The Call

By Peter L. Spinetta

"The Call" is fictitious representation of real life incidents, personalities, and issues confronted by the author, a retired California judge, while presiding over trials. A must-read, this is a captivating story that will have great appeal for those interested in the topical issues of abortion and the death penalty, as well as a judge's role in cases involving those issues. However, this is also a book for all who just like an intriguing tale with fascinating characters and themes of sex, love, and commitment.

In this novel, a judge is presiding over a case, entitled the People v. John Fitzgerald. The defendant is a young Irish-American, the son of another judge, charged with murdering a doctor and a nurse about to perform an abortion on a beautiful, older woman pregnant with his child. The prosecutor, an ambitious and attractive Assistant D.A., whose history with the judge makes him wonder whether he should undertake the case to begin with, is seeking the death penalty. The defendant is represented by an Ivy League African-American Public Defender, who gambles that the judge's character and background is such that he will ultimately save his client from the death penalty, even if the jury doesn't. The trial is attended by numerous pro-life and pro-choice proponents, and draws much media attention.

The judge must address numerous trial management and legal issues posed by the case, as well as by attempts by others to influence his decisions and by a staff not always in harmony with his rulings. More critically, the case ultimately requires him to choose between what he personally thinks the result of the trial should be and what the law provides, a conflict with which judges are often presented. The choice he makes in the case, just as he did, at an earlier time, when he resisted the advances of the young Assistant D.A., might not surprise you once you learn his name.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jan 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781667822433

Book preview

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To My Late Wife, Katrin

I Still Love You

The Call

©2021 Peter L. Spinetta

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

print ISBN: 978-1-66782-242-6

ebook ISBN: 978-1-66782-243-3

Although bearing some similarities to real persons, the characters portrayed in this novel, and thoughts and actions ascribed to them, are fictional. Truth be told, however, there is a strong resemblance between the book’s judge, wife, clerk and bailiff, and the book’s author, himself a retired judge, as well as his late wife and former courtroom staff.

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER ONE

He was outside, plowing snow on the ranch, when the call came. It seemed like he was always plowing or shoveling snow nowadays, and no doubt it did take a lot of time. He didn’t have a tractor in those days, just an ATV with a plow, so he had to keep at it all the time to stay on top. He didn’t mind—well, that’s not true, he did mind—but he tried to make the most of it. Work around the ranch provided him with the exercise he sorely needed now that he was far away from any gym, and, besides, Montana’s sun-deprived winter days were too short for much else.

He was a retired California Superior Court judge, and for the first few years after leaving the bench full-time, he was kept busy serving as an assigned judge two or three months each year. In a few California counties, the full-time sitting judges had been unable to keep up with the great number of cases, especially criminal cases, they were being called upon to handle and a serious backlog had developed requiring the Chief Justice to assign retired judges to help out. That, plus the ongoing need to find substitutes for full-time judges who became ill, went on vacation or otherwise became temporarily unavailable, provided ample opportunities for retired judges who wished to do so to periodically return to the bench. Of late, however, those opportunities had become far fewer, as California’s dire budgetary situation had caused it to cut far back on its reliance on assigned judges—especially those, who like himself, no longer lived in California and, because of that, were more costly to engage. As a consequence, he hadn’t received an assignment for some time now; but, the criminal case inventory never receding, he knew it would not be too long before he would once again be pressed into service. He was thus not entirely surprised to learn from his wife, when he finished his plowing and got back home, that someone from California’s Administrative Office of the Courts, better known as the AOC, had called to see if he would be available for assignment.

Wondering what the assignment might entail, he wasted no time telephoning Amy Chan, the AOC assignment coordinator who had left the message with his wife.

Hi, Amy, he said, after identifying himself to the person who answered and being connected to her office. I’m returning your call.

Oh hi, Judge. Thanks for calling back. I was wondering whether you would be willing to accept an assignment to your old court. It’s not a very pleasant assignment I’m afraid—a death penalty case. The defendant is the son of one of the judges there, and the other judges have all recused themselves.

Whose son is he? he quickly asked, thinking that he too might have to disqualify himself if the defendant turned out to be the son of one of the judges with whom he had once worked.

Judge Fitzgerald, William Fitzgerald. He was appointed after you retired. That’s why I thought it might not be a problem for you.

He didn’t know Judge Fitzgerald, and didn’t think the latter’s connection to the case posed any impediment to his presiding over it.

Tell me more.

"The case is People v. John Fitzgerald, and the defendant is charged with murdering a doctor and a nurse when they were performing an abortion at a Planned Parenthood clinic. Defendant apparently is an active pro-lifer, strongly opposed to abortion on moral grounds. That’s what the papers are saying anyhow. There’s a lot of publicity."

What’s the status of the case?

Defendant has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder, and there is a ‘multiple murder’ special circumstance allegation, as well as a ‘personal discharge of a firearm’ enhancement allegation. He has pled not guilty to the charges and denied the allegations. A preliminary hearing is scheduled three weeks from this Tuesday, on March 22nd at 9:00 a.m., in a department to be announced. The killings actually occurred almost two years ago. The late Judge Arguelos from Los Angeles—did you know him?—had actually been initially assigned to the case, but he became ill and the parties just kept on continuing everything. Now that he’s passed away, they’re eager to proceed. Can you take it on?

Sure, he replied. Please arrange for the case to be formally assigned to me for all purposes by the Chief Justice, and for counsel to be notified of this as soon as possible. I’ll take it from there. I assume my contact at the Contra Costa Court is to be Linda Robbins. She’s still the person in charge of visiting judges there, isn’t she?

Yes, thank you, Judge. I will let her know that you will be contacting her. And thank you, again, for doing this. It’s not easy finding judges willing to handle death penalty cases these days, and it was especially difficult finding someone to try this one.

This last remark made him realize that he was probably not the first retired judge to whom this assignment had been offered. But this did not deter his willingness to accept it, and he meant it when he concluded the telephone conversation by telling Amy, Glad to be of service.

That night, while lying in bed reflecting on his new assignment, he could not help but wonder why it was that so many judges were reluctant to take on death penalty cases. Yes, such cases require the making of grave decisions, having literally life and death impact, but isn’t it the duty of judges to accept all cases that come their way, excepting only those they don’t think they can handle fairly, or those that others might reasonably believe they can’t? He was not the type to sidestep the responsibilities that came with being a judge; and, initially at least, he could think of no reason that would preclude him from being able to preside fairly over the case that had just been assigned him.

CHAPTER TWO

By next morning, the realization that the attorneys in the case didn’t have to go along with the assignment of the case to him made him think the call may have been a false alarm. Under California law, each side could peremptorily challenge him—that is, object to his presiding over the case without the reason for doing so being subject to question—and, if either did, the case would have to be assigned to some other judge.

The day before he had forgotten to ask Amy Chan the names of the attorneys involved in the case, so he called Linda Robbins in Contra Costa as soon as he could that morning to find out who they were. When he heard that the defendant was being represented by the Public Defender himself, Harrison Cooper, and that Assistant District Attorney Debrah Debroh was the prosecutor, he had real concerns about his future participation in the case.

Harrison Cooper had been born and raised in Virginia, the son of a doctor and teacher, his father and mother, respectively. He attended private schools, where he excelled both academically and at lacrosse. As an undergraduate at Yale University, he not only continued to do well scholastically, but got involved in student government, earning everyone’s respect for his mature, constructive leadership, especially in his dealings with the school’s administration on behalf of the students. He stayed at Yale for his law degree, earning a spot on the law review, and, upon graduation, landed a clerkship with one of the justices on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal, headquartered in San Francisco. Two years later, he joined the Contra Costa Public Defender’s Office, where he served first as a deputy, then as an assistant public defender for some twenty-odd years, until the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors, persuaded that he was sufficiently mainstream, named him as the county’s first African American Public Defender.

It did not surprise him that a public defender was representing the defendant. While the defendant could not afford private counsel, his family certainly could. However, in Contra Costa at least, most of the public defenders were as good, if indeed not better, than almost all but a very few private practitioners, and Harrison Cooper arguably topped even those. It made sense, therefore, for the family to take advantage of the defendant’s eligibility for appointment of public counsel.

On one level, he got along well with Harrison Cooper; indeed, very well. He, too, had attended Yale Law School and they had even studied under some of the same professors, although he had graduated from there several years before Harrison. Both he and Harrison also shared a philosophical bent, and their discussions, both inside and outside the courtroom, almost always ended up as lengthy debates about legal first principles, sometimes to the annoyance of persons more practically inclined who were forced to listen. The fact that he invariably took the conservative side on legal issues and Harrison the liberal side did not detract from the enjoyment each experienced from discussing them; in fact, it probably added to it, giving each of them an opportunity not only to expound his views to, but have them tested by, someone they respected intellectually. Their constant interchange of ideas had created a special bond between them. He