Scott Turow - The Burden of Proof

"I decline to answer."

"On what grounds?"

"The attorney-client privilege."

Klonsky, who expected this, turned to the grand jury foreperson, a gray-haired woman with glasses.

"Ms. Foreperson, please direct the witness to answer."

Abashed by the thought of a speaking Part in the drama that occurred routinely before her, the foreperson barely glanced at Stern and said simply, "Answer."

"I decline," said Stern.

"On what grounds?" asked Klonsky.

"As stated."

Sonny, who up until now had been proficient and formidable, appeared to have second thoughts. Her pregnancy had progressed to the point that it had wholly erased her usual solid grace. She waited before him, with her own thoughts and a rankled look. "Mr. Stern, I advise you that I shall have to ask the chief judge to hold you in contempt."

"I intend contempt for no one," said Stern, Klonsky asked the grand jurors to recess so that Stern and she could proceed to Chief Judge Winchell's chambers. The grand jurors were more or less familiar with this trip, since they strolled down the block en masse and appeared before Judge Winchell each week to return indictments.

Stern, now and then, had seen them coming, a covey of happy executioners. It was a function to them, $30 a day, part of the customs of the law as arcane as the habits of the Chinese. For the defendant, it was often the end of a respectable life.

Sonny threw open the jury room door, and Marta, dressed in a dark suit and nylons-nylons!-peered inside.. "What's up?" she asked her father.

"We are on our way to see the chief judge."

On her face, Stern saw his own reflective Latin expression, accepting the inevitable.

The group-Sonny, Sandy, Marta, and Shirley, the court reporter, who was also required-waited silently in the corridor for the tardy elevators of the new federal building, "I called Stan," said Sonny. "He'll meet us there." The U.S. Attorney was going to smite his staff and call for justicel It was evident that to a degree Stern had never fully appreciated Sennett hated his guts. Shame, spite, humiliation; the bitter yearning for self-respect. Human beings, thought Stern, were such pitifully predictable creatures.

The small Party walked down the teeming avenue in the summery heat.

Shirley had packed her machine and notes in a small case, and toted it along on one of the little wheeled carrying racks that airline stewardesses use for their luggage. She talked to Stern about her children. The youngest, in college at the U., hoped for a career in radio and TV. Sonny and Marta, in spite of themselves, got along admirably. They had finished law school at virtually the same time and had mutual acquaintances. A.fellow named Jake, a law school friend of Marta's, had clerked with Sonny in the Court of appeals.

Sennett, in his flawless blue suit and perfect shirt, waited for them in the judge's anteroom. As they walked through the door, the U.S.

Attorney was, literally, studying his nails. He shook Marta's hand, and Stern's.

Feeling somewhat surly, Stern did not return his greeting.

. After a minute, Moira Winchell's door opened and the chief 3udge swept a hand to usher them in. She was in a straight skirt, and her hair, more and more visibly shot through with gray, was held back by a headband today, so that she looked a bit schoolgirlish.

"Well, I can't say I'm happy to see any of you." She called out the side door for her own court reporter.

The group was seated again at the judge's conference table, solid as a fortress. The light of the day fell through the heavy windows, long parallelograms of brilliance that gave the rest of the room a kind of prison gloom by contrast.

Pure metaphor, thought Stern of the association.

"On the record," Judge Winchell said to her court reporter.

"Mr. Sennett, I take it you have a motionT"

Stan raised a hand to Sonny, who drew out of a manila folder a short written motion which had been prepared in advance. It asked that Stern be ordered to reappear before the grand jury and to respond to the questions he had refused to answer. Reappearance was required because the grand jury had no power of its own to compel him to respond. It was only for violating the judge's order to answer that Stern could be found in contempt-and jailed.

Moira put the motion aside.

"All right, let's hear what happened. This is the court reporter?"

Shirley was sworn, and read from the narrow stenotype pad in a singsong voice, stumbling at moments as she interpreted the symbols. The judge's court rep6rter, Bob, sat beside Shirley, taking it all down on a machine of his owm "Answer by Mr. Stern," she read at the conclusion," '! intend contempt for no one,'"

Stern saw Sennett, at the foot of the table, frown. Stan was not buying anY.

"All right, Ms. Stern," said the judge, careful with her record, "What do you say to the motion?"

"We object, Your Honor." Marta said that whether Stern had received or retained the safe were both questions that implicated communications with his client. She asked for a week to present a brief in support of that position, and Sennett, speaking for the government today, objected in his usual tone of suppressed vehemence. Briefs were unnecessary on this issue, he said, and would unfairly delay the grand jury's final action. Marta fought back bravely, but the judge eventually sided with the government. She would never tolerate briefing each question Stern was asked.

"If you have cases, I'll read them right now," the judge said.

Marta did. From her briefcase, she removed photocopies of various judicial opinions speaking. to the breadth of the attorney-client priviIege, and passed copies to the judge and the prosecutors. The company, including the two court reporters, sat silently while the judge and the lawyers read.

Stan clearly remained intent on indicting quickly.

Yesterday morning, Stern had received a letter from the Department of Justice granting him an appointment with the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section at 9 A.M. next Tuesday in Washington, D.C. If it went as usual, the meeting would be brief, polite, and entirely perfunctory. By two weeks from today at most, prosecution would be approved and Dixon Hartnell would be a former powerhouse, become instead the carcass for a three- or four-day media feeding.

That Thursday morning the business pages would banner the rumor of his imminent indictment, as the result of a leak from the man at the end of the table. Then, following return of the charges that day, Stan would hold a news conference and read his press release with a still-eyed intensity that would make him appear properly tough whet/his sound bite flickered up on the evening news. On Friday morning the indictment would command the front page here, and probably an item in the Journal and The New York Times. Following that, the weekend papers would run a lengthy rehash, comparing Sennett's initi/(ive in combating corruption on the Kindle County Futures Exchange with others around the nation, or, even worse recounting the tragic rise and fall of Dixon Hartnell.

And while his reputation was devastated, the actual bricks and mortar of Dixon's business life would begin to collapse. Competitors would vigorously woo Dixon's stunned clients, and key employees would start freshening their r6sum6s. In light of the RICO charges, a restraining order would be entered at once, tying up all of Dixon's visible assets, so that S:tern would have to call Klonsky for permission before Dixon could cash a check for spending money. The reporters would lurk outside Dixon's home and call him on his private line at work. And Dixon, everywhere, would see some refle of aversion or harsh judgment pass behind the eyes of each person he met. To Stern, this remained unfathomable-it was impossible to think of Dixon brought so low or, more pertinently, being able to soldier on in the face of such disgrace.