Free Night Is the Hunter by Steven Gore Page B

oblivion. For a moment, he felt an irrational sense of urgency. He recognized it and swallowed hard, suppressing it.
    He also felt an urge to toss Ordloff into the bay.
    â€œI heard you,” Donnally said, “but I don’t see life as that narrow and our motivations as that limited.”
    Ordloff stared out toward where his binder had fallen into the water. Finally, he said, “You know, Judge McMullin could’ve saved the kid if he wanted to. There were ways.”
    â€œYou mean by not following the jury’s recommendation?”
    Ordloff shook his head. “No judge will ever do that. They’d get recalled in a heartbeat and the cable news channels would crucify them. But there are other methods judges use all the time.”
    â€œLike?”
    â€œLike letting the D.A. use illegally obtained evidence so the conviction, or at least the penalty, gets reversed on appeal. Or make some bad rulings on motions. Judges who oppose the death penalty do it all the time. They know the defendant is going down anyway; they just want him to get a second chance to stay alive somewhere down the road.”
    â€œAnd you figure McMullin had those chances and didn’t take them.”
    â€œHe was new, but he’d been around long enough to figure out how the game was played.” Ordloff squinted at Donnally as if trying to assess his reactions. “I know you’ve watched judges make bizarre rulings in these cases and never understood why. Well, I’m telling you now.” He looked back the way they’d come. “There’s a federal judge down in Texas that has been sitting on a habeas corpus case for over ten years, keeping the defendant alive by delaying his appointment of an attorney to represent him.”
    â€œDon’t the relatives of the victim—”
    â€œNope. There aren’t any left to complain. The defendant killed them all. That’s what he was convicted of.”
    Donnally thought back on the trials he’d been involved with. It was the attorneys, far more than judges, who engaged in bizarre maneuvers, seeming to plant errors.
    â€œDo attorneys sometimes do that, too? Not make the objections they’re supposed to, don’t seem to prepare the way they’re supposed to?”
    â€œAll the time. Sometimes the appeals courts even catch them at it—or at least accuse them of intentionally sabotaging hopeless cases—and refuse to overturn convictions they should.”
    â€œDid you do that in the Dominguez case?”
    Ordloff displayed a twisted grin. “Even if I did, I wouldn’t admit it. I’d get disbarred.” His grin faded and his mouth turned down. “But I didn’t. Anyway, if I did try to build in some error, it didn’t work. The U.S. Supreme Court is about to flush him down the judicial toilet.”
    Donnally watched Ordloff stare off toward the moon hanging above the horizon. The tide had gone slack and the fog separated and a shaft of moonlight shot toward them across the water. It lit up the dark patches that had formed under Ordloff’s eyes. He looked to Donnally like he wanted to dive in and swim to where the light died and the night sky dissolved into the sea.
    â€œYou know the weirdest thing about American law, what makes it arbitrary, is that in a state like Texas we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. Defendants convicted even of just second-degree murder are put to death all the time and governors down there make sure it happens. They’d get impeached if they didn’t.”
    â€œThis isn’t Texas.”
    â€œDon’t I know it.”
    â€œThen tell me something.”
    â€œIf it’ll keep Dominguez alive.” Ordloff blinked against the moon’s reflection and looked over. “I’ll tell you anything. I’ll sign anything. I’ll testify to anything.”
    â€œI went to speak to Edgar Rojo’s mother and to look over the scene.