Read Clifford Irving's Legal Novels - 02 - FINAL ARGUMENT - a Legal Thriller for Free Online Page B

Georgia. Why are you people in Florida so in love with killing black folks?”
    He may have been my adversary, but he deserved a straightforward answer.
    I told him that all over the country people were fed up with the way the prisons let men loose before they’d served their full term of punishment. These men went back into the community, took drugs, and did the crimes all over again. And most of these men were black. Down here in Florida, retired white folks were fleeing not just the wind-chill factor but the specter of drug-crazed primitive Afro- American men invading their old neighborhoods. They wanted safety in the sun. Get rid of the scum … especially the black scum.
    Kill them.
    Oliver seemed shocked that I would lay things out so bluntly. He would have been happier, I thought, as a country lawyer in some small Georgia town.
    “You believe in the death penalty, Mr. Jaffe?” This was not a challenge; he was more probing than Beldon had implied.
    “What I believe,” I said, “is beside the point. I believe in upholding my oath as a state attorney, and that requires me to apply the appropriate law. However”—I eased up—”I have some leeway. If you convince your client to plead out to first-degree murder, the State of Florida will accept a life sentence.”
    “With a mandatory twenty-five years?”
    “That’s the law. You know that.”
    But maybe that wasn’t true. I was constantly dismayed at how many things lawyers didn’t know, how ill-prepared they arrived for trial. What did you call the man or woman who graduated last in the class at medical school? Doctor. The same held true for lawyers.
    Oliver’s large moist eyes narrowed. “I’ll put it to him,” he promised.
    The following week, on a warm February morning, he returned to my office. Settling into a chair, he wiped his forehead with a damp handkerchief.
    “This Morgan boy’s crazy as an outhouse rat. Wants to take it to a jury. Claims he’s innocent.”
    “I’m sure he does. But you’ve seen the evidence.”
    “Evidence don’t mean a damn when you’re young and full of piss and vinegar.”
    “You know a jury will find him guilty, Mr. Oliver. There are two eyewitnesses and two separate confessions. He’s got a prior criminal record that includes violence. Morgan’s black and the murdered man was white. That alone could kill him. I’m giving him a good deal. I’m giving him air to breathe.”
    Oliver sighed. “He says black folks will see he didn’t do it.”
    “No,” I said sharply. “Black or white won’t matter. And you can’t tell a Baptist juror that your client reads a chapter of the Bible every day. When she sees what Morgan and Smith did to Mrs. Zide’s face, she’ll get mean. Your responsibility, sir, in a case like this, where the evidence is strong, is to keep your client alive.”
    Oliver said, “I don’t think this particular client has both oars in the water.”
    I shifted position, swiveling to look at the river. I wished I were out there sailing—it was difficult to kill anyone at the helm of a sailboat.
    Turning back, I said, “Tell him this. If he goes to trial and he’s found guilty, I’ll do my best to put him in a coffin. He panicked that night at the Zides’—I can grasp that. But he had a weapon in his hand. He was prepared to use it, and he used it. A jury could reach up and bite off his big black dick. Tell him that’ll hurt.”
    Oliver looked glum. “You think that boy’s quiet and repentant,” he said. “I’m here to tell you he’s got a mouth on hinges. He’d argue with a signpost, he doesn’t know ‘Sic ‘em’ from ‘Come here.’ He says to me, ‘Fuck you, and fuck this Ted Jaffe. Whup his Jew-boy ass.’ “
    Oliver wasn’t bargaining; he was turning me down. No smooth road.
    Still I didn’t quite believe it was going to happen. I waited a week. It had to be that Darryl Morgan’s nerve would break first, and he would cop out and take the offer of life.
    I called