Grif Stockley - Illegal Motion

“Folks,” he exhorts them, “you weren’t born yesterday! Mr. Page wants you to ignore what you saw and what you heard Robin Perry say and psychoanalyze her motives like she was some patient in a mental hospital. He doesn’t want you to do the one thing that will put away his client: decide who is telling the truth about whether there was consent or not-Robin Perry or Dade Cunningham. I didn’t believe Dade Cunningham when he said he didn’t threaten her; I didn’t believe him when he said Robin wanted sex. What Mr. Page wants you to forget is that both the accused and the victim testified they were meeting on Happy Hollow Road to work on a speech. If Robin had decided for some reason she was attracted to Dade Cunningham, do you think for a minute she would have needed to pretend in her own mind she was meeting him to study? That’s nonsense. Dade Cunningham would have been telling you a totally different story. He would have been saying they simply agreed to meet at the house on Happy Hollow Road. Folks, you don’t have to be Sigmund Freud to decide this case. You just have to remember to use your common sense in deciding whom to believe and whom not to believe….”

Finally, Binkie is done, and the court lets the jury file out and goes into recess. As Judge Franklin disappears into his chambers, Dade turns to me and asks hopefully, “What do you think they’ll do?”

I watch his mother whisper something to Sarah as the spectators begin to stand and talk in normal tones.

“It’s hard to say,” I hedge. Again, I am reminded that there is so much that the jury wasn’t allowed to hear.

“I don’t know,” I say honestly.

“It could go either way.”

Sarah and Lucy pass through the gate that separates the spectators from the trial area. My daughter hugs me.

“You did good. Daddy.”

A warm feeling rushes through me. I will myself not to begin thinking of the mistakes I have made today. There will be time for that soon enough.

“Thanks, babe,” I say into her curly ebony hair. For years she has been too shy to hug me in public. Maybe one of us is finally growing up.

After embracing her son, Lucy extends her hand and says formally, “Thank you, Gideon.”

I let my eyes linger on her face as I shake her hand.

She looks even sadder than usual, which gives me a pre monition that Dade will be convicted. Better to thank me now. She may not feel very thankful in a few hours.

“It went okay, I think,” I say, unwilling to give her hope I don’t feel.

She nods, but it is more of a shrug. She doesn’t expect an acquittal. Spectators, even if they aren’t objective, can sometimes pick up vibes from the jurors that the lawyers can’t. Defense lawyers always hope for miracles. The job would be too depressing if we didn’t. A couple of print reporters stand like vultures, but I wave them off, saying that we will have no comment until after the jury comes back. After I send Sarah off to McDonald’s with a twenty to get us something to eat, I leave Dade and Lucy at the counsel table and go sit down in the back with Barton, whom I didn’t see come in.

“Have you been here all afternoon?” I ask, resentfully noting that Barton’s brown overcoat, which is draped neatly over a chair beside me, looks like it cost twice as much as my new suit. If he had been trying this case, he couldn’t have gotten two words out without throwing up all over his two-hundred-dollar shoes.

“Man, that Binkie can talk,” he says admiringly.

“He looks so damn country that you don’t think he’s got it in him, but he’s hell on wheels once he gets going!”

Thanks for the encouraging words, I think. Yet, Barton, once he quits babbling, will tell it to me straight.

“You think he’ll be acquitted?”

“Well,” Barton hedges, “I didn’t hear all of it.” Noting my expression, he blurts, “Actually, I heard a couple of people saying as they left that they thought Dade was lying through his teeth. One of them did say he thought the jury would be out a long time.”

That’s a wonderful consolation. Hell, I just think I want to know the truth. Sarah returns with our food, but, } too nervous to sample more than a couple of fries, I give mine to Barton, who scarfs down my McDLT so fast that I am reminded of Clan, who has been my sidekick in some of my big cases. No two people could be less alike.

I can’t imagine Barton getting involved with a woman like Gina. I take Barton over to meet Dade and’ Lucy and am amazed that he is reduced to jelly at the prospect.

“He’s already the greatest wide receiver I ever saw, and that includes Lance Alworth!”

People never cease to amaze me. Instead of seeing a kid from the poorest region of the state who any minute may be pronounced a convicted rapist and about to spend the best part of his life in prison. Barton would be delighted to get his autograph.

“This is the man who gave me free office space,” I say by way of introduction. Now I know why he did. He wanted to meet Dade. It turned out that he was always with a client or on the phone when Dade came by and never met him. Barton begins to gush so much about Dade’s career that it is embarrassing, but Dade and even Lucy seem to be relieved to have something to talk about other than what the jury is doing.

Why not? Good of’ denial. Life would be unbearable without it.

At this moment the bailiff rushes in and tells us the jury is returning. I look down at my watch and try not to grimace. They’ve barely been out an hour. How embarrassing.

People begin to stream back into the courtroom, and I catch sight of all three Perrys, who understandably seem elated by this quick decision. I watch the faces of the jurors as they troop back in. I’ve never seen twelve people look so solemn. The lone black juror won’t even look at me. She studies her feet as if she’d never seen them before.

Judge Franklin, who seems equally ready to get home, asks the bailiff to take the verdict form from the foreman, who turns out to be the oldest person on the jury.

Franklin fumbles with the piece of paper and then, frowning, reads in a loud voice, “We, the jury, find Dade Cunningham not guilty of the charge of rape.”

I catch the expression on Lucy’s face as the courtroom erupts in the back when two of the WAR protestors (one of them Paula Crawford) who have smuggled in signs under their coats, begin to shout, “No justice for women!

No justice for women!” For one brief instant Lucy’s eyes gleam with unmistakable joy as Judge Franklin begins banging his gavel and orders the courtroom cleared.

Dade turns to me and offers his hand, and says, smiling, “I thought I was gone.”

“I did, too,” I admit.

“I did, too.”

“Look at her. Dad!” Sarah exclaims.

“She looks so sweet.”

I bend down to the bottom cage and peer in at the greyhound staring back at me. These dogs are bigger than I expected.

“What a weird color,” I say to the attendant standing beside us. Black mixed in with tan. White socks on her feet and a white stripe running down her chest.

“Brindle,” the girl says enthusiastically.

“Want to see her?” She is about Sarah’s age and clearly a greyhound lover. She has been smiling and talking to these strange, skinny, big-faced, little-eared creatures nonstop. I look around the room at the other cages. For the number of dogs in here, there is very little noise. It is as if these retirees from the racetrack sense adoption is their last hope before they are sent to the glue factory or wherever it is doomed greyhounds go to die, and are on their best behavior.

Sarah answers for us, “Yeah!”

The girl, whose name is Barbara, opens the cage and slips a choke collar around the dog.