Retributive Justice

Eighty-two year-old Jacob Wasserman eased his cell phone, a relatively inexpensive Samsung Galaxy model many elderly on fixed incomes favored, from a rear pocket.   “Stanton Police Department… is this an emergency?”  

“My name is Jacob Wasserman and I’m calling from Hillside Park.” “I was halfway down the walking trail between the soccer field and toddlers’ playground, when I came across a man raping a young woman. You’ll need to send the police plus an undertaker.”

Following a prolonged silence, the dispatcher spoke in a nasally monotone. “Did you say rape?”

“Yes, the girl’s unharmed, just emotionally distraught. The rapist’s dead.”

* * * * *  

The police arrived red light and siren followed by an ambulance and two fire trucks. The fire trucks baffled Jacob, as he hadn’t mentioned anything about fire. Half the girl’s clothes ripped away, the young girl was carted off to the hospital. “Are the handcuffs too tight?” The black officer, who confiscated Jacob’s gun and cell phone, asked. 

“No, they’re fine.” He raised both manacled hands and pointed at the maple tree where the rapist had dragged his prey. “I told him to stop what he was doing… leave the girl alone, but the bastard wouldn’t listen to reason, so I shot him.” Jacob glanced confidentially at the young man. “When the bullet struck the back of his head, bone and brain tissue flew off in a dozen directions.”

The officer’s features clouded over.  “I haven’t read you your Miranda Rights, so you probably shouldn’t be telling me this.”

“That’s what happened.”

“I’m Officer Collins… Gary Collins.” The policeman pawed the ground with the toe of his shoe. “This is my first homicide.”

“Well then,” Jacob flashed a sick grin, “we share something in common.”

* * * * *

At the police station they booked Jacob Wasserman, taking mug shots and fingerprints before shuffling him off to a holding cell near the front desk. Everyone was extremely polite and deferential. Around noon they brought him coffee and a cheese Danish with cherry filling. No one made mention of the rapist or his victim. When Jacob asked for something to read, Officer Collins brought a People Magazine plus several back issues of the National Inquirer. “No Victorian literature… Thomas Hardy or Charles Dickens?” he mumbled with a laconic smile.

“Do you need to contact a family member?” the officer inquired.

“My wife’s dead and children all moved away. I live alone in subsidized housing.”

“A lawyer?”

“I don’t need a lawyer.”

“The fellow with his brains shot out is dead,” the Negro officer spoke in a dry, no-nonsense tone. “You’ll be arraigned on criminal charges before Judge Findley in the morning. If you refuse representation, the district attorney’s office will probably assign a public defender.”

* * * * *

In the late afternoon a young woman visited Jacob’s cell. “I’m Leslie Harcourt.”

“Public defender?”

The woman nodded. She was slim with pale, translucent skin and dark glasses. There was a pinched quality to her overly refined speech and general demeanor.  “In the morning you’ll be charged with homicide and we need to cobble together a game plan, a reasonable and coherent rebuttal."

Jacob sat with his arthritic hands folded in his lap considering the options. “A man was raping a defenseless young girl in the public park. I told him to stop and he ignored my warning so I shot him dead.” Jacob spoke softly and in no great hurry. “It was the right thing to do; I have no regrets and certainly no remorse.” “Guilty as charged would seem both reasonable and coherent.”

Leslie cracked open a tan, faux leather attaché case and removed a legal writing pad. “Age works in your favor, Mr. Wasserman,” she said, conveniently ignoring his previous remark. “The man you allegedly shot -”

“Shot, not allegedly shot,” Jacob corrected.

The attorney pressed her lips together so tightly the tissue blanched a pale eggshell white. “The knuckle-dragging lowlife you shot, Randy Howards, was a career criminal with an extensive rap sheet, mostly violent crimes.” “Regarding your status as a senior citizen,” Leslie picked up on the former theme, “one could argue that, stumbling across the rapist, you became momentarily flustered, acting both in haste and out of character.”

Jacob scowled and shook his head vigorously. “None of which is true. What you’re conjuring up here is a heap of legal sophistry.”

Ignoring the feedback, the lawyer thumbed through her attaché case. “I ran your BCI. You have no prior criminal record. The only issue that surfaced was an expired parking meter from eight years ago that was paid in full. “You’re also a model citizen and much respected credit to the community.”

“I’m also a murderer.”

“I don’t like the direction this is taking, Mr. Jacobs.” The lawyer was becoming flustered. “Are you going to cooperate or not?”

“I want to represent myself ‘pro se’.

“In one’s own behalf,” the attorney translated from the Latin, “Pro se litigant outcomes are generally very unfavorable.”

“No more or less,” Jacob countered, “than those represented by public defenders.”

Leslie Harcourt’s expression noticeably soured. “Do you know what the odds of winning without an attorney are?” When there was no response, she continued soberly, “In federal district courts from 1998 to 2017, around 12% of pro se defendants received final judgments in their favor while pro se plaintiffs won only 3% of final judgments.”

“A man was raping a woman in the park; I shot him dead,” Jacob repeated. “Call it curbstone justice, retribution, an eye for an eye … the asshole got what he deserved.”

“An eye for an eye,” the attorney repeated, brushing a strand of ebony hair from her hazel eyes, “dates back to seventeen hundred BC and the Hammurabi code. The attorney’s tone was flavored with a hint of burgeoning impatience. “Unfortunately, Babylonian law doesn’t apply in contemporary criminal court.”

Jacob leaned back in his chair. Finally he raised his hand and shook a gnarled index finger in Leslie Harcourt’s delicate face. “If Randy Howards wrestled your adolescent daughter to the ground and was tearing her lace panties off, you might appreciate the ancient traditions.”

In lieu of a response, the lawyer collected her legal documents and went away.

* * * * *

Jacob sat in silence long after the disgruntled attorney rushed off. Would he ever lay eyes on his trusty handgun again? With a handkerchief Officer Collins had teased the revolver off the grass where Jacob placed it, depositing the weapon in a plastic evidence bag. The 38-special had done its job to perfection! When Jacob ever-so-gently squeezed off the round, there followed a burst of flaming light and explosive report as the bullet deftly found its mark in the rear of the assailant’s skull.

Before leaving the house that morning, Jacob emptied all five chambers of the less-intense target-practice shells, replacing them with 158-grain, round nosed slugs. At the firing range earlier in the week there had been some problems sighting down the barrel. All Jacob’s shots were squirreling left. Shutting his right eye, the difficulty only worsened, but switching over exclusively to the other eye, the bullets repeatedly struck the bulls-eye dead center. In the park he shut his left eye, adjusted the muzzle a hairsbreadth and blew the high-powered, full-metal-jacket slug through the rapist’s skull. As a wisp of acrid smoke dissipated in a soft, late-summer breeze, Jacob felt a sense of accomplishment tinged with relief. The filthy pervert hadn’t quite got his pants down; the victim wasn’t physically violated.

* * * * *

“You’ve got a visitor.” A warden was standing just outside the cell.

“Not another lawyer,” Jacob groaned.

“No,” the man chuckled. “nothing to do with criminal justice.”

A moment later a statuesque black woman in her late twenties dressed in a colorful dashiki with matching headdress entered the small cubicle, leaning her torso up against the metal bars. “My husband suggested I might be of use to you.”  

“You husband?”

“Officer Collins… the arresting officer.” When there was no response, she added, “He brought some reading material but you mentioned a preference for Victorian literature.”

“I was being facetious. Just a few books on pro se law would have sufficed.”

“The library is just up the road.” Officer Collin’s wife turned to leave. “I’ll be back in half an hour.”

Jacob gawked at the statuesque woman. “It’s Sunday. Libraries aren’t open today.”

The black woman removed a silver key from her purse. “Town librarians can bend the rules.”

*****

“Where’s your lawyer, Mr. Jacobs?” Judge Findley, a squat man in his late fifties with overly large ears and a habitually dour expression, peered through bifocals at the defendant sitting in the courtroom. A sensational aura pervaded the musty red brick building, which was filled with a mix of reporters, salacious gossips mongers and curious townsfolk. 

“Ms. Harcourt didn’t suit my needs,” Jacob replied. “I’m representing myself.”

Judge Findly blew his cheeks out and ran a stubby hand over his fleshy jaw. “You’re being charged with murder today Mr. Jacobs. You need a goddamn lawyer!”

 Whether it was the defendant's bravura or the judge’s profanity, a hushed silence swept over the courtroom. Jacob waved a tattered textbook over his head. “Corporations must hire lawyers but individuals are free to do as they please. In our judicial system criminal defendants have a constitutional right to refuse counsel and represent themselves.”

A brittle undercurrent of confusion, admiration and uncertainty rippled through the courtroom. Judge Findley slammed his oak gavel on the desk with insistence. “Order! Order!” The bailiff scanned the room with mild confusion but there was nothing much for him to do.

When the commotion died down, Jacob continued. “While walking in the park, I stumbled across a man raping a woman and shot him dead. Rape is a form of homicide; the rapist slaughters the victim’s humanity, butchers her soul. It’s all a matter of perspective.”

Again the courtroom erupted in noisy bedlam. Some onlookers were cheering and stomping their feet in affirmation, while in the far corner of the room where the dead man’s family huddled, morose and malicious anger prevailed. The judge, who felt that he was losing control of the arraignment, kept bashing his gavel on the surface of the desk but to no avail; every rule of judicial decorum had been obliterated and thrown out the window. 

*****

“Well, how did things go?” Officer Collins asked. It was late afternoon and he was just coming on duty.

“Reasonably well,” Jacob replied. He was back in his cell with his law books and a tattered copy of Thomas Hardy’s  Tess of the d'Urbervilles.