Hayford Peirce - Innocent Until Scanned Guilty

An image took shapeon the monitor. “Nine twenty-three A.M.,” said Judge Johansson, leaning forward to read the black-and-white characters, “May 29th, 2076. Very well. Now take it slowly back to yesterday, keeping it focused on the clock. All right, 8:43, 7:21,6:14…”

It took nearly a minute before the display on the screen read 9:22 AM, May 28th, 2076. The judge pursed his lips, then nodded slightly. “Very well, speed it up if you can. Take it back to precisely 8:30 A.M. on the morning of January 16th.”

The date appeared on the screen. A soft murmur ran through the courtroom.

“Good. Now, then, I am going to hand to both Mr. Martinez and to Ms. de la Quinta a sealed envelope. Inside those envelopes is a brief description of what my daily log says I was doing in my chambers between 8:30 and 9:00 on the morning of January 16th. I will ask them to open those envelopes at the conclusion of this demonstration.” He turned back to the astrophysicist.

“You see that doorway in the wall just behind me? Behind that door is a short passageway that leads to the door to my chambers. My chambers should be directly behind where I am presently sitting. Can you move your image from where it is on the clock into the center of my chambers?”

“I believe so, Your Honor.” The Englishwoman left her seat by the graviton reader and returned to the computer operator. She whispered instructions. The picture on the screen blurred, then disappeared. It was replaced a few moments later by an incomprehensible swirl of images that suddenly solidified into what was clearly the corner of a desk. The astrophysicist murmured further instructions. The desk receded until the picture on the monitor was that of a book-lined office. Three people were frozen around the desk.

Once again the courtroom stirred. “Can you… track in a little closer?” asked the judge. “Just so that we can see who the people are. Yes, just like that, that’s fine, stop!” Judge Johansson leaned forward, peering at the screen. “Yes, that is clearly me sitting behind the desk; that is my clerk, Mr. Wesson, who seems to be handing me a paper; and the person sitting in front of us is, I would say, Ms. Lucinda Ellacott of the New Mexico Bar Association. You would agree with me, Mr. Martinez? Ms. de la Quinta?”

The district attorney sighed plaintively. “I would, with reservations, agree, Your Honor.” His lips were tight.

“Ms. de la Quinta?”

“I agree, without reservations.”

“Good. Now, if we could activate the scanner so that we can see what actually transpires during the course of the next thirty minutes…”

Very little, actually. By the time the slightly jerky, black-and-white picture of three people chatting around a desk had reached the fifteen-minute mark the courtroom had grown noticeably restless. Watching lips moving and hands gesturing in total silence was not the high drama the spectators had come to see, no matter how miraculous the process behind it might be.

“Shall we move on?” muttered the judge impatiently after another five minutes of the same thing. “Would you care to open your envelopes? Mr. Martinez, might you read aloud what you find there?”

The district attorney scowled down at the paper in his hand, then began to read aloud. “ ‘My log says that on the morning of January 16, 2076, I had a meeting with Lucinda Ellacott of the New Mexico Bar Association between 8:15 and 9:15 A.M. concerning a proposed revision in the pension plan for retired judges. I do remember that meeting, and what was discussed. I have no specific memory of the fact, but I assume that Christopher Wesson, my clerk, was also present, as he generally is whenever I meet with members of the Bar Association.’ ” The Fighting Bobcat’s scowl deepened. “That’s all it says.”

Judge Johansson nodded. “As a fair-minded person, would you say that the demonstration of the time scanner up to this point would seem to indicate that it does indeed function as advertised?”

The district attorney hesitated, bit his lip, and finally nodded reluctantly. “Seems to, Your Honor, seems to. But I would caution—”

“Very well, then. I hearby rule that evidence procured by viewing the time scanner may be entered into evidence with the same degree of credibility or non-credibility attached to it as might be given to any other eyewitness account. Bailiff, you may bring the jury back—we are ready to proceed.”

A short while later the bailiff, the graviton reader, its operator, and the Ph.D., escorted by a phalanx of armed state policemen, were taken from the courtroom through the judge’s private entrance. A two-meter comm screen was hung on the wall facing the jury. Thirty-five minutes after he had departed the courtroom, the bailiffs face appeared on the screen.

“We are now in the parking lot of the Casa Grande Motel,” said the bailiff. The picture changed, to show him standing in front of several cars and the bottom floor of the adobe-walled motel. The others in his group were clustered around the graviton reader, which could be seen on the floor of an open van. “That room there,” said the bailiff, turning to point at a door, “is room 128, where the body of Linda Rawlings was found. It is approximately ten meters from the… so-called time scanner in the van.”

“Very well,” said Judge Johansson, “you may direct them to begin scanning. It has been established that Rawlings left the defendant’s room in the Easy Rest Hotel next door at approximately 10:45 P.M. in the evening of January 16th. You will tell them to focus the machine upon the interior of room 128, beginning at 10:45 P.M. of January 16th, and to leave it there going forward in real time until I tell them otherwise.”

“First we’re going to have to focus it on something that will tell us what day and what time it is,” pointed out the voice of the English astrophysicist. “Otherwise there’s no way to calibrate the operation of a cobbled-together device like this.”

“Hrmph. I hadn’t thought of that. What do you suggest, then? Remember, privacy must be absolutely safeguarded.”

“The motel office is well within our operating radius. Why don’t we focus the scanner on its clock just as we did in the courtroom and then move back in time until we come to the evening of the 16th? Then we could switch the picture over to room 128 without any great problem.”

“You have no objection to that, Mr. Martinez?”

“Your Honor,” said the district attorney wearily, “I have so many objections to this entire proceeding that I can scarcely enumerate them.”

“Well, in that case, I’ll just let you enumerate them all to the appeals court if you should happen to lose this case.” The judge turned his attention to the screen. “Mr. Bailiff, you may proceed as you have suggested.”

The courtroom monitor connected to the Hallowell Clinic’s O-CLIP computer once again showed a clock’s display, this one reading 29 May 2076, 11:04:31. The hands of the clerk sitting next to the monitor moved swiftly over the keyboard in response to instructions from the Englishwoman as she stood in the motel parking lot. The numerals on the clock began to change faster than the eye could follow. Within a minute the display read 16 January 2076, 22:45:47.

“All right,” said the judge. “Now let’s jump into room 128.”

The first thing the monitor showed was a rumpled bed covered with carelessly strewn clothing, then the image expanded to show the rest of what appeared to be an ordinary motel room. “Can you move it around a little to show us the door?” requested Judge Johansson. In a series of jerks the picture moved back and forth until the door became visible. “Fine,” said the judge. “Now let’s just go forward in real time until we see what happens.”