Дэймон Найт - Orbit 4

Burke’s face turned slowly pink. He glared back at Godwin. “I would like you to understand exactly that. Law has no other basis.”

But it was no good. The others were looking at him almost sympathetically. Who are they to judge me, he thought bitterly. Logic is . . . logic!

Pendleton cleared his throat. “We’ll have to go on. Mr. Moore?”

“I agree with our brother Godwin. You call it clairvoyance. If that’s what it is, nobody’s mind was read. By definition, clairvoyance excludes telepathic cognition of the mental activities of another person. And if nobody’s mind was read, there was no invasion of privacy protected by the Fourth. I would affirm.”

“Mr. Blandford?”

“In my view the evidence shows clairvoyance exists, but it also shows it is erratic, often not available on call, generally not reproducible, so I feel that clairvoyance is too unscientific for use as ‘probable cause.’ Reverse.”

“Mr. Lovsky?”

“I agree with Burke, supra, that clairvoyance is an impossibility. But I don’t agree that it must follow that the warrant was improperly issued. The warrant was duly sworn. It pinpointed what was to be searched, and the rifle was in fact found, exactly as described on the information. Pendleton contra, I would affirm. Cf. Godwin, id.”

“Mr. Randolph?”

• CONCVR •

“Mr. Edmonds?”

“Personally, I believe in psi. But I don’t think it should be used as a police technique without tire consent of the suspect, and any evidence thus discovered should be inadmissible. Reverse.”

“Madam Nord?”

“I, too, believe in psi. And I think the warrant was valid and the rifle admissible. But I would reverse. Tyson didn’t do it.”

Pendleton took a deep breath. “Why do you think he didn’t do it?”

She looked back defiantly. “Because, that’s why.”

Pendleton exhaled slowly, then smiled at her reassuringly. “Quite all right. So be it. Let me sum up. We have five to reverse, four to affirm. And in neither the majority nor the dissent do we have the slightest unanimity of rationale.” He studied his notes. “Madam Nord, you’re up next on the opinion list. Will you please draft the majority opinion? With the variation of views, and especially considering your own, your task will be cut out for you.”

“I’ll do my best,” said Helen Nord. “In fact, in the interests of reconciliation of divergent views, I’ll even go along with the rationale of the majority—that either psi doesn’t exist, or if it does, the psi-based search warrant was defective.”

“Yes?” said Pendleton, surprised.

“On one condition.”

“Such as what?” demanded Burke suspiciously.

“That we open the safe on Decision Day.”

“Preposterous!” cried Burke. “Exhibit Q was never properly admitted into evidence, and even if it had been, the question of its probative value would be within the exclusive jurisdiction of the trial court. The Supreme Court of the United States never decides facts except in rare cases of original jurisdiction!”

“Then I’ll file a specially, concurring opinion to reverse on the plain and simple ground I don’t think Tyson is guilty!”

Godwin chuckled. “And she’d do it, too!”

“If I might make a suggestion,” said Pendleton, with an enigmatic smile, “we could order the safe opened after handing down both the majority and dissent. It could of course have no bearing on our decision as then rendered, but both Tyson and New York could use it, if they choose, and if its contents truly merit it, as basis for rehearing. Mrs. Nord? Gentlemen? Then it’s agreed.

“Just one more point. Despite the gravity of the case, we have a duty to the defendant and to the country to act as promptly as possible. Hopefully, we can hand down the decision on April First.”

When the penalty is death, we are tempted to strain the evidence and even the law in order to give a doubtfully condemned man another chance.

—Justice Robert H. Jackson

It was Monday, April 1, Decision Day, in the Marble Palace.

Practically every appellate court in the country—saving only the United States Supreme Court—distributes printed or typewritten copies of its decisions to its litigants as the sole means of stating the outcome of the case. But from time immemorial the Supreme Court—the only appellate court with its very own printing shop on the premises—had “handed down” its decisions orally. And “orally” means whatever the delivering justice chooses it to mean. It might mean reading an entire ninety-page opinion—a favorite tactic of Justice Lovsky; or it might mean a very brief oral summary of the salient law and facts, after the manner of Justice Randolph. Or, as in the case of Justice Burke, it would start out as a summary and develop, willy-nilly, into a profound exposition of logic-in-law, through the historical framework of the Justinian Code, the Magna Carta, Coke, Cornyn’s Digest, the Constitutional Convention, the probable (corroborative) views of John Marshall, and would inevitably conclude with appropriate selections from Burke’s Logic in Appellate Decisions. The law students of George Washington and Georgetown Universities might have to get the printed decision to discover who had won, but all agreed it was an enthralling experience.

After he was seated, Edmonds surreptitiously searched the first row of the pewlike red-cushioned seats and found there the face he had noted on previous Mondays, and the face he did not want to find: a bald man, burly, bearded, his eyes a study in controlled, violent cunning. Edmonds moaned inaudibly. Let this pass. But it would not pass. Everything was here, waiting. He looked over at the safe on the marshal’s cart. It was still locked, still inviolate, but within minutes all that would be changed forever.

When he had taken office ten years ago he had sworn to uphold the Constitution and the laws of the United States. A month ago he had flung down Orwell’s 1984 on the conference table. Beware! he had cried. And beware of whom? Of Benjamin Edmonds, Ph.D., J.C., Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, and psi extraordinary. For he thought it very likely that he was now going to violate his oath, and in so doing, the constitutional rights of another. And thereby he would strike down, besmirch, and discredit for decades the enhallowed institution he had sworn to preserve. For Helen Nord (and how did she know?) was right. Tyson had not pulled the trigger of that fateful rifle. He knew. (And for that matter, how did he know?) And so there remained a thing for him to do, a thing so simple, so devastating, that the Tyson case would be decided instantly and forever. It was not lawful; it had only justice to excuse it.

Edmonds noted that Pendleton seemed to be studying him from the corner of his eye. But then the Chief Justice turned and nodded gravely to Helen Nord, at the far left. She nodded back. She was on her own.

This, thought Edmonds, was the crowning paradox. Helen Nord, who knew that psi existed, had joined with four of her brothers in the majority opinion that would hold, in effect, that psi was unproven. And she would do this because it would free a man whom she thought innocent.

The woman’s voice was clear and strong. Briefly she recited the undisputed facts, read the single question certified to the Court, then came directly to the point. “It is the view of a majority of this Court that the search warrant was not issued upon probable cause, as is required by the Fourth Amendment, in that the basis of the information was not explained to the magistrate who issued the warrant. Aguilar v. United States. This finding requires the further finding that the evidence obtained by the search is inadmissible under the Fifth Amendment. And it must follow that Tyson’s conviction must be reversed, and that he is entitled to a new trial, in which this tainted evidence must be excluded.”