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.It would set a bad precedent.It would upset the established system.The Last Lawyer 193Every defense lawyer would use the peculiarities of the Bo Jones case as ablueprint.If their case shared any similarities, they d argue that this wasgrounds for clemency.So Dewey Hudson had gone home.And now here he was in federalcourt, still wondering if he d done the right thing, if he d pushed hardenough for the state to drop its fight against Bo Jones. %  %  %Outside, the lawyers ties flapped in the coastal breeze.Ken saw Lovely andYvette exit the courthouse, the sun gleaming on the metallic-orange sheenof the older woman s wig, and he had an idea. Do you want to invite them to lunch? he asked Mark.Mark approached Lovely and Yvette, greeting them with a handshake.He asked the women to join Ken and himself for lunch.Lovely held an unlitcigarette and stared at Mark, unsure.The rest of the team sidled up. Bo s really excited to see Yvette, one lawyer said. I know, Lovely said.Ken and Mark chose a brightly lit sandwich shop across the street fromthe federal building.The four of them the two white lawyers in suits andthe black women in jeans sat at a small table together.Lovely ordered agrilled cheese sandwich, Yvette a hot dog and chips.To Mark it looked likeLovely had neglected to bring along her false teeth, if she had them.Markasked Yvette if she had any memories of Bo.I remember him taking me to the fair, Yvette murmured.Bo had entered death row eight days before Yvette s seventh birthday.Now Yvette was nineteen, a good-looking girl with café-au-lait skin and bigbrown eyes who didn t particularly resemble either Lovely or Bo.At first, Lovely was defensive.She insisted that she d told the truthabout the Grady killing.Ken explained that he wanted to talk about other things.This hearingwasn t about Bo s innocence or guilt.The judge had upheld Bo s convic-tion.This hearing was about Bo s sentence.Did he deserve to die? So Kenhad other questions for Lovely.From memory, he asked her the questionsfrom his trial book.Nick had asked her some of these questions recently,and Sara long ago, but it was invaluable to hear what Lovely had to sayright before she took the stand.He asked about Bo s drinking and drughabits, her memory of Bo s intoxication on the night of the Grady killing,Bo s strange behavior.She said Bo had sometimes raked the yard before194 The Last Lawyerleaving the house and checked for footprints when he returned to makesure nobody had visited Lovely in his absence.Ken asked about Lovely spenchant for writing worthless checks.I gotta stop doing that, she said.But I got no money, and I got kids tofeed and clothe.46Back in the courtroom, as Ken began to cross-examine Lovely, he was gladhe d asked her to lunch.He felt much more confident about his questionsthan he had when he was revising them that morning at the Holiday Inn.Spalding examined Lovely, and Ken wondered why the deputy attor-ney general had chosen to call her as a witness.Spalding had accomplishedlittle on the examination.Lovely mainly reiterated her trial testimony.ButBo s guilt wasn t the question here, of course.The debate was whether hissentence was fair.To Ken s relief, Bo hadn t reacted to Lovely s presenceor accusations.He d just leaned back in his swivel chair, bouncing a bitand staring at the chandelier.Just to see how the judge would react, Kenhad thrown out one objection: leading.Judge Boyle, head propped on onehand, staring fixedly at Lovely, overruled it.He had no problem with theattorneys steering the testimony.At the end of Spalding s examination, thejudge underlined this point. If you want to lead her, you can lead her, the judge told Ken.Ken did. Good afternoon, Ms.Lorden, he said. Mr.Jones couldn t control hisdrinking, could he? No, Lovely said, chewing on her lower lip. He drank almost every day? Just about every day.Bo used crack also? Yes.On the night of the Grady killing, he was slur-ring his words? Yes.Stumbling? Yes.Weaving all over the road? Yes. The combination of drugs and alcohol was so powerful that Mr.Jonesdidn t know what he was thinking? Ken asked.The Last Lawyer 195This was too much for Spalding.She objected: leading the witness.It was as if Ken was instructing Lovely what to say, putting words in hermouth.Judge Boyle overruled Spalding. I mean, you got to lead her and get her to say yes to every questionyou had, Judge Boyle said to Spalding. Why doesn t the other side get thatright? He s on cross.I let you lead her all the way through.You did all thetestifying.She just said,  Yes, that s right, yes, that s right. You did all the testifying.The judge s words gave Ken a glimmer of aninspiration, but Ken was too busy right now to explore it.Emboldened, heplunged back into his questions.Lovely agreed Bo was mentally unstable. You believe that Bo s mental problems were so severe that they mayhave influenced his behavior on the night of Mr.Grady s death? Kenasked. Yes, Lovely said.Lovely acknowledged her own bouts with depression and a suicideattempt that took place around the time she confessed to Dalton Jones.Ken had found a rhythm.His inquiries weren t questions.They werestatements You said you were having crying spells? the question markimplied only by the slightest upward inflection at the end.A simple  yesor  true from Lovely punctuated each statement.No clarifications, nojustifications.This is what Judge Boyle had meant.Spalding had done all the testify-ing, and now Ken was doing the testifying.Lovely Lorden, cowed in thewitness chair, seemed willing to say whatever the people in power wantedher to say. %  %  %You did all the testifying.She just said,  Yes, that s right, yes, that s right. Forthe next few days, during another break in the hearing, Ken s mind keptreturning to Judge Boyle s words.The judge obviously had no respect forLovely Lorden as a witness.To him, Lovely s testimony was a waste of time.This was important.This was an opportunity.If the judge thoughtLovely Lorden was a bad witness, it was up to Ken and Mark to remind himthat she d been the state s entire case.As Dewey Hudson had acknowledged,the case against Bo was weak.No physical evidence had linked Bo to thecrime.Bo s trial had taken place half-a-dozen years after the killing.Thestar witness had been a mentally unstable woman who had good reason towant Bo behind bars.196 The Last LawyerOf course, the judge had already rejected this argument.He d deniedtheir request for him to examine the guilty verdict.This hearing was todetermine whether Bo s sentence was just, not the verdict.So this had to behandled just right.They couldn t just confront the judge and say, look, youwere wrong.Judge Boyle had to reach that conclusion for himself.But the more Ken thought about the judge s words about Lovely thiswitness and the disgust with which he said them, the more he began tothink that they had an opening, a chance [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]