“You can’t tell what he’ll do. He loves to think that he has an acute legal mind and that he develops brilliant new legal theories which transform the shape of American law. The Seventh Circuit slaps him down every time, but he keeps on trying.”
“We don’t necessarily get justice?”
“Maybe not here. Most likely in the Appellate Court. No guarantees. The system usually works. But it’s not perfect. Sometimes it works slowly and sometimes not at all. I think we’ll win, but the hatred of foreigners in this country is so strong just now that I can’t be certain.”
My parents, George, Tracy, and I sat in the back row of the courtroom. The press filled up every seat in front of us. At the door, Cindy spoke with the recent law-school grad who was the United States attorney for this emergency motion.
“We’re not inclined to fight this motion, Ms. Hurley. The boss thinks the whole business is disgusting. You can never know what old T.W. will do.”
A short, pompous man with a perpetual sneer listened to Cindy’s argument for a time.
“That’s quite enough, Counselor,” he cut her off with a wave. “This is not a press conference. I have read your petition and find it hastily done and improperly documented.”
“Your Honor, this is an emergency petition. I beg you to consider the substance of the case, the horrendous violation of the Constitution, and the savage violation of this young woman’s rights.”
“You are not a priest, Ms. Hurley nor are you likely to ever be one. Nor am I a Catholic. Please do not preach at me. I am the one who determines in this courtroom what is an emergency and what is not.”
Cindy bit her lip to control her anger. Then she said with a smile, “I take exception, Your Honor, to the suggestion that I will never be a priest. About that only time can tell.”
There was a titter in the courtroom. Judge Manley glared us into silence.
“Ms. United States Attorney, do you have an argument to make on this matter?”
“The United States, Your Honor, does not wish to dispute this motion.”
“Madam, there are very important points of constitutional law involved in this case. I order you to appear in this same courtroom a week from this day at the same time and offer the best possible argument that the legal wizards at the office of the United States Attorney can prepare against Ms. Hurley’s motion.”
“Yes, Your Honor. Thank you, Your Honor.”
“Do you understand, Ms. Hurley?’
“Yes, Your Honor.” She choked back her temper so that she might honor the requirements of ritual. “Thank you, Your Honor.”
I wanted to go up the bench and break his nose.
The media rushed outside and were waiting for Cindy as she strode out.
“What are you going to do, Cindy?”
“This afternoon I am going to file an emergency appeal in the Seventh Circuit.”
That appeal was promptly denied on the grounds that a mere week’s delay would not cause a grave injustice.
The newspaper headlines the next day announced:
Judge Denies McGrail Appeal
Circuit Court Agrees
Both television and the newspapers carried pieces which recounted the reaction of law professors. Generally, they were on Cindy and Nuala’s side. As a professor from University of Chicago put it, “There is a dictum which says that if the law says that, it is a fool. If Judge Manley said that, he is a fool.” However, in the interest of balance, they were also able to find someone who would say that Tom Manley was a brilliant constitutional lawyer and he might have something very important to say.
I went home furious, confused, and determined, though I had no idea what to do. So I went over to an electronics shop in the 900 North Michigan Mall (also known as the Bloomingdale’s Mall) and bought a tape deck which would record in both European and American format, so I could send Nuala the tapes of the television news.
Tracy arranged for Cindy to appear on the Today show by satellite from NBC Towers in Chicago. Bryant Gumbel was very sympathetic. Cindy described what Nuala was like and how she had been treated. “Makes you wonder about this country, doesn’t it?” Bryant observed. “I’m sure justice will prevail in the end.”
Cindy then delivered a terse version of her lecture that if one person was denied a right, all of us lost some of our rights. She had no comment to make on Judge Manley. She said that she regretted the Seventh Circuit’s decision. “Justice delayed is justice denied. In a case like this, even a week’s delay is a serious violation of justice.”
I called Nuala after the Today show and told her about what had happened.
“Would you ever send me my harp, Dermot? It’s still in my apartment.”
“Sure. I could bring it over.”
“Please don’t. I’m confused something awful.”
“All right. I’ll send over the tapes of the television. Cindy was wonderful on the Today show.”
“Was she now?” she said, displaying a few signs of life. “I’d love to see it, but, Derm, we can’t play American tapes on our little VCR.”
“Woman, don’t I have here a machine that will record our programs in your format?”
“That’s impossible, Dermot.”
“I’ll send over the tape, and you can see what I mean.”
“Wouldn’t that be wonderful!”
“And my other things. They’re not much. Maybe your ma could pack them up for me.”
“She will, I’m sure, but she’ll be very sad while she’s doing it.”
“Thank you, Dermot Michael.”
“May I call you every day?”
“Please, Dermot, not for a while. I’m confused something awful. Cindy will keep me posted. When I’m back here in my own snug little world, I realize how out of place I am in America. I have to think it out, if you take my meaning.”
“Certainly. You call me whenever you want.”
“I will, Dermot Michael. I truly will.”
“You can reverse the charges.”
“Och, I’ll never do that because aren’t you paying for this phone anyhow?”
We both laughed, rather hollowly, and bid each other good-bye without any exchange of affection.
I sat on my easy chair next to the phone, my head sunk into my hands.
The Adversary took advantage of my discouragement.
IF YOU HAD ANY BALLS, YOU WOULD GET THAT HARP AND FLY IT OVER TO HER. BUT NO, YOU’RE A WIMP. YOU LET HER PUT YOU OFF WHEN SHE NEEDS YOU THE MOST.
“I don’t feel like arguing.”
I GIVE UP ON YOU. YOU DON’T DESERVE MY TIME AND ENERGY.
“Fine!”
She did call me once after she received her harp.
“It arrived fine. Dermot. A little out of tune, but harps are always a little out of tune. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Aren’t you folks having a grand time on the telly. Good on you. I half-wish I was there to see it.”
“I totally wish you were here to see it.”
Tracy’s publicity blitz went on in high gear. The New York Times carried a front-page article about her and an editorial which blasted Judge Manley’s decision and the Seventh Circuit’s decision to delay an appeal. Such an editorial would have no impact on Manley, but it would serve as a warning to the Seventh Circuit that, should there be an appeal, the world was watching them.
A British TV team traveled to Galway to interview Nuala. Herself was wonderful. She turned on all her piquant charm and praised the city of Chicago for all its marvels, the skyline, the lakefront, the parks, and, naturally, Mr. Daley’s Ferris wheel. She praised Mr. Daley, too. He was a “grand man” and didn’t she see him every Sunday during the summer at Mass?
The Brits were sympathetic, but one of them fired a fast pitch at her.
“Doesn’t it make you wonder about the American legal system, however?”
“I’m sure justice will be done eventually,” she replied calmly.
“Yes, but how
long will it take?”
“A lot less time that it takes to get out of your jails in the North if one is held under your Official Secrets Act.”
They steered away from that subject.
PBS in Chicago played the whole half-hour. That was after one of our stations sent a crew over there to a do a special on her. She was even better than she was with the Brits, playing now the role of Nuala the comic-opera heroine. She told a couple of wonderfully funny stories about Zack O’Hara, mimicking his square-jawed, angry integrity.
Then they asked her to sing something.
“Och, now, I’m out of practice altogether, but don’t I have here my Celtic harp made in America, if you please. I guess I’ll have to sing if you force me to do so.”
She strummed the harp carefully.
“Sure, isn’t it out of tune, but then aren’t your harps out of tune all the time?”
“At least she didn’t say ‘friggin’ harp,’” Prester George said with a cackle.
We all laughed, even my mother despite her injunction, “Shush, George.”
I’m not fey, not in the slightest but I knew what she was going to play before she began. The tears rolled down my cheeks as once more she told all of us and especially me about the bittersweet story of Molly Malone.
We were all of us crying, on both sides of the Atlantic.
“You’re a gallant woman, Nuala Anne McGrail,” said the interviewer, and herself an Irish-American woman.
“Ah, no,” Nuala replied. “I’m only an Irishwoman.”
“Every judge in the Seventh Circuit will see that program!” Cindy crowed. “They won’t dare turn us down.”
“Manley?”
“I’m sure he doesn’t watch television.”
I sent the tape of the program over to Galway, along with a note which said:
You were great on Channel Six. Wonderful. Everyone cried and said how terrible proud of you they were.
All my love,
Dermot
No answer. Again I was tempted to fly the Atlantic. However, I didn’t.
The brief the United States attorney filed was a terrible mishmash of contradictions. Due process was an inviolable right, but it was not clear that the present case fell under that right. Legal immigrants were certainly protected under the clause, but perhaps not in the same way as American citizens, though maybe they were not really exceptions.
“I’m not going to file a reply,” Cindy said. “This is nonsense.”
Judge Manley seemed to agree in court a week after our first appearance.
“I note, Ms. Hurley,” he said, fussing with the papers on his bench, “that you have not replied to the brief of the United States attorney.”
“How can I reply, Your Honor, to a brief that ignores the principle arguments in my petition. It’s a disgrace.”
“On that point at any rate, Ms. Hurley we agree completely,” he said with a sneer. “Counselor, I would be inclined to hold you in contempt of court if I didn’t realize that you are at the mercy of the best thinking of those legal birdbrains who staff the office of the current United States attorney. I suppose once again I’ll have to straighten out the mess you people have created.”
He yawned.
“I suppose I can reach a decision in this matter within a week or ten days.”
Cindy said nothing as we left the courtroom.
To the waiting press, she said, “I do not expect justice in Judge Manley’s court.”
In the meantime the accusations in her damage suits created another firestorm. She had established links between the state’s attorney’s office and the two agents who had kidnapped Nuala. Both had relatives, a wife in one case and a brother in the other, who worked for the state’s attorney. Moreover, she had found witnesses who testified that these two men had been seen entering the state’s attorney’s office late in the afternoon on the day before Nuala was snatched.
“They’ll settle,” she predicted to me confidently. “The day after Manley is reversed.”
“When will that happen, Cindy.”
“Before the middle of July.”
“Five weeks after she was lifted!”
“I know, Dermot, I know.”
To keep my sanity, I devoted my energies to remodeling Nuala’s apartment, painting it, and replacing all the old furniture. My mother advised me since I was helpless in such matters.
I had bought the whole house. The other renters were moving out on October 1. The building could be restored to its original status as a two-story home and converted into a spacious urban town house. A new neighborhood was emerging here. St. Josephat’s Parochial School was just across the street. It would be a nice place to raise a family. Any family.
I had called Nuala to ask for her permission to begin remodeling.
“I bought the house, Nuala Anne, because I was afraid that someone else would tear it down to make room for a modern town house. The apartment beneath yours is vacant. The lease is up on yours at the end of the year. The house should be preserved.”
“She’d be grateful, Dermot.”
I did not want to ask who “she” was.
“I was thinking of remodeling the apartments and wanted your permission.”
Actually, I was thinking of temporarily restoring her rooms so that they could quickly be converted into a master bedroom and three other bedrooms. The first floor would become the first floor of a home, furnished to remind one of its origins, though with larger rooms, more bathroom space, and better electric wiring.
“Sure, I don’t live there anymore, Dermot. It’s not up to me. I know you’ll make it a nice place to live.”
I listened for whispers from Letitia Walsh Murray, Lace Maker. Perhaps she would tell me something about the missing letter from A. Lincoln. Maybe she had left it somewhere in this home of mine. I heard nothing.
In the first week of July, Judge Manley delivered his opinion. In effect, he argued that the right to due process was not absolute. Had not the Nazi spies during the Second World War been executed without due process? Had not the Japanese been ordered to relocation camps at the same time? Did not Abraham Lincoln himself suspend the right of habeas corpus? Did not the Union Army violate that right in the case of the notorious Camp Douglas conspirators?
Ought one not to conclude therefore that under some circumstances that the interest of the larger society constitutes a right which exceeds the due-process right? Is not the massive violation of our borders by immigrants such a circumstance? Is not the threat to our national identity from this invasion as critical as if a foreign army were invading us? Does not the government have the right to act vigorously and immediately to stop this invasion? Is it not possible to derive a legal theory that tells us that the behavior of the immigration-control agencies might safely be left to their own internal supervision in the present crisis? Does not a too-rigid application of the due-process clause leave the nation at the mercy of this foreign invasion? This court therefore believes that the too-rigid enforcement of the due-process clause without any attention to other rights, including the nation’s right to reasonable measures of self-defense, and denies the plaintiff’s petition.
Cindy demanded an immediate emergency hearing before the Seventh Circuit. Her request was granted, and a panel was appointed. But “immediate” does not necessarily mean immediate in the American courts. One of the judges was away on vacation. The hearing was postponed till the last week in July, six weeks after Nuala had been lifted.
The media attention had diminished, but Tracy kept up the pressure. A few columnists and some editorial writers embraced Judge Manley’s theory. A Republican presidential candidate contended that at last someone in the federal courts was talking sense on immigration. Other candidates said they tended to agree in general with the judge but they didn’t think it ought to apply in the case of this remarkable young woman.
The President, for his part, insisted that Nuala was just the kind of young person the United States needed
. The two agents and the Chicago Director of INS were transferred to Texas. The head of the INS admitted that the behavior of the Chicago office might be seen to be improper.
The Irish media went crazy with anger at the American courts, but no one in this country paid any attention to them.
Most editorial writers took the position that, while immigration was indeed a serious problem, the means used in this case were unjustified and much too drastic.
Fear of the xenophobes muted much of the protest. Even the American Civil Liberties Union refused to become involved. The editor of the Jesuit magazine America accused the ACLU of cowardice and denounced Judge Manley as an unreconstructed nativist bigot.
Meanwhile lawyers for the state’s attorney and the INS talked settlement.
“They’re offering $50,000. We’ve cut our demand to a half-million.”
“What will she get?”
“Something around two-fifty. We’ll have to agree to keep the settlement secret. By the way, the U.S. attorney told me that the Feds want to settle, too, but they can’t till we get a decision, somewhere or the other, up the line. In the end we’ll get about the same from them. We’ll probably end up with around a half-million, and they’ll think they’re lucky. Nuala will enjoy some financial independence.”
“She gives away all her royalties on our book based on Ma’s diaries.”
“All of it?”
“Half to a trust fund for her parents, the rest to Irish charities. Maybe she’ll keep some of this, but I wouldn’t bet on it.”
“Interesting young woman …”
“How’s herself doing?”
“She doesn’t call you?”
“Nope.”
“Don’t blame her, Dermot. She’s going through hell.”
“I’m not blaming her, Cindy.”
“For all her poise and seeming sophistication, she is the product of a lifestyle that in many ways is a hundred years in the past.”
“I know. I’ve been there. I have the T-shirt and the baseball cap.”
“These last two months have been hell for her. She’s brilliant when the media venture to Cararoe. The rest of the time, she’s tired and confused and depressed. Her mother says she’s not eating much. We have to finish this shit soon to protect her from a breakdown. There’s a limit to how much pressure anyone can take.”
Irish Lace Page 28