Free Gideon - 02 - Probable Cause by Grif Stockley Page A

believe in fate, I can understand how she does. Before Pam was born, David Le Master started a real estate business, and it was his gift to his wife when he decided he didn’t want to be around anymore.
    “David was good at starting things,” she says, a wintry smile overtaking her face whenever she mentions her husband.
    “I’ll give him that.”
    Most men are, I think, glancing sideways to catch my client’s expression. He is watching her face with such sympathy I feel a twinge of guilt.
    Olivia relates her daughter’s tragedy without another reference to her ex-husband. In a straightforward manner she tells me what it was like when the self-injurious behavior began. With no warning whatsoever one day, Pam began beating her head with her fists at first and then later against walls, even against her bed. Not so hard that one blow would cause injury by itself but hard enough to bruise her. Left alone, she would hit herself over one hundred times in an hour. I turn to Andy and ask why a child would do this, but he says that there are only theories for this behavior, not explanations, the latest one being that self-injurious behavior is actually a form of communication. More traditionally, Andy says, slipping into jargon, it is thought to be behavior that is reinforced by attention or is an attempt to avoid a task or is even somehow intrinsically reinforcing.
    “The fact is,” Andy says, looking at Olivia, though I’m sure they have discussed this topic many times, “no one knows for sure what prompts a child to hurt herself.”
    Olivia has begun to cry. Of course there is no box of tis sues for my clients in the conference room, but Olivia yanks a wad from her purse and begins to talk even while she wipes her face.
    “When she first started hitting herself, I was told it might stop, but with time, it only got worse. I couldn’t believe it. I don’t care whether a person says they believe in God or not you think you’re being punished for something you did. Who knows? Maybe all of us were being punished I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to you that in some ways Pam’s death has been a relief.”
    This last sentence, understandable, and not totally unexpected, is still jarring to me. Without this last addendum about death being a release, Olivia’s impact on a judge and jury will be favorable. And yet, maybe it, too, will be understood. This is not some highly emotional and distraught parent who has been overly influenced by a psychologist who wanted to use her daughter as a guinea pig for his own research. Rather, Olivia, assuming her testimony holds up, will come across as a strong, caring mother, who loved her daughter enough to inflict pain on her if that was what it took to help her.
    I glance back at my client and am not surprised to find that his eyes are moist. But I do not want Olivia to admit in the witness chair that even for a moment she thought about the surcease from pain her child’s death would bring. With the acknowledgment of this all-too-human motive, it might be tempting for the prosecutor to try to convince a jury that a sympathetic and frustrated psychologist deliberately went too far in trying to end her child’s suffering. Waiting for her to finish wiping her eyes, I wonder how I can say this with out coming across as hideously manipulative. Lawyers are directors as well as actors in a play. If we forget that for one instant, we’re no longer doing the job we’re hired to do.
    Just tell the truth, we tell our witnesses. What we mean is, just tell the truth in a way the judge or jury will believe you. I’m all for the truth, but if nobody believes it, what has the system accomplished? The trouble with being a public defender was that the witnesses for the defense were not credible even when they were telling the truth. Give me a good actor who can make the truth convincing, and I’ve got a chance. I don’t have to tell Olivia what I need from her today.
    We will have the time later