I look at my watch. “Eight forty-five. I got here as soon as I-”
He interrupts. “Do you know how long I’ve been up?”
“I’m sorry, Your Honor, but I have no idea.”
“Four hours. My wife woke me at four forty-five.”
This is a stunning piece of news. Not that Hatchet has been up since early this morning, but that he has a wife. Someone actually sleeps with this man. I find myself picturing a female leaning over in bed and saying, “Hatchet, dear, it’s almost five a.m.-time to get up.” It’s not a pretty image.
“I assume this is somehow my fault?” I ask.
“She woke me to say that I cannot kill some poor dog. I assumed she was talking about an attorney, until she showed me what she was watching on the television.”
“She sounds like a very compassionate person, who doesn’t sleep much,” I say.
Hatchet takes off his glasses and peers at me. “Are you trying to turn my court into a circus? A sideshow?”
“No, sir. Never. Definitely not. No way.”
“Then why are you representing a dog?”
“Because if I don’t, he’ll be killed. And that would be unjust. And it would make many people unhappy, including me and Mrs. Hatch-Henderson.”
If he is going to kill me, this is the moment. He doesn’t say anything for about thirty seconds; it’s possible he’s so angry that he’s unable to unclench his teeth. He finally speaks, more softly and calmly than I would have expected. “I can’t believe I’m even saying this, but I’m going to issue a stay of execution. I am scheduling a hearing in this court tomorrow morning at nine o’clock. It is a hearing that I do not want to take more than one hour, and I will be conveying that view to certain city officials. Is that understood?”
It’s completely understood, and I say so. I leave Hatchet’s office, my dignity and testicles intact, and head down to the shelter to conduct the television interviews.
This won’t be officially resolved until tomorrow, but I now know one thing with total certainty: Yogi and I have already won.
I say this because we have surmounted the only serious obstacle that was in front of us. Mostly through the use of media pressure, along with a creative defense, we have gotten the legal system to give us our day in court. In a normal situation, we would now have to defeat our legal adversaries.
But the reason we’ve already won is that we don’t have any real legal adversaries. Simply put, we want to win, and there’s no one who will want us to lose. Nobody gains if Yogi is killed in so public a fashion, and there isn’t a politician in Paterson, in New Jersey, in America, or on the planet Earth who would want to be responsible for it.
The afternoon media interviews are a slam dunk; I’m not exactly bombarded with difficult questions. This makes for a great story, and the press will willingly help me promote it. Besides, all I have to do is keep pointing to Yogi and asking as plaintively as I can why anyone would want to end his life.
The most interesting piece of information comes from one of the reporters, who asks if I’ve heard the news that the mayor of Paterson is at that moment meeting with his director of Animal Services to discuss this matter. I would imagine the “discussion” consists of the mayor screaming at the director to find a way out of this.
I’m not going to get overconfident and let up, but my guess is that by tomorrow, Yogi will be dining on biscuits at my house.
I wonder how Tara is going to feel about that.
* * * * *
KEVIN MEETS ME at the diner for breakfast to go over our strategy.
He also brings me up to date on his conversation with Warren Shaheen, the alleged owner and victim of the vicious Yogi. Shaheen told Kevin that he has been asked to be at court today by the animal control people, but Kevin doubts he’ll show. Mr. Shaheen is apparently not enjoying his fifteen minutes of fame, and was clearly frightened when Kevin told him that when I latch on to his leg in court, it’s going to hurt a lot more than when Yogi did it. Faced with that prospect, he was more than happy to go along with whatever Kevin said was necessary to make it end.
We head for the courthouse early, and it’s lucky we do, because the media crush adds ten minutes to the time it takes to get inside. We still get to our seats at the defense table fifteen minutes before the scheduled start of the hearing. My testicle-preservation instinct is not about to let me show up late in Hatchet’s court. I plan to make sure that my client remains the only neutered member of the defense team.
A young city attorney named Roger Wagner puts his briefcase on the prosecution table and comes over to shake my hand. He smiles. “Any chance we can make a deal?”
“What do you have in mind?” I ask.
“We keep Yogi and we trade you a German shepherd, a beagle, and a Maltese to be named later.”
I laugh. “I don’t think so.”
I sit back down. It’s an unusual feeling not to have my client present at a court proceeding, and I had briefly considered asking that Yogi be allowed to attend. The determining factor in my not doing so was my uncertainty whether Yogi was house-trained, or in this case court-trained. Taking a dump in Hatchet’s court would not be a productive legal maneuver.
Hatchet starts the proceedings by laying out the ground rules. The city will get to call witnesses, which I can then cross-examine. I can follow with my own witnesses, should I so choose, and then we will adjourn. There will be no opening or closing arguments.
“And there will be no theatrics,” he says, staring directly at me.
Wagner calls Stephen Billick, the Passaic County director of Animal Control. He starts to ask him about his education, work experience, and general qualifications for the job, but he barely gets two sentences out before Hatchet cuts him off. “That isn’t necessary. Mr. Carpenter will stipulate as to the witness’s experience and expertise. Isn’t that right, Mr. Carpenter?”
I had no intention of so stipulating, but I have even less intention of arguing with Hatchet. “Your Honor, that’s uncanny. You took the words right out of my mouth.”
Wagner proceeds with his questioning, which basically elicits from Billick the rationale for the policy of putting down dogs with a history of biting humans. It’s a public safety issue and one that is consistent in localities across the country. It would be irresponsible to send a dog like that back into civilized society, because of the likelihood that he could strike again.
Hatchet offers me the opportunity for a “brief” cross-examination, and I begin with “Mr. Billick, what happens if a dog bites someone, but the owner does not bring it to a shelter to be put down?”
“If someone reports being bitten and is treated by a doctor or a hospital emergency room, then the dog is quarantined either at a shelter or a veterinarian’s office for ten days, in order to make sure the dog does not have rabies.”
“So let’s say I had a dog that bit someone. I could keep the dog at my vet for the ten days?”
“Yes.”
“And after the ten days are up?” I ask.
“Assuming he didn’t have rabies, you could bring him home.”
“Wouldn’t that put the public at risk of the dog biting again?”
He nods. “It would. But you would have signed a document accepting future responsibility.”
“So I as the owner can have the dog back, simply by accepting responsibility for his future actions?”
“That is correct,” he says.
“What does it mean to be the owner of a dog?” I ask.
“I don’t understand.”
“I mean, in the eyes of the animal control system, if I buy a dog, I then own it?”
He nods. “Yes.”
“And then that ownership means I have responsibility for it?”