Free Death Penalty by William J. Coughlin Page A

the chair’s high back.
    The flickering light from a small television placed on a shelf in front of him danced eerily across his thin features. I noticed that the picture was fuzzy. The volume was set so low it was barely audible.
    â€œHow are you doing, Will?” Mickey asked without realizing just how inappropriate the greeting was in the circumstances. “This is Mr. Sloan. He’s going to argue your case in the appeals court.”
    â€œHowdy,” he said and tried to smile, but the attempt failed.
    I had seen the photographs and the videotape of him that Mickey had used at the trial, but even with that advance warning I wasn’t prepared.
    He looked like a skeleton, his cheekbones almost juttingthrough his taut skin. He was thirty-five but he looked ninety. His hair was unkempt, and whoever had shaved him had missed a few spots.
    â€œJesus, Will,” his wife said in a nasty whining voice, “did you poop your pants again?” She made an exaggerated sniffing gesture.
    â€œI don’t know, Milly,” he said quietly, his thin voice echoing through a sea of misery. “I can’t feel anything, you know that.”
    â€œAre you going to be long?” she asked Mickey.
    â€œNo, I don’t think so.”
    â€œI’ll wait to change him then.” She turned and left the trailer.
    â€œI’m sorry,” Will McHugh said. “I have no control over anything. She changes me a couple of times a day. I wear diapers.” He tried to smile and make a joke of it, but once again he failed.
    â€œDon’t worry about it, Will,” Mickey said, clearing some clutter off a small padded bench. He sat down and I sat next to him. McHugh’s eyes followed us. The bench was a snug fit. The whole trailer was a snug fit. It seemed uncomfortably warm. Then I noticed the gleam of an electric heater directly behind the wheelchair.
    â€œMr. Monk says you’re a specialist in these kinds of appeals,” Will McHugh said to me. It sounded as if he was unaccustomed to speaking aloud.
    â€œI do that kind of work,” I replied.
    â€œWill we win?”
    â€œWe have a very good chance,” I said. As I spoke the words I saw alarm in Mickey Monk’s eyes.
    â€œOnly a chance? My God.” McHugh’s eyes seemed suddenly to fill with tears.
    â€œMuch more than that,” I added quickly, as much for my morale as his. “Let me ask a few questions about the accident. I’ve read your testimony at the trial, but I’d liketo go over a few things.” I didn’t really need to, but it seemed the thing to do.
    â€œAll right,” he said softly.
    â€œBefore the accident, did you ever have trouble with your vehicle?”
    It was like talking to two disembodied eyes. He couldn’t nod or gesture. Only his eyes and voice could communicate.
    â€œI didn’t have it long, just a month or so. There was no trouble, no warning. It was working perfectly.”
    â€œWere you the only one who drove it?”
    He sighed. “Yeah. My wife can drive, but it was too big for her. She was afraid of it.” He paused. “I should have been too.”
    â€œYou had never heard or been told that they were having sudden acceleration problems with that model?”
    â€œHell, no. Nobody said anything.”
    â€œThe sudden acceleration never happened before to you?”
    â€œNever. I was coming from a bar, as you probably know. I had a few beers. I wasn’t drunk. They say I was, but I wasn’t. The blood work at the hospital showed that.”
    â€œIt did. Go on.”
    His eyes seemed to lose their focus as he remembered. “I wasn’t going fast, really. Maybe thirty-five, maybe forty. Suddenly it started going much faster without me doing a thing. It was as if someone had jammed the accelerator down to the floor. It was like something in a bad dream, you know? I had no control. I hit the brake, but it didn’t do