James Grippando - The Pardon

The old man froze at the sight. He hadn’t been able to make out the features in the dark hallway, but in the better lighting it was clear. The build, the complexion, the sweeping dark eyebrows. A thousand different things were hitting him at once, and each screamed out the similarities between this man and the man he’d seen on the night Goss was murdered. His hands trembled and his heart hammered in his chest as he suddenly realized he was staring into the eyes of a killer. He turned to run, but the man in the uniform grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him back. Wilfredo opened his mouth to cry out for help, but before he could utter a word, the deadly hand of a trained killer came up from below and delivered a powerful jolt to the base of his chin. His head snapped back with the force of a rear-end collision, cracking the frail old vertebrae in his neck until the crown of his head met the middle of his back. In an instant Wilfredo went limp.

The killer released his grasp of the old man’s nightshirt, and let the body fall to the floor. He bent down and felt for a pulse. There was none. His job was done.

He straightened his stolen uniform, put on his dark glasses, and then quietly left the apartment, closing the door behind him. Once again, he left behind his handiwork at 409 East Adams Street. Once again, his footsteps echoed through the empty hallway-like just another beat cop making the rounds.

“All rise!” were the words that set everything in motion, like the blast from a starter’s pistol. After nine weeks of preparation, the stage was finally set. On one side of the courtroom sat a publicity-craving prosecutor, cloaked in the presumption of validity that came with his office. On the other sat a beleaguered defendant, clinging to the presumption of innocence that came with his predicament. Wilson McCue would go it alone for the government. Jack and his lawyer would see this through together, a joint defense, unified in their resistance.

Judge Virginia Tate emerged from her chambers through a side entrance to the courtroom. She was black and white in motion, with pasty white skin, salt-and-pepper hair, steely dark eyes, and a long, double strand of pearls swaying against her black robe. The thunderous clatter of reporters and spectators rising to their feet only added to the effect of her entrance. As she sat in a black leather chair, she looked first at the lawyers and then at the reporters, momentarily shedding her dour expression for a pleasant but tough smile.

“Let’s get moving,” she said and with those distinctly unceremonial words began the first of what would be nine days of jury selection, the phase lawyers referred to as voir dire. It was during this phase that opposing counsel would summon their best psychoanalytic powers, divining who should serve and who should be rejected. Jack could only feel helpless in these circumstances. Manny called the shots, displaying his finely honed skills for all to admire; Jack sat in silence, passing an occasional breath mint or a scribbled message, at once useless yet indispensable to the performance, like a page turner for a concert pianist. And it would remain that way for weeks. He would speak only through Manny. Wear clothes approved by Manny. Take his place at the polished walnut table beside Manny. He was on display as much as he was on trial.

Judge Tate had been apprehensive throughout jury selection. She was well aware of Wilson McCue’s reputation for abusing voir dire-for using it to present his case to the jury or to prejudice his opponent, his questions doing less to elicit information than to advocate his position. McCue had behaved himself, for the most part-until Friday of the second week of selection, when they were finally on the verge of empaneling a jury.

“Do any of the jurors know Mr. Swyteck personally?” McCue began innocently enough. The prospective jurors simply shook their heads. “Surely you have heard of Mr. Swyteck,” was his follow-up, eliciting a few nods. “Of course you have,” he said with a smirk. “Mr. Swyteck was the lawyer who defended the infamous Eddy Goss, the man he is now charged with having murdered.” Then that gleam appeared in his eye as he put his first drop of poison into the well. “Let me ask you this, ladies and gentlemen: Would anyone here be less inclined to believe Mr. Swyteck because he’s a slick lawyer who was able to persuade twelve jurors to find a confessed killer not guilty?”

“Objection,” said Manny.

“Sustained.”

“Your Honor,” McCue feigned incredulity. “I’m a little surprised by the objection. I’m just trying to ensure a fair panel. I mean, there are people who might even want to hold Mr. Swyteck responsible for all those grotesque murders his guilty clients committed-”

“That’s enough!” the judge rebuked. “You are much more transparent than you realize, Mr. McCue. Move on. Now .”

“Surely,” he agreed, having already made his point.

“I mean it,” the judge said sternly. “I’ll have no more of that.”

Like a man testing fate, McCue seemed to get more outrageous with Manny’s repeated objections, each of which was sustained and followed by increasingly stern reprimands from the judge. His antics pushed jury selection well into that Friday afternoon. But by the middle of that ninth interminable day the judge finally had some good news.

“We have a jury,” she announced with relief.

A burly black construction worker who carried his lunch every day in the same crinkled paper sack; a retired alligator poacher with cowboy boots, tobacco-stained teeth, and a crew cut; and a blue-haired widow whose juror identification number, fifty-five, might have been half her age were just three of the twelve “peers” who would decide whether Jack Swyteck would live or die.

It was nearly four o’clock in the afternoon, and normally Judge Tate would have called it a day at that point, recognizing that there wasn’t enough time for both the state and the defense to present opening statements. But in light of McCue’s conduct during jury selection, she had a plan that would allow her to finish opening statements and still have plenty of time to watch herself on the six o’clock news.

“Mr. Cardenal,” the judge said with a nod, “please proceed for the defense.”

Manny rose slowly, giving the judge a confused look.

McCue also rose. “With all due respect,” he interjected in his most folksy manner, “the govuhment usually gives the first opening statement.”

The judge glared, then spoke explicitly, so that the jury would understand exactly what she was doing.

“We know the government usually goes first,” she said. “But we warned you repeatedly-you were making your opening statement while selecting a jury. So now the defense gets its turn; you’ve had yours.”

McCue was dumbstruck. “Your Honor, that seems pretty draconian, don’t you think? I mean, if I could just have a couple of minutes. That’s all-”

“Very well. You have two minutes.”

“Well,” he backpedaled, “I mean two min-”

“You’ve just wasted ten seconds of your two minutes.”

At that, McCue scurried across the room, putting on his jury face. His big, dark eyes were full of life as they peered over the spectacles that he wore low on the bridge of his prominent nose, Teddy Roosevelt-style. Even in a serious moment like this, a trace of a smile lit up his happy, round face, making it clear why people said Wilson McCue was simply an overgrown good ol’ boy at heart.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” he said, pacing as he spoke, “this case is about murder, about power. . the power over life and death. By the will of the people, we do have capital punishment in this state: We recognize the power of the government to put convicted killers to death. What we don’t recognize, however, are the misguided efforts of private citizens to exercise that power at will. We do not allow vigilantes to take the awesome power of the state into their own hands. We do not permit men to carry out their own private executions, whatever their motive.