Flood - Andrew H. Vachss [32]
“Your Honor, at this time, I have an extraordinary application to make on behalf of my client, who is, at this very moment, incarcerated and awaiting execution.”
The judge looked staggered. His cronies over at the supreme court had told him anything could happen at night arraignments, but nothing he had heard prepared him for this. He looked up sharply at Blumberg, and in a voice designed to display a mixture of pure contempt laced with intimidation, said, “Counselor, surely you realize that this court is not the appropriate forum to bring such a matter.”
Blumberg was not deterred. “Your Honor, if the court please. Your Honor is a supreme court justice and, might I add, a most eminent legal scholar. Indeed, I know from personal knowledge that Your Honor’s landmark legal opinions have been required reading for students of the law for many years. As a sitting supreme court justice, Your Honor has jurisdiction over properly presented extraordinary writs, and Your Honor should be aware that this matter is one of the most dire urgency, threatening, as it surely does, the very life of my client.”
The judge attempted to intercede, saying, “Counselor, if you please,” but he might as well have been trying to keep a hungry rat away from cheese. Blumberg brushed aside the judge’s feeble attempts to halt the lava-flow of his rhetoric, simultaneously firing his masterstroke.
“Your Honor, if the court please. A life is a sacred thing—it is not to be trampled upon or trifled with. The public’s faith in the criminal justice system must be ever vigilantly protected, and who is better cast in the role of protector than a justice of our supreme court? Your Honor, my client faces death—a vicious and ignominious death at the hands of agents of the State. My client has done no wrong, and yet my client may die this very night if Your Honor does not hear my plea. The members of the press”—here Blumberg indicated by a sweep of his hand the single Daily News stringer as if the poor kid were an entire gallery of eager scribes—“questioned me about this matter before I entered this august courtroom, and even such hardened men as they wondered how such a thing as summary execution without trial could actually take place in these United States. Your Honor, this is America, not Iran!” At this, the ragged collection of lames, losers, and lumpen proletariat began to stir, their mumbled snarling energizing Blumberg like a blood transfusion. “Even the lowliest cur is entitled to due process—even the poorest among us is entitled to his day in court. If Your Honor will only permit me to expound upon the facts in this case, I am certain Your Honor will see fit—”
“Counselor. Counselor, please. I have yet to understand what you are talking about and, as you well know, our docket is quite crowded this evening. But in the interests of justice, and upon your representation that you will be brief, I will hear your application.”
Blumberg ran his hand through what was left of his mangy hair, took a deep breath, paused to be certain every eye and ear was focused on him, and then shot ahead. “Your Honor, last night the premises in which my client was working were invaded by armed police officers. These officers were not armed with warrants; they were not armed with probable cause; they were not armed with justification for their acts. But they were armed with deadly weapons, Your Honor. The door was kicked in—my client was forcibly and physically attacked—and when he valiantly sought to resist an illegal arrest, the police called in additional agents and brutally shot my client with a so-called tranquilizer gun, rendering him insensible and