“Judas!” came a call from the courtroom gallery, to a ripple of muted cheers.
The interruption stalled him. Henry Wells flushed and considered his notes. He could sense the defense counsel, Hugill, smirkingacross the aisle, as he had all through the trial. Henry was twenty years his junior, in only his second year at the bar,and, round-faced and ruddy-cheeked, looked almost cherubic in his wig.
“Gentlemen,” he began, the word emerging faint and hoarse. He took a sip of water and tried again, and this time his voicerang loud and clear; he felt the jury’s attention finally rouse. “Gentlemen—thank you for the time you have dedicated to thismatter thus far. I know it has been trying and you are keen to go home, but this is the last you will hear from me, I promise,which I’m sure will come as something of a relief.”
Henry paused after this small levity. No change in their stares. A weight of silence behind him, save the coughs and scrapes and murmurs of the crowd.
“Of course, before your duty is finished here, a verdict is required, which is a heavy burden, given the stakes. A man’s lifeis in your hands. Believe me, I understand what I am asking of you here. A guilty verdict will doubtless mean the death penaltyfor the prisoner, as it must, for that is the law.”
Eyes flicked to the dock and a scraggy-looking man standing hunched and manacled, one of his hands bandaged, his gaze downcast.
“But that is not your responsibility. Only the verdict is within your control. Meaning now you must ask yourselves: How areyou going to make that decision? How will you carry out your duty today? By applying the law, following the evidence, theobvious difference between right and wrong; or will you dismiss such things as irrelevant when weighed against the color ofa man’s skin?”
Grumbles from the gallery. Henry remained unmoved.
“For that is what this case amounts to. The evidence could not be more clear. One man is dead, beaten to a pulp by anotherin the street. If Clarence had been white, this case would already be over, your guilty verdict rendered, the prisoner takendown. Except he wasn’t white, he was Aborigine, but in all other respects the same as you or I. A husband, a father, a man.A British subject, whether you approve of that status or not, equally entitled to justice in this court. So consider, then:if it were you who had been murdered, your family left destitute, your killer on trial, what would you expect of the jurymenserving? For that is all I am asking of you.
“Because let us not kid ourselves: Mr. Brooks is a murderer. He killed Clarence in a fit of uncontrolled anger on that fateful morning in Baroo. Witnesses saw him do it. He was arrested—quite literally, gentlemen—with Clarence’s blood still warm on his hands. By way of defense, Mr. Brooks has argued that he believed Clarence stole one of his pigs. Now, that has not been proven and cannot be, since Clarence is not able to answer the charge. But then he is not the one on trial here, and the theft of a pig, even if it had occurred, is really by the by: the crime is that one man beat another to death, with malice aforethought, proven beyond all possible doubt. Again, I ask you: If it were you whom Mr. Brooks had killed that day, or your brother, or your son, would you consider his actions justified?
“The events of that morning have been clearly established, so I will only briefly summarize them here. Mr. Brooks, you areaware, is the neighbor of Clarence’s employer, Mr. Wood, a man of fine standing in his community and a grazier of some repute.Clarence was his farmhand and general help, and a good employee, diligent and punctual and hardworking. Now, directly abuttingthe Wood property is the small lot where the Brooks family has lived for generations, forever in a Wood’s shadow, as it were.We have heard there is bad blood between the families. Without a trade to speak of, Mr. Brooks has recently attempted to emulatehis neighbor by turning his hand to husbandry, cobbling together a pigpen and chicken coop and, incidentally, diverting Woodwater and attempting to rustle a few Wood sheep.
“This is the context of the incident. Every morning and evening Clarence walked the track fronting the Brooks place, on hisway to and from work. He was noticed. On occasion, he was pelted with insults, sometimes stones, from both Mr. Brooks andhis children—the impression is it had become some kind of sport. And then a pig went missing. Or so Mr. Brooks has claimed.We cannot be sure of this allegation because Mr. Brooks kept no inventory, and no pig has ever been found. But let us assumeit did—what is to say it didn’t simply escape? Might not the gate have been left open? Might not a fox or a dingo have gotin? Is there a chance that Mr. Brooks’s carpentry was not quite up to standard and the little swine simply wriggled free?We do not know. The police do not know. Sitting here today, Mr. Brooks does not know either, though at the time he decidedhe did. He decided that Clarence stole it. For no reason other than he was there, walking past the house every day. And perhapsbecause he was a native, for who else could be to blame?
“Now we come down to it. The night before the murder took place. We have heard from multiple witnesses that the prisoner spent that entire evening drinking in the Swan Hotel in Baroo and at one point regaled the bar with his story of the missing pig. He announced that Clarence had stolen it. ‘That no-good nigger,’ he said. Then, and I am quoting directly from the testimony of Simon Rawles here, he boasted that when next he saw Clarence: ‘I’ll
