Judge Lively rapped his gavel. “All right, let’s get started. This is a hearing in the matter of Kent Barrone and wife Kathy Fernandez Barrone versus Rex Ricketts, sheriff of Hiwassee County. Let’s hear from the petitioners.” He nodded to me.
“If the court please,” I said, “I represent the petitioners. Your honor, these young people, while passing through Hiwassee County, were seized and deprived of their liberty and their property without due process of law. Mrs. Barrone has been locked up without a charge being filed and without being taken before a magistrate. This is an outrage, your honor, inflicted on two citizens who have a compelling need to be on their way.”
The judge nodded, then looked at Rufus Haggle. “All right, Mr. Attorney General.”
Haggle stood up and arched his back to look down his long nose at Parrot and Kathy. “Yes, they do have compelling reasons to get out of this county as quickly as possible.” With a dry chuckle, he turned back to the bench. “Your honor, we’ve had a plague of bad checks these past few months. All up and down the John Sevier Highway, people in big touring cars have been stopping at roadside stands and tourist courts to pass bum checks. It’s getting so the local folks are losing their faith in the Golden Rule. They help the tourists out and get slapped in the face for their trouble.”
“If the court please, your honor,” I interrupted, “we’re not here for a morality lecture. My clients have been deprived of—”
“You made your little speech and I’m making mine,” snapped Rufus Haggle.
“All right, all right,” said the judge, “but get on with it. What kind of charges are you making against these petitioners?”
With a brief smile, the attorney general opened his file and withdrew two oblong slips of paper. “Here are two checks, your honor, dated November seventeenth, written on the Bank of Houston, in Texas, in the amounts of seventy-five and fifty dollars. They are signed by K. Fernandez, which we understand is an alias of Kathy Barrone.”
“We object, your honor. It’s not an alias. It’s her maiden name.”
The judge nodded. “She did write these checks, then? You admit that?”
“With all due respect, your honor,” I said, “it’s not incumbent on Mrs. Barrone to admit or deny anything at this point. No legal charge has been made. No prima facie case has been established. If the attorney general intends to use those checks as evidence of some kind of wrongdoing, he must first establish that a crime has been committed, and secondly that there is reason to believe Mrs. Barrone is the person who committed it.”
“What about that, Mr. Attorney General?” the judge said. “Let’s hear your proof.”
Haggle hesitated, then nodded brusquely. “Take the stand, Sheriff.”
After being sworn, Sheriff Ricketts testified he had received a call from his brother at the Limestone Bluff Court. “He said a couple of suspicious characters had passed some—”
“We object,” I said. “Hearsay.”
“Sustained.”
“Let me ask you this, Sheriff,” said Haggle. “Please state whether or not you acted upon information received from your brother, and subsequently apprehended these suspects?”
“Yes, I did. It seems they had a slight problem in the distributor of their Packard—” he hid a grin behind his hand “—and they got towed in. I found them at Watkins’ garage and showed them the checks. The lady admitted—”
“Objection! Also hearsay,” I said.
“Overruled. An admission against interest is an exception to the hearsay rule, as you well know, counselor.” Turning to the sheriff, he asked, “Did she admit she’d signed and passed the checks?”
“She sure did, Judge.”
Judge Lively compressed his lips. “Anything else from this witness, General?”
Rufus Haggle, glancing through his file, looked up. “I think that’s all, your honor.”
“Cross-examine,” said the judge.
“Sheriff,” I said, walking toward the witness stand, “let me see those checks.” He handed them over and I examined them, front and back. “What’s wrong with them, Sheriff? Why do you call them bad checks?” He darted a glance at the attorney general, then said, “They’re no good. They’re not worth the paper they’re written on. That’s what’s wrong with them.”
“How can you tell?” I asked innocently. “They look perfectly good to me.” With a perplexed expression, I handed them to the judge, who frowned as he turned them over in his hands.
“They’ve never even been presented for payment,” he said. “How can you make an arrest for passing worthless checks when the checks haven’t yet been refused by the bank?”
The sheriff glanced again at Haggle. “Well, I telephoned Houston, Judge, and they told me at the bank that—”
“I object!” I said. “You can’t tell what they told you, Sheriff. That’s clearly hearsay, your honor.”
“I’m well aware of that, counselor.” Turning to the witness, the judge said, “You can’t relate the telephone conversation.”
Glaring at me, the sheriff said, “But that’s how I know the checks are bad.”
“You don’t know they’re bad,” I said. “That’s your problem. You don’t know, of your own knowledge, anything about Kathy Barrone’s dealings with the Bank of Houston, do you?”
“No, but—”
“That’s all. Step down,” I said.
“Any other witnesses for the respondent?”
Rufus Haggle stood. “Not at this time, your honor.”
The judge rubbed his chin and frowned. Beckoning with both hands, he said, “Approach the bench, General. You too, counselor.”
We went up to the bench and the judge said, in a low voice, “Rufus, is that all you’ve got to hold the lady on?”
“That’s all I’ve got at this moment, Judge, but in a day or two we’ll have more. They fit the description of a couple who’ve passed beaucoup checks in Boone and Watauga Counties. Also, the woman is believed to have bilked a bank in Kingsport of five hundred dollars.”
“She passed a bad check at a bank?”
“A male confederate made a phone call impersonating the president of the bank. It fooled the cashier and he gave her the money. They’re real flim-flam artists, Judge. That’s why we’re trying to tie them up while we get all our ducks in a row.”
“Well,” I said, “while you’re getting your ducks in a row, General, you’re violating the constitutional rights of my clients. Your honor, you heard the so-called evidence against these people. The State’s case is a travesty. They’ve got absolutely nothing on Mr. and Mrs. Barrone. They have already had their honeymoon interrupted by this farce, and they need to get to Birmingham to see Mrs. Barrone’s mother, who is critically ill.”
“Well, she is entitled to bond,” said the judge. “Rufus, have you personally contacted that bank in Houston to see if they’re holding a bale of bad checks written by these two?”
“No, I haven’t, your honor. As you know, that information wouldn’t be admissible unless we got a bank official up here and—”
“Who’s talking about admissibility? Damn it, Rufus, at least we’d know. Right now we don’t know pea turkey, and I’m gonna have to release that woman unless you make a charge. You got to fish or cut bait, buddy.”
“All right.” Haggle spoke through tight lips. “We’ll charge her on two counts of passing worthless checks and see what else crops up. Two thousand dollars bond.”
“One thousand,” I said. “Those two checks only come to a hundred and twenty-five dollars.”
The judge nodded. “I think a thousand is enough. Can they make it?”