Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [423]
Odds were Judge Bullock had set the execution at sunrise merely to put a little frontier flavor into the judgment. Essentially, it was gratuitous language. In this particular instance, Earl felt it could be ignored, especially since the second statute said that if the execution was not carried out on the day set, then there had to be a new time declared. That certainly seemed to indicate "time" was being used as a synonym for day. It didn't make any sense to assume that if you set a date for execution and it wasn't carried out, then the next execution had to be more specific, that is, done at a given minute.
Such a practice could lead to chaos. What if you had the Warden with his hand up and he was one second late? Unworkable! Earl decided that the intent of these statutes had to signify day, not time.
Judge Bullock's "at sunrise" could legally, therefore, be declared gratuitous language. That was his thinking on the problem.
He talked about it quickly with Mike Deamer. As Deputy Attorney General, Deamer would be holding the fort in Salt Lake, while Bob Hansen and Schwendiman and Barrett and Evans and himself flew to Denver. But it was a hurried conversation. They were, after all, caught in the pressure of getting out their papers. Already, they were running late. Bob Hansen's takeoff at 4 A.M. would have to be delayed. That hand moved around the clock like anxiety circulating in one's chest.
2
In Washington, Al Bernstein, an ACLU lawyer, was phoned at 5 A.M., Eastern Standard Time. That, of course, was three in the morning in Utah. The call came from Henry Schwarzschild, head of the National Coalition Against the Death Penalty, and he now told Bronstein of Bob Hansen's intention to fly to Denver. Schwarzschild had just learned the news himself and hadn't seen any papers, but he thought the Attorney General would have to apply for a Writ of Mandamus against Judge Ritter, and he wanted Bronstein to go to the Supreme Court and be available there in the event the Tenth Circuit did overturn the Judge. So, Bronstein spent the last of this night trying to prepare legal papers without knowing the name of the case, nor the caption on it. Completely without the starting, point of Who versus Whom. He called the Supreme Court which, by law, technically, was open 24 hours a day, but there was no answer.
Somewhere after four in the morning, Phil Hansen got out of bed and put the radio on, and God, all of a sudden, he could hear this thing on KSL that the Attorney General, and every other principal were going to fly over to Denver. Of course, he phoned Ritter and the Judge said he should have second-guessed it, should have known in his dreams they would pull that. At any rate, the more they discussed the situation, the less risky it seemed. As they calculated the time, there wasn't any means by which the Tenth Circuit would be able to get through every step before 7:49. It was hardly more than three hours away now. Not possible to execute him on time. The Tenth Circuit, at worst, would resentence him for the future. Tomorrow, thought Phil Hansen, there would be time to put his wheels in motion for the citizens' suit.
3
Judith Wolbach and Jinks Dabney had not been prepared for Denver. They had gone out into the street from Judge Ritter's Court arm in arm, but when they got to the plaza, it was jammed with newsmen. They had to run to Jinks's office to get away. Judith liked press people, but Jinks didn't, had a distaste of getting bogged down in something like that, so they fled to the library. The press was already in his outer office. Then a call came from Jinks Dabney's wife to say that Bob Hansen wanted to notify him about the new move.
Judith stayed in the library trying to check out procedures in the Tenth Circuit Court while Jinks called the airlines. He came back to say there were no commercial flights. Therefore, he couldn't go. Bob Hansen had procured a plane, but it was uninsured. He would not fly in it. Judy said, "Jinks, you're the one with Circuit experience.