  The receptionist commented anyway. “Suit yourself,” the middle-aged woman said. She checked her watch and went back to her magazine. “Sometimes she stays in court until late afternoon.”

  “It’s okay. I’ll wait.” Then Erica crossed her legs and buried her head in her book again. She read the same sentence for the third time.

  It was 12:45.

  Three chapters, ninety minutes, and three more questions from the receptionist later, Rebecca Crawford came strolling through the outer door and into the reception area. She was dressed in a white blouse and gray suit—matching skirt and vest. She looked tanned and fit. Her recently bleached hair showed no erosion to brown at the roots, and her full, red lips were pressed tightly together. She was all business, in another world, and walked right by Erica.

  She looks smaller up close, Erica thought. She put down her book and stood haltingly. She had to grab the arms of the chair to help push herself up, and her arms shook miserably as she did so.

  “This woman’s been waiting to see you,” the receptionist told Crawford. “Says her name is Erica Armistead.”

  The information stopped Crawford in her tracks, causing her to wheel and lock a cold stare on Erica.

  She’s got beady little eyes, Erica thought. Dark and darting eyes full of contempt.

  “Come on back,” Crawford said. No “Nice to meet you,” no “My name’s Rebecca,” not even a “What are you doing here?” Just a cold and gruff “Come on back,” as if she were a junior high principal getting ready to discipline a student.

  “Thanks,” Erica mumbled. She immediately hated herself for saying it, for being so malleable. She hated the sweat that had already formed on her palms and upper lip as well as the knot that twisted her stomach. Without another word, she followed Crawford through the inner reception-area door, down a narrow hallway lined with legal assistants and secretar
ies in cubicles, and into a corner office that boasted the name “Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Rebecca Crawford” on the nameplate. She shuffled as quickly as she could, small quick steps, catching her balance a time or two. Still, she had fallen several steps behind by the time they hit Crawford’s office.

  “Have a seat,” Crawford said, motioning to a low-backed client chair in front of her desk. “I’d offer you something to drink, but I’ve only got a few minutes.”

  Erica struggled into the seat and clasped her hands in her lap. She watched Crawford shut the door to her office and walk around her desk, stopping to straighten a diploma on the side wall. Her desk was neat to the point of looking barren, and her diplomas and plaques hung at precise angles along the full length of the wall. She sat down in her high-backed plush-leather desk chair directly across from Erica. Behind her were two large windows facing west and overlooking the municipal complex. Either by accident or design, the windows caused the hot sunlight to stream directly into Erica’s eyes, making Erica squint and giving Crawford a halo.

  Crawford tented her fingers on the desk and looked straight at Erica. She was obviously not planning on making this easy. She did not speak.

  Erica collected her thoughts and cleared her throat. “I guess you, um, wonder why I’m here,” she stuttered the words out softly, looking down.

  “No. I know why you’re here.”

  There was a long and uncomfortable silence.

  “Do you love him?” Erica asked, immediately regretting the words. She came here to lecture this unscrupulous woman, to warn her to leave Sean alone. She had scripted this, practiced it—sarcastic tone of voice, the whole works. But now, in her moment of truth, she had forgotten all about the biting sarcasm, the condescending tone, and the direct accusations. Instead, she spoke from the heart. And her heart still cared about Sean and didn’t want to see him hurt.