Scott Pratt - An Innocent Client

After I finished the paper, I drove to the gym in Johnson City and worked out for an hour. Then I drove over to Unicoi County to represent Randall Finch, one of my two remaining appointed death penalty cases. Randall was a twenty-five-year-old, uneducated redneck who’d killed his girlfriend’s thirteen-month-old son in a drug-induced haze. Randall and his girlfriend had been binging on crystal meth and hydrocodone for two days and had finally run out of drugs, so the girlfriend went out to find some more, leaving the child with Randall. While she was gone, the little boy apparently started to cry. Randall first dealt with him by using him for an ashtray, putting cigarettes out on the bottoms of his feet. Then, for some reason only Randall could understand, he laid the child on the metal protective rack of a hot kerosene heater, producing a sun-shaped burn that covered his back. Finally, when the baby still wouldn’t stop crying, Randall shook him so violently his brain hemorrhaged.

Randall’s girlfriend returned to find the carnage and called the police. They arrested her, too.

Randall didn’t deny killing the baby. He just said he didn’t remember killing the baby. The only defense I could attempt was reduced mental capacity based on intoxication so severe that Randall didn’t realize what he was doing, but I knew it wouldn’t work. Once the jury saw the photographs of the cigarette burns and the burn on the tiny boy’s back, Randall would be lucky to get out of the courtroom without being lynched. When I looked at the photos the first time I wanted to lynch Randall myself. All I’d have needed was a rope and some privacy.

The preliminary hearing had been held two months earlier in a lower court in Erwin, and the evidence was gruesome. Since then, Deacon Baker had spent a great deal of time and energy proclaiming to the local media the fate he had in mind for Randall Finch. It was to be the death penalty, swift and certain.

Deacon, however, hadn’t bothered to file his death notice, an absolute requirement in any death penalty case, so I decided to try something sneaky. I told Randall that since the case against him was so strong and since Deacon hadn’t filed the notice, Randall should plead guilty at arraignment, his first appearance in the higher criminal court. Nobody had ever tried to pull a stunt like that to my knowledge, and I had no idea what the judge would say. But I knew it would, at the very least, set up an extremely interesting appellate issue. Randall agreed.

The judge was Ivan Glass. I wasn’t expecting any warm greetings. Glass had recently developed some kind of infection in his leg and was spending a lot of his time on the bench high on the same kind of painkillers Randall had been taking when he murdered the baby. If Glass was high during the Finch arraignment, I knew I’d probably be in for trouble.

The judge called our case around 10:00 a.m. The bailiffs brought Randall to the podium, and Glass glared down at him from the bench.

“So this is the man accused of killing the baby?” He wasn’t slurring his words, and his eyes appeared to be clear.

“Yes, your honor,” Deacon Baker said. He’d made yet another appearance for the cameras.

“Let the record show that I’ve appointed Mr. Dillard to represent him and that Mr. Dillard is present with his client today.” I’d told Glass after he appointed me that I was planning on retiring and would appreciate it if he wouldn’t appoint me to any more cases. He’d snorted and said he looked forward to not having me around. The feeling was mutual.

“I’m handing Mr. Dillard a copy of the indictment,” Glass said. “Do you waive the formal reading?”

“Yes,” I said.

“How does your client plead?”

“He pleads guilty.”

“Very well, as far as scheduling…wait a minute. What did you say, Mr. Dillard?”

“I said Mr. Finch wants to enter a plea of guilty this morning. He doesn’t want to contest the charges.”

“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Judge Glass said. “A guilty plea at arraignment in a death penalty case?”

“This isn’t a death penalty case, judge,” I said. “No notice has been filed.”

I saw the light bulb come on as Judge Glass realized what I was trying to do. To my relief, he seemed amused rather than angry. He turned to the prosecution.

“What do you think about that, Mr. Baker?”

Baker stood, red-faced.

“This is unprecedented, your honor. He can’t do it.”

“There’s nothing in the Rules of Criminal Procedure that prohibits it,” I said. “The rules say a criminal defendant can enter a plea of guilty or not guilty at arraignment. We want to enter a plea of guilty. Mr. Baker hasn’t filed his death notice. He’s had plenty of time; he’s certainly let everyone in the media know his intentions.”

“I was going to file it today,” Deacon said, his voice even whinier than usual.

Glass snickered and looked at Randall. “Mr. Finch, do you understand what your attorney is attempting to do here today?”

“Yes.”

“Have you and your attorney discussed this thoroughly?”

“Yes.”

“Do you understand that if I decide to accept this plea, you’ll be giving up your constitutional right to a trial by jury?”

“Yes.”

Judge Glass sat back in his chair and ran his fingers through his snow-white hair. I could see the rusty wheels in his brain grinding. After a couple of minutes, he leaned forward.

“Mr. Dillard, if I refuse to accept this plea, I assume you’re going to file an appeal immediately?”

“That’s right, judge.”

“And if I accept the plea, I assume you’ll do the same, Mr. Baker?”

“Absolutely.”

“Well, if I’m going to make a mistake, I prefer to err on the side of caution. I’m going to refuse to accept Mr. Finch’s guilty plea. Go ahead and file your appeal, Mr. Dillard. We’ll deal with scheduling after we find out what the wise men at the Supreme Court have to say about this.”

“Thank you,” I said. There wasn’t any point in arguing with him. I didn’t really expect Judge Glass to let a baby killer escape the possibility of a death sentence, but it was worth doing just to see the look on Deacon Baker’s face. I told Randall I’d file the appeal immediately and watched the bailiffs lead him back toward his isolation cell. The other inmates in the jail had let the sheriff know that if Randall got into the general population, he wouldn’t last an hour.

Since Lilly would be graduating soon and moving out, I knew her recital that night might be my last opportunity to watch her dance. Caroline told me she’d choreographed a solo for Lilly that was set to a song about sexual abuse. How ironic, I thought, given my situation with Sarah and some of the things Erlene had told me about Angel.

The dance was a lyrical, the song “ I’m OK ” by Christina Aguilera. Lilly had been dancing since she could walk. She was strong in acrobatics, tap, ballet, and jazz, but the lyrical dance was my favorite. I loved the smooth movements, the athletic jumps, the graceful turns.

My daughter was costumed in a long-sleeved, high-necked, solid white dress. There were puffs at each shoulder, and the chiffon skirt gave the illusion of a full circle when she turned. Rhinestones that had been glued onto the costume sparkled under the blue and gold spotlights. Her long auburn hair had been pulled back from her face, and she floated back and forth across the stage as if she were riding on her very own cloud. I was amazed at the changes in both her body and her skill level in the six months since I’d last experienced the pleasure of watching her dance. She was no longer a girl; she’d turned into a young woman, a beautiful and talented young woman.

I felt my heart soar as I watched Lilly turn her body into a powerful form of expression. Her long arms and slender hands caught the subtle accents of the music perfectly, and the flexibility and strength in her legs reflected the hard work and dedication required of a dancer. As the music built, a smile took over my face. She was so lovely, so pure. My day-to-day world was filled with cruelty and evil and ugliness. I experienced this kind of thing so rarely that at one point I realized I was lightheaded, apparently too moved to breathe. As I listened to the lyrics, I understood what Caroline had meant. The song was about a young woman who carried the guilt and shame of sexual abuse at the hands of her father