Due Process (Joe Dillard #9)(60)
“You catch his name?” I said.
“Yeah. It was Riddle. Bo Riddle.”
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17
Leon came over the night before and spoke with Greg Murray for an hour-and-a-half. I knew he was deeply concerned, as was I. I told him about the black man who paid us a visit at the office, and he said he’d been contacted by the FBI. Apparently, the New Black Panther Party had mobilized some of its members and a confrontation—more likely a firefight—was very likely to occur no matter what the outcome of the hearing. Erlene’s grand plan to extort money out of the university had gone terribly wrong. Her platform had been hijacked by extremists, and I’d never known of anything good to come of extremism in any form.
I arrived at the courthouse with Jack and Charlie at 8:30 a.m. The security was like nothing I’d ever seen in Jonesborough. There were armed Washington County deputies in SWAT gear everywhere, there were Tennessee Highway Patrolmen, there were Johnson City and Jonesborough policemen in uniform. I’d talked to Jack and Charlie about the possibility of violence after the hearing and told them both to stay inside the building until we were certain it was safe to come out. We were ready to blow Mike Armstrong’s case, and possibly his career, out of the water. We were ready to expose Sheila Self as a liar, Bo Riddle as a racist, and Erlene Barlowe as a blackmailer, extortionist, and manipulator. If all went according to plan (and things rarely did) Kevin Davidson and his teammates would be free by the afternoon. I just hoped they would still be alive.
I saw Leon standing near the front entrance to the courtroom. He, too, was dressed like a soldier about to go into combat. I walked up to him and said, “What’s the play, Leon? Are you going to try to find them or wait for them to come?”
“We only have the one location that Murray gave me last night,” Leon said. “We’re watching it and we’ll neutralize them as soon as they gather. We have everybody on deck. Patrol cars are searching. We have people in the air. We’re going to do all we can to prevent bloodshed, but I’ll be honest with you, brother Dillard. I have a bad feeling in the pit of my gut.”
“Stay safe, my friend,” I said to him and I patted him on the shoulder. “I’ll see you later on.”
Judge Neese walked through the door at 9:00 a.m. sharp. She sat down at the bench after the bailiff had called the court to order and looked out over the packed courtroom.
“I just want everyone here to know I won’t tolerate any outbursts of any kind,” she said. “None. I’ll clear the courtroom.”
She then turned her gaze to me. It was not sympathetic or friendly.
“Mr. Dillard, the motion you filed is, by far, the most accusatory, inflammatory, and perhaps dangerous motion that has ever been filed in my court. I’m going to give you one chance to withdraw the motion. If you fail to do so and then fail to prove the very serious allegations you’ve made, you will be leaving this courtroom in handcuffs. Do you understand?”
I stood and said, “I understand, your Honor. I do not wish to withdraw the motion. All I ask is that you give me a fair hearing, and I have no reason to believe you won’t.”
“I don’t expect the kind of rhetoric and theatrics you displayed the last time you appeared before me,” she said.
“I’ll do my best to hold off on the rhetoric, but there are going to be some theatrics. This is a highly-charged, emotional case, as you well know. There are racial overtones that are going to be exposed here today. I hope you’ll allow me to prove the allegations I’ve made.”
“Provided you present your proof within the boundaries of the law, you’ll get your chance.”
“Thank you, your Honor. That’s all I can ask.”
“All right,” the judge said. “For the record, I have before me a lengthy motion filed by Mr. Dillard and his associates and joined by counsel for the other two defendants in this case. At its core, it alleges a bad faith prosecution on the part of the district attorney general that has deprived the defendants in this case of their rights to due process under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article One, Section Nine of the Tennessee Constitution. We have several witnesses that Mr. Dillard has subpoenaed, including the alleged victim. Mr. Armstrong did not try to quash the subpoena, so I can only conclude that he has no problem with his alleged victim being subjected to examination by Mr. Dillard prior to trial.”
I looked over at Armstrong, wondering whether he had talked with Erlene. I was sure he had, because he looked like he’d just eaten a pile of horse manure and was ready to throw up. I was thinking he knew he was about to be run over by a train, there was no way he could stop it, and he just wanted to get on with it. He hadn’t filed any sort of written response to the motion, hadn’t asked to keep anything out or exclude any witnesses. I wondered whether he’d even bothered to read it.
“Call your first witness, Mr. Dillard,” the judge said.
“We call Laurie Ingram,” I said.
A pretty young woman with curly brown hair and dark eyes, dressed in a thigh-length blue dress, walked into the courtroom and sat down in the witness chair. She raised her hand and was sworn in by the judge.
“Objection,” Mike Armstrong said. “We object to the relevance of this witness’s testimony.”
“Do you even know what the testimony is going to be?” the judge said.