The judge looks at Jim. “Mr. Aiken?”
“Thank you, Your Honor.” Jim rises and buttons his jacket. “The facts, the evidence,” he says as he approaches the jury. His dark blue, double-breasted suit is striking and he cuts an impressive image as he walks over to the twelve. “What are we to do with the facts?” he asks them.
Immediately Jim is taking a more laid back tone with the jury. He displays none of the intensity, the itch for battle, that was so evident in Moultrie. Jim approaches the jury just as he would a classroom of students. Relaxed and confident, the sage professor who knows and understands.
“My best friend studied philosophy under a professor who taught that there is no such thing as a brute fact,” Jim continues. “And what he meant by that was no fact exists outside of interpretation.
“For example, let’s say we see the fact of a car wreck out in front of the courthouse. It doesn’t—not even for a split second—remain as an un-interpreted event. You and I hear the screech of tires, we see the metal bend, the glass break, and immediately our minds are at work contextualizing, grappling, trying to understand. Did the brakes fail? Did the driver not see the stop light? Was he preoccupied? Perhaps he was arguing with the child in the back seat, who we now notice in the car. Perhaps he was intoxicated. Perhaps he was a madman bent on destruction. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. And so it goes until we are comfortable with an interpretation which seems to fit the facts as we understand them. Of course, the more we know about the facts the closer our interpretation will come to being accurate. The closer it will come to the truth. And if, by chance, we could have the mind of God and know all there is to know...well, then we would have the perfect interpretation, wouldn’t we?”
Jim, as he has spoken, has moved back and forth in front of the jury. I have watched as one, then another, until finally all, have matched his pace, gazing at this handsome lawyer who is giving them an introductory course in epistemology. I steal a glance at Moultrie and wonder if he is thinking what I am. The solicitor may be good, but he is not in Jim Aiken’s league.
“And so, ladies and gentlemen, as you sit here in judgment of that man, Glen Erskine,” Jim points to me, “you will be doing something that I am confident none of you bargained for. As jurors, you are about to come as close to playing God as any man or woman ever has a right to.”
The courtroom is dead silent as Jim looks at his students. If nothing else, he has impressed upon the twelve the gravity of their task. No doubt they all took the judge’s instructions seriously. But she certainly didn’t tell them they were about to play God. And now I think back to Jim’s questions as he interviewed the prospective jurors. Sometimes in just a subtle way, at other times more overtly, Jim asked them each about their religious beliefs and convictions. How much did the answers these twelve people gave affect Jim’s decision not to strike them?
“God knows the facts of this case better than I know them, better than Mr. Moultrie knows them. None of us can hope to know as God knows. But you must try, you must do everything you can to know as much about every detail of evidence, every jot, every tittle. It’s Mr. Moultrie’s and my job to present the evidence to you. We each have our own interpretations, so we will, of course, be presenting the evidence in ways most favorable to our respective viewpoints. Don’t let that deter you in your quest for the truth. Don’t shy away from playing God, not in the least. For there is too much at stake. A man’s life hangs in the balance.” Jim gestures to me again.
“I would submit to you that the interpretation of the facts that Mr. Moultrie will present is entirely believable. And if, after you have done everything in your power to know all there is to know about this case, you agree with his interpretation, then you must find my client guilty.
“But suppose the prosecution’s case is flawed. Suppose he doesn’t know all he should know about the facts. Suppose his interpretation of some things is misguided because of that ignorance. Ignorance of what? you may ask. Context, ladies and gentlemen. Context.
“Many of the facts in this case are incontrovertible. Others, the prosecution would like you to believe are such, but they really aren’t. But in the end, ladies and gentlemen, you must put them all in the proper context in order to understand them, in order to interpret them, in order to arrive at the truth.
“Now, some of you may be thinking, How will I know what is the right context? That’s a good question. The answer is simple: Just let the facts of the case determine the appropriate context in which to view them, in which to interpret them.
“Mr. Moultrie has already tried to give you a context in his opening statement. Did you pick up on what it was? It’s sexual deviance, specifically pedophilia. I guess I should go ahead and tell you all now, we are going to be hearing some strange and bizarre things in the course of this trial. Go ahead and prepare yourself for it. Nobody likes to think about adults who sexually abuse children, who lure them into situations where they can do just that. Yes, there are men who do it. But of all that the evidence will show in this trial, it will not show that Glen Erskine,” Jim points to me, “is one of them.
“I’ll be the first to admit to you that the context in which all this has happened works against my client. Glen Erskine does have an interest in pedophilia and child abuse. He has two earned doctorates, one a clinical degree in which he was trained as a therapist. A therapist for what? The treatment of sexual abuse victims. He also has Ph.D., and his research for that dealt with sex between adults and children, specifically men and boys. It’s not a comfortable topic for any of us, but it’s Dr. Erskine’s field and he’s considered one of the best at what he does. But does that make him a child molester? Does someone whose research interests are, say, in serial killers and mass murder make that person a murderer? We all know the answer to that question.
“So, ladies and gentlemen, we are faced with context. Let me give you an example...”
Jim walks over through the gate into the spectator’s gallery. In the first row, at the end by the center aisle, I notice a beautiful young girl sitting there. Radiant blond hair and blue eyes, she looks to be in her mid-teens. Jim leans down and says something to her and she stands, obviously a little embarrassed. Jim smiles and then, in full view of the jury, kisses her on the lips.
There are a few whistles and hoots from the back of the courtroom. The girl, flushed with embarrassment, sits. She looks down at her lap.
“Your Honor!” I turn to see Moultrie standing. “This is ridiculous,” he says.
“I agree,” Judge Booker says. “Mr. Aiken, that’s enough of your theatrics. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, Your Honor,” Jim says and walks back through the gate.
“Young lady,” the judge looks at the girl, “would you like to press charges against Mr. Aiken?”
The girl stands and clears her throat. “No, ma’am, that won’t be necessary. I’ll take care of him when we get home. Mr. Aiken is my uncle.”
The courtroom erupts in laughter. The judge is trying hard to remain passive, but she acquiesces and gives Jim a smile, as if to say, Well done, counsellor.
Jim strolls back over to the jury. “Context, ladies and gentlemen. In one context, the judge asks if charges should be filed. In another, we all laugh as our interpretation matches reality.”
Jim turns and looks at Moultrie. The jurors are watching him and finally, when they see that he is staring at Moultrie, they all gradually turn their stare on the solicitor. Moultrie, obviously uncomfortable, shifts his weight in the chair.
“I would submit to you,” Jim says with a slight nod in Moultrie’s direction, “that if someone had taken the time to get the context straight, there wouldn’t have been any laughter when this boy accused Glen Erskine. But it would have been obvious that no charges needed to be filed, either.”
Jim leaves the jurors hanging on his last words. He walks back over to our table and sits. Moultrie’s face is blood red as he stares at my attorney.
“We are going t
o recess for ten minutes,” the judge says. “I want to see counsel in chambers, now.”
Jim looks at me as the gavel bangs. We stand.
Jim’s niece steps up to the rail. “Did I do alright, Uncle Jimmy?”
“You did just fine, baby. You can go on back to the house and I’ll see you later. Tell your mama and daddy I’m planning to have supper at Ashley Oaks with you all tonight.”
“Okay, bye.”
We watch as Stacy Burke walks down the aisle and out the door. The last time I saw her, she was just a little girl. I turn to Jim. “That’s Bobby and Rachel’s daughter?”
“Yeah, isn’t she somethin’?”
“She’s gorgeous.”
“Watch out, now, she’s spoken for.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“She and Nick have been dating steady for the last year.”
“Nick? But don’t they live in Nashville?”
“Yeah, but—”
The bailiff walks up. “Mr. Aiken, the judge is waiting.”
Jim looks at me. “I guess I’m gonna get a spanking,” he says with a grin.
Jim was right. The judge scolded him for his performance during his opening statement. I urged Jim not to do things to get the judge mad at him. But as we sit now waiting for Moultrie to call Tommy Jackson to the stand, Jim tells me not to worry about it.
“Is the State ready?” the judge asks.
Moultrie rises. “We are, Your Honor.”
“Call your first witness.”
“The State calls Thomas Wayne Jackson.”
The bailiff emerges from the door leading to the judge’s chambers with Tommy. I haven’t seen the boy in four months and it is remarkable how much he has grown. He’s taller than he was. And he’s put on a few pounds, too. He looks good in his suit—minus the baseball cap that always used to adorn his head. The bailiff leads him over to the witness stand. I watch as he raises his right hand to be sworn.
“Do you swear or affirm the testimony you are about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”
“Yes,” Tommy says. He sits.
“Please state your name and spell your last name for the record,” Moultrie says.
“Thomas Wayne Jackson, J-A-C-K-S-O-N. Everybody just calls me Tommy.”
“How old are you Tommy?”
“Almost fourteen.”
Moultrie then asks a few general questions about life at New Horizons. Who his friends were, what he liked, what he disliked. He then moves on to questions about me, what did Tommy think of me. Tommy says he liked me, but his counselor, Chris, was his favorite. And that brings Moultrie to that infamous last weekend in October of last year.
“How did you wind up at Dr. Erskine’s house that weekend, Tommy?”
“I was in Home Time and I was supposed to be spending the weekend with my counselor, Chris. But his wife was real pregnant and I think it was too much on her—like having me around, I mean. So Chris called Glen and told him he was taking me back to New Horizons and Glen said not to, that I could stay with him.”
I nudge Jim and whisper, “That is not what happened. Chris practically had to beg me to take Tommy that weekend.”
“I know,” Jim whispers.
“Why don’t you object, then?”
“Unless Moultrie pulls a big no-no, I’m not going to object to anything while he’s questioning the boy. Now, be quiet.”
Terrific.
“And so,” Moultrie continues, “your counselor took you to Dr. Erskine’s house?”
“Yes, sir.”
“When was that?”
“Saturday morning.”
“And things went okay that day and the next?”
“Sure, I had a good time.”
“Tell us what happened that Sunday night at Dr. Erskine’s home.”
“Well, I guess it all started with the baby-sitter.”
“The baby-sitter?”
“Yeah, everybody went to some kinda party Sunday night and left me there with Glen’s kids and the baby-sitter. And she tried to come on to me.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know...like she wanted to do it.”
“Do what?” Clearly, Moultrie is hearing this for the first time. I never mentioned the incident with Carla and neither did Tommy in his original statement. But maybe he thinks we’re going to bring it up here at trial and this is his way of dealing with it.
“She wanted to have sex,” Tommy says bluntly.
“Tommy, are you telling us that the Erskines’ baby-sitter tried to have sex with you?”
“No, but I thought she wanted to. But then she got mad when I said let’s do it. She told Glen I tried to rape her. I didn’t really wanna do it with her anyway. She was ugly...and too fat.”
That sends a murmur through the courtroom. The jurors are looking at Tommy in disbelief.
“Jim,” I whisper, “what is he doing? He’s making himself look like—”
“—a little pervert,” Jim whispers back to me.
Moultrie looks as if he doesn’t know what to say. He clears his throat. “Tommy, tell us what happened later that night, after Dr. Erskine returned home.”
“He believed Carla—that’s the baby-sitter—about me trying to rape her. He talked to me—about how that was inappropriate behavior and how he would have to take me out of Home Time. And then...”
“Then what, Tommy?”
“I was sittin’ on the bed...and Glen put his arm around me and whispered in my ear that if I was interested in sex he would teach me later.”
“And what did you say?”
“Nothin’. I just thought he was jokin’ around. But later, after I had gone to bed, he came back to my room.”
“And what happened?”
“He got in bed with me and started hugging and kissing me.”
Now, at last, Tommy’s testimony is matching his original allegations, verbatim.
“Where did he kiss you, Tommy?”
“On the face at first...and my neck...then on the lips. He put his tongue in my mouth.”
Despite Tommy’s previous fantastic testimony, he is starting to win the jury’s sympathy, now. I can see it in their faces. Moultrie seems more at ease with testimony he has heard before.
“Was he doing anything else while he was kissing you?”
“Yeah, he was feeling me up.”
“You mean Dr. Erskine was touching your penis?”
“Yeah.”
“And what were you thinking while Dr. Erskine was doing this to you, Tommy?”
“What was I thinkin’?”
“Yes, how did it make you feel?”
“I thought it felt good...I had a hard-on.”
I hear a couple of laughs from behind me. Moultrie looks as if he wishes he had not asked the question. And I am dumfounded at Tommy’s bizarre testimony. Again, he seems to have sabotaged his own credibility. Moultrie reaches up and scratches his eyebrows. “Okay, Tommy, what happened next?”
“Glen sucked me off. You want me to tell how that felt, too?”
The courtroom erupts in laughter. The judge bangs her gavel and looks at Tommy. “Young man, listen to me. These are very serious charges you’ve brought against this man,” she points the gavel at me, “and I expect you to act accordingly. This is not a joking matter. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Tommy says, “I’m sorry.”
“Proceed, Mr. Moultrie.”
“Thank you, Your Honor. Tommy, what happened when Dr. Erskine finished performing oral sex on you?”
“He said he wanted me to do him.”
“Dr. Erskine made you perform oral sex on him?”
“Yeah.”
“And then what happened?”
“I spit his junk out on the floor.” Tommy looks down. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
Moultrie clears his throat. “Did Dr. Erskine perform anal intercourse on you after that, Tommy?”
> For the first time Tommy looks at me and our eyes lock. I hope he can see the “Why?” written all over my face.
“Tommy, I need you to answer the question,” Moultrie says. “Did Dr. Erskine have anal intercourse with you?”
Tommy looks down again. “Yeah.”
“Did anything else happen that night at Dr. Erskine’s home, Tommy.”
“No.”
“What about the next day at your school?”
Tommy then told how I took him in the restroom at his school and forced him to have oral sex. And then he basically gave a repeat of the sodomy story for the night I visited him at New Horizons to tell him of Chris Manning’s death.
All in all, it was an Academy Award winning performance.
“You may cross examine the witness, Mr. Aiken,” the judge says.
Jim looks at me, giving me one last chance to withdraw my conditions. I shake my head. Jim stands. “No questions, Your Honor.”
Chapter 14
Reasonable Doubts
“The State calls Lucille Drake,” Moultrie says. Jim and I watch as she takes the stand and is sworn. She gives her name for the record and Moultrie begins his questioning. “Please state your occupation, Ms. Drake.”
“I am director of Children and Youth Services for Charleston County.”
“You are a licensed social worker in the State of South—”
“Your Honor,” Jim says as he stands, “to save time, the defense is willing to stipulate to Ms. Drake’s educational and professional standing as well as concede her expertise in the area of child sexual abuse.”
“Thank you, Mr. Aiken. Proceed, Mr. Moultrie.”
“Thank you, Your Honor. Ms. Drake, were you called to New Horizons Group Home for Boys on the morning of October 31st last year?”
“Yes. Elizabeth Carbon, Tommy’s case worker, called me to say that Tommy Jackson may have been sexually molested by a staff member the previous night. I met her at the home around six-thirty that morning.”
“Did you interview the boy personally after you arrived at the home?”
“I did.”
“Can you describe the state he was in?”
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