Thalia’s pale face reddened. She was not flushed or blushing, but blazing with anger. “This is a confidential document! A private matter!” She waved the sheet at him.
“I’m here to ask questions, Mrs. Massie, not answer. Now, is that your handwriting?”
The low monotone was replaced by a shrill screech. “I refuse to answer! This is a privileged communication between doctor and patient! You have no right to bring it into open court like this….”
“Is the man who administered this questionnaire a doctor?”
“Yes, he is!”
“Isn’t he just a professor?”
But Thalia said no more. Her chin raised, her eyes defiant, she began to tear the document down the middle. Kelley’s eyes widened, but he said nothing, standing with folded arms, his mouth open in something that might have been a smile, as the petulant witness continued ripping the sheet up, tearing it to shreds. Then, with a flip of the wrist, she tossed the pieces to one side and they drifted like snowflakes as applause rang from the gallery and a few women cheered, whistled.
Judge Davis banged his gavel so hard the handle snapped. The courtroom was quiet. And while Thalia’s white-women cheering section admired this display, the jury was sitting in stony silence.
Thalia, not yet dismissed from testimony, bolted from the stand and ran behind the defense table into the waiting arms of Tommie.
Kelley, savoring the moment, stood looking down at the scattered snowflakes of the confidential document.
“Thank you, Mrs. Massie,” he said. “Thank you for at last revealing your true colors.”
Darrow rose, waving an arm. “Strike that from the record!”
Judge Davis, frowning, the broken gavel still in hand, said, “It will be stricken. Mr. Kelley, the court finds your language objectionable.”
But there was no contempt citing, though perhaps there might have been, had Thalia not taken center stage with one remark to the husband in whose arms she was enfolded, spoken in a way that would have reached the last row of the Little Theater.
“What right had he to say I don’t love you?” she sobbed. “Everyone knows that I love you!”
Darrow closed his eyes. His client’s wife had just revealed the contents of the document she’d destroyed.
Meanwhile, as Mrs. Fortescue looked on while dabbing her eyes with a hanky, Tommie was kissing Thalia, a lover’s clinch that would have made a perfect romantic finish for a movie, only this courtroom drama wasn’t over yet.
The next day Darrow closed his case with his two psychiatric experts imported from California, Dr. Thomas J. Orbison and Dr. Edward H. Williams, celebrated veterans of the Winnie Ruth Judd trial.
Orbison, ruddy, graying, portly, with wire-frame glasses and a hearing aid, described Tommie Massie’s insanity as “delirium with ambulatory automatism.”
Darrow grinned at the jury, raised his eyebrows, then turned back to his expert. “Translate it for those of us who didn’t go to medical school, Doctor.”
“Automatism is a state of impaired consciousness causing the victim to behave in an automatic or reflexive manner. In Lt. Massie’s case, this was caused by psychological strain.”
“In layman’s terms, Doctor.”
Orbison had a twitch of a nervous smile that damn near traveled to the corner of his left eye. “Lt. Massie was walking about in a daze, unaware of what was happening around him.”
“You mentioned a ‘psychological strain,’ Doctor, that triggered this response. What was that?”
“When Kahahawai said, ‘We done it,’ it was as if a mental bomb had exploded in Lt. Massie’s mind, inducing shock amnesia.”
“He was insane just prior to, and after, the shooting?”
Orbison nodded and twitched his smile. “He became insane the moment he heard Kahahawai’s last words.”
Darrow said, “Thank you, Doctor. Your witness.”
Kelley came quickly up, asking his first question on the move: “Isn’t it possible a man might go through such ‘psychological strain’ and in a fit of anger kill a man and
The nervous smile twitched again. “The condition you call ‘anger’ would be anger with a delirium that is defined as insanity.”
“You think it’s improbable that Lt. Massie killed Kahahawai in a fit of anger?”
“Yes—because all of Lt. Massie’s plans led up to getting a confession, and he killed the very person necessary to achieve this goal. This was an irrational, insane act.”
“He was experiencing ‘shock amnesia’?”
“That is correct.”
“Are you aware, Doctor, that amnesia is not a legal insanity defense?”
Another twitch smile. “The amnesia aspect is not what labels Lt. Massie legally insane. The lieutenant was seized by an uncontrollable impulse when he was confronted by direct and final proof that Kahahawai was the man who assaulted his wife.”
