It’s a judge’s worst nightmare in these days of budget deficits that spawn overcrowded penal institutions and overextended substance abuse programs: balancing the need to protect the community with the need to believe that offenders can reform themselves before they hurt someone else. Rawlings must have spent the last two years replaying his courtroom decision a million times, begging God for just one do-over.
I’ve been there. I know. God doesn’t bargain and He doesn’t give do-overs.
According to Mary Kay, I was the only judge hearing cases here today. The calendar held the usual Monday morning assortment of DWIs, assaults, and simple possession of marijuana or drug paraphernalia. From the coast to the mountains, it’s the same predictable catalog of minor sins, and when I looked out over the people sitting there on the benches in front of me, it was the same panoply of wary, embarrassed, defiant, or defeated faces, although … ?
There was something different about this group, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
Was it the assistant DA? Most ADAs are young men or women at the beginning of their careers. William Deeck had to be at least fifty and his rumpled blue suit was that of a man who didn’t care about looks or labels. He sounded cranky and his facial expression struck me as dour when he stood to call the first case, but I soon realized that there was a twinkle behind his rimless glasses and that he had an exceedingly dry wit. More to the point, he was efficient and single-minded, presenting the state’s cases so concisely that we had cleared more than half the day’s calendar before the morning break.
I was congratulating myself on probably getting through before three o’clock, when I noticed that the courtroom was starting to fill back up again.
I leaned over and got Mary Kay’s attention. “Are there add-ons I don’t know about?”
She frowned and hastily rechecked the calendar. “Oh, gosh, yes! A probable cause hearing’s scheduled for this morning. I’m so sorry, I don’t know how I could have left that off. Oh, gosh!”
“It’s okay,” I soothed and turned my attention back to the DA, who said, “Call Dava Edwards Triplett.”
An elderly attorney stood up and gestured to someone at the back of the courtroom. “Come on up, Dava.”
A rabbity-looking white woman with lank blond hair and a gray pallor to her skin came forward and stood beside the attorney at the defense table, and that’s when I finally realized that not a single person in this court today was black. Nor did I remember seeing any people of color on Cedar Gap’s crowded sidewalks yesterday.
I’d heard that there were very few African-Americans in this part of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and here was confirmation. Although Latinos and Asians are filtering in, the population is still mostly white, still mostly Protestant, and the perception, deserved or not, is that bigotry is alive and well up in the hollows. The mountains have a history of harboring white supremacists and paramilitary separatists—look how bomber Eric Rudolph hid himself from FBI agents and bounty hunters alike for five years down in Cherokee County. More than one fundamentalist, conservative cult flourishes throughout Appalachia, although up in Watauga County there’s a seven-thousand-acre transcendental meditation center founded by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, so maybe that particular stereotype is breaking down?
“Your Honor,” said the DA, “Mrs. Triplett is charged with carrying a concealed weapon.”
“How do you plead?” I asked the woman.
“Not guilty, ma’am.”
“Proceed,” I told the DA.
“Call Detective Fletcher.”
The detective was of medium height and weight. Sandy brown hair thinning at the temples; neatly dressed in dark sports jacket, khaki pants, shirt, and blue tie. He came to the witness stand, placed his hand on the Bible, and swore to tell the truth.
“State your name and occupation.”
“Glenn Fletcher. I’ve been a detective with the Lafayette Sheriff’s Department for eight years now.”
“And where were you on the afternoon of September twenty-fourth?”
“At the home of Mrs. Dava Triplett up near the end of Little Carlton Road.”
“Why were you there?”
“We had been told that Mrs. Triplett was running a meth lab and we went up to ask her about it.”
“Objection, Your Honor. Hearsay,” said defense counsel.
Evidently, he was one of those who thought that every repeated conversation needed an objection, whether or not it pertained to the charges.
“Overruled,” I said.
“Did anyone else go there with you?” asked the DA.
“Yes, sir. Sheriff Horton, Officers McKinley and Adams, and Agent Forrester of the SBI.”
“Describe what happened when you got there.”
“We knocked on the door, but the house appeared to be empty and there were no cars in the yard. While we were deciding how to proceed, we saw Mrs. Triplett’s car slow down like she was going to turn in and then she must’ve seen us and changed her mind—”
“Objection,” said defense counsel. “Calls for an unwarranted conclusion by the witness.”
“Sustained,” I said.
“What did you see Mrs. Triplett do?” the DA asked.
“I observed her as she drove past her driveway, up to the end of the road, where she turned around and started back down, so I went out and waved to her to stop.”
“And did she?”
“Yes, sir. I identified myself and asked her if she was Dava Triplett. She replied that she was and asked if I wanted to see her driver’s license. She started to reach over for her purse—”
“Objection. Conclusion.”
“Overruled.”
“—and I told her to keep her hands on the steering wheel.”
“Then what happened?”
“I asked her if she had any weapons in the car?”
“What was her response?”
“She said she had a handgun, so I asked her to step out of the car and put her hands on the roof.”
“Then what happened?”
“I asked her where the gun was and she said it was on the seat. I found it down in the crack between the seat and the back, completely covered by her purse. It was a nine-millimeter semiautomatic pistol with a fully loaded magazine.”
“You then placed her under arrest?
“Yes, sir.”
“No further questions.”
Defense counsel stood. His hair was white, his shoulders slightly stooped, but his voice was strong and confident. “Detective Fletcher, you said that the sheriff’s department had been told that Mrs. Triplett was running a meth lab. Was it her ex-boyfriend that told y’all that?”
“I wasn’t the one who spoke to the informant, sir, so I don’t know.”
“You do know, do you not, that he was arrested for possession of drug paraphernalia the day before you went out to Mrs. Triplett’s house?”
“Objection,” said the DA. “Irrelevant.”
“Sustained,” I said.
“What was Mrs. Triplett’s behavior when you stopped her car? Was she defiant? Uncooperative?”
“No, sir. She was very cooperative.”
“You said you went up there to search her house. Did you in fact carry out that search?”
“We did.”
“What did you find?”
“We found four one-gallon jugs of antifreeze and three cans of lantern fuel in the garage and two brand-new Igloo coolers in the trunk of her car.”
“Those are items you might find in any garage in Lafayette County. What about all the essential items that go into furnishing a meth lab, Detective? Did you find a case of over-the-counter cold remedies in the house?”
“No, sir.”
“Plastic tubing? Clear glass containers? Excessive amounts of drain cleaners? Coffee filters stained red?”
“No, sir.”
“In short, all you found were jugs of antifreeze my client bought for her car because it has a leaky radiator and lantern fuel she keeps on hand for when the power goes out. Is that correct?”