Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [185]
On the day Custis was placed on probation, he came over to Noall's house and demanded some tires back that he had given in payment. When Wootton told him he wouldn't return them unless paid in cash, he was called every name in the book.
Three weeks later, Custis got drunk and wrecked his car. Killed a man. No driver's license. At that point, Wootton decided he'd made a mistake and shouldn't have tried to fight the case so hard. That was the moment he decided to move over to the prosecutor's side.
Preparing for Gilmore, Wootton thought often of his other big case, which had been prosecuting Francis Clyde Martin, who had been forced to get married because his girl was pregnant. Martin took his new wife in the woods and stabbed her twenty times, cut her throat, cut the unborn baby out of her body, stabbed the baby, went home.
In that case, Wootton had decided not to go for the death penalty. Martin was a nice-looking eighteen-year-old high-school student with no criminal record. Just a kid in a terrible trap who ran amok.
Wootton had gone for a life sentence, and the boy was in prison now, and might be brought around eventually.
In fact, Wootton didn't see himself as a terribly strong advocate of the death penalty. He just didn't know that it had a deterrent effect on other criminals. The only reason he was looking for the maximum sentence with Gilmore was risk. Gilmore alive was a risk to society.
On October 4, Monday, the day before the trial would begin, Craig Snyder and Mike Esplin had a long conference with Gary. After a while, he asked, "What do you think my chances are?" and Craig Snyder replied, "I don't think they are good-I don't think they are good at all."
Gary answered, "Well, you know, this doesn't come as a big shock."
They had, they told him, made a special effort with the psychiatrists. Not one would declare Gary insane. For that matter, Gary agreed with them. "Like I said," he remarked, "I can get on and convince the Jury that I'm out of my head. But, man, I don't want to do that. I resent having my intelligence insulted."
Then there was the business of Hansen. Snyder and Esplin agreed they would be happy if Phil Hansen came in. They said no lawyer was going to be so egotistical as to take a position that he didn't want or need the best professional aid available. But Hansen hadn't gotten in touch.
They did not say to him that they didn't feel ready to pick up the phone and call Hansen. There was nothing, after all, but Nicole's story to go by. It could prove embarrassing if she misunderstood what Hansen had promised.
Once more they asked Gary about putting Nicole on the stand. "I don't want her brought into it," Gary said. They could sense his objection. She would have to say she had provoked him unendurably.
Specify a few sordid details. He wouldn't have anything to do with that. In fact, he was furious that Wootton was calling Nicole as a witness. He told Snyder and Esplin that he didn't want them to exclude the prosecution's witnesses from the courtroom because it meant that Nicole, having been listed by Wootton, would also be kept out. Gary's lawyers said this had to give Wootton an advantage. His witnesses would be able to hear what the ones before them said. Everything in Wootton's presentation would come out smoother. Didn't matter, Gary told them.
Snyder and Esplin tried to change his mind. When witnesses, they said, were not able to hear each other, they felt more nervous on the stand. Didn't know what they were stepping into. That was a great deal for the defense to give away just so they could have Nicole in the courtroom. Gary shook his head. Nicole had to be there.
The first day was spent in selecting a Jury. On the second day, it was Esplin's disagreeable task at the real commencement of the trial to ask the Judge to send the Jury out since there