Scott Turow - The Laws of our Fathers

'Subject,' I think, is always an appropriate candidate for bail. PTS is a holdover from CETA, a job-training program staffed by persons who are barely beyond the point of poverty themselves. Their sympathies are freely engaged by the prisoners; PTS's message, sometimes barely lettered, is usually the same as Moses': Let my people go. The length of this report – three pages – and the speed with which it was prepared – a week – are a tribute to the political sensitivities of this matter and the suburban caseload in Greenwood County. Here in Kindle, we are often a month awaiting a single paragraph. It's not clear whether Ms Tomar didn't hear that Nile made bail or decided it was politically advisable to complete her report anyway. But clearly she had no inkling Eddgar would come through for Nile. Why did he, then?

'We-all are ready, Judge,' says Marietta, peeking in from the back door of the chambers.

In the courtroom, we get off to a fractious start. Tommy told Hobie the first witness would be Lovinia Campbell, the young homegirl who ended up as another victim of the shooting, but Molto says the transport deputies have failed to deliver her, as they often do. Hobie thinks this is simply an excuse to turn the tables on him.

'Mr Tuttle,' I say, ‘I have to tell you this happens all the time.' Annie is always on the phone complaining about the jail's failure to deliver the prisoners we need. Somehow there is never any keeping track. A thousand inmates go back and forth each day, walked over into the basement of this building down the tunnel that ties the jail to the courthouse. Somebody bonds out. Somebody else never arrived from the police station where he was first arrested. And in a system in which everything – bail, jail housing, sentencing – go harder on repeat offenders, it is a daily occurrence to discover that a defendant has not given his true name. Often the intake fingerprint comparison done at McGrath Hall, Police Force headquarters, will reveal that a defendant has a rap sheet with four or five different aliases. Kamal Smith is Keeval Sharp, Kevin Sharp, and Sharpstuff. Aggravated by all of this, Annie's English is apt to fall apart. 'Today, dis mawnin, you send me wrong Ortiz. I need Angel Ortiz. Numbah, six oh six, faw faw fi'. Tree times now we ged wrong Ortiz. Is not right. Ged me right one. Please!'

'Your Honor,' Hobie says, ‘I think they're not prepared to put on the witness. I think she's giving them trouble.'

'Judge,' answers Molto, 'there wasn't any trouble until she met Mr Tuttle. And we'll be happy to put her on, but she's not here. Maybe the transport deputies dropped the ball, maybe our office did, but she didn't arrive from Juvenile Hall. We can't change that now. We have some stips to read and another witness on the way over. That's all we can do.'

'Mr Turtle, are you unprepared for the witness the state intends to call?'

'I'm all right,' he answers casually. 'Well then, what's your point?'

He shrugs as if he doesn't know and without more discussion retreats to counsel table, fiddling with his pad and pretending not to notice my irritated glance. A few feet away, Molto and Singh confer. Is Lovinia Tommy's problem? Is she the reason he was so eager to get started? Was he hoping to keep her in line? That's what it sounds like.

After some shuffling at the prosecution table, Rudy Singh arrives at the podium. His limp grey suit is far too light for the season.

'We have reached stipulations, if the court please,' he announces. Rudy has a musical voice and pretentious manner. He is darker by a shade than Hobie, slender, with heavy black brows and perfect features. He strikes me as one of those spoiled, pretty-boy princes who seem to be produced by every ethnic group around the world.

Rudy reads what has been agreed into the record. Essentially, the police pathologist's report has been accepted. June Eddgar died of multiple gunshot wounds to the head. Blood gases and the lung tissues indicate death was immediate. Various details regarding the state of her digestion, and facts reported by the officers on the scene lead the pathologist to opine that the time of death was between 6:15 a.m. and 7:00 a.m. on September 7. Mrs Eddgar, according to the pathologist, was looking straight into the path of the gunfire when she was struck.

'So stipulated,' Hobie intones.

'The People and the defendant, Nile Eddgar, further stipulate that the remains examined by Dr Russell were in fact those of June LaValle Eddgar, date of birth March 21, 1933.'

'So stipulated.' We have a murder case. A victim dead of violent means.

Next, Rudy reads a summary of an array of telephone toll records. In the era of computers and multiple area codes, the phone company maintains magnetic media recording every call from every number. These summaries show that in August and early September Nile seldom let twenty-four hours pass without calling a pager number. The testimony, no doubt, will be that the pager was Hardcore's. It was dialed repeatedly from Nile's apartment and office, and his father's home on several evenings and weekends.

After that, Rudy recites the parties' agreement about the fingerprint expert's report. One of the shell casings recovered from the scene shows a partial print from Gordon Huffington, a.k.a. Gorgo. Huffington has not been available for any current comparisons.

'He's a fugitive?' I ask. 'Huffington?'

Singh looks to Tommy, then Hobie, before responding. Hobie waves a hand to show he could not care less if Rudy answers.

'Yes, Yaw On-ah,' Rudy replies.

'And the state's theory is that he's the shooter?'

Again, there's a pause. Molto gets to his feet, his small mouth shriveled by chagrin about my frequent questions.

'It wasn't covered in openings,' I explain. 'I'm just trying to get my bearings.'

'He's the alleged member of the conspiracy who fired the shots,' Tommy answers. 'And he's at large.'

I nod. But there is a hole in the state's case. The actual killer is unaccounted for. That's bound to provide room for the defense.

Singh resumes reading. He allows his voice a flourish meant to inform that we've reached a point of drama. People's Group Exhibit 1 consists of Exhibits 1A and iB. Exhibit 1A is a plastic bag. Singh holds it aloft, displaying a long blue plastic sleeve resembling the wrapper from my Sunday newspaper. Group Exhibit 1B consists of 177 pieces of United States currency, 23 hundred-dollar bills and 154 fifty-dollar bills. Like the blue bag, the bills are encased in thick plasticine and sealed with heavy tape, which is inscribed in red with the repeated word 'Evidence.' When received by the lab, the bills in iB were bound by a single common latex band and were contained in Exhibit 1 A, the blue bag. Eighty-nine bills from Exhibit iB were submitted for fingerprint examination: the top and bottom bills of the stack – a $100 bill and a fifty – and 87 bills chosen at random, each one identified in the stipulation by serial numbers.

Rudy's reading continues monotonously. The stipulation discusses points of comparison and ridge details, and goes on at particular length about the so-called Superglue Method, involving cyanoacrylate, which was used to develop prints on the plastic bag. But there is no missing what's significant: Nile's fingerprints were identified on the two outer bills of the stack of money, and his prints, as well as Hardcore's, were also discovered on the blue plastic bag in which the money was wrapped.

As a prosecutor, it took me years to learn I was almost always better off with a stipulation. It avoided the hundred ways witnesses fail – memory lapse or slip of the tongue, the fatal, blurted remark on cross-examination. Especially without a jury, Tommy is probably doing exactly what he should. But he's also allowing Hobie to make the best of the situation, by underplaying highly damaging testimony. What excuse, after all, is there for a probation officer to be exchanging large bills with one of his clients? Even the reporters, minutely whispering at the onset of Rudy' s recitation, gradually quiet as the details about the fingerprints emerge. Everyone in the courtroom now knows the case has passed beyond the stage of accusation. No matter how dryly delivered, the state has offered real evidence against Nile Eddgar.