W: The Planner, The Chosen

by Alexandra Swann

  Mayfield spent a few minutes asking Kris about Jeff and Michael, and then he asked her what she thought about The Line Up.

  “I don’t know anything about it,” she answered. “I have been so focused on getting Michael Linton and Jeff Connors released that I didn’t even know it existed until today. I turned on my computer and saw some of the pictures scroll by, but that’s about it.”

  “Do you think it’s genuine?” Mayfield pressed.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Surely you must have an opinion. The entire country is talking about it, and if you don’t have an opinion, you’re the only one who doesn’t.”

  “I really wish I could comment on it, but, honestly, I have seen it only once for about a minute.”

  “My producer is talking in my earpiece and telling me that our switchboard is jammed, so we’d better take some calls.”

  To everyone’s surprise, the caller did not have a question for Kris. A woman’s voice said, “Thank you for taking my call, Rod. I’m calling because my brother was arrested six months ago for domestic terrorism, and we haven’t been able to find out where he is or what has happened to him. Two days ago I was on my computer and his picture scrolled across the screen. He was on The Line Up! All of the information listed was correct. The Line Up is not a fake!”

  Call after call verified what the first caller had said. The callers had recognized their brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, children, friends and neighbors in The Line Up. All of them had been arrested for domestic terrorism, and all had disappeared without a trace. Then, without warning, their pictures and personal information had appeared in The Line Up. The American people were energized and demanding answers.

  Chapter 21

  President Tom Quincy and Vice President Candice Peters were seated on couches facing each other in the Oval Office. The president had specifically chosen this location for his meeting with the Supreme Court Chief Justice because he knew that the Oval Office was intimidating to nearly everyone. Even he was never entirely comfortable here. There was so much history, so much tradition connected to this office that it was impossible not to feel the pressures of running the government while sitting inside its walls.

  Quincy noted that Candice had taken seriously his comment to her that this was, perhaps, the most important meeting of his Administration, thus far. She had actually run a comb through her hair and buttoned her jacket prior to her arrival. Quincy did not want to make small talk with his Vice President; she was boorish at best, and he could hardly tolerate being in the same room with her. Just as he was about to break the silence by commenting on the most recent Gallop poll, however, the door was opened by a member of the President’s Secret Service detail, and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court entered the room.“Franklin!” the President said, rising to his feet and extending his hand. Quincy smiled widely and shook the Chief Justice’s hand warmly.

  The President had never liked the Chief Justice. Franklin Prescott Dillon was a quiet, distinguished-looking man of fifty-five who had been born into privilege, attended the best schools, married well, and been named to the Court when he was still in his forties. He was generally considered to be a man of integrity and intelligence, but he was soft. While not overweight, his body was soft from years of physical inactivity. His hands were soft from a lifetime spent pondering legal matters from behind a mahogany desk in a climate-controlled environment. His voice was soft, as if he feared stirring up opposition to his opinions. Even his convictions were soft. He had proven that when Quincy had coerced him to vote to uphold legislation broadly expanding the powers of the federal government, even though that legislation was clearly unconstitutional. When the decision was handed down, Dillon had defended his actions to an outraged populace by stating that “it is not the duty of the Court to save the country from their bad choices in the voting booth.” That was one of the last matters that the Court had ruled on; within months, the Administration had announced that the Supreme Court Building was being closed because of a bomb threat and would not be reopened until the building had been made secure. More than three years later the building was still empty and the Court was still not in session.

  “Can I get you some coffee, or a scotch and soda?” Quincy inquired.

  “No, thank you,” Dillon replied in his unobtrusive voice.

  “Well then, I’ll come right to the point,” the President said. “We have a matter that we need to deal with as soon as possible. A lawyer by the name of Cicchetti has filed a brief asking the Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionally of the portions of the NDAA that deal with the arrests, detentions and executions of American citizens. The case has no merit, but a lot of citizen’s groups are squawking for the Court to rule on it. The Tea Party, the Red White and Bluehair Party, and the New Patriots are all over the internet blogging about it, and nearly every day some new group of right-wing nuts joins them. I think our best course of action is to get a ruling that will settle this once and for all, and the sooner the better.

  “Now, Franklin, I called you here because I need to know that I can count on you to do the right thing. Can I do that?”

  “Yes, Mr. President. You can.”

  “That’s what I wanted to hear!” the President replied. “We are being overrun by gangs of old people who have nothing better to do than harass their elected officials. The Federal Municipal Planning Division retirement communities have gone a long way toward solving the problem, but we don’t yet have enough facilities to relocate all seniors. That’s why we need a Supreme Court ruling now. As soon as the Court rules that these provisions are constitutional, they’ll have to find something else to whine about.”

  “When will we get the case?” Dillon inquired.

  “We’ll have it to you in a couple of days. I mean, it’s not like you have anything else on your plate, so you should be able to make it your first priority. Right? Oh, wait, I forgot, it’s your only priority!” The President laughed uproariously at his own wit.

  Franklin Dillon felt his face grow hot with humiliation. In a moment of weakness he had allowed himself to be intimidated by this self-serving despot, and he had been paying the price ever since. As the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States he was, arguably, the most powerful man in the country. Presidents come and go, but Supreme Court Justices serve for life. Presidents twist arms to pass laws that are often struck down by the next administration, but Supreme Court decisions direct the course of the country for decades. They not only impact the lives of every living American citizen, they impact the lives of every American citizen yet to come. Franklin Prescott Dillon had been a fool to allow the President to subvert the power of the Court, and now he was being treated like the fool he had proven himself to be.

  Vice President Peters spoke for the first time since the Chief Justice had entered the room. She had nothing to add, but she was the kind of woman who could not bear to remain silent—even when it was in her best interests to do so. “You’re not getting back into the Supreme Court Building,” she said, adding insult to injury, “so you’d better start thinking about where you’re going to do this.” Her expression was one of smug pleasure—not many women had the opportunity to tell the Chief Justice that he was banned from his own building.

  Dillon nodded to indicate that he understood and then stood and extended his hand to Quincy. “If there is nothing else, Mr. President, I’ll be going.”

  Quincy leapt to his feet and pumped Dillon’s hand. “I’m glad to know that we can count on you,” the President reiterated.

  “Yes, Mr. President,” Dillon responded as he turned and walked out the door.

  Chapter 22

  Forty copies of Julian’s brief on the merits of Michael and Jeff’s case were stacked in neat piles on his desk. Forty copies—that was the Supreme Court requirement—had to be filed with the Court within forty-five days after the Justices agreed to hear the case.

  Although Julian had filed his reques
t for the Court to hear the Linton case under the provisions of original jurisdiction, he had not expected the Justices to agree to do so. The motion was actually a test balloon of sorts to see whether he could even get a response that would indicate whether the Court would be willing to convene to hear the case at any point. By requesting that the Court affirm its jurisdiction over the suit, he would have a better idea of what their chances were on appeal. Even though he had never indicated so to Kris and Keith, Julian had actually expected the Court to reject his request to hear the case directly, which would necessitate that he file suit in a lower court and work his way up.

  Of course, this speculation had all occurred prior to The Line Up. The Line Up had brought so much pressure on the Administration that the Solicitor General not only did not appear to have any objection to the Court’s decision to hear the case, Paul Greely also did not object to the Court’s determination that it had jurisdiction to hear the case directly. In a way, that was good—Julian was getting exactly what Kris and Keith had wanted. The Court would reconvene to hear this case on its merits, and they would rule once and for all on the constitutionality of the NDAA. On the other hand, the ease of this process made Julian suspicious and uncomfortable. This had all been a little too easy, considering that the Court had not met in more than three years. All nine Justices had unanimously agreed to hear the case, and the Administration seemed eager for it to go to court.

  Immediately after the Justices agreed to hear the case President Quincy, the head of Homeland Security, the U.S. Attorney-General, and Vice President Candice Peters began making the talk show rounds with a unified message. They emphatically denounced The Line Up as a hoax—the work of a sophisticated network of domestic terrorists, who, together with foreign agents working on U.S. soil, were attempting to subvert the U.S. government and discredit the Administration. They asserted that there were no more than a few hundred detainees—all of whom were dangerous threats to the safety and sovereignty of the United States. No exact number of detainees was ever put forth during any of these interviews—the request for such a number was routinely denied using the Administration’s primary talking point: for matters of national security the Administration could not release an exact figure. However, the Administration claimed that whatever the number was, it was low, and only the most dangerous threats had been indefinitely detained. To put these people on trial would be the equivalent of holding trials for the Gitmo detainees in New York City—it would endanger the public and make a mockery of the courts. Furthermore, the crimes of these detainees, the few that existed, were so egregious that after the government had spent millions of dollars on trials and allowed these men and women to make a spectacle of the United States system of justice, there would be no question of their absolute guilt or the moral correctness of their detentions.

  The Administration’s other talking point, repeated by Quincy and Peters, and Press Secretary Null, was that the Administration was highly supportive of the Supreme Court’s decision to rule on the constitutionality of the indefinite detention provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act. They were positive that their actions were fully in keeping with the spirit of the U.S. Constitution, and they would fully support the Court’s findings in this matter. That last part made Cicchetti very nervous. He was not a man who believed in conspiracy theories, but this whole case had the feeling of a set up. As a constitutional attorney, he knew full well that this ruling was going to set precedent for law in the U.S. for decades, and possibly even the next century. Quincy and his cronies were a little too confident and a little too eager. To Cicchetti that signaled that they had already fixed the outcome—in their minds at least. But as an experienced attorney, Julian also knew that once a case is before a judge, or in this case nine judges, any outcome is possible.

  He had carefully written his brief on the merits. As he had already explained to Kris at the outset, he was not arguing Michael’s or Jeff’s innocence. That would be determined by a criminal trial—if they could get to that point. Julian was arguing only that the NDAA was a violation of the U.S. Constitution. As he wrote and worked and labored and thought, he wondered frequently how he, in fifty pages, could better explain what the authors of the Bill of Rights had laid out beautifully in two paragraphs. And as he worked on his brief, he kept those two paragraphs, the Fifth and Sixth amendments to the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of the United States of America, on a notepad in front of him at all times, rewritten by his own hand in his own penmanship so as to cement those words firmly in his mind. Now he had read and reread them so often that he could have almost recited them from memory:

  Fifth Amendment

  No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment of indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

  Sixth Amendment

  In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law; to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.

  True, Cicchetti had booked Kris on every talk show he could find so that she could tell her story of how her good, kind, law-abiding husband and her “nicest guy you ever met” brother-in-law had been unjustly detained by the U.S. government without charges. Those talk show appearances were good for public sympathy. Kris’ attention and notoriety had certainly been a motivating factor in the Administration’s cooperation in allowing the case to come to court. At the end of the day, however, if the Administration could provide positive proof that Michael was a serial killer who cannibalized his victims, that evidence would not change the basic argument that he and Jeff and every other detainee deserved a trial. They had a legal right to face their accusers, to have legal representation, to confront the evidence against them, and to present their own evidence to counter it. This was the crux of the argument—whether he was the saint that Kris portrayed him to be or a monster, the Constitution guaranteed him the right to a trial by a jury of his peers. Every page had been an effort to make this point—hopefully he had made it well enough that the Court would uphold the rights afforded to Americans by the Constitution—no matter what kinds of side deals the Administration was trying to cut.

  Now that he had outlined his own case, Julian had to wait for the Solicitor General’s response, and he was curious to see how the Administration would defend its actions. When the response was filed, he called Kris and Keith into his office to share it with them.

  “I have been very interested to read the Administration’s arguments in support of indefinite detention, partially because when the original suit was brought by the original plaintiffs in 2012 the first federal judge issued the injunction barring enforcement, and the government never presented an argument supporting indefinite detention. The argument at that time was that since no one had been detained under the provisions of the law, the plaintiff’s attorneys could not accurately argue who might be in danger or what the scope of the indefinite detentions might look like. It was very much a “we have to pass it to find out what’s in it” kind of argument. Now there have been a number of detentions—although the Administration argues vigorously about what that number is, so they can no longer use the ‘don’t knock it until we’ve tried it’ argument. They now have been forced to defend their actions.”

  “What is the argument?” Kri
s was listening intently because she wanted to know whether the Administration’s reasoning might seem logical to an average American. As passionately as she wanted to get Michael and Jeff released, she also knew that many of the people who were watching her interviews and listening to the arguments back and forth about NDAA would not have family members who had been detained. For most of these people, the tendency would undoubtedly be to side with the Administration, and if the Administration appeared to have a sound case, public opinion, which currently appeared to be with her and her family, might quickly swing the other way.

  “Well, it’s very interesting. First, they argue that the Fifth and Sixth amendments do not apply because of the clause excluding ‘a time of war or public danger.’ The Solicitor General’s response reads that since 9/11 our country has been under attack from enemies at home and abroad and these attacks have necessitated many safety and security measures, including section 1021 of the NDAA. The war on terror is an on-going battle fought on many battlefields and many fronts. Since combatants can use any weapon, including hate speech and anti-American ideology, to bring down our society, and, since the newest threat to the security of our nation is ‘home-grown domestic terrorists’ and ‘radical adherents to narrow religious systems and ideologies who may have many sympathizers in the community’, the only effective course is to utilize indefinite military detention. Section 1021 allows these combatants to be detained until the end of hostilities. If the Administration ever determines that these anti-American forces have been sufficiently routed so that these detainees can be reintroduced into society without posing a further threat, the Administration can release them at its own discretion.