The Chamber (48 page)

But there was no movement from her part of the condo. After he showered and dressed, he gently turned the knob to her door. It was locked. She had sealed herself in her cave, and prevented the painful talk of the morning after. He wrote a note and explained that he would be in New Orleans today and tonight, and he would see her tomorrow. He said he was sorry for now, and they would talk about it later. He pleaded with her not to drink.

The note was placed on the counter where she couldn’t miss it. Adam left the condo and drove to the airport.

The direct flight to New Orleans took fifty-five minutes. Adam drank fruit juice and tried to sit comfortably to soothe his stiff back. He’d slept less than three hours on the floor by the door, and vowed not to do it again. By her own admission, she’d been through recovery
three times over the years, and if she couldn’t stay off the booze by herself there was certainly nothing he could do to help. He would stay in Memphis until this miserable case was over, and if his aunt couldn’t stay sober, then he could manage things from a hotel room.

He fought himself to forget about her for the next few hours. He needed to concentrate on legal matters, not lynchings and photographs and horror stories from the past; not his beloved aunt and her problems.

The plane touched down in New Orleans, and suddenly his concentration became sharper. He mentally clicked off the names of dozens of recent death penalty cases from the Fifth Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court.

The hired car was a Cadillac sedan, one arranged by Darlene and charged to Kravitz & Bane. It came with a driver, and as Adam relaxed in the rear seat he conceded that life in a big firm did indeed have certain advantages. Adam had never been to New Orleans before, and the drive from the airport could’ve taken place in any city. Just traffic and expressways. The driver turned onto Poydras Street by the Superdome, and suddenly they were downtown. He explained to his passenger that the French Quarter was a few blocks away, not far from Adam’s hotel. The car stopped on Camp Street, and Adam stepped onto the sidewalk in front of a building simply called the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. It was an impressive structure, with Greek columns and lots of steps leading to the front entrance.

He found the clerk’s office on the main floor, and asked for the gentleman he’d spoken to, a Mr. Feriday. Mr. Feriday was as sincere and courteous in person as he’d been on the phone. He properly registered Adam, and explained some of the rules of the court. He asked Adam if he wanted a quick tour of the place. It was
almost noon, the place was not busy, and it was the perfect time for a look around. They headed for the courtrooms, passing along the way various offices of the judges and staff.

“The Fifth Circuit has fifteen judges,” Mr. Feriday explained as they walked casually over marble floors, “and their offices are along these hallways. Right now the court has three vacancies, and the nominations are tied up in Washington.” The corridors were dark and quiet, as if great minds were at work behind the broad wooden doors.

Mr. Feriday went first to the En Banc courtroom, a large, intimidating stage with fifteen chairs sitting snugly together in a half-circle in the front of the room. “Most of the work here is assigned to three-judge panels. But occasionally the entire body sits en banc,” he explained quietly, as if still in awe of the spectacular room. The bench was elevated well above the rest of the room, so that the lawyers at the podium below looked upward as they pleaded. The room was marble and dark wood, heavy drapes and a huge chandelier. It was ornate but understated, old but meticulously maintained, and as Adam inspected it he felt quite frightened. Only rarely does the entire court sit en banc, Mr. Feriday explained again as if he were instructing a first-year student of the law. The great civil rights decisions of the sixties and seventies took place right here, he said with no small amount of pride. Portraits of deceased justices hung behind the bench.

As beautiful and stately as it was, Adam hoped he never saw it again, at least not as a lawyer representing a client. They walked down the hall to the West Courtroom, which was smaller than the first but just as intimidating. This is where the three-judge panels operate, Mr. Feriday explained as they walked past the seats in the spectators’ section, through the bar and to
the podium. The bench again was elevated, though not as lofty or as long as En Banc.

“Virtually all oral arguments take place in the morning, beginning at nine,” Mr. Feriday said. “Your case is a bit different because it’s a death case that’s going down to the wire.” He pointed a crooked finger at the seats in the back. “You’ll need to be seated out there a few minutes before one, and the clerk will call the case. Then you come through the bar and sit right here at counsel table. You’ll go first, and you have twenty minutes.”

Adam knew this, but it was certainly nice to be walked through it.

Mr. Feriday pointed to a device on the podium which resembled a traffic light. “This is the timer,” he said gravely. “And it is very important. Twenty minutes, okay. There are horrific stories of long-winded lawyers who ignored this. Not a pretty sight. The green is on when you’re talking. The yellow comes on when you want your warning—two minutes, five minutes, thirty seconds, whatever. When the red comes on, you simply stop in mid-sentence and go sit down. It’s that simple. Any questions?”

“Who are the judges?”

“McNeely, Robichaux, and Judy.” He said this as if Adam personally knew all three. “There’s a waiting room over there, and there’s a library on the third floor. Just be here about ten minutes before one. Any more questions?”

“No sir. Thanks.”

“I’m in my office if you need me. Good luck.” They shook hands. Mr. Feriday left Adam standing at the podium.

______

At ten minutes before one, Adam walked through the massive oak doors of the West Courtroom
for the second time, and found other lawyers preparing for battle. On the first row behind the bar, Attorney General Steve Roxburgh and his cluster of assistants were huddled together plotting tactics. They hushed when Adam walked in, and a few nodded and tried to smile. Adam sat by himself along the aisle and ignored them.

Lucas Mann was seated on their side of the courtroom, though several rows behind Roxburgh and his boys. He casually read a newspaper, and waved to Adam when their eyes met. It was good to see him. He was starched from head to toe in wrinkle-free khaki, and his tie was wild enough to glow in the dark. It was obvious Mann was not intimidated by the Fifth Circuit and its trappings, and equally as obvious that he was keeping his distance from Roxburgh. He was only the attorney for Parchman, only doing his job. If the Fifth Circuit granted a stay and Sam didn’t die, Lucas Mann would be pleased. Adam nodded and smiled at him.

Roxburgh and his gang rehuddled. Morris Henry, Dr. Death, was in the middle of it, explaining things to lesser minds.

Adam breathed deeply and tried to relax. It was quite difficult. His stomach was churning and his feet twitched, and he kept telling himself that it would only last for twenty minutes. The three judges couldn’t kill him, they could only embarrass him, and even that could last for only twenty minutes. He could endure anything for twenty minutes. He glanced at his notes, and to calm himself he tried to think of Sam—not Sam the racist, the murderer, the lynch mob thug, but Sam the client, the old man wasting away on death row who was entitled to die in peace and dignity. Sam was about to get twenty minutes of this court’s valuable time, so his lawyer had to make the most of it.

A heavy door thudded shut somewhere, and Adam
jumped in his seat. The court crier appeared from behind the bench and announced that this honorable court was now in session. He was followed by three figures in flowing black robes—McNeely, Robichaux, and Judy, each of whom carried files and seemed to be totally without humor or goodwill. They sat in their massive leather chairs high up on the shiny, dark, oak-paneled bench, and looked down upon the courtroom. The case of State of Mississippi v. Sam Cayhall was called, and the attorneys were summoned from the back of the room. Adam nervously walked through the swinging gate in the bar, and was followed by Steve Roxburgh. The Assistant Attorney Generals kept their seats, as did Lucas Mann and a handful of spectators. Most of these, Adam would later learn, were reporters.

The presiding judge was Judy, the Honorable T. Eileen Judy, a young woman from Texas. Robichaux was from Louisiana, and in his late fifties. McNeely looked to be a hundred and twenty, and was also from Texas. Judy made a brief statement about the case, then asked Mr. Adam Hall from Chicago if he was ready to proceed. He stood nervously, his knees rubber-like, his bowels jumping, his voice high and nervous, and he said that, yes, in fact he was ready to go. He made it to the podium in the center of the room and looked up, way up, it seemed, at the panel behind the bench.

The green light beside him came on, and he assumed correctly this meant to get things started. The room was silent. The judges glared down at him. He cleared his throat, glanced at the portraits of dead honorables hanging on the wall, and plunged into a vicious attack on the gas chamber as a means of execution.

He avoided eye contact with the three of them, and for five minutes or so was allowed to repeat what he’d already submitted in his brief. It was post-lunch, in the
heat of the summer, and it took a few minutes for the judges to shrug off the cobwebs.

“Mr. Hall, I think you’re just repeating what you’ve already said in your brief,” Judy said testily. “We’re quite capable of reading, Mr. Hall.”

Mr. Hall took it well, and thought to himself that this was his twenty minutes, and if he wanted to pick his nose and recite the alphabet then he should be allowed to do so. For twenty minutes. As green as he was, Adam had heard this comment before from an appellate judge. It happened while he was in law school and watching a case being argued. It was standard fare in oral argument.

“Yes, Your Honor,” Adam said, carefully avoiding any reference to gender. He then moved on to discuss the effects of cyanide gas on laboratory rats, a study not included in his brief. The experiments had been conducted a year ago by some chemists in Sweden for the purpose of proving that humans do not die instantly when they inhale the poison. It had been funded by a European organization working to abolish the death penalty in America.

The rats went into seizures and convulsed. Their lungs and hearts stopped and started erratically for several minutes. The gas burst blood vessels throughout their bodies, including their brains. Their muscles quivered uncontrollably. They salivated and squeaked.

The obvious point of the study was that the rats did not die quickly, but in fact suffered a great deal. The tests were conducted with scientific integrity. Appropriate doses were given to the small animals. On the average, it took almost ten minutes for death to occur. Adam labored over the details, and as he warmed to his presentation his nerves settled a bit. The judges were not only listening, but seemed to be enjoying this discussion of dying rats.

Adam had found the study in a footnote to a recent North Carolina case. It was in the fine print, and had not been widely reported.

“Now, let me get this straight,” Robichaux interrupted in a high-pitched voice. “You don’t want your client to die in the gas chamber because it’s a cruel way to go, but are you telling us you don’t mind if he’s executed by lethal injection?”

“No, Your Honor. That’s not what I’m saying. I do not want my client executed by any method.”

“But lethal injection is the least offensive?”

“All methods are offensive, but lethal injection seems to be the least cruel. There’s no doubt the gas chamber is a horrible way to die.”

“Worse than being bombed? Blown up by dynamite?”

A heavy silence fell over the courtroom as Robichaux’s words settled in. He had emphasized the word “dynamite,” and Adam struggled for something appropriate. McNeely shot a nasty look at his colleague on the other side of the bench.

It was a cheap shot, and Adam was furious. He controlled his temper, and said firmly, “We’re talking about methods of execution, Your Honor, not the crimes that send men to death row.”

“Why don’t you want to talk about the crime?”

“Because the crime is not an issue here. Because I have only twenty minutes, and my client has only twelve days.”

“Perhaps your client shouldn’t have been planting bombs?”

“Of course not. But he was convicted of his crime, and now he faces death in the gas chamber. Our point is that the chamber is a cruel way to execute people.”

“What about the electric chair?”

“The same argument applies. There have been some
hideous cases of people suffering terribly in the chair before they died.”

“What about a firing squad?”

“Sounds cruel to me.”

“And hanging?”

“I don’t know much about hanging, but it too sounds awfully cruel.”

“But you like the idea of lethal injection?”

“I didn’t say I like it. I believe I said it was not as cruel as the other methods.”

Justice McNeely interrupted and asked, “Mr. Hall, why did Mississippi switch from the gas chamber to lethal injection?”

This was covered thoroughly in the lawsuit and the brief, and Adam sensed immediately that McNeely was a friend. “I’ve condensed the legislative history of the law in my brief, Your Honor, but it was done principally to facilitate executions. The legislature admitted it was an easier way to die, and so to sidestep constitutional challenges such as this one it changed the method.”

“So the State has effectively admitted that there is a better way to execute people?”

“Yes sir. But the law took effect in 1984, and applies only to those inmates convicted afterward. It does not apply to Sam Cayhall.”

“I understand that. You’re asking us to strike down the gas chamber as a method. What happens if we do? What happens to your client and those like him who were convicted prior to 1984? Do they fall through the cracks? There is no provision in the law to execute them by lethal injection.”