The Judge

by Randy Singer

  “I don’t recall those exact words, Judge Finney. But in any event, Darwin later realized that the creative force you’re referencing was the process of evolution—mutations, natural selection, and survival of the fittest.”

  “Yes, I’m aware of that. It may surprise you to know that even judges sometimes read books like The Origin of Species.”

  Fetaya smirked. “Is there a question there?”

  “Sometimes I like to warm up a little.” Finney walked over to the counsel table for a sip of water. The witness was feisty; Finney liked that. His competitive instincts started chasing away his nervousness. After all, Fetaya might be a scientist, but this was a courtroom. Home turf.

  “Let me ask if you recognize this statement from The Origin of Species,” Finney said, checking his legal pad. “‘If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.’”

  “Darwin said that,” Fetaya agreed.

  “Have you heard of a concept called irreducible complexity?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you mind explaining it?”

  “Sure.” Fetaya leaned into the task. “The phrase was popularized by Michael Behe, a biochemist from Lehigh University, who wrote a book in 1996 titled Darwin’s Black Box. Behe defines a system or device as being irreducibly complex if it has a number of different components that all work together to accomplish a task, and if you removed any one of the components, then the entire system would no longer function. Moreover, the different components, if they evolved one at a time, would have no value by themselves and therefore no chance of survival. According to Dr. Behe, something that is irreducibly complex is highly unlikely to be formed through evolution because the odds are against a large number of simultaneous mutations. The illustration Dr. Behe likes to use is the mousetrap.”

  “So an irreducibly complex structure, according to Darwin’s own admission, would cause his theory to absolutely break down?” Finney asked, picking up confidence.

  “If one existed,” Fetaya confirmed. He gave Finney a quick and phony smile. “Unfortunately for you, none does. They only appear to be that way at first glance.”

  Finney saw a lecture coming. “Then let me ask you about—”

  But the witness appealed to the judge. “May I finish my answer, Your Honor?”

  “Yes,” Javitts said. “Judge Finney, you know the rules.”

  Fetaya smiled, and Finney wanted to strangle the little man. “As I was saying, when natural selection acts on chance variations, evolution is capable of scaling peaks that appear impossibly high. In fact, Richard Dawkins wrote a book about this process called Climbing Mount Improbable. On the front side, a complex biological structure might look like a sheer cliff that cannot be scaled in one big bound, but on the back side, there is a gradual slope that permits much easier climbing. Sometimes we’ve discovered that path; sometimes we have yet to discover it. It might, for example, consist of DNA mutations that we have yet to unveil.”

  “Are you done?”

  “Yes.”

  Finney checked his notes, ignoring the fact that Kareem was trying to get his attention. There was a certain rhythm to cross-examination. Stopping before questions to consult with a colleague gave the witness too much time to think. “Let’s talk about some of those sheer cliffs that Dr. Behe cites in his book,” Finney said. “Cliffs where no scientist will ever discover a gradual path up the back side because none exists. They include things like the development of the human eye, complicated microscopic contraptions like cilia and flagella, and the biosynthesis of large amino acids. Even the blood-clotting process—which is the one I would like to focus on, since it’s the only one I even begin to understand.”

  “I don’t agree with the premise of your question,” Fetaya said, “but I’m happy to talk about blood clotting.”

  “If your blood clots in the wrong place—like the brain or the lungs—you can die. Correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “If the blood-clotting process takes too long, you can bleed to death.”

  “Of course.”

  “And if a blood clot isn’t confined to your cut, if your whole system coagulates, then you die that way too. Correct?”

  Dr. Fetaya graced Finney with a condescending smile. “Right again.”

  Finney moved over next to Kareem as he read the following question directly from his notes. “So the system of blood clotting has no margin for error. It involves a highly choreographed cascade of ten steps that use about twenty different molecular components. Without the whole system in place, it doesn’t work. Isn’t that right, Dr. Fetaya?”

  “No. That’s not correct.”

  Finney held up his forefinger and conferred quickly with Kareem. “You were trying to get my attention?” Finney whispered.

  “I was.”

  “Because?”

  “I was going to tell you to stay away from the blood-clotting example,” Kareem said with a frown.

  “Oh.” Finney stood back up.

  “May I explain, Judge Finney?” the witness asked.

  Kareem’s eyes darkened into an I-told-you-so stare.

  “Sure,” Finney said.

  The witness proceeded to lecture Finney about the blood-clotting cascade in dolphins and porpoises. One of the components cited by Behe—the Hageman factor, to be precise—was found to be missing in dolphins and porpoises, but the blood still clotted.

  This prompted another quick conference with Kareem, after which Finney recovered nicely. So maybe it was ten cascading steps and nineteen different components, as opposed to twenty. But could the witness cite any examples of other mammals that had fewer molecular components than those present in dolphins and porpoises where blood clotting took place? He could not, the witness admitted, but that only meant the precise evolutionary process had yet to be discovered. You couldn’t infer that no such process existed.

  And so it went, back and forth. Finney held his own with several examples of irreducible complexity, primarily because he sat down next to Kareem and let his Muslim friend whisper each question in his ear.

  Except the last few questions. Finney stood back up and handled those on his own. “So even though we haven’t discovered any gradual, step-by-step evolutionary paths to these complex organisms, Dr. Fetaya, you still believe that such paths exist?”

  “Yes, of course. The evidence of evolution is overwhelming. The fact that we have not yet observed or reproduced the precise process for these molecular organisms does not worry me. History is on our side, Judge Finney. Given enough time, science tends to explain the most baffling things.”

  “The evidence of things unseen?” Finney asked. “There’s a word for that in the Bible, Dr. Fetaya. It’s called faith, not science.”

  “Is that a question?” Dr. Fetaya asked.

  Later that afternoon, a medical doctor was flown to the island to conduct biopsies, blood tests, and urine tests on all the contestants except Victoria Kline. For Dr. Ando, the physician used a portable X-ray machine to track the progression of Ando’s disease.

  At one point during his examination, Finney casually asked the doctor what island they might be on. The man looked directly into the camera and smiled. “I believe that’s confidential information,” the doctor said.

  “I know,” Finney said. “I won’t tell anyone.”

  “And neither will I,” the doctor said.

  43

  Stepping off the elevator on Monday morning, Nikki knew immediately that she could get used to working at a place like Randolph and Associates. Her heels clicked on the marble floor as she walked toward the mahogany reception desk trimmed with polished brass. Expensive impressionist paintings hung from the walls, but the subjects were strangely incongruous with this highbrow law firm. From one painting, the haunting blue eyes of a coal miner, devoid of hope, peered out from a coal-stained face. Another showed the grimy
exhaustion of rail yard workers, or at least that’s who Nikki thought they were.

  But there was no mistaking the picture just behind the bleached-blonde receptionist. Big as life, bigger actually, was an impressionist portrait of the man himself—Preston Edgar Randolph—in all his square-jawed glory. They might as well have hung a brass nameplate underneath that said “Friend of the Workingman.”

  “Can I help you?” the receptionist asked. As Nikki expected, she looked like a model. Good looks, Nikki thought, matter at Randolph and Associates.

  “I’m Nikki Moreno. I’m here to meet with Mr. Randolph.”

  The receptionist took Nikki’s name and called Randolph’s assistant. A few minutes later, another candidate for modeling school, this one a brunette, came out to escort Nikki into an equally impressive conference room. Nikki looked the woman over for flaws, but nothing jumped out at her. It was good that looks mattered, but this competition was a little intense.

  “Would you like something to drink?” the cover girl asked.

  “Water’s fine.”

  The woman took care of Nikki’s water and then left her alone. Nikki busied herself by studying the view and making a few cell phone calls. Ten minutes later, she walked down the hall to use the restroom.

  Randolph didn’t bother to show until fifteen minutes later. He came with an entourage. One thick security guard followed at each shoulder, and an assistant hustled along a few steps behind. Another man, apparently some kind of technical whiz, entered the room and took care of setting up the videoconference. A young woman who claimed to be a lawyer introduced herself, and Nikki secretly wondered what modeling agency she worked for.

  Randolph pumped her hand as if Nikki were an old fraternity brother. Up close, he looked ten years older than the picture on the Internet. He was still handsome but more gaunt than she had expected, and his dark eyes turned down at the corners. Though his security guards and associate were dressed to the nines, Randolph himself wore a pair of faded jeans, an untucked polo shirt, and a pair of Birkenstocks with no socks.

  As he sat, his assistant poured him a soft drink and then discreetly left the room. Within minutes, the faces of the other conference participants appeared on the big screens—Hadji’s mother and father from a copy shop in Los Angeles and Kareem Hasaan’s wife from Kareem’s office in New York City.

  Randolph tilted back in his chair and explained the purpose for the conference call. He represented Dr. Victoria Kline, he said, as well as Judge Finney. As he spoke, he stole a quick glance at Nikki, who nodded her approval. She would try to remember to tell the judge about his new lawyer the next time she sent him a message.

  The show’s producers had not been playing fair with the contestants, Randolph explained, and in particular had probably defamed both Dr. Kline and Judge Finney in last week’s show. Not technically, of course, since defamation law required something called actual malice if the people being defamed were limited-purpose public figures. Which, of course, reminded Randolph of the time he sued one of the major television networks on another defamation case that everybody said was unwinnable. It was a five-minute rabbit trail of a story, but it had a happy ending. Randolph’s client obtained nearly two million dollars in settlement.

  “Where was I?” Randolph wondered.

  “Possible defamation claims,” Nikki prompted.

  “Oh yeah.”

  It wasn’t just the way the show portrayed the contestants that had Randolph concerned. Based on a phone message from Victoria, he was actually concerned about their psychological and even physical well-being. He didn’t want to alarm anyone, but it seemed to him that the show’s producers would stop at nothing in their quest for eye-popping ratings. He asked if anybody else had similar concerns.

  Hadji’s parents took this as a cue to launch into their complaints about the way the show treated their son. For one thing, his girlfriend was in tears after last Thursday’s episode. Hadji’s mother dabbed at her own eyes as she described the part of the episode where her son’s girlfriend left their house in humiliation.

  I’m not sure that was exactly the producer’s fault, Nikki thought. It’s not like they forced Hadji to hook up with Tammy. But she kept her thoughts to herself. Moms were entitled to a few blind spots when it came to their children.

  “Have you contacted anybody from Dr. Ando’s family?” Nikki asked.

  “There wasn’t anybody,” one of the investigators said. “No wife. No kids. Both parents are dead. His siblings haven’t talked with him for nearly a year.”

  “He takes that nonattachment stuff seriously,” Randolph said.

  After Randolph launched into a few more war stories to impress the potential clients, he made a few things crystal clear. One: he wasn’t afraid to sue anybody. Two: he was about ready to sue the producers of Faith on Trial just for sport. And three: he thought the contestants would be in a stronger position if they stuck together. Hadji’s parents signed up before the videoconference ended. Kareem’s wife wanted to think about it but promised to stay in touch. Finney, by Nikki’s earlier commitment, was already in the fold. But she also requested that Randolph not take any actions on behalf of Finney unless she authorized them.

  “We’ll file an injunction and shut this show down if we have to,” Randolph promised.

  As soon as the videoconference ended, an assistant reappeared and reminded Randolph of another conference call that had started five minutes earlier. Before leaving, Randolph told his investigators to brief Nikki on their findings about Javitts, McCormack, and Murphy. “Oh, and what’s the connection with those other names you wanted us to check?” he asked Nikki.

  Nikki didn’t think it would be appropriate to lay out Finney’s dirty laundry in front of Preston Randolph’s entire entourage. “Those are the names of some defendants on a few cases that Finney handled,” Nikki said casually. “I just wanted to make sure there wasn’t any connection.”

  “The speedy-trial cases,” Randolph said. He smiled and Nikki knew she had just been one-upped. She should have seen it coming—those names were public information.

  Randolph rose to leave but then stopped and studied Nikki as if seeing her for the first time. His gaze lingered for a few seconds on the Moreno legs, and Nikki knew that the balance of power had just shifted. “Did you say you clerk in Norfolk Circuit Court right now?”

  “Yes. I start my final year of law school this fall.”

  He nodded, then cocked his head as if something had just occurred to him. “Have you committed to a firm yet?”

  “I’m still trying to decide where to work,” Nikki said. Despite the opulence of the place, she was having second thoughts about working for an egomaniac like Randolph. Before law school, she had worked as a paralegal for a Virginia Beach lawyer, Brad Carson, and knew she could return there after she graduated. In Nikki’s opinion, Brad was twice the lawyer Randolph was, with half the ego. Still, it didn’t hurt to keep her options open.

  “Excellent. You ought to drop a résumé in here,” Randolph responded. He walked over to shake her hand. “Send it directly to my attention.”

  “I will,” she said, standing and giving him a firm businesslike handshake.

  His droopy eyes locked on hers for a moment too long, as if he was trying to convey something more than what was being said. “Great. I’ll be looking for it.”

  As soon as Randolph left the room, Nikki noticed that the temperature seemed to plummet. “Don’t get your hopes up,” Randolph’s pretty young associate said.

  But Nikki ignored her. “I think you gentlemen were supposed to fill me in on your investigation,” she said to the two men who had accompanied Randolph into the room earlier. And then, as an afterthought, she turned back to the associate. “Tell me your name again,” Nikki asked politely.

  “Kerri.”

  “Great.” She held her empty glass toward the scowling lawyer. “Would you mind getting me a little more water, Kerri?”

  44

  Nikki clim
bed into her Sebring, cranked the engine and the air conditioner, and flicked on the overhead light so she could read in the darkness of the underground garage. She pulled out the confidential files provided by Randolph’s investigators and leafed through the information.

  Bryce McCormack, age forty-six. Graduated from USC film school in 1981. Married twice, the first time right after college. Two kids—a son just starting an acting career and a daughter who committed suicide at age seventeen. A year after his daughter’s suicide, McCormack divorced his first wife. Two years later, he married wife number two. Their divorce was final two days before their second anniversary.

  Following college, McCormack worked on B-level movies for about ten years before he hit it big with an independent horror flick titled Beyond, the story of demon possession in a small Midwestern town. It landed him a multimovie deal with a big production company, resulting in three straight flops. One newspaper article from that time frame summed it up this way:

  Six years ago, the production companies were saying, “Get me Bryce McCormack for this job.” Three years ago: “Get me somebody like Bryce McCormack.” Last year: “Get me anybody but Bryce McCormack.” And now: “Who is Bryce McCormack, anyway?”

  McCormack left Hollywood five years ago and reinvented himself as the director of choice for reality shows, teaming with Cameron Murphy to produce a string of successful programs. Then came Marriage Under Fire, and McCormack started his second fall down the slippery slope of high-profile failure. This time he took a friend along for the ride.

  Cameron Murphy, age forty-four, had attended film school at New York University and graduated in 1984. He worked as a deejay for a few years, then tried his hand at acting. Two wives, three drug arrests, and one name change later, he settled down as an associate producer in a large Hollywood production studio. At thirty-seven, he married his third wife and started his own television production company. The marriage lasted nine months, but the production company was still limping along, though the financial records made it clear that Faith on Trial would make or break Murphy Productions.