Read Online The Eleventh Victim by Nancy Grace - Free Book Online Page B

judge’s campaign…a campaign that was never fully waged because of C.C.’s surprise appointment to the bench, rendering voters unnecessary. Jim happened to know that for reasons mysterious and unspoken, the judge held on to all the campaign money to create his “war chest,” as he called it.
    “Sorry to say it’s not the sports page, Judge,” he told C.C. “It’s the research for that opinion pending on the docket.”
    The judge looked momentarily blank.
    “You know,” Jim prodded, “the one we talked about? The death penalty appeal.”
    Ah. The light dawned in C.C’s eyes.
    “Son, I’m going to let you handle that on your own. It’s time you took on more responsibility and I think you’re ready for it. I’ve taught you what I know on the subject. Make me proud, boy.”
    Maybe Jim should have been thrilled with the idea of changing the course of legal history by writing the judge’s opinions totally unsupervised. But the truth was, he didn’t want to be responsible for a political hot potato.
    Still, if Jim did as he was told, he figured the clerkship with Judge C. could set him up for an associate position over at Lange and Parker, the South’s premier law firm, the crown jewel of the Georgia Bar.
    His Mercer Law Review cronies would be livid.
    “So, Judge, we affirm, right?”
    With shifting support for the death penalty, Jim thought he should at least get Carter’s okay before taking the judge’s usual hang-’em-high position and affirming the death sentence. He’d worry about finding a legal basis later.
    “Son, which slimy SOB is it this time? These days you got to be a real bastard to get the chair.”
    “It’s the chef. You know, the Atlanta chef that posed all those hookers after he strangled them.”
    “Shit, son. He must’ve been one mean son of a bitch to get a death sentence out of a bunch of intellectual left-wing snoots and all the rest…. Well, you know who sits on Atlanta juries. They wouldn’t even give Wayne Williams the chair. He strangled how many boys…twelve, before they caught him?”
    “No sir. Twenty-one.”
    “Twenty-one what?” It had clearly been a rhetorical question because C.C. had no idea what Jim was referring to.
    “Wayne Williams allegedly murdered twenty-one little boys and teens before they got him, based on fiber evidence. But Williams still says he didn’t do it…that he was set up.”
    “Set up? Son, you scare me when you talk like that. Allegedly. Allegedly, my ass. A jury convicted him.”
    “So, Judge, we affirm?”
    “Did you say he says he was set up? Set up by who? God? Sit in jail long enough, and they all think somebody set ’em up.”
    “The chef, Judge, you want to affirm the DP on the chef, right?”
    “Hell, yes, affirm it, by God,” Judge Carter bellowed, slapping his beefy hand on the desk so hard the obligatory framed family photos rattled. “You want me to lose my spot on the bench? The voters would burn down the Court if we let that one go. He’ll never see nothing but the inside of the bus on the way from Reidsville Prison to Old Sparky at Jackson.”
    “Sir, just to be clear—it’s a constitutional challenge to the use of DNA without obtaining an additional warrant on each separatemurder charge. They also claim overzealous prosecution against the State. It was Hailey Dean again.”
    “Son, you’re botherin’ me, now. You know I have to affirm…both the guilty verdict and the death penalty sentence. It ain’t the liberals keeping me on the bench, son. Remember that.”
    “But the DNA—”
    “I’m fine by DNA and there is no such thing as overzealous prosecution. Unless it’s against me. That’s a joke, son. Lighten up.”
    Jim nodded woodenly, but managed to laugh at just the right volume and with just the right amount of heartiness.
    “Yes, sir. It’s affirmed. He’s headed to Old Sparky.”
    “That’s right, son. It’s between him and the Lord now. And son,” the judge added, dipping his right