Dexter was seated outside the courtroom waiting to testify. The trial of the man who had tried to kill him was in its third day. Even after all the time that had passed between the shooting, and the beginning of the trial, Dexter still had no idea why the man had wanted to kill him. The press hadn't been interested in the man's motives, only that the target had been Dexter.
It wasn't until the opening statement by the prosecutor, that Dexter learned the man had lost his business because his employees had sued him. The judge had slammed the guy, and had ordered additional damages to be paid to the employees. The man didn't have the money to pay the fines, and his business had died.
On hearing the details about the initial lawsuit, Dexter felt that the judge had done the right thing. His sales personnel had been carrying monthly balances of over ten thousand dollars on their personal credit cards. With sales slipping due to a bad economy, he had delayed reimbursement for an extra month. Suddenly, they were carrying twenty thousand dollars on their credit cards. The sales people were slammed with interest charges and late fees. The cards they were using had interest rates raised to nearly thirty percent. It wasn't just the cards they were using for work that had the high interest rates, either. All of their credit cards had their rates increased.
Of course, the man blamed Dexter when his employees sued him, and he decided that Dexter had to die. The end result was the scene in front of the courthouse. Hopefully the whole episode would come to an end within that same courthouse.
With so many members of the press there, the trial quickly became a three-ring circus. Everyone was putting on an act for the cameras. The prosecutor's opening speech had taken almost an entire day. The defense's speech had lasted just as long. The judge had also pontificated. Dexter had sat there, bored out of his mind, getting angrier with each hour that passed.
Pundits on television were arguing about how good of a job the prosecutor, the defense, and the judge were doing. There were all kinds of legal opinions.
It was all kind of stupid, because there was a film of the entire incident. It clearly showed the man shooting at Dexter, in front of a hundred witnesses.
The first witness in the trial was not Dexter. It was the cameraman who had captured the entire event on the television camera. The video was entered as evidence. Of course, that wasn't so easy. The defense had argued that the video contained prejudicial statements made by the reporter on the scene that were not founded upon fact. It contained speculation and hearsay. The prosecutor argued that it captured the event. The judge called a recess so that he could consider the legal implications of the reporter's commentary.
Dexter earned himself a contempt of court warning when he had piped up, "So play the damned thing with the sound turned off."
The judge retired to his chambers for fifteen minutes and then returned to the courtroom with the decision that the video could be entered into evidence. Dexter knew that little decision was going to be worth a half hour of discussion on the news that night.
The next few witnesses were experts who testified that the video showed that the gun was actually aimed in Dexter's direction. Dexter earned a second contempt of court warning when he had said, "Any idiot with eyes can see that."
Dexter decided that it would be better if he were to wait outside than get found in contempt of court. He left the courtroom knowing that his exit would make it on the news that night. There would be all kinds of speculation about his behavior.
Seated on the bench, Dexter watched people rushing to and fro pursuing business about which he could only speculate. It seemed to him that there were just too many people there. They were there because of traffic tickets, crimes, lawsuits, and divorces. He wondered if there were any civil weddings taking place. He wondered about the financial burden on society that this level of activity represented. He decided that a courthouse was a more depressing place than a hospital ... and Dexter found hospitals very depressing.
A young man sat down next to Dexter.
"I'm Jack Alexander. I'm a journalism major at the local college. I've got a job as a reporter for the college newspaper."
"Hello, Jack Alexander. I'm Dexter James."
"I know. I was wondering if I could interview you."
"Go right ahead," Dexter said.
"May I record it?"
"Yes, you may," Dexter said.
"Thank you," Jack said.
"You're quite welcome, Jack," Dexter said.
Jack asked, "Why are you out here rather than inside the courtroom?"
"I'm out here because I couldn't sit there and watch that tragedy unfold any longer. I'd call it a joke, but it isn't funny. It's sad. It's tragic."
"Why do you say that?" Jack asked.
"We have emails that he sent threatening my life. We have a video of him planting a bomb inside my office. There was an explosion in which my office and several other offices in the building were destroyed. We have a video of him trying to shoot me. There's no room for reasonable doubt other than establishing that he was, in fact, the person in the videotapes. Of course, since he was arrested on that same video and then booked, there aren't any doubts about him being the person on the video."
"He has a right to defend himself against the charges," Jack said.
"A right to defend yourself against the charges?" Dexter said, and looked thoughtful for a second. "Yes, that is a right under our Constitution. Every accused person has a right to face their accusers. That's not what is going on in there."
Jack asked, "What is going on in there?"
"It's a show by the lawyers and the judge. A defendant is trying to avoid the consequences of his actions. A press corps is trying to gain a fraction of a percent of a market share. There are a lot of things going on in there other than an accused facing his accusers.
"You see, there's only one question that has to be answered in that courtroom."
"What question is that?"
"Is the defendant the perpetrator of the crime that was captured on the video tape?"
"It's got to be more complex than that," Jack said.
"The tape shows a crime taking place. It shows an armed man firing a pistol at an unarmed man who is making no aggressive acts. That is a crime. It is called: attempted murder.
"Is the defendant the perpetrator of the crime or not? That is the question. All of the rest of the garbage going on in that courtroom, is posturing."
Jack said, "There can be extenuating circumstances."
"Those don't affect whether the defendant is found guilty or innocent. Extenuating circumstances affects whether the full weight of the law should come down on the guilty person or not," Dexter said.
"That seems too simple," Jack said.
"It is that simple. That's why what is going on in there is a tragedy. Everyone in that courtroom has forgotten the purpose of having a trial. A trial has two parts. The first part is coming up with a verdict stating the guilt or innocence of the defendant, with regard to a specific crime or crimes. The second part is the sentencing of the guilty party.
"The first part of this trial could have been over in ten minutes. I'll admit that the second part could have taken a couple of hours. Was the defendant insane or not? If he was insane, then send him to a hospital for treatment. If he wasn't insane, then send him to jail for the legally proscribed time."
"If he's insane, then he's not guilty," Jack said.
"That's true according to established legal practice. That defense has been around for thousands of years. Not guilty by reason of insanity is a compromise between punishing someone for performing a criminal act, and the need to treat someone who is mentally ill. It is a humane compromise, although it is one that isn't well thought out. It isn't a statement that the person didn't do the crime, just that they were insane at the time."
"I disagree with you on that. An insane person isn't guilty," Jack said.
Dexter said, "It's interesting that you say that."
"Why?"
Dexter answered, "Because guilty really has two meanings. One is a judgment that someone has done something wrong. The other is the feeling that one should have for having done something wrong. Not guilty by reason of insanity is saying the person did something wrong, but shouldn't feel guilty for having done it because they weren't sane at the time.
"Like I said, I think that it isn't a well thought out compromise. Now, that is my opinion. To be honest, my opinion doesn't mean a damned thing. You can quote me on that."
"I will," Jack said.
"I'm sure that a lot of people will think that I'm a hardhearted bastard for having that opinion. Let them feel that way. I don't care. Well, I do care, but ... there's nothing I can do about it except change my opinion. There'd be others who'd think that I was jerk for changing to a different opinion. You can't win the popularity game."
"What do you think should happen to the man on trial?"
Dexter answered, "To tell the truth, I think that they should send the guy in there to a hospital for treatment, if he's crazy. I don't want to see him punished if he was seeing things, or voices were talking to him. Although some people might argue otherwise, I'm not a complete jerk, and I do care about my fellow humans.
"If, on the other hand, he was just so mad that he couldn't think straight ... send him to prison, and get him some anger management therapy. Don't forget, if he had been successful in his attempt to kill me, then I'd be in a grave pushing up daisies. I'm sure that if you were in my place, you'd feel much the same about someone trying to take your life."
"I'd like to think that I'd be a little more forgiving than that," Jack said pointedly.
Dexter laughed. "If I was an eye for an eye kind of person, I'd say let me chase him around while I'm waving a gun and trying to kill him. Now that would be an interesting punishment."
"You can't be serious," Jack said with a horrified expression on his face.
"I'm joking."
"That's not something to joke about."
"Did someone forget to teach you about humor?" Dexter asked.
"You don't joke about serious matters."
"Are you kidding me? Haven't you ever heard of 'gallows humor'? The more serious something is, the more you need to joke about it. Otherwise, you go crazy.
"Someone should write a comedy skit about what is going on in that courtroom. I could just see it now. The prosecutor says that he'll play the video of the shooting. The defense objects on the grounds that they haven't established that is actually a video. Expert witnesses are called to validate that it is indeed a video. The defense objects on the grounds that the expert isn't really an expert, so the prosecution calls an expert to testify that the expert is actually an expert. The cycle repeats infinitely."
"That's stupid," Jack said.
Dexter said, "That's my point. What is going on in there, is absurd."
Jack asked, "So what do you think is going to happen?"
"I don't know. What should happen, is that they find him guilty of attempted murder, and sentence him to jail. What will happen? Who knows?"
"So you want him to go to jail?"
"Do you know why we incarcerate individuals convicted of theft or violent crimes?"
"To punish them."
Dexter shook his head. "No. If we wanted to punish them, we could just flog them, and be done with it.
"I can tell by the expression on your face that the idea of flogging someone is horrible. Think about it. One flogging, and a month of recovery ... the punishment is over. You think that is too violent and degrading? Is it any more violent and degrading than getting anally raped repeatedly in prison? I don't know, but I think I'd rather be flogged."
"So why do we incarcerate them?"
"The reason we incarcerate them to protect everyone else from them."
Jack said, "Not everyone in jail is a violent criminal or guilty of theft."
"That's right. We've got a lot of people who are in prison who should be in a hospital instead. Drug addicts? They need medical care, not incarceration. That's not going to happen, because it's a whole lot easier to put them in prison.
"Even then, that misses the point. Our prisons aren't supposed to be warehouses for storing humans. They are supposed to be correctional facilities. We don't have correctional facilities, although there are a lot of human warehouses that are called that. Our prison system would be a lot cheaper if we really had correctional facilities. We wouldn't have repeat criminals. We wouldn't have criminals whose crimes escalate in violence. That's not going to happen."
"You sound kind of pessimistic," Jack said. "In fact, it sounds like you don't really think highly of the legal system."
Dexter replied, "The shooting happened two years ago and it is only now coming to trial. He's been out on bail all of that time. No one has informed me of what he's been doing during those two years. I don't know if anyone actually knows what he's been doing. In the meantime, I've wondered if he was going to try again, to kill me. It's not that it was always on my mind, but the worry was there in background."
The guard at the door of the courtroom said, "Dexter James! They're calling you to testify."
"Okay."
"Thanks for the interview."
"You're welcome."
Dexter went inside and testified. He told about getting death threats, calling the police, talking to a private detective, the bombing of his office, and the episode outside the courthouse. It was a pretty short story, although the prosecution tried to stretch it out as long as possible.
His memory of the events was challenged several times by the defense since it had happened two years previously. Dexter finally pointed out that he didn't need to remember things, since there was a video that showed the events quite clearly. He reminded them that he had watched that video in the courtroom, along with everyone else, less than two hours earlier. There was an awkward moment of silence after Dexter had pointed that out.
He had also been asked questions about his trip to Nevada, upon accepting that the death threats were serious. Fortunately, he hadn't done anything on that trip that he couldn't testify to in court. There was nothing illegal or immoral about hiding in a hotel room.
All in all, Dexter's testimony boiled down to this: the defendant was the guy who tried to kill him, and he had done nothing to provoke the attack.
It was on day five of the trial when Jack Alexander's article was published in the college's newspaper. The article was unique, in that after a brief introduction, it presented ... verbatim ... the conversation that he'd had with Dexter. For a short time, Jack Alexander was a celebrity for having the first and only interview with Dexter James about the attack.
The secondary reports generated by other news establishments were of a very different nature. They had great headlines. Dexter James believes in flogging criminals. Dexter James is critical of the judicial system. Dexter James wants insane punished. Dexter wants 'eye for an eye' justice.
Dexter read the headlines in disgust. He had read an initial draft of the article and had been pleased with it. Jack's introduction had been a very nice and unbiased piece of writing. Since the majority of the article was a transcription of the conversation there wasn't much he could say against it.
The circus that was called a trial, wrapped up two days after the article had been published. This was much earlier than some pundits had expected, but no one gave support to the belief that it was the article that had sped things up. A guilty verdict was handed down along with a sentence of five years in prison. The judge did recommend that anger management therapy be provided.
The only real change that Dexter noticed, was that he was sleeping a little better at night.
Edited By TeNderLoin