Authors: Harold Robbins
“Madam, there are laws of homicide to cover the whipped dog, that is why we have degrees of murder. But it is not a situation to which we can extend the concept of a heat of passion. It is an elementary, centuries-old casebook law that the perpetrator will be judged by the reasonable-man standard, and that standard says that the blow must be struck in close proximity to, if not at the same moment, the time the provocation erupts. An insult is delivered, a reasonable man strikes back.”
Marlowe smiled broadly. “I couldn’t agree with you more, Judge. And what is wrong with that theory in regard to the abused woman is precisely how you explained it—the actions of the perpetrator is judged as a reasonable
man
would have acted.”
“Certainly you are not proposing that we have one set of laws for men and one set for women.” His lordship spoke through clenched teeth. “We all know that the reasonable-man standard refers to the actions of a reasonable
person,
man or woman.”
“I disagree with you, Judge.” She would give him the respect due his position as a judge, but refused to use the lordship bit with the old fart. “As you pointed out, the law is centuries old. For those centuries, right up to the present, over ninety percent of the violent crimes committed each year are done by men. Women represent half the population but commit only a fraction of the violent crimes. Because men have always dominated the courtroom—until recently almost all judges and lawyers were men and nine out of ten defendants were men—
the law developed based upon the emotional response of men, not women.
”
Lord Finfall slammed his palm on the table—hard. “Poppycock! The law is applied equally to the sexes. I can guarantee that your ideas will be thrown out of the courtroom before they ever reach a jury. There are no judicial opinions in this country or yours supporting your position.”
Ah, an admission they had researched her. “There are many judges who would agree with you, but my theory is a question of
fact
for a jury, not one of
law
for a judge. There aren’t appellate decisions on the slow-trigger concept because a prosecutor can’t appeal a not-guilty verdict. And I’ve had seven juries not find it to be poppycock. Talking to jurors afterwards, what impressed them most was that it appealed to their common sense. And while I have been in your country for less than two hours, I suspect that this case is a hot political potato besides being a criminal case. If your judges plan to arbitrarily take away a jury’s right to decide a case on its facts, it’s not going to play well with the public.”
Trent said, “His lordship is simply giving you a practical consideration. We would not permit the judicial system to deny the princess her right to a fair trial by jury. Can you elaborate a bit on how you deal with the differences between men and women?”
“When it’s pointed out to them, juries readily accept and understand that the two sexes have a different emotional base. The fact that men and women are sexually aroused at different speeds is probably the best-known example. The use of physical violence is another. When women get angry, they’re less likely to resort to physical violence. Men are more aggressive, perhaps because of their traditional role as the hunter, women instinctively more gentle, perhaps because of their role as the caregiver. But the law of manslaughter, the sudden reaction to provocation,
is based upon how a man would react, not a woman.
Two men bump shoulders on a street, an argument erupts, one hits the other, the victim falls down and hits his head. That’s typical
male
heat of passion, a physical reaction to provocation. But for most women, you would have to provoke them for a much greater time before they would react physically, months or even years.
“And because they are physically weaker than the male, they may have to plan out their reaction in order to obtain a weapon, rather than just striking back at the moment of provocation.”
“So that is the basis of your slow-trigger defense, that jurors are to judge a woman’s response differently than a man’s?” Trent asked.
“In a nutshell, yes. Men have a different reaction to provocation than women. Women react slower. But the law is based upon the male reaction.”
“Perhaps you can give us an example of how you’ve been successful with your theory. You had a recent case in Savannah, didn’t you?”
“The Savannah wife had suffered years of mental abuse by a husband who played the most vicious kind of tricks on her. He never hit her, but he humiliated her and degraded her in front of their children and friends for years. He was the physically and financially dominant spouse. The wife was a frightened submissive person who tried to protect their two children.”
“I sometimes find myself lacking sympathy toward women who have more than one child in an abusive relationship,” Helen Catters, the family-law lawyer, said. “I give them the benefit of the doubt for the first one, but the second child? And so often you hear about a third and fourth child in a bad marriage.”
“I agree,” Marlowe said, “but if these women were strong personalities, they would not have gotten into the relationship in the first place. And once in, they are stuck—especially if there are children in the picture. Some women run away from the relationship like scared rabbits, by themselves or taking the children with them, but others, like my Savannah client, didn’t know how to run and hide. To make matters worse, her husband joined a religious group that had attitudes toward women similar to those found in the Middle East and Africa.”
“Women are work animals,” Lawrence Dewey said, “that sort of thing?”
“And sex objects,” McMann, the psychiatrist, threw in. “I don’t suppose he instituted the
purdah
in Savannah.”
“As a matter of fact, he did. Not to the point of her wearing veils, but in the way she was to treat him and address him. She was to obey his commands without question. He even demanded she call him ‘sir.’”
Lord Finfall guffawed. “Nothing wrong with that.”
“But he didn’t earn his knighthood, Your Lordship,” Trent said.
“What did your client do to this … ah, abusive spouse?” Helen Catters asked.
“She sat in her car in the parking lot where he worked. When he got off work and started walking to his car, she ran him down. Then she backed up and drove over him again. And again.”
“Sounds like he drove her insane,” Trent said.
“An insanity defense, even one of temporary insanity, really didn’t fit the situation. She didn’t have a developmental or other mental defect. She knew the difference between right and wrong, she had freedom of choice and the ability to decide on a course of action that led to the homicide.”
“Doesn’t sound like a strong case for a heat of passion defense in Britain. Your Savannah jury must have had their brains a little dulled by the humidity,” Dr. McMann said.
“The jury no doubt had its emotions aroused by the facts,” Marlowe said. “Not many women have had to endure the type of mental torture this woman did. The final humiliation came when he told her that unless she was willing to fully accept the rites of his religion, he was forcing her out of the house and would see to it that she didn’t have any contact with the children.”
McMann sneered. “I imagine his rites were one of those group sex things.”
Marlowe’s cheeks reddened. She did not like the psychiatrist at all. And she didn’t like doctors—or lawyers—who jumped to conclusions before they had heard all of the evidence.
“Not at all. As a matter of fact, the religious sect the husband belonged to tended to be puritanical. What they required from their women, in addition to being baby factories and work animals, is that they be mutilated.”
“Mutilated?” Lawrence Dewey asked.
“She was circumcised.”
Marlowe left the meeting with Philip Hall. They were in the backseat of the Rolls before Marlowe spoke.
“I’m glad none of your team was on any of my juries,” Marlowe told him. “They’re a hanging jury, for sure.”
Hall smiled. “I believe you held your own. There are a great many complications with this case.”
“If it wasn’t a tough case, the princess wouldn’t be reaching around the world for more help. Honestly, what do you think? About selling a battered woman theory to a London jury?”
“Has the princess told you she was abused by her husband?”
“We haven’t gone into the specifics because we both feared the police would listen in to our telephone conversation, but she inferred it, she said she needed to hire me because of my success in defending abused women. How did she describe her relationship with the prince to you?”
“I have not spoken to her about it. Trent and Sir Fredic are the only ones who have been privy.”
“They don’t share the information with the other members of the defense team?”
“This is a very sensitive case.”
That didn’t answer my question,
Marlowe thought. She suspected Hall knew the princess’s version.
He pursed his lips. “I don’t believe I know enough about your theory to stand in judgment. You’ve explained it, you have been successful at it. But your success has come in American courtrooms, where you sold facts to a jury rather than legal theory to a judge. Our legal system is not as sensitive to women’s issues as yours. Political correctness isn’t as adhered to here. Our judiciary has been accused of being an old boys’ club and there’s reasons for it. How long would a judge last in America who states that a wife contributed to the rape of her fourteen-year-old daughter by her husband, the girl’s stepfather, because she denied him sex?”
“It would have made headlines and been the subject of talk shows. The judge would be hounded off the bench.”
“It caused a flap, but not the sensation that it would have caused in America. People may be just as offended about the remark, may seek to have the judge redressed for stating it, but the judge wouldn’t be electronically lynched by a massive media campaign.”
Marlowe said, “The cases I’ve won were achieved in the courtroom, not in the media. And the way I succeeded with them is no different than the way most attorneys try to handle criminal cases. I humanize the defendant until the jurors can stand in the defendant’s shoes and understand the pain and suffering, the feeling of being trapped and terrified, with no way out except to strike back.”
“You’re right.” Hall nodded. “But then the issue revolves around how a defendant is humanized, as you put it. Trent, Lord Finfall, and the others think of American courtroom tactics as somewhat, um, shall we say,
cinematic.
”
“In other words, they believe that my tactics are theatrical, and that a British jury won’t go for it.”
“I suppose that’s a fair statement.”
“Do you ever watch movies?” Marlowe asked.
“Movies? Why—yes, I suppose I do, once in a while.”
“Are you aware that despite the fact most movies are made in America, in terms of the actors, directors, and so forth, there are many Brits, Australians, Canadians, and New Zealanders involved in the production? Considering their smaller populations, as compared to the States, there are probably as many of them as there are Americans in films.”
“I don’t really follow movie lore, but I’m aware that many top stars are from Britain and other English-speaking countries. What is your point?”
“Barrister Hall, since we all share the same cinema, and much the same TV, what makes you think that a British jury is going to be any less receptive to courtroom drama than an American one?
Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, King Lear,
murder, lust, insanity, I don’t recall any of that being invented by Hollywood. If we’re going to talk about theatrics, England has been exporting it for centuries. People in London may be more conservative than people in Los Angeles, but you’re talking about the way people walk and talk and dress. I would find it hard to believe that Londoners have different attitudes toward battered women than people in L.A., Paris, Rome, or the Tonga Islands.”
She gave a long sigh and put her head back against the headrest. “I feel like I’ve been run through a ringer.”
“I’m sorry, it was really inexcusable to hustle you directly into a meeting after a transatlantic flight. You said earlier you were anxious to see the princess. But if you wish, I can pick you up in a couple of hours and take you to see her after you’ve had time to freshen up.”
“No, let’s go now. I’m afraid that if I go to the hotel, I’ll crawl into bed and crash for the next three days. Which jail is she held at?”
“The oldest in England. The Tower of London.”
London. Police Morgue
“Why frozen?” Archer asked the question aloud to himself as he went down the hallway of the medical examiner’s facility. His head was spinning with unanswered questions.
First the Princess of Wales blows away the heir to the throne. Then a body dressed in a Tudor-era costume with a woman’s head on its lap turns up at Westminster Abbey. Fresh out of the freezer. Why would a killer want to freeze a body and then move it to a national shrine?
What was the significance of freezing the body? To make the time of death difficult to calculate? The significance of Westminster as the dumping site was a real puzzle. And dumping it in the Henry VII Chapel in the Abbey? With the head chopped off and sewn back on? Dressed in the fashion of the Henrys and Elizabethan eras?
The whole thing made no sense, though one thing struck him about the location: The wing where the body was placed was the bloodiest in the Abbey. It held Henry VII, the father of crazy old Henry VIII who chopped off the head of a couple of his wives. Henry VII was also the grandfather of another Westminster resident, Queen Elizabeth I, a woman who was not opposed to having a head or two severed if she thought it helped the country. Also in attendance in the wing was Mary, Queen of Scots, whose head Elizabeth had whacked.
“Gone nuts,” Archer declared. “Whole bleedin’ world.” Or at least that part of it situated on the British Isles that he knew. It certainly was a different world from the one he had been born into close to a half century before. More complicated. Faster. Crazier. He defined the difference from the good old days to the present time with one word:
Drugs.
Not technology, not faster planes and cars and electronics, but narcotics, the stuff that nightmares are made of. The stuff had been with mankind from the beginning but came out of the closet during the 1960s and infected the world like a plague, a worldwide pandemic. Technology only moved people and things faster, drugs made people crazy.