Free Rogue Lawyer by John Grisham Page A

to a bright orange Mohawk roaring down the center. He’s displaying the obligatory collection of tattoos, earrings, and piercings. Because he’s just a kid without a clue and is now being dragged into such a formal setting, he instantly retreats behind a smirk that makes you want to slap him.
    “Just be normal,” I told him. Sadly, he is. I wouldn’t believe a word he says, though he’s telling the truth. As rehearsed, we walk through that Wednesday afternoon.
    Huver annihilates him on cross-examination. You’re fifteen years old, son, why were you not in school? Smoking dope, huh, along with your pal here, that’s what you’re telling these jurors? Drinking, and drugging, just a bunch of deadbeats, right? Wilson does a lousy job of denying this. After fifteen minutes of abuse, Wilson is disoriented, afraid he might be charged with some crime. Huver hammers away, a bully on the playground.
    But because Huver is not too bright, he goes too far. He’s got Wilson on the ropes and is drawing blood with each question. He’s grilling him about dates—how can he be certain it was that Wednesday back in March? You kids keep a calendar out there at the Pit?
    Loudly, “You have no idea what Wednesday you’re talking about, do you?”
    “Yes, sir,” Wilson says, politely for the first time.
    “How?”
    “Because the police came out there, said they were looking for two little girls. That was the day. And Gardy had been there all afternoon.” For a kid without a brain, Wilson delivers this perfectly, just like we practiced.
    Evidently, when there is a crime in Milo slightly more serious than littering, the police rush out to the Pit and make accusations. Harass the usual suspects. It’s about three miles from the pond where the Fentress girls were found. It’s blatantly obvious none of the regulars at the Pit have any means of transportation other than their feet, yet the police routinely show up and throw around their considerable weight. Gardy says he remembers the cops asking about the missing girls. The cops, of course, do not remember seeing Gardy at the Pit.
    None of this matters. This jury is not about to believe a word Wilson says.
    Next, I call a witness with even less credibility. They call her Lolo, and the poor child has lived under bridges and in box culverts for as long as she can remember. The boys protect her and in return she keeps them satisfied. She’s now nineteen and there’s no way she will see twenty-five, not on this side of the bars. She’s covered in tattoos, and by the time she’s sworn in the jurors are already disgusted. She remembers that particular Wednesday, remembers the cops coming out to the Pit, remembers Gardy being there all afternoon.
    On cross, Huver can’t wait to bring up the fact that she’s been busted twice for shoplifting. For food! What are you supposed to do when you’re hungry? Huver makes this sound like she deserves the death penalty.
    We plow ahead. I call my alibi witnesses, who tell the truth, and Huver makes them look like criminals. Such is the lunacy and unfairness of the system. Huver’s witnesses, the ones testifying on behalf of the State, are cloaked with legitimacy, as if they’ve been sanctified by the authorities. Cops, experts, even snitches who’ve been washed and cleansed and spruced up in nice clothes, all take the stand and tell lies in a coordinated effort to have my client executed. But the witnesses who know the truth, and are telling it, are discounted immediately and made to look like fools.
    Like so many, this trial is not about the truth; it’s about winning. And to win, with no real evidence, Huver must fabricate and lie and attack the truth as if he hates it. I have six witnesses who swear my client was nowhere close to the scene when the crime was committed, and all six are scoffed at. Huver has produced almost two dozen witnesses, virtually all known to be liars by the cops, the prosecution, and the judge, yet the jurors lap up