Judge Stone by James Patterson - 3

BULLOCK COUNTY COURTHOUSE UNION SPRINGS, ALABAMA

I pulled into my designated spot in the Bullock County Courthouse parking lot. One of the sweetest perks of my elected position was that nine-foot-by-twenty-foot slice of asphalt directly under the window of my chambers on the second floor. Marked by two white stripes and a small sign that clearly stated: RESERVED FOR CIRCUIT JUDGE MARY STONE .

I left that beautiful sight for a familiar one.

Aurora Freeman, a member of the custodial staff, was smoking a cigarette by the back door. As I passed by, toting my bright red leather briefcase and black robe, she blew out a cloud of smoke and said, “Morning, Judge Mary.”

“Morning, Aurora.” I pulled the door open, pausing to say, “How’s your hip? Seems like you should be home with your feet up.”

She waved off the suggestion with a flip of her hand, sending ashes flying. “Don’t you worry about me, honey, I’m good. You run along now.”

Aurora is well over seventy, old enough to be my mother. Back when I was a student at Union Springs Elementary School, Aurora was as influential as any teacher. She worked in the lunchroom and she ruled that cafeteria with an iron hand. Aurora regularly threatened to whoop our butts, and it was not an empty threat.

Now I spend a fair amount of my life in the confines of this courthouse, a three-story brick structure topped by two towers. The National Register of Historic Places recognizes it as one of the finest courthouses in the state of Alabama, and the only one built in the Empire style. I’m a circuit judge, not a student of architecture, so I’m not sure what all that entails. But it’s a pretty building, the centerpiece of the historic district in our small town.

No debating that. Nor the weight of the past.

Every day I climbed the double curved staircase toward the courtroom where I presided at the oak bench. Hearing and deciding cases inside that historic structure where my people weren’t permitted to vote for damn near one hundred years after the courthouse was built in 1871. My great-grandpa and great-great-grandpa couldn’t vote because the Klan wouldn’t let them. One grandpa couldn’t afford to pay the poll tax they imposed; the other’s vote was blocked by a literacy test. None of the women in my family could cast a vote in my current workplace before the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

At nine thirty this morning, I would be handing down a sentence.

My administrative clerk, Luna Young, lingered in the open doorway, her mouth turned down in a worried frown. She was young, barely thirty, but I’d observed her air of maturity when I hired her. She’d also demonstrated a gift for handling people in tough situations. A judge’s clerk has to conduct communications with attorneys, law enforcement, and the public. I was lucky that Luna possessed more tact than I generally exhibited.

When I walked past Luna’s desk, she said, “Judge Mary, you’ve got the sentencing set in State v. Gray today.”

Luna didn’t need to provide a reminder of the murder charges against Ferrell Gray, the contentious jury trial over a case where the evidence of guilt was overwhelming.

At trial, the defendant had been hard to control, disrupting the proceedings with violent outbursts on more than one occasion. I was tempted to remove him from the courtroom. Threatened to do it at least twice, informing him that he could watch the case unfold on a monitor inside the county jail.

The jury had found him guilty and recommended punishment, but imposing sentence is the judge’s job. That was the dilemma that had kept me awake the night before. Trying to decide whether I should impose the penalty that the jury recommended.

The death penalty.