Read Gideon - 05 - Blind Judgement for Free Online

can’t even beat on a parking ticket, and now Class hires a hot-shot from Blackwell County.” He grins, splitting his face from ear to ear.
    “Maybe we can plead this out to simple assault tomorrow, and I can go back to trying DWIS against the public defender.”
    I laugh out loud. Prosecuting attorneys invariably take themselves as seriously as God. This guy has a twinkle in his yellowish eyes.
    Compared to him, the sheriff was positively pompous.
    “That would be fine with me,” I reply.
    “Man, you’re famous around here. How’d you get an acquittal in that case? There was only two blacks on that jury.”
    Flattered that he knows so much about me, I say modestly, “It probably
    helped that he had caught the pass that beat Alabama.” “Isn’t that the truth?” he says breezily.
    “As long as they win, the Razorbacks can do no wrong.”
    Is this guy really the prosecutor? He seems pretty loosey-goosey.
    “Have you got a minute to talk? I just saw my client in the jail. I assume Paul Taylor is already out.”
    “You bet,” Butterfield says.
    “Despite five-hundred-thousand-dollar bail Dick had him out before they could give Mr. Taylor a wiener for supper.”
    I smile, thinking how much I’d have liked to have seen Paul seated on his bunk eating a hot dog.
    “What kind of bond will you recommend for Class?” I ask, knowing it doesn’t matter.
    “Same as Paul,” the prosecutor says, “five hundred thousand.”
    “Can we get the hearing done this afternoon?”
    I ask, noting that Butterfield has only the slightest trace of a Delta accent. Maybe he went to school up north and they shamed it out of him.
    “Can’t do it,” Butterfield says, turning around to check a large calendar on the wall behind him.
     
    “The judge is in Memphis for a funeral and won’t be back until tomorrow afternoon. What about three o’clock? I’ll call down and put it on the docket.”
    I have a hot-check case in municipal court tomorrow morning, but no more court appearances.
    “Sure, I can be back over here.”
    Butterfield pulls out a file from his desk drawer and pushes it over to me. As if we were on the same side of the case instead of opposing attorneys, he confides, “It’d be hard to believe these guys would try to get away with something like this until you see the evidence against them.”
    Normally, a prosecutor won’t even talk to you until after the bond hearing and the arraignment, but Butterfield seems down-right eager to discuss the case. I scan the formal charges, which don’t tell me more than I already know. He points out the test results from the FBI concluding that it was Willie’s blood on Bledsoe’s knife and shows me a thick sheaf of statements taken from the other workers in the plant.
    “Everybody else we’ve talked to has an alibi during the time the old man was killed.”
    “What time was that?” I ask, wondering how airtight each of those alibis can be. Surely, one of the workers besides Class was by himself that afternoon.
     
    “Between two when the plant closed and four when his wife discovered his body and called the police. The medical examiner has confirmed the time,” he says, flipping over to an autopsy.
    “Is that all the evidence against my client?” I ask, knowing it must not be.
    “Not hardly. We’ve documented where he lied about his contacts with Paul Taylor.” I watch as Butterfield flips to the back of the file. He points to a statement by a woman named Darla Tate.
    “She’s the secretary at the plant. She heard Bled 5
    soe talking to someone on the phone in the plant office a couple of days after the murder. She was in the bathroom and he must have thought he was alone. She’s signed a statement that she heard him saying, and I quote, “I got the money.”
    She knew that we had a tape of Taylor threatening Willie about a month before, and so she called the sheriff.”
    “You have a tape of Paul actually threatening Willie?” I ask, incredulous. It