As soon as Harper was gone, Judge Stang squinted and looked up again into the clearing sky.
“Ida. Bring me some settlement forms! The ones slanted in favor of the defendant, please. Oh, and the letter from Mr. Spence.”
The judge chuckled to himself, and Watson politely smiled, pretending he was sharing the subject of his amusement.
“Fetch a chair out there for yourself,” said the judge.
Watson went to the outer office and brought back a chair.
“Sit, sit,” the judge said. “Now, I can’t put the government’s fat in the fire unless you are ready to take this thing to trial on Monday. Are you prepared for trial?”
“We’re ready,” said Watson.
The judge chuckled again.
“I told you about my old hunting buddy out in Wyoming. You probably heard of Mr. Spence? Gerry Spence? He runs a trial lawyers’ college out at his ranch in Wyoming for thirty days every year and talks me into going from time to time. He puts me on a stage and has me terrorize two young lawyers while they try to argue a case to a mock jury. I rage at them until they turn white. I degrade and humiliate them by closely questioning them. And afterward we all get drunk. Lots of fun.”
Watson smiled and got the wetware willies just thinking about it.
“We have a little skit where we teach the young lawyers the importance of preparation for trial. We fire questions at them until we detect
an area of unpreparedness, which as you can guess isn’t too tough after you’ve been at it for forty years the way I have. Anyway, after we find the sore spot, we bring in a couple of hungry Dobermans. One is named Marbury and the other is named Madison. They have these big drop-forged spiked collars on them, and we have some Latin wisdom etched into the iron nameplates. Kind of a long story there, because one year we had a visiting judge who had a prior life as a metalworker, Old Judge Short—dead and gone now … funnier than a rubber crutch—anyway he’s the one who had the idea.”
“Of etching Latin onto the dog collars?” asked Watson with a nervous laugh, dearly wanting to make conversation but unsure about whether the judge was talking about something that had really happened, or something … else.
“You bet,” chuckled Judge Stang. “Crazy old coot did it with a blowtorch.” He laughed. “Whew. We were drunker than fiddlers’ bitches that night.”
Watson laughed obligingly, as if to say,
Boy, I know that feeling! You have a few beers, and the next thing you know you’re pulling out the old blowtorch and looking high and low for some cast-iron dog collars so you can etch some Latin sayings into them.
“Well?” asked Judge Stang.
“Yes?” asked Watson.
“The Latin. I can tell you, but it’s cheating, because—”
Ida appeared and handed the judge a single piece of paper. The judge took it from her and handed it to Watson.
“Anyway, you have to be one promising young defense lawyer to get accepted out at Mr. Spence’s college of trial lawyers. But Gerry called me the other day on an evidentiary matter, and we got to talking. I told him about your situation out here and your trip to the Eighth Circuit on this fellow’s behalf. Next thing you know, he sent this letter.”
Watson took the letter from the judge and read a short letter signed by Gerry Spence, accepting Watson’s application to the Trial Lawyer’s College for the coming August session. It was signed “Love, Gerry.”
“This is real?” asked Watson. “It’s not a joke?”
“Jokes are funny,” said the judge. “You won’t think Marbury and Madison are funny,” he added with a conspiratorial chuckle.
“But it says, ‘We are pleased to accept your application.’ I didn’t apply.”
“I submitted a verbal application on your behalf,” said the judge.
“But—” began Watson, and stopped himself, before he could say,
But I thought you were Ivan the Terrible?
“This is a dream,” said Watson. “Thanks …”
Let’s see
, he stalled, I
can’t really say, “Thanks, man.” How about, “Thanks, God!”
“Thank you so much, Your Honor. I’ve read all of Mr. Spence’s books. I’d kill ten prosecutors just to see him argue.”
Judge Stang extended his hand. “Congratulations. You’re a fine lawyer, which isn’t saying much.”
Watson felt his hand clasped in the bony grip of Ivan the Incredible.
“Ms. Schweich is a fine lawyer,” said Judge Stang. “She does a very good job. But I have higher aspirations for you.”
He looked at his ashtray full of scattered cigar butts. “I’ll be dead soon,” he said. “And I hope to blame it on cigars. But who is going to look after all of these poor, stupid, guilty fuckers the government drags in here every day? Every once in a while, I like to see a good lawyer step up to the plate on their behalf. After I’m gone, when some desperate, guilty incorrigible who’s as dumb as a brain-damaged saw mule shows up needing a lawyer, I hope you’ll think of me and give him a hand.”
“I’ll do that, Judge,” said Watson. “I promise.”
“I know you will,” said the judge. “You’ll think of me because I’m a desperate incorrigible, too. I’m also meeting with your former boss this afternoon, Mr. Mahoney. He’s bringing my chewed sawdust over, and we are going to have a little chat about some irregularities attending your separation from the firm. You stay out of it. We are all discerning professionals,” said the Judge. “And Stern, Pale is a fine, old firm—very high caliber. I know they would be constantly vigilant to always and everywhere avoid even the appearance of impropriety in matters of associate compensation, say bonuses, and so on.” He paused and winked. “And I know that Mr. Mahoney will be eager to fulfill his duty and rectify any of my concerns about compensation as it relates to the appointment of counsel for indigent defendants. In fact, I know him so well I wouldn’t be surprised if along with any bonus money there might not be a little severance pay thrown into the bargain.”
Harper appeared in the doorway.
“Come in, Mr. Harper, we’re going over our Latin lessons.” He crooked a finger and pointed it at Watson.
“Prius vitiis laboravimus, nunc legibus,”
he said. “That’s what old Judge Short welded into the dog collars.”
“ ‘First vices we labored with,’ ” stammered Watson, “ ‘now legis—’ ”
“Close,” said the judge. “ ‘We labored first with vices, now with laws.’ Mr. Harper, write that down.”
Harper’s hand went to his shirt pocket for a pen.
“Well, Mr. Harper, you’re back, and I trust it took you so long because you’ve gotten authority to settle every case in the Eastern District of Missouri. While you were gone, I stood Mr. Watson here up in front of an open grave and got his bottom line, and now I am going to do the same for you. Do you have full authority for manslaughter?”
“I do,” said Harper, “but only because I assured Mr. Donahue that you would not—”
“Do you have FINAL, FULL, and COMPLETE authority for manslaughter?” yelled the judge.
“I do,” said Harper.
“Good,” said the judge. “Because Mr. Watson is so young and crazy and inexperienced, he thinks he’s got a defendant’s verdict here and the beginnings of a glorious career as a criminal defense lawyer.”
“With all due respect, Judge,” said Harper. “A person was murdered. A disabled person of color.”
The judge closed his eyes and touched his silver temples.
“Mr. Harper,” said the judge, becalming himself, “your little hate pigeonholes are gone! We don’t need to hear about them anymore. If you mention race, disability, or hate again, I will dump this ashtray on the floor, I will pronounce your sins out loud, and I will make you write them in the ashes. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Judge,” said Harper, glancing once out the window at the sunlight.
“Now,” the judge said, lifting the lid of his humidor, “I know we have a murder victim, that’s why this is called a homicide case. But as we go along here, it seems that maybe the government’s gone after the wrong perp. What if the wife pulled a nasty on a nasty husband and set his white ass up? You can’t turn around and come after her, can you? Because you’ll look like legal village idiots and your only witness will become a codefendant. ‘Whoops, our mistake. Wasn’t a hate crime, it was a marital dispute.’ The press would examine your entrails on page one.”
“Judge,” said Harper, squirming and shifting his weight.
“I’ll tell you when I’m ready to hear your arguments. I am having Ida draft up a settlement agreement in this case. The defendant will plead guilty to a single charge of voluntary manslaughter. Mr. Watson has
some other incidental language on the medical treatments and the inclusiveness with regard to evidence found at the scene and taken from the defendant’s car. I’m sure he has his reasons. It’s being typed up now on your letterhead. I foresee that you will be signing it.”
“Judge, there is no possible way I can agree to a single charge of manslaughter. Mr. Donahue will—”
“You don’t have to sign it,” said Judge Stang. “We can do it the old-fashioned way by having a trial on Monday morning with that antic, fun-loving jury who acquitted your drug dealer last week.”
“Judge, I—”
“Hold your arguments,” said the judge, pausing to light his cigar. “It’s a long way from here to Monday morning.” He swiveled back around in his recliner and sighed, luxuriously taking in another view of his river. “And we have a beautiful day taking shape out the window. Makes a fella wanna chuck it all and head out to the club for a gin and tonic. Would you care for a chair, Mr. Harper?”
Watson looked at Harper, who suddenly noticed that Watson was sitting in a chair. “Actually, Judge,” said Harper, “a chair would be very nice.”
“Well, let me know when you’re ready to sign the plea-bargain agreements, and I’ll have Ida bring them in with a chair.”
Harper irritably looked at the top of the judge’s bald head. “I apologize, really, I do, Judge, but manslaughter is out of the question in this case,” he protested.
“Mr. Harper, I hope you are not in a hurry, because I have a few matters to go over with you and Mr. Watson. And I want to conclude these matters before I entertain your arguments about how you can’t offer a plea on a single charge of manslaughter.
“In the car on the way in this morning, I said to Doris … Doris, that’s my wife, she drives me these days because of my cataracts. Maybe you know her?”
“I confess, Judge, I …” said Harper.
“Well then, you’ve no idea what a keen interest she takes in all the court’s business. Why, every evening for going on forty years now, I usually stagger in the door behind her and sit down at the kitchen table, and Doris typically takes one of those big, elegant, long-stemmed white wine glasses with a gold band around the top that we got sixty years ago at our wedding, and she fills it to the brim with Jack Daniel’s for me, and then she says, ‘Well, Whit, did you receive any amended or supplemental
pleadings dealing with joinder or pendent jurisdiction of state claims today?’ And I say, ‘No, Doris, we don’t do a goddamn thing in that courthouse any more, except drugs, guns, and civil rights.’ And she’ll say, ‘Well, Whit, were any of those poor
pro se
prisoners deprived of their constitutional rights today or were any of those jailhouse lawyers filing habeas corpus petitions today, or how about some of that collateral estoppel or res judicata stuff we used to pillow-talk about for half the night?’ And I’ll say, ‘Not anymore, Doris. Time was, if a prisoner didn’t get two aspirins on time, we’d have a three-week trial on our hands, but now it’s drugs, guns, employment discrimination, and hate crimes.’
“ ‘Well, then,’ she says, ‘has the federal government discovered any more substances they don’t want people to take for fear it will corrupt their morals and turn them into people of amorality?’ She takes a very keen interest in substance abuse,” said the judge, nodding vigorously. “Very keen, because she realizes the importance of the government being in control of the chemical makeup of its citizens’ bloodstreams.”
“Judge,” said Harper, despairingly, “we didn’t … This isn’t a drug case. We aren’t here to …”
“Oh,” said Judge Stang, staying him with the flat of his palm, “I know your mission is on an altogether different plane than mere drug abuse. Your mission is to abolish murder and hatred. And you may be just the lawyer I am looking for. You can see that Doris cares very deeply about the administration of justice in these hallowed chambers, so I said to her this morning, ‘Doris, I can just feel it in the marrow of these old bones, something different is going to happen today. I’m having a settlement conference this afternoon with two lawyers in that erstwhile hate crime case, which has now become a manslaughter case. And I just know something different is going to happen.’ And she said, ‘Why, Whit, whatever do you mean? You loathe settlement conferences. You always say it’s the same old shit from the same old bulls. What could be different?’ ”
Harper sighed and lifted his eyes over the judge’s head and out toward the window, where white flocs of cumulus clouds were in full sail against a brilliant blue sky.
“ ‘Doris,’ I said,” the judge continued, “and tears formed, right here, in the windows of my soul.” The lawyers could see his elbows as he apparently pointed at his eyes with his index fingers. “And I said, ‘Doris, this afternoon I just know I am going to a hear a brand-new argument
from a new breed of lawyer. I am going to hear the most stunning elucidation of fundamental human truths since Aristotle peripatetically paced about the Lyceum and discoursed on metaphysics. This lawyer has impeccable qualifications. He is full to the brim with integrity and oozing ethical punctiliousness from his pores. He is an attorney from the United States Government. His name is Michael Harper, Esquire. He is an Assistant United States Attorney. He is always eager to do the best possible work in my courtroom because he knows if he doesn’t I will simply clusterfuck every case he brings before me for the rest of his natural life. Doris,’ I said, ‘I am going to break my back trying to get the lawyers to agree to manslaughter, but Mr. Harper won’t go for it. Instead Mr. Harper will say, That is impossible, Judge, and here is why.’ ”
The judge puffed twice on his cigar.
Harper opened his mouth.