Gideon - 04 - Illegal Motion (17 page)

“What is the range of possible punishments?” I ask.

“Educative sanctions,” Ms. Dozier insists on saying, “range from probation to expulsion. The board also could suspend the student from representation of the university in intercollegiate activities.” She hands me some papers labeled, “Student Judicial System Procedural Code,” and the list containing the names of the witnesses and adds, “This contains everything I’m saying and more. You’ll notice that appeals go to the vice-chancellor and chancellor, but there is no rehearing of the facts by them.

Finally, the chancellor reviews the decision of the vice-chancellor.”

I flip through the papers.

“How do I formally request that the hearing be postponed?” I ask.

“Three days isn’t much time to prepare when so much is at stake.”

Ms. Dozier’s smile disappears.

“You could ask Dr.

Ward, the faculty member who presides over the board, but I don’t think you should expect it to be postponed. Actually, it is in the university’s discretion to require immediate expulsion and have a hearing later.”

Her tone leaves no doubt that had the decision been left up to her, Dade would have been living off campus by now. I may still ask for a postponement.

“Are you a member of the board?” I ask.

“I’ll be there,” she assures me, “but only in my capacity as coordinator. I have no vote.”

Good, I think but do not say.

“Dade,” I ask, “do you have any questions?”

Dade shrugs.

“No.” He seems intimidated by Ms.

Dozier, whose voice has become increasingly stern. I have my doubts about his ability to ask any meaningful questions at the hearing. Of course, that is what lawyers are for.

I stand, followed by Dade.

“I’ll call you if I have any questions,” I promise Ms. Dozier, whose smile has re turned now that we are leaving.

“That will be fine,” she says.

“The hearing will be down the hall in room two-thirteen.”

“We’ve got a lot of work to do between now and Friday,” I tell Dade once we get outside.

“I want you to get in touch with Eddie Stiles and the four people who you told me were at the party last spring with you and Robin.

Tell them you need them to meet me at the Ozark Motel at ten tomorrow. Try to see if any of your friends know anything about Robin and her roommate. And let your mother know about the hearing. Tell her I’ll be calling her, okay? ““Yes sir,” Dade replies, his voice listless.

“Come on now!” I snap at him.

“It’s really going to be just your word against hers. This isn’t going to be any picnic for her either. You can do this.”

“She talks real good,” Dade says, not quite looking me in the eye.

A pretty black girl, dressed in a beige sweater and tight jeans, yells in our direction: “Come here, Dade!”

This is not the time or place for a pep talk. Students, several of them black, look over at us from a huge bulletin board where they are gathered. This must be where the black students hang out. I see more here than I have on the rest of the campus combined except for Darby Hall, the athletic dorm.

“Believe me,” I whisper, “she’ll be a lot more nervous than you will. I’ll see you tonight.

I’m going to the prosecutor’s office and see if I can get the statements she and the others have given.”

Dade nods again perfunctorily, and I head for my car, wishing I knew what I could say to him that would get his head off his chest. Yet, I have the same discouraged feeling that is registered on my client’s face. If Dade were going to appear before a group of kids like himself, he would have more of a chance. Instead, I have no doubt the students on the “J” Board will resemble Robin (in more ways than just skin color) instead of him. Surely, there will be one black face, but all it will take to “discipline” him will be a majority vote. As I unlock the Blazer, I think of Marty’s comments about blacks and nearly laugh out loud. I don’t think she would choose to trade places with Dade right now.

Binkie Cross, the Washington County prosecuting attorney, has the bearing of a hillbilly—not the wormy, inbred sodomite who buggered poor Ned Beatty in Deliverance, but the rugged, lean, born individualist to whom the law is at best a painful necessity. At six-five he towers over me in an ugly brown suit that is too short in the sleeves and pants. Oblivious to his appearance, he sticks out his hand and swallows mine in his.

“Sorry, I missed you last week,” he says.

“I was on vacation. Call me Binkie, by the way. Everybody else does.”

“That’s all right,” I say, deciding not to mention that I heard his vacation was being cut short. He may feel he needs to protect his assistant, and I don’t want to make him defensive.

“I’d just like to get a copy of the file, and I was told only you could let me have it.”

Binkie winces as if he had been reminded of an un pleasant conversation. He invites me to sit down, then says candidly, “I would have preferred that my deputy wait until I was back in town to file a charge that serious.”

I nod, delighted to hear him say this.

“I wish he had too, because I don’t think my client is guilty of anything but some incredibly bad judgment.”

“How do you mean?” Cross says casually, as if we were colleagues instead of on opposing sides. He looks about my age, and I wonder if he went to school up here.

“To hear him tell it,” I respond, “sex was her idea, more than his. If you’ve seen this kid, you realize in a hurry he’s not lacking for female companionship.”

“How come he didn’t talk to the police?” Binkie asks.

“If he had, I doubt if Mike would have been in such a hurry to charge him.”

“Kids have seen a million cop shows on TV where the Miranda warnings are given,” I say.

“It probably wasn’t such a bad idea at the time. I’ll bring him down to talk to you anytime you want. I’d like to get this university hearing out of the way first though.”

Binkie reaches into his desk and pulls out a manila folder and hands it to me.

“I had this made for you Monday,” he says.

“I think it’s up to date. The girl’s statement is near the top.”

“I appreciate it,” I say, genuinely relieved I’m not getting another runaround. He knows that I don’t want Dade talking to him until I’ve seen the evidence against him.

“How was your trip?” I ask, deciding I like this guy. He doesn’t seem as if he is going to make me jump through any unnecessary hoops. To impress the voters, some prosecutors will make you play games with them from start to finish. Maybe he’s not going to run again. That would be fine with me.

A slow smile spreads to Binkie’s sunburned face.

“Damn, it was wonderful!” he says enthusiastically.

“My wife and I were bushwacking through a provincial park outside of Vancouver and we walked right up on this big of brown bear. I guess the look on our faces scared him because he took off the other way. If he hadn’t, we would have become permanent residents. God, it’s pretty country up there,” he adds wistfully.

“The closest I’ve come is a nature program on TV,” I confess, “but I’ve heard it’s wonderful.” Poor guy. He sounds as if he had died and gone to heaven. I’m lucky he didn’t come back mad. I would have if my vacation had been interrupted.

“I’ll be happy to produce Dade for some blood, hair, and saliva samples the first of next week,” I say, trying to appear equally cooperative.

“You don’t need to file a motion.”

“Why don’t you bring him in next Wednesday at eleven?” Binkie says, looking down at his calendar.

“I’ve got some time that day to take his statement.”

I pull out my calendar. Hell, I might as well move up here.

“That’s fine,” I say, eager to leave so I can go over the file.

Binkie looks at me square in the face.

“I knew Chet Bracken,” he says.

“You must have been pretty good if he wanted you to work with him.”

Now I understand the reason for the respect I am get ting. I don’t say that if he knew the circumstances of my relationship with Chet he wouldn’t be impressed.

“Chet was the one who was pretty good,” I say.

“He was the best damn trial lawyer I ever saw,” Binkie says flatly.

I don’t disagree, but at the time I knew him Chet was riddled with cancer and couldn’t think straight for more than an hour at a time. I stick out my hand again.

“Maybe in the next couple of weeks we can figure out what really happened. I know the last thing a prosecutor wants to do is to send an innocent kid to jail.”

As I hoped, Binkie does not give me an automatic response He clasps my hand and looks me in the eye.

“If I’m not convinced this boy raped her,” he says earnestly, “I’ll dismiss the charge. You can take that to the bank.”

“I’ll hold you to it.” Maybe I’m a fool, but I believe this man. He doesn’t seem the type who needs any trophies on the wall. Indeed, he doesn’t display even a single diploma. Behind him are pictures of him and presumably his family in the mountains. If he is as decent as he appears, we might not have to try this case.

In my room at the Ozark, I begin to have some real hope. Robin’s statement, and that of her roommate, Shannon Kennsit, aren’t as strong as I feared. Robin’s ex planation of why she waited a full nine hours

to go to the hospital comes across, on the printed page, as vague and not particularly believable. According to her, she was afraid that she would get in trouble with her parents be cause they would think she had been dating someone black, when, in fact, they had only been friends. Too, she was afraid nobody would believe her because of the incidents involving athletes in the past. What incidents? She doesn’t say. According to Shannon Kennsit, it was she who convinced Robin that she had to go to the hospital and report the rape. On this point, Robin seems to suggest that she had been planning to go to the police when the shock of what happened had worn off. She claimed to be in a daze when she had returned to the Chi Omega House that night and had gone straight to her room and had taken a shower, telling no one what had happened until four that morning when she had awakened Shannon with her crying. She didn’t remember if anybody had seen her when she came in.

On some points, with the exception of the sexual encounter itself, her story resembles Dade’s, but, of course, here it differs dramatically. He was the aggressor; he grabbed her arm and said, “Don’t make me have to hurt you.” He forced her to undress and get in the shower with him. The questioner, a Detective Parley, got her to state there had been penetration (as he had to for there to be a charge of rape), but she was vague on other details. All she had come over to do was to work on the speech with him. They had been friends since the spring. She’d had nothing to drink. It was obvious that Dade had a couple of beers at least, but she hadn’t thought he was too drunk to work on the speech. He had let her go afterward with the warning that if she told anyone, no one would believe it was rape, and he would smear her name all over cam pus.

The statements of the Rape Crisis counselor and the hospital nurse are predictably supportive. They were al ready preprogrammed to believe Robin and accordingly interpreted her every act and emotion as consistent with someone who had been raped. It crosses my mind that by the time she went to the police she may have convinced herself that Dade had raped her. Consensual sex became an act of force. If people can convince themselves they’ve been kidnapped by aliens and then returned safely to earth, concocting a rape story and then believing it should be a simple enough task for a college girl who has all night to dream it up.

My stomach growls, letting me know it is already past noon. I walk across College Avenue to a Burger King and order a Whopper. I sit next to a window in relative peace, mulling over the possibilities of what actually happened. Robin could easily be telling the truth; yet, for all I know, this could be the tenth lie she’s told this year.

It would be nice to know what her credibility level is.

How do I find out about her? Dade may or may not be much help. I doubt if he spends a lot of time at the Chi Omega House. Sarah must know a dozen kids who are at least aware of Robin’s reputation if she doesn’t already know it. I get up and call her from the pay phone and leave a message on her machine that I’m in town. It should be an interesting conversation if I ever get hold of her. I got your letter and think you’ve lost your mind.

Typically, a no-win situation with my daughter. She won’t be satisfied with anything short of total surrender.

I pick up a copy of the Democrat-Gazette and see an article in the second section on Dade’s hearing. So much for confidentiality. WAR will probably hold a rally out side the Union calling for Dade’s castration, I think gloomily. Yet how could I expect that information to re main a secret? I myself told Dade to tell the coaches.

Suddenly, it hits me that Coach Carter would make a perfect character witness for Dade at the hearing. Even if the faculty and student members of the “J” Board pretend that it’s no big deal for the Razorback football coach to appear before them, it would be, and some of them will be influenced whether they admit it or not. If Carter had a losing record, it might be a different story, but the Hogs for the first time in years are now ranked in the top ten, thanks to the win over Tennessee. There can’t be five people on the campus who don’t know about the game this weekend with number one ranked Alabama.

Back at the Ozark, I call Carter’s office and am told by his secretary that he is in a meeting. Undoubtedly he is with his assistant coaches drawing up a game plan for the Crimson Tide. The best time to get him, I realize, is late at night. I leave my name and number and say it is important.

Then I call the Cunninghams collect and report on the upcoming hearing. Roy, who takes the call in his store, asks the same question as his son: Is Dade going to be kicked out of school? I assure him, without the slightest evidence to back me up, that his son is in no danger of

being separated from the campus. I know he and Lucy will be talking to Dade before Friday, and any lack of confidence I convey to them will get back to Dade. Acting in effect as his own lawyer at the hearing, Dade must not panic. I promise to let them know as soon as we get a decision and hang up, knowing how helpless they both must feel.