THE FOURTH WATCH Read Online Free Page B

hand.
    Since its very inception, this concept of
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt has defied every attempt at
quantification. Really what it is beyond, is the juror's ability to
comprehend. It is often times beyond the Judge's ability to
explain. Any defense attorney worth his salt will dump it in the
Judge's lap during closing arguments. The Judge will have little
chance of explaining it in a way that will help the jury, and he
might mangle it enough to create grounds for appeal, if the
defendant is convicted. I usually try something like this: "Ladies
and Gentleman of the Jury, we thankfully live in a society where
the police can't just grab us off the street and put us in jail on
their suspicions about the area that they find us in, or their
predisposition about our race, or the fact that we dress unusually.
No, they must have more! They have to have proof, and not just any
kind of proof, because liberty hangs in the balance, they have to
have proof' (here it comes) Beyond a Reasonable Doubt. The
Government has to carry that burden, not my client, and as the
judge will tell you when he explains it to you, it is a heavy
burden indeed." I have learned not to look at the Judge when
delivering this little soliloquy.
    So for the most part we haggle out a deal. A
little probation here, a little suspended sentence there, maybe a
continuance without a finding for a first time offense or a guilty
with a sentence of time served if the defendant has been sitting in
the can since arraignment. In the end the defendant strolls out of
the courthouse with his record beefed up, the ADA closes another
case and I send a small bill off to the Commonwealth for my
services.
    But sometimes you have to go to trial.
Sometimes your client just has no redeeming graces. He's guilty,
has a long history of the same kind of offense, the Commonwealth
has hard evidence against him and witnesses willing to testify.
This usually means that the DA's offer is going to be the maximum
penalty allowed under the law for the offense charged. My client at
this point has nothing to lose and everything to gain by going to
trial, and so that is what you do. Sometimes you even win one and
the defendant walks and tells every criminal he knows that his
lawyer got him off. I'm never sure if that is good or bad
publicity.
    But I digress.
    *****
    ON THE AFTERNOON OF the day that Carolyn Whorley visited my office, I
had coffee in the bowels of the courthouse with Walter DeMaris.
Walter is a private investigator that I know well and have on
occasion hired, when I can convince the Court to make funds
available for investigative work. Often times Walter makes more
than I do on a case. You see Massachusetts, that bluest of blue
states, that celebrated home of the bleeding heart, that cradle of
liberty, that safest of havens for the accused, is also the
cheapest state in the nation when it comes to paying its public
defenders. The state is crawling with lawyers, and if you can't, or
won't, find a job in a big law firm, you have to scramble for the
work that the big firms won't take. One of the areas that most big
firms won't go near is public defender work, and so a great many
independent lawyers sign up for the job. If you don't like the pay,
or the endless paperwork that CPCS creates for you, there is
another hungry lawyer waiting in the wings to take your place for
short money. The State will, however, give you money to spend on
investigators (if a Judge so orders), and they don't set an hourly
rate that you can pay them. They will simply give you a specific
amount of money for investigation and let you hire a P.I. to do the
work. I use Walter because he's good, and he's as honest as you
could reasonably expect him to be, and he'll usually finish the job
for whatever the State gives me.
    Walter looks like Danny DiVito, but he's not
quite as tall or good-looking. He has the foulest of mouths, and is
incredibly eloquent in his obscenity. His voice is always a loud
bark, which can be a