Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [195]
MR. SNYDER I'd make the same objection, Your Honor.
THE COURT He may answer.
MR. SKINNER Yes, sir.
MR. WOOTTON How do you know?
MR. SNYDER Your Honor, I'm going to object to any testimony beyond that point.
THE COURT I think that is so. If he knows it's a homicide. He said yes. Proceed.
MR. WOOTTON Mr. Skinner, did you cause anybody to be arrested in connection with that incident?
MR. SKINNER Yes, sir.
MR. SNYDER Your Honor, I'm going to object to that.
THE COURT He may answer.
MR. WOOTTON Who did you arrest?
MR. SKINNER Gary Gilmore.
MR. SNYDER No questions.
THE COURT No questions? Very well, you may step down.
MR. WOOTTON Call Brenda Nicol.
Brenda was in misery. She had asked Noall Wootton not to call her. He had, he said, a subpoena for her, and she better get her ass down to Court. So she came, and all the while she was testifying, Gary glared at her. He gave the Kerby look that made your blood clabber on the spot. If a look in somebody's eyes could kill you, then you had just been killed. Wiped you out like an electric shock.
"Oh, Gary," said Brenda in her heart, "don't be so angry with me. My testimony means nothing," and once again she told how Gary had asked her to call his mother. "Gary, she's going to be upset," she testified to saying, "Your mother's going to ask me, are these charges true?" And she told how Gary had said, "Tell her that it's true," and once again Esplin got her to agree, even as she had agreed in the Preliminary Hearing, that she couldn't be certain whether Gary meant it was true that he committed murder, or true that he was charged with murder. All the while she felt Gary glaring at her as if this mild testimony, which wasn't going to move things one way or the other, was the most heinous crime she could ever have committed.
She was also worrying what Nicole might do if Gary got angry enough to sic her on. To please Gary, there was nothing at which Nicole would stop, Brenda had come to believe.
Wootton rested the case for the State. John Woods now testified for Gary.
MR. SNYDER If you had an individual who was a psychopathic personality, would that person have the same capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of conduct . . . as a quote-unquote "normal person" would have? . . .
DR. WOODS He would have the capacity but would most likely not choose to.
MR. SNYDER And if you added at that point alcohol and medication such as Fiorinal, would that increase or decrease this person's capacity to appreciate and to understand the wrongfulness of his conduct?
DR. WOODS Hypothetically, it would impair his judgment and would loosen the controls on a person that already has very poor control of himself . . .
MR. SNYDER Dr. Woods, did the defendant relate to you any childhood experiences which were particularly considered in the course of your evaluation?
DR. WOODS Yes. He related some childhood experiences, and I would say that I would think that some people might think that they were peculiar.
MR. SNYDER For example, would you give us an example of one of those?
DR. WOODS The one that comes to mind was the experience in which he would walk out on a train trestle and wait for a train to come, and then he'd race to the end of the train trestle to see if he could beat the train before the train would knock him off the train trestle into the gorge below.
Wootton was next:
MR. WOOTTON Sir, you prepared and filed in the Court on September 2nd of 1976 a summary of your report.
DR. WOODS Yes, sir.
MR. WOOTTON Was it an accurate summary, in fact, of your analysis of this man?
DR. WOODS Yes, sir.
MR. WOOTTON Part of that report indicated that, I'm reading from it:
"We do not find him to be psychotic or 'insane.' We can find no evidence of organic neurological disease, disturbed thought processes, altered perception of reality, inappropriate affect or mood, or lack of insight . . . We do not feel that he was mentally ill at the time of the alleged acts. We find that at the time of the alleged act he had the capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of the act and to conform