Randy Singer: By reason of insanity

Following her conversation with the legal assistant, Catherine drove from the Virginia Beach courthouse to Norfolk federal court. By the time she arrived, fighting traffic the entire thirty-five-minute drive, Marc Boland was long gone. She tried his office again but this time couldn't even reach his legal assistant. She waited for Boland to call, checking her phone at least three different times to make sure it wasn't on silent. At 6:15, she decided to head to the law school.

She arrived at 6:45 and pulled into the parking lot of the ornate, colonial-style redbrick building that housed the law school. She drove through the horseshoe-shaped lot once but couldn't find a spot. After a loop through the adjacent lot for the law school library, she still couldn't find one. She checked her watch and drove to the side of the building, where a few coned-off spots were being jealously guarded by serious-looking students.

Catherine rolled down her window and flashed her newspaper credentials. "Where do press members park?" she asked.

The student looked confused. "There are some open spots across the street," he suggested.

Cat turned in her seat and glanced at the big Amerigroup office building located on the other side of the road. She turned back to the student with a pained expression. "For the press?" she asked.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, that's all we have available."

Now he'd done it-called her "ma'am" as if she were fifty years old with gray hair in a bun. "Can I get your name?" Cat asked. She took out a pen and a little flip notebook-a prop she carried for times like this.

"Hang on a minute," the student said.

A few seconds later, the students moved one set of cones for the school's newly designated press parking spot.

Pleased with herself, Catherine walked toward a small gauntlet of protesters who had gathered outside the side entrance to the building. They held signs blasting gays and lawyers and "the sodomites in Sin City." Catherine recognized the stocky ringleader as the Reverend Harold Pryor, a notorious pastor from Kansas who ran around the country pronouncing God's judgment on everyone who didn't attend his church. Because she had parked in the VIP section, the protesters all turned toward her as she approached the side door.

"What's the matter," Cat asked, "couldn't find any military funerals to disrupt?"

Pryor stared at her with small, dark eyes that he narrowed into condemning slits. His face glistened with sweat, and his red complexion matched nicely with his auburn hair. "Woe to you experts in the law," Pryor said, "because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering."

A thought hit Catherine, chilling her even in the midst of the warm, humid air of a spring night. What was Pryor doing clear across the country at an event like this? It wasn't exactly the kind of high-profile gathering that fit his MO. How long had he been in Hampton Roads?

She made a mental note to call Jamarcus Webb once she got inside the building. Then she made a face. "You need to get some new deodorant," she said as she disappeared into the massive brick building that served as the home to Regent Law School.

She found Marc Boland in the front of the lecture hall and pulled him aside, rapidly explaining her dilemma. He apologized for not calling her back. "I haven't even had time to check my messages," he said. "Twenty-two e-mails and six phone messages just from the time I spent in court."

They agreed to meet as soon as the seminar was over.

Quinn Newberg sat at a table in front of the standing-room-only crowd in the expansive moot courtroom that doubled as an auditorium. He listened as Marc Boland gave a stirring defense of capital punishment. Bo, as the moderator referred to him, was tall, maybe six-four or so, and big boned, but with a soft-edged baby face that looked like it only required shaving once or twice a week. He had short blond hair and an engaging way with the audience-the style of a Southern gentleman that belied the killer instinct Quinn had already heard about. Bo had played linebacker at Virginia Tech before a torn ACL short-circuited his senior season.

Bo looked impressive in a tailored blue suit and bright tie with bold crimson and yellow horizontal stripes. Quinn had dressed in Vegas casual-khaki slacks, a blue blazer, an open-necked shirt. The event coordinators weren't paying him enough to sport a tie.

Boland didn't spare any of the gory details when he described the crimes committed by those who claimed mental illness. His word pictures of rape, murder, and mayhem would have made Stephen King proud. "These types of crimes are not committed by ordinary citizens," Boland said. "The grotesque nature of these crimes serves as Exhibit A for the defendants' mental imbalance."

Quinn noticed some heads nodding as Boland continued. He had stepped out from behind the podium and was partway up the middle aisle. "If we adopt the philosophy of people like Mr. Newberg, death penalty jurisprudence would be flipped on its head. The more grotesque the crime, the more likely a defendant can make a case that he was mentally impaired, thus avoiding the death penalty. What kind of system is that? If you're going to shoot them, you might as well slice them up and maybe eat a bite or two of your victim." Boland shook his head at the absurdity of it. "That way you can claim the devil made you do it."

As Boland took his seat, all eyes turned toward Quinn. Though Quinn hadn't wanted to be here in the first place, this smooth-talking Southerner had just thrown down the gauntlet. Sure, this was a law-and-order state. But these folks had hearts, didn't they?

Quinn stood behind the podium, just in case.

"In 1986, the Supreme Court barred execution of the mentally insane. But that ruling only protects those without the capacity to understand they are about to be put to death. Or why."

Quinn surveyed the skeptics in the room, mostly lawyers and law students parsing each word, along with the Reverend Harold Pryor and a few members of his church who had slithered into the auditorium and were lined up along the back wall. Quinn liked juries better, especially Vegas juries-average folks who appreciated a little showmanship and common sense. But he did notice some sympathetic looks from a few of the female law students. Something about his sister's trial had made Quinn a hero for many women who suffered abuse or shuddered at the prospect of it. He had received several unsolicited e-mails from women telling their stories and thanking him for what he had done at trial.

"What about a man like Scott Louis Panetti, who claims he was drowned and electrocuted as a child and recently stabbed in the eye in his death row cell by the devil? He has wounds that he swears were inflicted by demons and healed by JFK. And in case you're worried that he's making this up just to avoid the death penalty, you should know that he was hospitalized fourteen separate times and diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia on eight different occasions before he shot his in-laws in 1991.

"He defended himself at trial, flipped a coin to determine whether or not to strike jurors during jury selection, and wore a purple cowboy outfit, complete with a cowboy hat dangling around his neck. Even though it was Texas, this probably wasn't a good idea. It would be like a lawyer lecturing at tonight's debate without a tie."

Quinn's quip fell flat, except for a courtesy chuckle from a few of the women.

"He was judged competent to stand trial," Quinn continued, "competent to defend himself, and not insane at the time of the murders. Because he understands what it means to be put to death, he doesn't fit within the narrow category of insane inmates protected from the death penalty."