If Shad stops here, he will leave the jury awestruck and Quentin Avery almost no chance of retaking the emotional ground gained in the collective mind of the jury. But Shad does not stop.
Why, I’m not sure. Is it the packed courtroom? The distinguished members of the audience? The historic nature of the trial? All of that goes into it, certainly. But the most likely reason Shad doesn’t have the good sense to sit down is his knowledge that the moment he does, Quentin is going to stand up. Not literally, of course. But Quentin is going to nudge his joystick and roll that wheelchair out in front of the jury, and from that moment on, facts will have only secondary importance. On a good day, Quentin Avery in front of a jury is a combination of Martin Luther King Jr. preaching in Selma, Sam Cooke playing the Apollo Theater, and Harry Houdini escaping from the most diabolical restraining devices known to man. Facing that kind of oratorical firepower might keep me talking when I ought to sit down, too.
And keep talking Shad does. He launches into a long, sequential outline of the facts of the case—who did what, and when; who knew what, and when—when he should be saving all that for his case in chief. Most of these facts are already known to me, through my illegal contact with Jewel Washington, the county coroner and a loyal supporter of my father. (Jewel has friends in the sheriff’s department, the police department, the courthouse, and every other institution that matters in this county, thank God.) As Shad laboriously guides the jury through a timeline involving Viola and her sister, Cora, my mind begins to wander.
I can’t count the times I’ve done what Shad is doing: outlining the facts of a murder to a jury that is sometimes bored, other times riveted by what you have to tell them. The only thing different about this case is that everyone in the jury box is already familiar with the facts to some degree, and every one of them knows or knows of my father. One might think that would be grounds for a change of venue, but in Mississippi only the defense can request a change of venue, and Quentin made no such request. And as with every other facet of my father’s defense, Quentin did not seek my opinion on this.
The most alarming thing Quentin has done to date, though, is fail to request “discovery” from the State. In most states, the defense is entitled to examine any and all evidence against the accused in possession of the prosecutors, including exculpatory evidence, as well as a list of all witnesses the State intends to call. In short, the defense is entitled to see everything the State has, in advance. Likewise, the prosecution is entitled to see whatever the defense has, as well as a list of witnesses the defense intends to call. In Mississippi, however, nothing about this process is automatic. The defense attorney must request discovery, and by so doing, he agrees to reciprocally show the State the same courtesy. It’s the adult version of “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” Yet even though this process is not automatic by law, in practice it has become so, because no defense attorney would dare enter a courtroom to face the vast power of the State without having the most complete possible inventory of what he was up against.
Except Quentin Avery.
During the past three months, that lion of the law has not asked the State of Mississippi to provide any information about the case against my father. I only learned of this professional negligence from Caitlin’s sister, Miriam, just prior to her reporting it in the Natchez Examiner, and I nearly exploded when I did. Before I spoke to Quentin about it, I was certain he was going senile. After I talked to him, I wasn’t convinced I was wrong, but rather that he had some arcane strategy he was not going to share with me no matter how loudly I demanded it. My father clearly agreed with his strategy—which appeared to be legal suicide—and that left me no option but to consult a couple of older criminal lawyers in town about the matter. As it turned out, both recalled rare cases in which a defense attorney had declined to request discovery in order to conceal a surprise witness from the State. I can only hope that this method lies at the heart of Quentin’s apparent madness. If so, however, he has not confided it to me.
“. . . above the law!” Shad cries with startling vehemence.
These three words, uttered with an icy edge of indignation, break through my anxious reverie.
“That’s what we have here!” Shad declares, in the tone of a self-satisfied prosecutor headed home to the barn. “A privileged white physician who believed that nothing he did on that night would be questioned, much less raised against him as an accusation. Because, ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Tom Cage was not doing anything he had not done before, as you will see.”
There he goes again, I think, with a nightmare vision of former patients’ family members parading through the witness box with horrifying tales of unwanted euthanasia. Tom Cage as Dr. Kevorkian . . .
“This time, he was merely doing it for a different reason,” Shad says. “In this case, to silence a dying woman he had once claimed to love, and by so doing, to hide the fruits of his sin from the eyes of a world that had revered him for most of his life.”
Ten minutes later than he should have, Shad points at my father with the accusatory fire I always summoned in the courtroom. “That man there,” he says with what sounds like genuinely righteous anger, “held the power of life and death over a powerless patient—a patient he had exploited in the most shameful way possible—and he exercised that power solely to protect himself. He chose to take her life. He meticulously planned the crime, and he ruthlessly carried it out. Were it not for the conscience of Viola’s sister, the anger of Viola’s son, and the random chance of an accidental video recording being made, Dr. Cage would have gotten away with it. But if we do our duty here this week, he will not get away with it. Before this trial is over, you will know in your heart that Tom Cage committed murder in the first degree, that he is as guilty of that crime as any man can be.”
While Shad stands with his finger still pointing at my father, I turn slightly to my right and see that Mom has gone pale, so pale that I worry she might slide off her chair onto the floor.
“Mom?” I whisper. “Do you need to leave?”
She shakes her head, but her color does not return. While I try to figure out how to help her, my cell phone vibrates in my pocket. As covertly as possible, I take it out. It’s Serenity. Her text reads: You need to get home. Dolores is losing her shit. She can’t reach Cleotha Booker by phone.
The heels of Shad Johnson’s Italian shoes click on the hardwood floor as he walks back to the prosecutor’s table. As quickly as I can, I type: Can u handle her for 20 minutes? I need to hear Q’s opening statement. Call Carl Sims and have him check on CB.
Judge Elder says, “Mr. Avery, you may begin your opening statement.”