Clifford Irving's Legal Novels - 01 - TRIAL - a Legal Thriller by Clifford Irving
Authors: Clifford Irving
Tags: Fiction, General, LEGAL, Thrillers, Crime, Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, Murder, Thrillers & Suspense
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years."
"My man will never buy it. He has no record. He's had jobs, he's not a vagrant. He's a simple Mexican
campesino.
A wife and kids back home — his father gave him a donkey for a wedding present. He's not a murderer."
"He killed, that makes him a murderer."
"You know what I'm talking about."
"And it doesn't make any difference. Murderers have wives and kids. I knew one used to rescue lame dogs from the pound. I remember one who raised pet squirrels. So now I know one who has a donkey. Jesus, Warren…" She sighed. "You feel sorry for him, that's all. Another poor slob, like that guy in the Kmart case. Well, maybe if he were my client, I'd feel sorry for him too."
Good. He was getting somewhere. She had a heart. He liked her for it.
"And if Quintana gets up there on the witness stand," Warren said, "the jury's going to feel sorry for him too. He's not surly, he's not mean, he's not a bad man. He's got pride and dignity and it all shows. A jury will never go for the capital. And if they find him guilty of the lesser offense, they'll give him considerably less than life."
"Forty years," Goodpaster said. "My final offer."
"You're a hard woman."
"No, I'm doing my job. Like you're doing yours." She seemed upset at the accusation.
"You'll drop the charge of armed robbery?"
"I'll think about it, Warren. Now I have to go. Have a nice weekend."
Warren sighed. He hoped he was masking his feeling of triumph. He was saving a man's life.
===OO=OOO=OO===
In his office late the following Monday afternoon, Scoot Shepard asked, "You know the statute on self-defense?"
Warren nodded, frowning. "And I know there was a provision engrafted in the penal code back in '74 that calls for 'the duty to retreat.'"
"You're on target." In one hand Scoot held a cigarette, in the other a glass of bourbon on the rocks. Whenever the sun threatened to dip below the yardarm, Scoot switched from Lone Star to Wild Turkey.
"Seems to me," Warren said, "that one question a prosecutor might ask a jury to focus on is this: if Clyde Ott was drunk and abusive that night, why did Johnnie Faye Boudreau even enter the house with him? Why did she go upstairs? And when she first came downstairs from the bedroom, why didn't she just go out the door before he blocked her path? Did she retreat
sufficiently?
And if Clyde had fractured her cheekbone once before and she believed him to be violent — why was she still seeing him? If her story's true, he once said in front of two witnesses that he would kill her. That's superficially good for us, but it's got a flip side. The state will say that's why she carried the gun in her handbag on a dinner date. They'll call it premeditation."
"True, true." Scoot smiled delicately. "Of course that all depends on how the lady tells it when she testifies. It boils down to credibility. Don't fret too much about 'the duty to retreat.' All those Yankee lawyers come to practice here when oil was up at thirty-five dollars a barrel, they rammed that down the throat of the state legislature. They were looking to bring Texas into the twentieth century, so to speak, juristically. Pissing against the wind. This is still Texas. People pack guns and everybody thinks he's the fucking second cousin of Wyatt Earp. Bravery and loyalty and honor and duty — we're eaten up with that stuff. No man has to back down in the face of a threat. That's the basis of self-defense, regardless of what the law says about a goddam duty to retreat."
Warren remembered that Texas had the longest history of frontier warfare of any state in the Union. Its citizens were tied to guns and blood and the Alamo, backs always against the wall. He also remembered the Texas paramour statute that held it was not an offense to kill your wife's lover. It had been stricken from the books about twenty years ago, but the law still stated that if you heard from a reliable source that somebody was out to get you, you had the right to arm yourself, go forth, and seek an
"My man will never buy it. He has no record. He's had jobs, he's not a vagrant. He's a simple Mexican
campesino.
A wife and kids back home — his father gave him a donkey for a wedding present. He's not a murderer."
"He killed, that makes him a murderer."
"You know what I'm talking about."
"And it doesn't make any difference. Murderers have wives and kids. I knew one used to rescue lame dogs from the pound. I remember one who raised pet squirrels. So now I know one who has a donkey. Jesus, Warren…" She sighed. "You feel sorry for him, that's all. Another poor slob, like that guy in the Kmart case. Well, maybe if he were my client, I'd feel sorry for him too."
Good. He was getting somewhere. She had a heart. He liked her for it.
"And if Quintana gets up there on the witness stand," Warren said, "the jury's going to feel sorry for him too. He's not surly, he's not mean, he's not a bad man. He's got pride and dignity and it all shows. A jury will never go for the capital. And if they find him guilty of the lesser offense, they'll give him considerably less than life."
"Forty years," Goodpaster said. "My final offer."
"You're a hard woman."
"No, I'm doing my job. Like you're doing yours." She seemed upset at the accusation.
"You'll drop the charge of armed robbery?"
"I'll think about it, Warren. Now I have to go. Have a nice weekend."
Warren sighed. He hoped he was masking his feeling of triumph. He was saving a man's life.
===OO=OOO=OO===
In his office late the following Monday afternoon, Scoot Shepard asked, "You know the statute on self-defense?"
Warren nodded, frowning. "And I know there was a provision engrafted in the penal code back in '74 that calls for 'the duty to retreat.'"
"You're on target." In one hand Scoot held a cigarette, in the other a glass of bourbon on the rocks. Whenever the sun threatened to dip below the yardarm, Scoot switched from Lone Star to Wild Turkey.
"Seems to me," Warren said, "that one question a prosecutor might ask a jury to focus on is this: if Clyde Ott was drunk and abusive that night, why did Johnnie Faye Boudreau even enter the house with him? Why did she go upstairs? And when she first came downstairs from the bedroom, why didn't she just go out the door before he blocked her path? Did she retreat
sufficiently?
And if Clyde had fractured her cheekbone once before and she believed him to be violent — why was she still seeing him? If her story's true, he once said in front of two witnesses that he would kill her. That's superficially good for us, but it's got a flip side. The state will say that's why she carried the gun in her handbag on a dinner date. They'll call it premeditation."
"True, true." Scoot smiled delicately. "Of course that all depends on how the lady tells it when she testifies. It boils down to credibility. Don't fret too much about 'the duty to retreat.' All those Yankee lawyers come to practice here when oil was up at thirty-five dollars a barrel, they rammed that down the throat of the state legislature. They were looking to bring Texas into the twentieth century, so to speak, juristically. Pissing against the wind. This is still Texas. People pack guns and everybody thinks he's the fucking second cousin of Wyatt Earp. Bravery and loyalty and honor and duty — we're eaten up with that stuff. No man has to back down in the face of a threat. That's the basis of self-defense, regardless of what the law says about a goddam duty to retreat."
Warren remembered that Texas had the longest history of frontier warfare of any state in the Union. Its citizens were tied to guns and blood and the Alamo, backs always against the wall. He also remembered the Texas paramour statute that held it was not an offense to kill your wife's lover. It had been stricken from the books about twenty years ago, but the law still stated that if you heard from a reliable source that somebody was out to get you, you had the right to arm yourself, go forth, and seek an
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