by Clark Howard
White carefully pushed his coat back and put his hands in his pockets. He paced slowly across the big, book-lined office, as if he were addressing a jury.
“What we’re going to be saying,” he continued, “is that in a jury trial of criminal charges, the presiding judge is a protector of rights more than an arbiter of justice. The jury is there to decide guilt or innocence. Thus, the judge should devote himself even more earnestly to the protection of the rights of the defendant—particularly if that defendant is facing capital charges.”
White reached up to lightly grasp each lapel of his coat and raised his chin slightly. “When a defendant in a criminal case elects to conduct his own defense, that defendant is, in actuality, throwing himself on the mercy of the court. He is saying, ‘Here I am, Your Honor. I’m innocent and I don’t think I need a lawyer to prove it. I’m simply going to tell the truth, on the assumption that right will triumph.’ The defendant is entrusting to the trial judge a very grave responsiblity: the responsibility of seeing to it that none of the defendant’s inherent rights as an accused citizen are abused in any way—not by the prosecution, not by the jury, not by the judicial system itself. There will, of course, be no question in our appeal that a trial judge must accept this trust and deal with it in the most exact and equitable manner possible. The trust must not be compromised even slightly; if it is, then the rights of the defendant have been compromised completely.”
White let go of his lapels and clasped his hands behind his back, pacing slowly across the office again. By now he had totally captured his listeners. His presentation was faultless.
“The only way a trial judge can assure that an accused’s rights are fully protected is by appointing a qualified person to guard those rights. As precedents for this position, we will offer California cases in which judges, against the wishes of defendants, appointed lawyers to represent or advise them in cases involving such diverse crimes as cattle-rustling, arson, sodomy, and mayhem. We will also cite cases from other states involving crimes against the person as well as crimes against property, and federal district-court cases involving crimes against the United States, ranging from bootlegging and other tax-stamp violations to the killing of a federal correctional officer, all of which had in common the fact that in each case the judge saw fit to assure himself the defendant’s rights would not be put in jeopardy through his ignorance of the law or the misjudgment to defend himself—and so appointed an attorney to either represent or to advise that defendant.” White paused and studied his audience briefly, then quickly concluded. “That, in essence, is going to be our position: that Judge Lukey was morally obligated to assign an attorney of record to act as a court-paid guardian of Weldon Whitman’s rights; and that his failure to do so was an error of sufficient significance to warrant a reversal of the verdict and a new trial.”
Morris Niebold nodded approval of his younger partner’s performance. “‘Thank you, Borden, that was excellent. I want to remember to incorporate into the actual appeal that phrase about a slight compromise of the judge’s trust amounting to a total compromise of the defendant’s rights. That’s good, very good.” Niebold sat back in his wheelchair. “Well,” he said, mostly to Genevieve, “any comments, any questions?”
“Just one,” said Genevieve. “Why the goal of a new trial rather than a reduction of the death sentence?”
“First of all, my dear,” Niebold said smiling, “the goal really isn’t a new trial; the goal is to keep your Mr. Whitman alive—and that’s precisely what a new trial will do. At the minimum, it will guarantee him an additional thirty months of life from the time the appeal is granted. That’s a good deal more than he has now. Secondly, a new trial will give us a far greater chance of a reduction in sentence; in a retrial there would probably be only a fifty-fifty chance of a death sentence being rendered.”
Genevieve nodded. “I understand.”
“We’d like your opinion of our approach, Genevieve,” said Borden White.
Genevieve Neller looked at him for a moment; then at Niebold, and Carla Volt. As reserved as she was in her personal association with all of them, and as reluctant as she was to admit it, the appeal approach was, at least on the surface, not only judicially sound but strategically superior.
“I think it’s a fine ground for appeal,” she said to all of them. “Very fine.”
“Good!” said Niebold with his usual enthusiasm. “Now, as long as we’re showing off today, why don’t you take a few bows yourself, Genevieve? Our Miss Neller,” he said to the rest of them, “has drawn up a splendid proposal to add our own printshop to the Weldon Whitman Foundation. Tell them about it, my dear.”
“Why don’t you just read my proposal—”
“Come now, we want no modesty from the president of our foundation,” Borden White said.
Genevieve cleared her throat and sat forward slightly. For some reason she was acutely aware of Carla Volt’s slim presence. “My thought,” she said, “was that if we—that is, the foundation—were to install a small printing facility, we could began telling Weldon’s story on a broader scale. We could print our own brochures, phamplets, mailers, anything of that nature that we needed. All it would require really would be a reproduction camera, a plate-maker, and an eleven-by-seventeen press. I’ve already checked about the press: we can pick up a rebuilt A.B. Dick model that would be more than adequate for our needs. I’ve also checked with the printers’ union about getting help to run the shop. They have a man who’s been out on sick leave for a year from his regular job. He can’t work full-time yet, but the union steward was sure he would be interested in an on-call arrangement with us. If we could get him, and Rob would do the writing, I could take care of the mailing end of it—”
“I could help with that,” Carla Volt volunteered.
“Hell, we all could!” Niebold said. “I’m not above sealing an envelope and licking a stamp. Frankly, I think it’s an excellent idea.”
“And I,” said Borden White. “I move we consider it a formal motion and vote on it.”
A moment later Genevieve was formally endowed with the responsibility for setting up a Weldon Whitman Foundation printshop.
Carla Volt brought up the subject of a letter from Weldon Whitman; he had requested that the law firm attempt to get a court order allowing him to have a typewriter in his cell. “I’ve done a little research on the subject,” she said. “Noncondemned prisoners have been allowed typewriters for quite some time. But as far as I know, no convict on Death Row has ever asked for one. At least not through the courts.”
“It’s an interesting idea,” Niebold said thoughtfully. “What do you think, Borden?”
“Sounds like it might have excellent potential. We might even combine several areas of relief in one appeal. The typewriter, unlimited letter writing privileges, longer visiting periods: in general, a wider latitude of communications for condemned men.”
“Genevieve,” said Niebold, “have you ever heard of such an appeal being attempted before?”
“Not that I recall.”
The invalid drummed his fingers on the padded leather arm of his chair for a moment. “All right, let’s shoot the works on a second appeal too—more for nuisance value than anything else. We’ll ask for everything but the warden’s refrigerator, just to see how much we can get.”
They talked on, covering a number of generalities, including the recent publication of Room 22, Hotel Death, which had attracted national attention as well as becoming an immediate best-seller in California bookstores. A respectable segment of the public had become instantly taken with the story of a supposedly lone man fighting the establishment from a death cell. Contributions had increased significantly, and letters were even coming in inquiring about forming seperate chapters of the Save Whitman Movement.
In the meantime, Cloud had been rewriting the second book Whitman was trying to scribble out. Whitman had titled it Judgment in Anguish. This one too had an interesting story buried deep within t
he morass of amateurish prose and generally sloppy storytelling. Cloud’s job, as with the first book, was to take this roughest of rough material and mold something commercially readable out of it. It had become tedious, irritating work for him, but thankfully it came only in short bursts and was quickly done. Whitman’s pace kept Cloud busy only about three days a week; the rest of the time he helped Genevieve at the foundation office. But lately he had begun to feel his investigative juices flowing again.
“I have a project of my own in mind,” he said now. “It might not be a bad idea to go back down to L.A. and see if I could dig up something on Glory Ann Luza. We got a lot of mileage out of the Doris Calder story; it’s possible that something on the Luza girl might go just as far.”
“What approach would you take on the story?” Borden White asked.
“I’m not sure,” said Cloud. “I’d have to wait and see what I turned up. I’d be looking for some way to impugn her original identification of Whit as her assailant.”
“It’s probably worth a try,” Morris Niebold said. “I recall very well your article on the Calder woman. It was one of the things that first interested Borden and me in the Whitman case. Yes, Robert, by all means make your trip to Los Angeles. By God, if we can discredit enough witnesses, we’ll petition the governor for a full pardon!”
“When would you be leaving?” Carla Volt asked. Genevieve looked knowingly at her, and Carla quickly added, “You’ll be wanting expense money, I’m sure.”
“I’ll finish up my current work over the weekend and fly down Monday,” he told her. The brief wicked look in her eyes told him she understood that they would spend the weekend together.
When Cloud and Genevieve were driving back to the foundation office, Genevieve said, “I was surprised at your volunteering to leave town like that. I didn’t think you and your friend could bear to be apart for even a night.”
“Gen,” Cloud said patiently, “what is it that you dislike about Carla?”
“I’m not sure I really dislike anything about her. I simply can’t find anything to like. Obviously you have, though.”
“Yes, I have. You see; Gen,” he said quietly, “I can’t give all my affection to Whit, as you have. My needs are a little different from yours.”
They rode the rest of the way in awkward silence.
Chapter Fourteen
On Monday morning, Robert Cloud was again in Los Angeles, driving a rented car to the east side of town.
His open briefcase contained transcripts of Weldon Whitman’s preliminary hearing and Superior Court trial, at both of which Glory Ann Luza had testified. The first transcript gave an address on Carmelita Avenue in the Chicano district on the east side of town; the trial transcript gave Chico Avenue in El Monte. The family had moved after the hearing—very likely, Cloud mused, because of the attendant publicity; so they might well have moved again after the trial. Sighing, he pulled off the San Bernardino Freeway at El Monte.
The house on Chico was a duplex of cheap stucco, painted in mismatched shades of green. The landlady was a heavyset woman named Burney who had a stale odor about her.
“Sure, I know the Luzas,” she said. “I had them for tenants for seven months. Pretty good tenants too. Clean for Mexicans.”
“How long have they been gone?” Cloud asked.
“Oh, Christ, better than a year. They moved out right after that kid of theirs testified against that sex fiend that raped her. You remember that case?”
“Yes, I remember it.”
“Well, that little Luza girl was one of the victims that he committed all them perversions on.”
Cloud nodded. “You say they moved away right after the trial?”
“Yep. Very next day. Her picture was in the paper and all, you know. Whole neighborhood was talking about her. And you know how some of them Mexicans are. Proud as princes even when they ain’t got a pot or a window.”
“Do you have any idea where they moved to, Mrs. Burney?”
“Couldn’t even guess. The girl’s brother just backed a rental truck up to the door the day after the trial, and him and the old man loaded everything on it, and they was gone.”
“What was the brother’s name, do you remember?”
“They called him Ray, but I think it was short for something. Ramón, probably. Don’t ask me the parents’ names’cause I couldn’t begin to pronounce them.”
“Did the girl go to school while the family lived here?”
“I think so. I think she went to the high school over on Concert Street.”
In the El Monte Union High School office, Cloud was refused information by a series of clerks until finally, after much insistence, he ended up in the principal’s office. The principal was an attractive woman of fifty, whose manner was pleasant but firm.
“Mr. Cloud, it is absolutely against school policy to release personal information on any student except to law-enforcement agencies.”
“I thought perhaps you could make an exception since she’s a former student,” Cloud said.
“I’m sorry,” the principal said, “I’m afraid not.”
“Do you know about the trial the girl was involved in?”
“Of course. The whole school knew about it. It was the reason the family moved.”
“Let me ask you a question,” Cloud said. “How would you feel about helping me locate this girl if I told you there was a very strong possibility that she had identified the wrong man? And that an innocent man was on Death Row.”
“Why, I suppose I’d feel pretty much like anyone else would,” the principal replied. “I’d feel that it was an injustice that should be corrected. But I’m still bound by certain policies set down by the school authorities. If this man is innocent, as you say, I’m sure you should have no difficulty in getting proper authorization to obtain the information.”
“My problem is time,” Cloud explained. “This man is due to go to the gas chamber in a very short time.”
The principal thought about it a moment. “What makes you so certain that the man Glory Ann identified is innocent?”
“We’ve already proved that the other major witness against him was mistaken. That’s why it’s so urgent that we find the Luza girl. If we can show the same discrepancy in her identification, then we can get the death sentences reversed.”
“Mr. Cloud,” she said, “I would like to help you. Really. But you see, when the Luzas moved away, they gave the school no forwarding address. They didn’t even obtain a school transfer for Glory Ann; nor have we received a request for her records from any other school.”
Cloud pressed forward. “Would you be able to give me some information about Glory Ann’s family? Her father’s name, where he worked—anything at all to help me keep looking.”
The principal studied Cloud thoughtfully for a moment. Then she sighed quietly. “Wait here, please,” she said finally. She left the office and returned a moment later with a manila folder.
“Father: Emiliano,” she said. “Employed as a meat packer for Rancher Bob’s Sausage Company in Vernon. Mother: Josefa. Housewife.” She closed the folder and looked steadily at him. “I’ve just put my job on the line telling you that.”
Cloud shook his head. “No you haven’t.” He held out his hand. “It’s nice to meet someone like you.”
“I wish you luck,” she said, shaking his hand.
Rancher Bob’s Sausage Company was on a narrow industrial side street. Next to a scarred and rusted loading dock, Cloud found a door with a sign that read: GENERAL OFFICES—UPSTAIRS. He went up the narrow wooden stairway and entered a large, drab room of desks and file cabinets crowded together on an ancient tile floor. After a preliminary inquiry, Cloud found himself back down on the loading dock talking to the firm’s production foreman.
“Hell yes, I know’ Miliano Luza,” the man said. “One of the best meat packers I ever had.”
“Had?”
“Yeah. He left a year ago last August. With me eleven years.”
“Do you know where he went?” Cloud asked.
“Wait a minute. Before I do too much talking, what do you want him for, anyway?” The production foreman’s eyes had narrowed to a suspicious squint.
“It’s a legal matter,” Cloud said, “involving his daughter.”
“Legal matter, huh? Wouldn’t have anything to do with that son of a bitch that raped the girl, would it?”
“Well, first of all, the girl wasn’t raped—”
“She wasn’t, huh? That’s all you know, mister. Let me ask you one question: are you working for the guy that’s waitin’ to be gassed for what he did to that little girl?”
“I work for a foundation that represents him, yes.”
“Well, ain’t that nice!” He looked back over his shoulder. “Hey, Manuel, Dutch, Gerardo, all you guys come here!”
Half a dozen meat packers wearing heavy canvas aprons and thick canvas gloves left their packing tables and came up to the foreman.
“This here guy works for the son of a bitch that raped’Miliano’s little girl,” the foreman said belligerently.
“Look, I told you the girl wasn’t raped,” Cloud said. “The man who was convicted wasn’t even charged with rape—”
“Let me tell you something, mister,” the foreman said, his tone growing bolder with reinforcements behind him. “You better get the fuck out of here, you understand me? Don’t come sucking around here with your lousy questions trying to get us to help save that cocksucker from the gas chamber. We all liked’Miliano, see? He was one of us, you understand me? Now you get your ass out of here and you do it quick!”
He took a menacing step forward and Cloud held up a hand in submission.
“Okay, pal, take it easy—”
“I’m not your fucking pal either!”
“Whatever you say.” Cloud backed down the concrete steps to the street. When he got far enough back from his threatening adversary, he turned and started walking away.