“Here,” he whispered. “Sit down.” He pulled out a chair, and Taylor settled into it.
Michael stood there, his eyes transfixed on a point somewhere in the middle of the opposite wall. “What does this mean?” he asked softly after a few moments. The silence that followed was onerous, oppressive.
“It means, my friend,” Talmadge said, “that we’re in a lot of trouble.”
“What do we do?”
“I don’t know whether Judge Forsythe knows about this.
I haven’t said anything to him. I think word must be filtering through the news media. That would explain the feeding frenzy going on downstairs. Clearly, if the jury finds out, if the news should leak out and they hear of it, he’ll have to declare a mistrial. On the short term, that would help us. But long term, it doesn’t solve anything.”
Talmadge stood back up and pushed the chair behind him. He walked over to where Michael stood and faced him squarely.
“We should consider what’s involved here. This is a capital case. The prosecution’s case isn’t open and shut, but they’ve done a better job of putting it together than we thought they would. If you’re found guilty, you could be sentenced to die. And the other charges against you could go that way as well. Long term, we could be facing a very bad situation.”
Talmadge stopped for a second, as if carefully considering his words. “On the other hand, if we were to go to the district attorney and see what kind of deal we could get-”
“What?” Michael snapped. “Are you-”
“Let me finish,” Talmadge said forcefully. “I think we should consider an Alford plea, which is where you admit no guilt, but recognize the state may have enough evidence to convict to you. I think if we submit an Alford, we could definitely beat the death penalty and, given a few breaks, might even get you life with possibility of parole. Worst case scenario, life without possibility of parole. But at least you’d still be here with us. You could still write, still work, still have a life of some kind. And chances are, if you’re locked up by the state of Tennessee for a long time, these other charges might go away. Under the circumstances, why waste the taxpayers’ money?”
Michael grabbed the back of a wooden chair with both hands and squeezed until Taylor thought his knuckles were going to burst through the skin.
“If you think that I-” he started to say.
“It’s my job to protect my client’s welfare and my client’s rights,” Talmadge interrupted. “It’s not my job to make sure you go free no matter what! If the best I can do for you is beat the death penalty, then that’s what I’m going to do.”
“No,” Michael said coldly. “I won’t hear of it.”
“Michael,” Taylor said, “maybe you ought to think about it. Maybe Wes is right. It’s time to look at-”
“Damn it!” he yelled, turning to her. “You, too? That it, Taylor? You, too? You turning on me now?”
“I’m not turning on you, Michael. I just don’t want to see you have to face the-” Taylor’s voice broke.
“Death penalty?” Michael snapped, turning to Taylor and leaning down in her face. “Let me tell you, I’d rather be put to death than spend the rest of my life locked up like an animal. Even if I did commit these murders, which I didn’t, so what? They were just sluts and whores, worthless trash! Of no value to society or anything else!”
He glared at her, his eyes wild and bulging. Taylor looked up at him, and for the first time, she was afraid of him.
Around him, the three attorneys stared, shocked. Talmadge stepped over and put his hand on Michael’s shoulder, pulling him away from Taylor. Michael whirled around, and for a second it looked as if he were going to hit him. The other two lawyers stepped toward them.
“If you can’t go in there and defend me,” Michael said,
“then you’re fired. All right? Is that what you want, off this case?”
“Forsythe won’t let you fire me,” Talmadge said, his eyes narrowing. “He’ll go apeshit on you.”
“Then get in there and do your job,” Michael said, his jaw clenched. “And do it right.”
She expected drama, but in the end it was all surprisingly muted. Perhaps it was fatigue, weariness at the relentless stress. Taylor realized as she sat in her usual seat a row behind the defense table that it had been a year since the two girls in Nashville had been murdered.
A year since she’d thrown that huge party for Michael to celebrate his first appearance on the
And it had led to this.
District Attorney General Robert Collier’s closing argument lasted just over a half hour, and was strangely calm.
He summarized the prosecution’s case, faced its weaknesses squarely, countered the defense’s arguments and challenges as spin control and disseminating, and then, in the end, appealed to the jury’s basic common sense and humanity. He spoke of Sarah Denise Burnham and Allison May Matthews as if they were his own daughters, as if their loss had somehow become personal to him and should be just as personal to the twelve men and women who sat listening to him.
Then he thanked them for their service and sat down.
Talmadge stood up slowly and walked to the podium. He gazed at the jury a few moments, then began speaking. Taylor listened as he reminded the jury that it was the state’s case to prove the defendant guilty, and that in a case like this-a case where a man’s life as well as his liberty was at stake-the state had the highest obligation possible to prove beyond even the slightest shadow of a doubt that the defendant and the defendant alone could be the only person responsible for the crimes.
“And when you get right down to it,” Talmadge intoned soberly, “what does the state have? You can argue procedures and processes, hypotheses and theories, but in the end, what is there? A spot of blood in the trunk of a car that has been used by literally dozens of people, most of whom the police didn’t even question. Now I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, with a man’s life at stake, is that enough? I don’t think so. You have a great responsibility here, and a great deal of pressure has been put upon you by the state to accept their theories without question. But I put before you, as citizens in a free society, that your real responsibility is to protect the rights of any individual who finds himself in the state’s sights. You are the one thing that stands between our democratic republic and a police state. As tragic as the deaths of these two young women are, the state has got the wrong person. It’s up to you to not compound a tragedy by doing further injustice. It’s up to you to say to the state: ‘No.
You haven’t done your job. You can’t do this. It’s not right and we won’t let you.’ My client’s fate and life is in your hands. Treat it as you would your own. And I, too, thank you for your service.”
As Talmadge sat down, a silence as heavy and as thick as fog descended on the room.
“General Collier,” Forsythe said after a moment, “do you have any rebuttal?”
“Just one quick comment, Your Honor,” Collier said, rising. He walked to the podium. “Ladies and gentlemen, I only want to emphasize one last point, and that is that the bloodstains in the car are directly linked to Sarah and Allison, and the night they were murdered, as the evidence has clearly indicated, that car was in the sole possession of the defendant.”
Collier sat down. “Any motions before I begin the charge to the jury?” Forsythe asked.
Talmadge rose. “Your Honor, the defense moves for a directed verdict of acquittal.”
“Motion denied. Anything else?”
Talmadge shook his head. “No, Your Honor. Nothing at this time.”
He sat down as the words were coming out of his mouth, as if the last thing he expected was for the motion to be granted. Taylor sat there, watching, as the judge swiveled in his chair and faced the jury.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” he began, “at this point in the trial, the evidence has been presented, and both the state and the defense have had the opportunity to summarize the points in their cases. It is now my responsibility to instruct you in the law and how you are to apply it in your deliberations …”
Taylor settled back as the judge droned on. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, silently. It was out of their hands now.
The judge’s charge lasted almost an hour, and then court was dismissed right before noon. The jury went straight into the deliberations room, their midday meal delivered by court officers.
