“Don’t accuse me of that, counselor. Don’t you dare accuse me of that.”
“Why not? ‘It has to be a Tosok.’ There are seven Tosoks on Earth. And unless you can prove that it’s Hask in particular—Hask, and nobody else—my client is going to walk.”
“Well, of course it’s Hask.”
“You can’t prove that.”
Perez smiled. “Just watch me.”
CHAPTER
12
Frank and Dale were meeting over breakfast in the restaurant at the University Hilton Hotel, just on the other side of Figueroa Street from the main USC campus. Frank was eating shredded wheat with skim milk, a half grapefruit, and black coffee. Dale was eating bacon, two fried eggs, and what seemed to be half a loaf’s worth of toast with orange marmalade, all washed down with a pot of coffee with cream and sugar.
“Everybody on the planet is clamoring to interview your client,” said Frank.
Dale nodded, and gulped more coffee. “I know.”
“Do we let them?”
Dale stopped eating long enough to consider this. “I’m not sure. We don’t care one whit about the public as a whole. The only people we’re interested in are the twelve who will end up on the jury. The question is, do we do better if the potential jurors know Hask or not? We’re probably not going to put Hask on the stand, after all, and—”
“We’re not?”
“Frank, you never put your defendant on the stand, unless you can’t avoid it. So, yes, an interview could be our one chance to let the people who might end up on the jury get to know and like Hask. On the other hand, this is a bizarre crime, and if they decide he’s just some weird alien, they may figure he probably did it.”
“So, what do we do?”
Dale wiped his face with the napkin and signaled for the waitress to bring more coffee. “Let him do one interview—one of the biggies. Barbara Walters, maybe. Or Diane Sawyer. Somebody like that.”
“What if it goes badly?” Frank asked. “Can you ask for a change of venue for the trial?”
“To where? The far side of the moon? There’s no getting away from the media coverage this trial is going to get.”
Barbara Walters was wearing her usual solicitous frown. “My guest today is Hask,” she said, “one of the seven alien visitors to Earth. Hask, how are you?”
Dale, who was seated with the alien captain, Kelkad, just outside of camera view, had asked Hask not to wear his sunglasses, even though the camera lights were bothering him. Now, though, watching him squint at Walters, he thought perhaps he’d made a mistake.
“I have seen better days,” said Hask.
Walters nodded sympathetically. “I’m sure you have. You’re free on two-million-dollars bail. What is your assessment of the American legal system?”
“You have a huge number of people in jail.”
Walters seemed taken aback. “Ah, yes. I guess we do.”
“I am told your country has set a record. You have a greater percentage of your population in jail than any other country—even those countries that are referred to as police states.”
“My question was intended more specifically,” said Walters. “I was wondering how the Los Angeles Police Department treated you?”
“It was explained to me that I was to be presumed innocent until proven guilty—and yet I was put in a cage, something my race does not do to anything, and I had thought your race only did to animals.”
“You’re saying you were treated poorly?”
“I have been treated poorly, yes.”
“You mean, as a guest on our world, you should be accorded more respect?”
“Not at all. There is nothing special about my status. I imagine if you were interviewing a human being who had been wrongly accused of a crime, he or she would also decry the treatment. Have you ever been imprisoned, Ms. Walters?”
“Me? No.”
“Then you cannot understand.”
“No,” said Walters. “No, I guess not. What is the justice system like on your world?”
“On my world, there is no such thing as crime; allowing a crime to occur would imply that God had ceased to be vigilant over the affairs of her children. Besides, we do not prize material things the way they are prized here, so there is no theft of objects. And everybody has enough to eat, so there is no theft of food, or the means to acquire food.” He paused, then: “It is not my place to say, but it seems that your legal system is designed backward. The root causes of human crime appear to my no-doubt-ignorant eyes to be poverty and your ability to become addicted to chemicals. But instead of treating these, you devote your energies at the other end, to punishing.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” said Walters. “But speaking of punishing, do you feel you can get a fair trial?”
Hask’s topknot moved in agitation while he mulled this over. “That is a difficult question. A human is dead—and someone must pay for that. I am not a human. It is perhaps easier to make me pay, and yet…”
“Yes?”
“I am different. But…but your race continues to grow. My lawyer is Dale Rice, and his skin is black. He has told me how his kind were enslaved, were denied the right to vote, to use public facilities, and so on. And yet, in his lifetime, much of that has changed—although I saw in jail that much of it remains, too, just below the surface. Can twelve human beings look upon an alien and judge without prejudice?” He shifted slightly, looking directly at the camera with his orange and green front eyes. “I think yes. I think they can.”
“There’s been a lot of talk about what will happen if you are found guilty.”
“I am given to understand that I may die,” said Hask.
Barbara Walters pursed her thin lips, apparently disturbed by the baldness of the statement. “I mean, what will happen to Earth? What response will your government have?”
“It would be in my own interest to tell you that my people would descend on Earth and, because of the execution of one of their own, would wipe your planet clean of life.” He paused. “Or I could simply tell you that the execution of me would result in the Tosoks leaving, never to return—a cutting off of all contact. But neither of these things is true, and so I will not claim them. As a people, the Tosoks believe in predestination. If it is my fate to be punished for a crime I did not commit, they will accept that. But I tell you, Ms. Walters, I did not kill Cletus Calhoun—why would I? He was my friend. If I am found guilty, it will be an error, for I did not commit this crime.”
“You’re saying we must find you innocent, then?”
“You will find me whatever God intends you to. But I am innocent.”
Dale smiled broadly. Hask couldn’t have done better.
“Kelkad!” shouted a man from the Los Angeles Times as Dale, Hask, and Kelkad left the ABC studios. “Kelkad! What did you think of tonight’s broadcast?”
Captain Kelkad had his front hand up to shield his forward-looking pink and yellow eyes from the glare of the lights. “I thought my crew member presented himself well,” he said.
The crush of reporters was overwhelming, but police were doing their best to keep them back.
“Kelkad,” shouted a woman from CNN, “if Hask is found guilty, will your own people punish him as well?”
Kelkad continued to move forward through the crowd. “We would have to conduct our own investigation of the matter, of course.”
“What have you done yourself about the murder?” shouted a woman from the CBC.
Kelkad paused, as if considering whether to answer. “I suppose there is no reason not to tell you. I have, of course, made a full report to my home world via radio. I told them earlier that we found intelligent life on Earth, and have now supplemented that report with news that one of our team has been apprehended, and is facing execution for a crime he denies having committed.”
“How long will it take to get a reply?” asked a man from CBS.
Kelkad’s tuft moved in an odd way, as if surprised that anyone c
overing this story could be unaware of the basic scientific truths involved. “Alpha Centauri is 4.3 of your light-years from here. It will take, therefore, 4.3 Earth years for my report to arrive, and another 4.3 Earth years for any reply to be received. Obviously.”
A man with a European accent jostled to the front of the crowd. “It’s been over two centuries since you left your home world. What response will they make?”
The alien captain considered this for quite some time. Finally, his tuft parted in the center, a gesture that the public had learned by now was the Tosok equivalent of a shrug. “I have no idea,” he said.
CHAPTER
13
During pretrial discovery, the prosecution and the defense each had to share the evidence it intended to present at trial so that an adequate study of it and response could be made. After the final discovery meeting, an exhausted Dale Rice returned to his office and sat down in his big leather chair. He rubbed the broken bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, trying to fight off a headache. After a moment he picked up his desk phone, selected a line, and punched out the number for Frank’s cellular.
The moment Frank Nobilio entered Dale Rice’s private office, he felt his eyebrows drawing together. Frank had never seen the old attorney look so upset before. Dale’s face was normally quite smooth—surprisingly so for a man his age—but deep worry lines creased his forehead. “What is it?” asked Frank, taking his usual seat.
“I don’t think there’s much question anymore,” said Dale. “I think our boy did it. I think Hask killed Calhoun.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Politely, it doesn’t matter what you believe. It doesn’t even matter what I believe, for that matter. Only thing that matters is what a jury’ll believe.”
“So, if the jury is likely to find Hask guilty, what do we do?” asked Frank. He felt nauseous.
“Well, the DA is going to seek a murder-one conviction. That’s murder in the first degree—premeditated murder. We could get our alien gentleman to confess to murder-two instead.”
“Which is?”
“Second degree. Yes, he killed Dr. Calhoun, and, yes, he meant to, but it wasn’t planned in advance. An argument that got out of hand, something like that. But even a second-degree conviction carries a mandatory sentence of fifteen years.”
“No,” said Frank, shaking his head. “No, that’s not acceptable.”
“Or we try to get the DA to come down to involuntary manslaughter. That means it was a criminal death, but Hask never intended to do it. Calhoun died because his leg was cleanly severed from his body. Say Hask did that without knowing it would be fatal—the fact that Calhoun died makes it a crime, but it isn’t murder.”
“But he’d still go to jail.”
“Possibly.”
“Any other options?”
“There are only two possible approaches that let Hask walk. First, there’s self-defense. But you can only legally use deadly force in self-defense if deadly force is being used against you. Calhoun had to have been threatening Hask in such a way that Hask felt he was in immediate danger of being killed.”
“I can’t believe Cletus Calhoun was threatening an alien.”
“Don’t dismiss this so fast, Frank. There are possibilities here. Say Calhoun wanted to—I don’t know—say he wanted to thump Hask on the back, all friendly-like, but being hit there, say that’s fatal to a Tosok. Hask might have thought he was in imminent danger of being killed, and so responded with deadly force.”
“It seems unlikely. Why wouldn’t he have told us if that were the case?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said there’s another possible defense.”
Dale nodded. “Insanity.”
“Insanity,” repeated Frank, as though he’d never heard the word before.
“That’s right. We prove that, by human standards, Hask is non compos mentis.”
“Can you do that?”
“I don’t know. It may be that all Tosoks are bonkers by human standards. But if he did it, and it wasn’t self-defense, pleading insanity is the only thing that will get him off.”
“It’s an interesting approach.”
“That it is, but the insanity defense is used in less than one percent of all criminal cases. And of those, only fifteen percent are murder cases. In all cases, the insanity defense works—that is, results in an acquittal—only about twenty-five percent of the time.”
“So it’s not an easy out?” asked Frank.
“No—despite what the media claims. Eighty-nine percent of those who are acquitted under an insanity defense are done so because they’ve been diagnosed as being either mentally retarded, or having a severe mental illness, such as schizophrenia. Eighty-two percent of acquittees have already been hospitalized at least once for mental problems.”
“Wait a minute—did you say mentally retarded?”
Dale moved his massive head in a slow nod.
“Is there a legal definition for that?”
“Doubtlessly. I can get my clerk to check.”
“’Cause if it’s a matter of IQ, you know, they often charge that IQ tests are culturally biased. If Hask gets a really low score on a standard IQ test, he could qualify as retarded.”
Dale shook his head. “We’ve got to sell this to a jury, remember? A jury isn’t going to buy that he’s retarded. Everybody on Earth saw him piloting that lander, and has seen how he picked up English. No, that’s out. It’s got to be insanity. But the problem is that normally a person acquitted under the insanity defense doesn’t just go free. Rather, almost automatically, if they’re found insane, they’re committed to a mental institution. Remember the Jeffrey Dahmer trial? He tried the insanity defense. So did John Wayne Gacy and the Hillside Strangler. All of them failed on that defense, but if they had succeeded, I can guarantee they would have been committed for life. See, once you’re found legally insane, the burden shifts dramatically. You’re no longer innocent until the State can prove you guilty. Rather, once you’re committed, you’re insane until you can prove that you’re not.”
“What about temporary insanity?”
“That’s a possibility, too,” said Dale. “Some aspect of Earth’s environment—whether it’s pollution, pollen, or Twinkies, made him temporarily crazy. The problem with that, though, is that first Hask has to confess—and he still refuses to do that.”
“Well,” said Frank, “we certainly can’t let them lock Hask up as a mental patient.”
“No, of course not. And that means, if we can’t prove temporary insanity, then we have to show that not only is Hask bonkers, but we also have to prove that human psychiatry is incompetent to treat him—that he’s so bonkers that there’s nothing we can do for him, and yet, at the same time, that he’s not a menace to society and doesn’t have to be locked up.”
“And can we do that?”
“That’s what we have to find out. The standard test for insanity is whether the person can distinguish right from wrong. The standard problem is that if the person has taken steps to avoid punishment—such as hiding the body—then he must know what he did was wrong, and therefore he’s sane.” Dale considered. “Of course, in this case, the body was as conspicuous as possible, so maybe we are onto something here…”
Dale and Frank went down to Hask’s room in Valcour Hall, accompanied by Dr. Lloyd Penney, a psychiatrist Dale sometimes used as a consultant. Hask was sitting on the corner of his bed, propping his back up with his back hand. In his front hand, he was holding a piece of the disk that broke the night he’d been arrested.
“Hello, Hask,” said Frank. “This is Dr. Penney. He’d like to ask you a few questions.”
Penney was in his late thirties, with curly light-brown hair. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt. “Hello, Hask,” he said.
“Dr. Penney.”
Dale sat down on the edge of the bed as well. The bed had been modified: a trough ran down its center to accommodate Hask’s back
arm when he was resting. Frank leaned against the wall, and Penney sat down on the one human chair in the room.
Hask was still holding the broken piece of disk. “What’s that?” asked Penney.
Hask did not look up. “A lostartd—a form of art.”
“Did you make it?” asked Penney.
Hask’s tuft waved backward in negation. “No. No, it was made by Seltar—the Tosok who died during our flight to Earth. I kept it to remember her by; she had been my friend.”
Penney held out a hand toward Hask. “May I see?”
Hask handed it to him. Penney looked at it. The painting on the disk was stylized, but apparently depicted an alien landscape. The other piece was sitting on Hask’s desk. Penney motioned for Frank to hand it to him; Frank did so. Penney joined the two parts together. The picture showed a world with a large yellow sun and a small orange one in its sky. “A clean break,” said Penney. “Surely it could be fixed.”
Frank smiled to himself. Doubtless keeping a broken artifact around was pregnant with psychological meaning.
“Of course it can be fixed,” said Hask. “But I would need to return to the mothership to get the adhesive I need, and the terms of my bail do not allow that.”
“We have powerful adhesives, too,” said Frank. “A couple of drops of Krazy Glue should do the trick.”
“Krazy Glue?” repeated Hask. His untranslated voice seemed slow, sad.
“Cyanoacrylate,” said Frank. “It’ll bond almost anything. I’ll go out and buy you a tube today.”
“Thank you,” said Hask.
Dr. Penney placed the two pieces of the lostartd disk on Hask’s desk. “Dale and Frank have brought me here to ask you some questions, Hask.”
“If you must,” said the alien.
“Hask,” said the psychiatrist, “do you know the difference between right and wrong?”
“They are opposites,” said Hask.
“What is right?” asked Penney.
“That which is correct.”