Gavel Gamut

By Jim Redwine

(Week of 27 October 2014)

UNANIMOUS FOR MURDER, A NOVEL

CHAPTER EIGHT

Malcolm Settles hated white people. This might have been more understandable had he, himself, not been a white person. In reality, it was not white people but white women he hated, particularly pretty, young white women whose unforgivable sin was to be nice to him until they realized he was not to be pitied but feared.

His first encounter with the perplexing phenomenon of a pretty girl who smiled at him until he cornered her in a dark hallway occurred at the North Posey Junior High School. What she meant as sympathy he took as encouragement. And when she pushed his hand away from her breast and reported the incident, Malcolm, also, had his first encounter with the juvenile justice system and Judge Eagleson’s probation department. The matter was handled informally at the girl’s request, but Settles saw her actions as a betrayal of their deep love for one another.

Over the next ten years he managed to evade the notice of the law, but he did so by doing his stalking across the Ohio and Wabash rivers in Kentucky and Illinois. Then, in August of 2014, he met Elaine Carnes who was working at the Subway store in Wadesville, Indiana.

Elaine was proud of her real job and tried hard to treat customers the way she wanted to be treated. She was five feet tall with short brunette hair and radiant skin, a happy girl who smiled easily and felt sorry for anyone who seemed to be on the outside looking in. When she smiled at Settles, he felt their special bond.

Settles stopped by the Subway to say hello to Elaine so often the other workers started calling him her groupie. Then he saw Elaine get in the assistant manger’s pickup at the end of her shift at seven p.m. on September second. Malcolm could not believe Elaine would betray him that way. He followed the pickup from Wadesville on Highway 66 to Springfield Road to the small country church on Oliver Road. Settles stayed far back and followed the lone pickup’s lights along the isolated country road.

When the couple pulled into the deserted parking lot of Mt. Zion Baptist Church and turned out the truck’s lights, Settles seethed with jealousy. As he raced into the gravel parking lot, he reached for the sawed off baseball bat beneath the driver’s seat and slammed his Toyota Camry into the rear of the pickup.

Malcolm jumped out of his vehicle and began to beat the windshield of the pickup with the ball bat. Gordie Mohr, the young assistant manger, was able to get the truck started and yell for Elaine to call 911. When Settles saw the flashing lights of the deputy sheriff’s car approaching the church, he ran to his car and backed away from the pickup.

Officer Haney Creswell of the Posey County Sheriff’s Department had been patrolling the rural area watching for meth heads who had recently been stealing anhydrous ammonia from farmers’ nurse tanks. When dispatch called, he was able to get to the scene before Settles could escape. Haney blocked Settles’ car in and ordered him at gunpoint to drop the club and sprawl upon the gravel lot. Creswell called for backup using his radio transmitter attached to his uniform blouse as he placed plastic cuffs on Settles. Other officers arrived within minutes.

Settles’ court-appointed attorney was able to convince the prosecutor that Posey County would be a lot better off if Settles were allowed to plea to a misdemeanor and take a year in jail. But she could not convince her client who demanded an early jury trial. Settles knew a fair jury would see how his actions had been justified by Elaine’s disloyal behavior. He would face the felony charges with confidence. And he demanded to testify in his own defense in spite of his lawyer’s advice.

Jack had issued the summonses for forty-five potential jurors. Because they only received a two-week notice, there were always a few who asked to be excused for medical appointments or pre-paid vacations. But Posey County citizens rarely shirked their duty to serve. Thirty-nine reported to the third floor of the courthouse where Jack signed them in and showed them the Jury Orientation film required by the Indiana Supreme Court.

Jack kept them occupied as the deputy sheriffs hustled Malcolm Settles through the courthouse basement sally port in chains and cuffs, which they removed when Settles reached the courtroom. Eagleson was amused by the appellate courts’ litany of procedures ostensibly designed to protect criminal defendants from unfair inferences by jurors.

A trial judge could grant search and arrest warrants and handle numerous pre-trial hearings that divulged a miscreant’s current and past deeds yet could still, according to the higher courts, fairly determine guilt or innocence. But one glimpse of a handcuff supposedly interfered with a lay person’s objectivity. The appellate courts spent little time explaining how a black robe magically inoculated one human mind from the frailties supposedly suffered by the rest of the world.

Such rules Eagleson found not only insulting to the citizens whose tax monies greased the wheels of justice, he also, found them unnecessary. If a judge could make a decision based on the evidence, so could jurors. The body of law that called for such devices as a change of venue smacked of the disdain appellate court judges and especially federal judges held for the people whom they were supposed to serve.

But, there he was again musing about non-issues when he needed to be concentrating on the case in front of him. Malcolm Settles and his alleged victims, Elaine Carnes and Gordie Mohr, deserved his full attention.

“Jack, bring the venire panel down and seat them in the courtroom.”

As the potential jurors filed in, the Prosecuting Attorney, Tom Rachels, and his prosecuting witness, Haney Creswell, as well as Malcolm Settles and his attorney, Rayanne Simms, stood at attention. Eagleson asked the venire to raise their right hands and swore them for the voir dire: “Do you swear or affirm to honestly answer all questions concerning your qualifications to be a juror?”

Eagleson found his mind wandering to the arcane system that had developed when an oath meant something. In his entire career he had never heard of a juror being punished for lying during voir dire. And almost nobody in contemporary America felt a religious or any other restriction on whether they answered anyone’s questions honestly.

Eagleson gave the panel a synopsis of the case and asked if they had any knowledge of it. He inquired as to whether they knew anyone involved and his favorite question, “Could they be fair and impartial?” Everyone could. Then he placed twelve potential jurors in the antique oak juror box and turned them over to the attorneys for further questioning.

As the lawyers cautiously attempted to plow the jurors for future planting of anticipated evidence favorable to their side, Eagleson occupied himself by once again observing the huge old courtroom with its antique fixtures such as the jury box with its modesty screen put in place after women got the right to vote. He never tired of drinking in the balcony and the unique chandeliers that sometimes had his mind drifting to thoughts of Phantom of the Opera.

“Objection! Judge, Mr. Rachels is treading dangerously close to violating my Motion in Limine concerning Rule 404(B).”

Eagleson returned to the present and tried to summon up what had just been asked by the prosecutor. He played for time and fished for clues.

“Please be a little more specific, Ms. Simms. Or better yet, why don’t the attorneys approach the bench.”

At the bench Rayanne Simms was spitting fire as she whispered: “Your Honor, Mr. Rachels just asked if the jurors would consider a person’s reputation for truth and veracity in weighing a witness’s testimony. He knows about my client’s juvenile record, and he is trying to imply Malcolm’s testimony can’t be believed when I call him to the stand.”

“You’re going to put him on the stand? I had no idea he might testify. I was laying a foundation for Gordon Mohr’s testimony. You know you will try to get the jury to disbelieve him because of the employee/manager relationship you assert he abused in dating Elaine.”

“I am not putting him on the stand. The idiot demands to testify. I am just trying to keep out as much of his past as I can.”

Rayanne smiled at Eagleson and said, “Sorry, Judge, I have no control over this guy. I just am trying to save him from himself.”

“Alright, counsel, let’s get on with it. The objection is overruled. Mr. Rachels, you may proceed.”