Their error lies in their inability to see how easy it is to step across the gulf. Perhaps, in maturity, when ethical patterns are firmly established, one cannot cross that gulf. But in youth, in the traditional years of rebellion, it is not a gulf. It is an almost imperceptible scratch in the dust. To the youth it is arbitrary and meaningless. To society it is a life and death division.
Their son has aided and abetted and participated in the commission of illegal acts. And so he is a criminal. These acts have been of such a serious nature that he can never again lead a normal life and, in fact, is in very grave danger of having life itself taken from him as a barbaric penalty.
They cannot comprehend this. They have the pathetic faith that somehow this will all be “ironed out,” with suitable apologies, and they will take their son home with them where he can sleep in his boyhood bed, eat well, and forget all this unfortunate nastiness.
The father, Walter Stassen, is a big, meaty man, positive, driving, aggressive, accustomed to take charge of any situation. He is about forty-eight. In twenty-five years he built one produce truck into a tidy, thriving, one-man empire. He has lived hard, worked hard, played hard. I suspect he has neither patience nor imagination. Now, for possibly the first time in his life, he faces a situation he cannot control. He continues to make loud and positive noises, but he is a sorely troubled and uncertain man.
The mother, Ernestine, is a year or two younger, a handsome, stylish woman with an eroded face, a body gaunted by diet, a mind made trivial by the routines of a country-club existence. She is highly nervous, a possible by-product of the menopause. I suspect that she is a borderline alcoholic. At our two morning meetings she was perceptibly fuzzy. If so, this situation will most probably push her over the edge.
I can detect no real warmth between these two people. They have measured their lives by their possessions. Most probably their emotional wells have been polluted by a long history of casual infidelities. From the way they speak of Kirby, I believe that they have considered him to be, up until now, another possession, a symbol of their status. It pleased them to have a tall, strong son, athletic, bright, socially poised. They were amused at his scrapes, and bought him out of them. Such incidents provided cocktail conversation. They were an evidence of high spirits. For Kirby there was never any system of reward or punishment. This is not only one reason, perhaps, for his current grave situation, but also the reason why they find it so impossible to think of him, at twenty-three, as a person rather than a possession, an adult accountable to society for the evil he has done.
As I had suspected, I met with strong opposition when I stated my intention to defend all four simultaneously. They did not want their invaluable Kirby Stassen linked so directly to horrid trash like Hernandez, Koslov and Golden. They did not see why my services, for which they are paying well, should be extended to cover those people who have had such a dreadful influence on their only son. Let the court appoint defense counsel for them. Kirby would travel first class, as usual.
To convince them, I had to resort to an analogy to explain why this state had been able to extradite them, and why they were being tried for the particular crime committed approximately ten miles from where we were sitting.
I explained that there were several major crimes involved and, of course, many minor ones which we need not consider. The problem was jurisdictional, meaning who would get them first.
Addressing myself to Walter Stassen, I said, “Think of each crime as a poker hand. They spread them face up. Then they selected the strongest hand, the one most likely to win the game. That’s why they were delivered into the hands of this state. We have the death penalty here. And this crime is more airtight than the others. And the prosecutor is dangerously able.”
“What makes this one so strong?” he asked.
I shrugged. “You’ve certainly followed the case in the papers. Witnesses, opportunity, sound police work, clear evidence of significant participation in the crime by each one of them.”
Ernestine broke in. “I read where it said that Kirby actually... He couldn’t do a thing like that! What has this got to do with your defending Kirby separately anyway?”
“The State will not entertain a motion for a separate trial for any defendant, Mrs. Stassen. They shared in the commission of the crime. They will be tried together. I can represent Kirby separately. Someone will be appointed to defend the other three when they are arraigned on Monday. Maybe that person will approve of the line of defense I am developing. Maybe not. It is a good way to guarantee that all four will be — electrocuted.”
“What is your line of defense?” Walter Stassen asked in a husky voice.
It took a long time to explain it to them. On the basis of preliminary investigations, I did not feel that I would find any significant holes in the State’s case, any room for reasonable doubt. I told them I would admit the commission of the crime. At that point Ernestine Stassen tried to walk out, weeping. Her husband grasped her roughly by the arm, whirled her back and pushed her into the chair, and snarled at her to be quiet.
I went on, saying I intended to show that the four defendants came together in the first place by pure accident, that due to the personalities involved, due to the interaction of those personalities, compounded by the indiscriminate use of stimulants, alcohol and narcotics, they had embarked on their cross-country career of violence. I meant to stress that the group, as a group, had performed acts which would have been outside the desires and capacities of any individual member of the group. I explained how I meant to stress the randomness and lack of logic of their acts, the meagerness of their gain, the flavor of accident throughout the entire series of incidents. I explained the legal-historical precedents for this line of defense.
“And if it works, Mr. Owen,” he asked, “what’s the verdict you’re shooting for?”
“I hope to get them off with life imprisonment.”
Mrs. Stassen jumped to her feet again at that moment, her eyes wide, mad and glaring. “Life!” she shouted. “Life in prison? What the hell kind of a choice is that? I want Kirby free! That’s what we’re paying you for! You’re on their side! We’ll find somebody else!”
He managed to silence her. He said he would give me their decision later. I had arranged for them to visit Kirby in his cell, for much longer than the usual time allotted. When Mr. Stassen came back to my office I could see for the first time, just what he would look like when he became very old. His wife was not with him. He told me they would go along with my wishes in the matter. He said he had put all his business affairs in the hands of a competent associate, and that he and his wife would locate an apartment and take up residence in Monroe until the trial, so as to be near their boy. I assured him that I would do my best.
I was then free to visit each of the defendants in turn, taking along Miss Slayter to transcribe pertinent comments which I might find useful in my preparation of the case.
I do not know if I can put the precise flavor of the presence and personality of Robert Hernandez down on paper. He is almost a caricature of the brutishness in man. Cartoonists give him a spiked club and draw him as the god of war. He is about five ten, and weighs maybe two hundred and thirty pounds. He is excessively hirsute, thick and heavy in every dimension, with a meager shelving brow, deep-set eyes, a battered face. It is a shocking thing to realize he is not quite twenty-one years old.
His intelligence is at the lowest serviceable level. But unlike the majority of people with a dim mind, he has no childishness or amiability about him. He gives the impression of an unreasoning ferocity, barely held under control. His eyes are quick to catch every movement, and he holds himself with an unnatural stillness. It was curiously unnerving to be in a cell with him. There was a musky tang in the air, like that near a cage of lions.