Phillip Margolin - Proof Positive

Proof Positive

Jaffe 03

Phillip Margolin

PROLOGUE:

DOUG WEAVER HAD EXPERIENCED HIS FAIR SHARE OF BAD days during his legal career, but the day Oregon executed Raymond Hayes was one of the worst. Doug tried to convince himself that watching someone die from a lethal injection wasn't like seeing someone stabbed to death or crushed by a train, but that only helped him deal with what he would see. It didn't ease his guilt. Deep down, he believed that Raymond Hayes was going to die because he had screwed up.

The fact that Doug liked his client made it even more difficult. Bonding wasn't unusual during a death case where the attorney and his client were thrown together for months or years at a time. Sometimes during a visit at the penitentiary, when they were talking about NASCAR races or football games, Doug would almost forget why Ray had needed representation. There were even moments when he thought, There but for the grace of God go I. The slightly overweight attorney with the receding hairline did bear a faint resemblance to his chubby, balding client. Both men were also in their early thirties and they'd grown up in small towns. But that was where the similarities ended. Doug was a lot smarter than the majority of his high school classmates, while Ray had barely graduated. After high school, Doug had gone to college and Ray had stayed home, working the farm for his ailing, widowed mother before selling out and moving with her to the cottage in Portland where she had been brutally murdered.

The last time Doug had made the fifty-mile drive from Portland to the Oregon State Penitentiary it had been to tell Raymond that the justices of the United States Supreme Court had voted against taking up his case.

Does that mean I'm going to die? Ray had asked in that lazy drawl that sometimes made you wonder if he was even slower than his below-average intelligence test scores suggested.

The question had caught Doug off guard. It took a shifting of mental gears to accept the notion that a denial of a writ of certiorari in Ray's case was the legal equivalent of shooting his client between the eyes.

Well, Doug had stammered as he tried to think of a tactful way of answering the question.

Ray had just smiled. He'd been seeing Father McCord a lot, and Jesus was now a big part of his life.

It's okay, Doug, his client had assured him. I'm not afraid to meet my Lord and Savior.

Doug wasn't so sure that there was a place in Heaven for a son who had beaten his seventy-two-year-old mother to death with a hammer so he could steal her diamond wedding ring and forty-three dollars, but he kept the thought to himself. If Ray was convinced that he was straight with the Lord, Doug wasn't going to play devil's advocate.

My life ain't been so great, Ray had said. I hope I'm a better person in Heaven.

You will be, Doug had assured him.

Ray had studied his attorney with a sad, compassionate eye. You still think I killed Mom, don't you?

Doug had never told Ray that he didn't believe his protestations of innocence, but he guessed that somewhere along the way he'd slipped up and revealed his true feelings.

I really don't know, one way or the other, Ray, Doug had hedged.

Ray had just smiled. It's okay, Ray said. I know you think I lied to you. I appreciate how hard you worked for me, even though you thought I done it. But I didn't kill Mom. It's the way I always said it. So I know I'll go to Heaven and stand by the side of Jesus.

Doug had handled other capital cases, but only Ray had been sentenced to death. Very few Oregon inmates had been executed since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1984. Doug hated the fact that he would be one of the few attorneys in the state who could say he'd witnessed the execution of a client.

During the week leading up to the execution, Doug didn't sleep well and felt tired and cranky. Anxiety caused his mind to wander at the office and made it difficult to get any work done. He had been drinking more than usual, too, and that was always a bad sign.

Doug had never questioned Ray's guilt, but his inability to stave off death ate at him. He was constantly second-guessing decisions he'd made, especially the decision to persuade Ray to plead guilty. It wasn't as if his strategy was unreasonable. He'd consulted several lawyers who handled death cases, and most had agreed with his plan. The older, experienced attorneys had convinced him that winning a death case meant keeping your client alive. The evidence against Ray was incredibly strong, and Doug had gambled that Ray's acceptance of guilt and his spotless record would sway the jury in favor of life in the sentencing phase of the trial. He had been horribly, horribly wrong.

Doug worked on the day of the execution, but he didn't accomplish much. Before leaving for the prison, he ate a light dinner; put on his best suit, a clean white shirt, and his nicest tie; and even shined his shoes. He wanted a drink badly, but he limited himself to one glass of scotch. Doug was going to be sober at the execution. He figured he owed Ray that.

The day had been out of sync with Doug's mood and the seriousness of the event he was about to witness. Dark clouds should have blocked the sun. There should have been lightning strikes, heavy rain, and a sky filled with ravens. Instead, spring was in the air, gaily colored flowers were in bloom, and nary a cloud hung over the interstate. Doug found the weather profoundly depressing, and he was grateful when the sunset cast shadows over the landscape.

At nine-thirty p.m., Doug parked in a lot several miles from the prison. The location of the lot had been shrouded in secrecy to keep all but a select group of reporters from finding the witnesses, who were to be shuttled to the penitentiary. Ray and his mother were the last of a small family, so, thankfully, there were no relatives waiting. Doug noticed a group of government officials standing off to one side. Among them were Amaya Lathrop, the assistant attorney general who had persuaded the appellate courts to affirm the sentence of death; and Martin Poe, a career prosecutor in the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office, who had obtained the death sentence at trial. Jake Teeny, the deputy DA who'd second-chaired the case, had moved back East two years ago. Lathrop had always seen the case as a debate about issues of constitutional law far removed from the gore through which Doug and the prosecutors had waded in the courtroom, so Doug wasn't surprised that the AG nodded in his direction, while Poe studiously avoided looking at him.

Marge Cross drove up moments after Doug parked. She was a short, chunky brunette with the courtroom demeanor of a pit bull, who had been single and fresh from a clerkship at the Oregon Supreme Court when she second-chaired Raymond's case. Marge had been dead set against the guilty plea, but she'd never criticized Doug after the verdict of death, and had second-chaired two other cases with him after Hayes. The attorneys had talked about driving to the prison together, but Marge's two-year-old daughter had come down with the flu and Marge had had to stay with her until her husband finished teaching a class at Portland Community College.

I see Poe has come to gloat, she said bitterly.

I don't think he's gloating, Marge. He's not that low.

Marge shrugged. You' re entitled to your opinion. But he and Teeny were snickering all through the trial and I heard they celebrated with some of the other Neanderthals from the office after the sentencing hearing.

Doug didn't bother to argue. Marge was very political. She saw every case as a battle against the forces of fascism. Motherhood had not softened her. Doug oddly, for a lawyer didn't really like conflict. He got along with the DAs, as a rule, and thought of the prosecutors as men and women doing a tough job to the best of their ability.