ADVISED THE JUDGE, 'IS not an absolute ceiling on retardation. And seventy-two is not a passing grade—'
Bond held up a hand. 'How do we impose a standard, Dr. Lane?'
'By looking at whether retardation was clear from childhood, and the degree to which it affected Rennell's capacity to act in daily life.' Lane's voice was cool. 'Which, as we know, is a long, sad story—a devil's brew of heredity, brain trauma, and abuse. The only question is whether a number justifies ignoring all that.'
Stepping closer to the witness stand, Terri interposed a question of her own. 'The Supreme Court's opinion in Atkins, Dr. Lane, emphasized the difficulties of a retarded man in coping with the legal system. Can you describe how retardation landed Rennell Price on death row?'
Lane settled back, hands folded in his lap, assuming a more academic tone. 'I'd describe it as a series of misperceptions and disconnects, beginning with Rennell's first interrogation and ending when the jury and judge sentenced him to death.
'Inspector Monk saw a sullen crack dealer unable to conceal his own sense of guilt. What Monk actually faced was a frightened boy of extremely low intellect, searching for answers which would please the police—'
'Didn't Rennell,' Bond interrupted, 'admit seeing Thuy Sen at a store?'
'Maybe he did,' Lane answered with a shrug. 'Maybe he was just guessing. The real mystery is why he didn't confess to killing her.
'All too often, retarded people make false confessions to ingratiate themselves, or simply to put an end to repeated questioning. No matter how many times Monk asked him, Rennell came back to 'I didn't do that little girl.' But he couldn't make the police believe him.'
'Perhaps,' Bond retorted, 'because he couldn't account for his whereabouts.'
Though the judge's comment was delivered as a counterthrust, Lane nodded in amiable agreement. 'Precisely. Monk imagined seeing a child molester without an alibi. What he really saw was someone without any capacity to remember, or any specific sense of time or place—let alone of where he was the day Thuy Sen disappeared.
'Payton says Rennell was asleep. In an even deeper sense than that, he was—each day and every day. For Rennell, one day was like any other, an indeterminate moment spent in a darkened room.'
The somber description made Gardner Bond pause. 'What about Jamal Harrison?' Terri interposed. 'His story to the police helped persuade Assistant D.A. Mauriani to seek the death penalty.'
'It's the same phenomenon. Harrison believed Rennell smiled because Payton had just told him Jamal would take care of Eddie Fleet. But Payton says it was simply because he'd promised Rennell that things would be okay.' Lane's tone softened. 'As always, Rennell believed him. Which is why we're all here.'
'Did Rennell's retardation affect his relationship to Yancey James?' Terri asked.
'Yes,' Lane answered gravely. 'At the preliminary hearing, Judge Warner asked Payton, then Rennell, whether they'd agree to waive James's conflict of interest in representing them both. When Rennell's turn came to answer, Warner heard the answer yes. But what he really heard was a retarded teenager taking cues from his older brother. In terms of Rennell's comprehension, the judge could have been speaking in Bulgarian.
'As for James, once Payton had tacitly confessed his guilt, James assumed that Rennell must also be guilty. To James, Rennell's insistence that he 'didn't do that little girl' was merely a failure of imagination—for which Payton compensated by inveigling Tasha Bramwell to lie for both of them.' Lane's smile was etched with irony. 'The only 'true' part of her story was that Rennell slept through the afternoon Thuy Sen died. Which, given his deficits in memory, surely came as news to Rennell. But all the jury saw was an inept lawyer offering a pathetic alibi to cover up for two degenerates.'
To Terri, Lane's measured account of Rennell's fate, accumulating step by step, seemed to have sobered those who watched. The courtroom felt preternaturally quiet. 'How do you relate retardation,' Terri asked, 'to the question of whether Rennell was innocent and wrongly convicted?'
'To me, they're intimately related. Knowing that he was innocent, if Rennell were a man of functional intellect he would have known that Eddie Fleet was framing him and, in all likelihood, favored his lawyer with some conclusions about why. A man of functional intellect might even have challenged Payton about what happened.' Sitting back, Lane seemed to imagine Rennell at trial. 'Rennell just sat there. With respect to Eddie Fleet, he was truly innocent.'
'Unless Rennell knew himself to be guilty,' Bond objected.
This, Terri knew, was the opening Tony Lane had been waiting for. 'In my view,' Lane replied, 'retardation only made him look guilty. Aside from the compelling psychological reasons I gave you for believing that he'd never molest a child, there's not the slightest evidence in his life that Rennell would ever do so.'
Larry Pell leapt up at once. 'Your Honor,' he interrupted, 'we've been more than tolerant of Dr. Lane's digressions from his area of expertise. But Rennell Price's guilt or innocence is a question for this Court, not for a mental health professional who has no personal knowledge of what happened on the day Thuy Sen was killed. We object to any further speculation.'
With an air of agreement, Bond swiveled his chair toward Terri. 'Mr. Pell,' she answered, 'objects to a great deal. He objects to our calling Eddie Fleet. He objects to our calling Dr. Tammy Mattox to testify to Rennell Price's personal history.' Turning on Pell, she asked, 'You do still object, don't you?'
'Yes.'
'In which case,' she said to Bond, 'I'd like Dr. Lane to set forth the reasons that the accusation of murdering Thuy Sen is in conflict with Rennell's entire life.'
Trapped by the presence of the media, Bond gave a grudging nod. 'Go ahead.'
Quickly, Terri asked Lane, 'What factors in Rennell's past suggest that he is not disposed to the crime for which he was sentenced to death?'
'It's more an absence of any factors suggesting that he is.' Pausing, Lane summoned the list that he and Terri had rehearsed. 'Unlike Eddie Fleet—who has a rich legal history of physically abusing women—Rennell has no such history. Unlike Eddie Fleet, Rennell has no history of violence whatsoever. Either before his imprisonment or after. Unlike what we believe is true about Eddie Fleet, Rennell Price has no history of sexual misconduct—'
'Including with children?'
