The Angel of Darkness - Caleb Carr [244]
The judge stared down hard at him. “Mr. Picton—you and I have done too much business in this room over the last few years for me to be unaware of what you’re up to. But there’s no jury here for you to vex with your suggestions yet, and I won’t tolerate any playing to the galleries. Mr. Darrow is a qualified attorney who does not appear to suffer from any impediments of speech. If he wished to qualify the defendant’s plea in any way, I’m sure he would have. Do you wish to so qualify the plea, Mr. Darrow?”
“Certainly not, Your Honor,” Mr. Darrow said, in dark earnest. “The plea is a simple, straightforward, and absolute ‘Not guilty.’”
“Clear enough,” Judge Brown replied. “In future, Mr. Picton, the state can keep its assumptions, as well as its hopes, to itself.” Mr. Picton just smiled and bowed. “Now,” the judge continued, “as to the matter of bail—”
“Bail?” Mr. Picton blurted out, getting a groan and another scowl from the judge.
“Yes, Mr. Picton,” the old man said. “Bail. You are familiar with the practice?”
“In a case like this, I fear I am not, Your Honor,” Mr. Picton replied. “The defendant is accused of the worst sort of violent assault on her own children, one of whom barely escaped with her life and is currently the state’s principal witness. Does the court seriously intend that the state should, even for a moment, countenance the possibility of bail in this matter?”
“The court intends that the state should follow the rules of criminal procedure, whatever the offense!” Judge Brown bellowed back. “I warn you, Mr. Picton—do not make any more efforts to get on my bad side so early in this trial! As you well know, it’s a big place, my bad side, and once on it you may have trouble finding your way back over again!”
Mr. Picton tried not to smile, and nodded with what you might call pronounced respect. “Yes, Your Honor. I ask the court’s pardon. The state earnestly directs the court’s attention to the severity of the crime with which the defendant is accused, and the danger that might be posed to the state’s principal witness should the defendant be freed. We ask that bail in any amount be denied.”
“Your Honor,” Mr. Darrow countered, looking shocked, “my client is a respectable woman who endured the greatest tragedy that can be inflicted on a member of her sex: the savage murder, before her eyes, of two of her own children, and the attempted murder of a third—”
“I beg the learned counsel’s pardon,” Mr. Picton answered, with a hefty dose of sarcasm. “I was not aware that the issue had already been decided so conclusively. I thought that we were gathered together in this room to determine what, in fact, happened to the defendant’s children.”
Still scowling, Judge Brown nodded. “I’m afraid I must agree with the state here, Mr. Darrow. The burden may be on them to prove their allegations, but until they’ve failed, I cannot accept your assertion that Mrs. Hunter has endured any such tragedy, and I must ask you not to further inflame what is already a very emotional matter by making such statements. You have a request regarding bail?”
“We do, Your Honor,” Mr. Darrow answered. “If, indeed, my client is guilty of violence against children, it’ll be the first that this or any other state knows about it. Besides being a devoted mother, she’s been a governess and a nurse to many children other than her own, and in that capacity has often behaved as heroically as she did on the night in question. We ask that you recognize that she is no threat either to the state’s witnesses or to the community and that, given the delicacy of both her sex and her nature, you post a reasonable bail, to prevent her languishing in the county jail for the duration of what may be a protracted proceeding.”
With the crowd—and those of us in the first two rows especially—waiting anxiously, Judge Brown rocked back in his chair, almost disappearing behind the bench. He stayed