Clifford Irving's Legal Novels - 01 - TRIAL - a Legal Thriller Read Online Free

portraits of robed judges from decades past. The current presiding resident of the 342nd, Judge Dwight Bingham, was one of Harris County's four black judges. His courtroom was the most spacious and dignified in the courthouse; he had earned it by seniority. "But what Dwight Bingham knows about the law," Warren's father had said, when Warren had just begun practicing, "you could stuff into a wetback's taco. He's too easy, too friendly. He doesn't like to send young niggers to prison on the theory that they get buttfucked and come out more violent than they went in. He's got what I suppose you and your hippie friends would call… compassion."
    Warren liked and admired Judge Bingham. The law could be harsh. Good law became bad law if bad men administered it. The world was crueler than most people would admit, Warren believed, and it needed all the compassion available.
    Ten days ago, in a familiar ritual, the clerk at the Office of the District Attorney had spun the birdcage that held colored Ping-Pong balls with the numbers of the twenty-six Harris County courts. The yellow ball with Judge Bingham's number had popped out; he had drawn the plum of the current season, the Ott murder case. The accused, the owner of a topless nightclub, had killed her lover, Dr. Clyde Ott, a multimillionaire gynecologist who owned drug detox clinics throughout Harris County. The State of Texas was charging willful murder; Scoot Shepard, on behalf of the defendant, had pled self-defense. For weeks the murder had been a lead story on the evening news. The trial was on the docket for late July, guaranteed to make headlines every day — the kind of trial a lawyer loved.
    Nearing seventy years of age and ready to retire, Judge Bingham sat on the high walnut bench framed against the Great Seal of Texas. Although today's event was merely a routine application for reduction of bail for the defendant, there was no room in front of the bar on the courtroom bench reserved for lawyers. Warren squeezed into one of the spectators' pews, noting that more than a few defense attorneys and prosecutors were scattered among the crowd. They had come to hear Scoot Shepard, the maestro. Young lawyers learned from him, veterans simply enjoyed him.
    Chunky, about five-ten, Scoot had a pale, domelike forehead, and his slightly bloodshot eyes were black disks set deep into his head. His nose was large and fleshy. Today he wore a wrinkled suit. Warren had always thought he could pass for an oil rig operator on holiday in Vegas.
    Dim yellow lights gleamed from the high paneled ceiling onto Judge Bingham's bald brown head. He looked up from some papers and said gently, "All right now, Mr. Shepard, I've read this application on behalf of your client, Ms. Johnnie Faye Boudreau. You want me to reduce her bail from $300,000 to $50,000. I'm not sure I can do that."
    Scoot Shepard scrambled awkwardly to his feet. "Your honor, my client's got the best reason a defendant can have. She's broke."
    Judge Bingham looked across the courtroom at the frowning face of Assistant
District Attorney Bob Altschuler, chief prosecutor in the 342nd. "I take it," the judge said, "that the State of Texas disagrees."
    "Yes, your honor, and for the best reasons the state could have." Altschuler was already standing, feet planted wide apart like a wrestler's. A bulky, handsome man of forty-five, with snapping brown eyes and a full head of pepper-and-salt hair, he folded his arms in a truculent posture. "This is a murder charge. No question that the defendant, Ms. Boudreau, shot the victim, Dr. Ott, who wasn't armed. She's admitted it."
    "No, no, no," Scoot Shepard murmured, barely audibly.
    Judge Bingham said to the prosecutor, "Well, these papers claim that Ms. Boudreau surrendered voluntarily to the police. Says here that she lives in town, is gainfully employed, has roots in the community, and isn't going anywhere, even assuming she's got someplace to go. And she's showed up today." He peered down in