“Be seated,” the marshal said, his voice carrying in the cavernous room.
Barrish lowered himself and sat stoically next to his court-appointed lawyer, a Jew with some constitutional zeal, and faced the judge without looking at him. An African. How appropriate, Barrish thought. The State had chosen one of those who had bastardized the America of long ago to sit in judgment of him. There were twelve others chosen as triers of fact, of course. All his “peers.” Four of those were Africans. Two Mexicans, he thought, though one might be of purer Spanish blood. He had no mixed features common to the blending of the Spanish conquerors with their Indian slaves. Four appeared to be white, but appearances were just that. A surface reading was often treacherous when looking for a person’s true heritage. That required the study of their ancestry farther back than some influences that had altered their skin color. His two Asian “peers,” for example. The eyes of one belied Spanish ancestry — the Spaniards were mighty people at one time, Barrish knew from study. More rounded eyes, probably from the Philippines. Narrow eyes close together. Japanese. That was the mark of the other. Twelve people. Mongrels. Some purebreds. None were his peers. The sham was so obvious it was ludicrous.
Seymour Mankowitz leaned a bit to his right and touched his client’s elbow with his. “Look at his face, John.”
Barrish didn’t.
“Do you see that?” Mankowitz suppressed a smile. “See his expression? He didn’t buy it.”
Barrish heard his attorney’s hopeful words, but placed little stock in them. He knew the power of the State. He knew it well. It had taken almost all that was his, all that he had worked for. His home. His business. Those were the costs of an unrelated civil action brought by a group of lazy Africans, the darlings of the State. With this, a criminal action, they were trying to take his freedom, to take him from his family. Those things they could do. But one thing they could not. One thing remained his wherever he might be, in whatever circumstances he was placed. Everything they could usurp from him and still John Barrish knew he would have his fight. It couldn’t be reasoned out of him, stolen from him, or beaten from his fiber. In fact, every attempt to weaken his resolve, every trial, every character assassination hurled at him through the media, every penny robbed from him by the State’s thieving IRS, every single thing they had done in pursuit of that elusive goal had had more than an opposite effect. Resolve, however strong, was no longer an issue. They had pushed so hard that the line between man and mission had faded to inconsequential. John Barrish was the fight now. The fight was him.
“Counselors, would you approach, please,” Judge Malcolm Horner said as he looked down upon the parties to the trial.
Mankowitz left his client with a soft grip on the shoulder and followed his opposite, Deputy U.S. Attorney Leah Cobb, to the bench, his eyes casually glancing down for a peek at the lines of the high-cut panties he had come to believe she favored. They stepped onto the riser and drew close. Horner had open before him a file containing Mankowitz’s motion for dismissal.
“Ms. Cobb, I wanted to give you one last chance,” Horner offered. “Anything?”
Leah Cobb thought she saw sympathy in the judge’s face, as though he wanted her to have some way, some brilliant legal maneuver, to make Mankowitz’s motion worthless. But she didn’t. She had almost nothing. Her case, her way of tying John Barrish to the murder of four little black girls in a Los Angeles church, was at rest beneath a gleaming grave marker that did not do FBI Special Agent Thom Danbrook justice. Only he could definitively tie John Barrish to the guns used to murder those four children as they practiced for a Christmas concert. Because of the many months he had spent undercover, he could have pointed his finger at the man whose hate dwarfed his diminutive physical stature and say that he had purchased the weapons from one of his brother hate groups. But the cliché was irrefutable: Dead men told no tales. Thom Danbrook was dead, as dead as Leah Cobb’s case against the leader of the Aryan Victory Organization, and neither could be resurrected.
“Your Honor, unfortunately I have nothing more,” Leah said.
Horner looked at the prosecutor for a long moment, hating what had to come next “Ms. Cobb, the government has had the opportunity to present its case. In the context of the trial as a whole the jury would be your judge, but — and I never like to do this…in any case — at this point it is my responsibility to determine if you’ve done your job. I’m sure you’ve done your best, but you haven’t sufficiently impugned Mr. Barrish to warrant continuing this trial.” He saw the youthful attorney cast her eyes downward briefly. She was angry at herself, Horner knew, though he also was certain she could have done nothing to overcome the situation pure chance had put her in. “And delaying that conclusion any further will do no good. You had an additional six months following Agent Danbrook’s murder to rework your case.” Danbrook was her case, Horner knew all too well. Or, more properly, his testimony would have been. But a chance encounter with two murderers had robbed Thom Danbrook of his life, and Leah Cobb of her only way to show that Barrish was more than just an ignorant observer of a plan that had resulted in four black children dying a horrible death, trapped in a church as bullets cut them down. Horner felt her anguish. He also felt his own rage at having to set John Barrish free. “Step back, please.”
Mankowitz took the lead this time. The front rows of the gallery could easily see the contrasting expressions on his and the prosecutor’s faces. A hushed murmur rose from those in attendance.
“You’re going home, John,” Mankowitz whispered.
Barrish swallowed, still not ready to believe it. He had narrowly escaped prosecution for the same crime by the State of California because of a lack of evidence, a bullet dodged until the federal government had decided to take a crack at him under the guise of “violating the civil rights” of the dead African children. For over a year now he had been held without bail in federal custody in the tower-like Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles. Locked up like an animal. Subjected to the taunts and brutality of the African inmates. Slurs and hateful threats had been hurled at him. So had choice bodily excrements left to ferment for days in foam cups just for that purpose. All while his keepers laughed at the display. He had expected no less from the Africans, and no more from the agents of the State. Was it going to be over now? he wondered, still looking defiantly straight ahead.
“Would the marshal please bring the jury in.” In a moment the twelve citizens were in their place on the courtroom’s left wall. “Mr. Mankowitz, would you and your client please stand.” Horner watched as the self-described leader of the Aryan Victory Organization rose with his attorney. Such a small man, the judge thought. Physically and otherwise. Yet this man was hate, and he inspired that in those who would do his bidding. And he was about to be let loose upon the world once more.
Horner waited for a few seconds before beginning. “It is the opinion of the court that the government has failed to present sufficient evidence against the defendant to warrant the continuation of this trial. The motion to dismiss offered by the defense is hereby granted.” The background murmur became a soft gasp. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, thank you for your attentiveness and service. You are dismissed from this case. The marshal will see to your needs.” Rather quickly, with shared looks of surprise, the twelve jurors filed out for the final time. And then it was time for the most distasteful part of what had to be done. “Mr. Barrish, the charges brought against you in this case are hereby dismissed. Accordingly you are remanded from custody and are free to go. Good day, everyone.”