Great Throughts Treasury

"A person who commits suicide is not thinking rationally."

"A riveting, exciting and thoroughly compelling tale of adventure."

"After I'd been a lawyer for about five or six years, I started playing around with fiction."

"All students enter law school with a certain amount of idealism and desire to serve the public, but after three years of brutal competition we care for nothing but the right job with the right firm where we can make partner in seven years and earn big bucks."

"And that's the mission of The Innocence Project in New York, is to exonerate people who have been wrongfully convicted, and also work from a policy angle with Congress and state legislatures to prevent future wrongful convictions."

"And they drank heavily, partied with great enthusiasm, and relished the drug culture; they moved in and out and slept around, and this was okay because they defined their own morality. They were fighting for the Mexicans and the redwoods, dammit! They had to be good people!"

"An outline is crucial. It saves so much time. When you write suspense, you have to know where you're going because you have to drop little hints along the way. With the outline, I always know where the story is going. So before I ever write, I prepare an outline of 40 or 50 pages."

"And we are looking for the father. According to the mother, though, she spoke with him yesterday afternoon and he was with his band somewhere in West Virginia. She feels rather strongly that he is not involved in this. April can?t stand her father, Theo blurted, then wished he?d remained quiet. They chatted for a few more minutes, but the conversation was obviously over. The officers thanked the Boones for coming and promised to check back later. Both Mr. and Mrs. Boone said they would be at their office all day if they were needed for anything. Theo, of course, would be in school. As they drove away, Mrs. Boone said, That poor child. Snatched from her own bedroom. Mr. Boone, who was driving, glanced back over his shoulder"

"Anything he may have written to her. She never mentioned this to you? the detective asked. Never, Theo said. He had learned that with April?s weird family there were many secrets, many things she kept to herself. The detective put away the photo, and Theo was relieved. He never wanted to see the face again, but he doubted if he could ever forget it. Sergeant Bolick said, We suspect that April knew the person who took her. How else can you explain the lack of a forcible entry? Do you think he would hurt her? Theo asked. We have no way of knowing that, Theo. This man?s been in prison most of his life. His behavior is unpredictable. The detective added, The good thing is that he always gets caught. Theo said, If April?s with him, she?ll contact us. She?ll find a way. Then, please let us know. Don?t worry. Excuse me, Officer, Mrs. Boone said. But I thought in a case like this you first investigate"

"April confided in Theo, and told him things he vowed to never repeat. The Finnemore home was owned by someone else, a rental house April hated because her parents had no interest in maintaining it. It was in an older section of Strattenburg, on a shady street lined with other postwar homes that had seen better days. Theo had been there only one time, for a less-than-successful birthday party April?s mother had thrown together two years earlier. Most of the kids who?d been invited did not attend because their parents wouldn?t allow it. Such was the Finnemore family reputation. There were two police cars in the driveway when the Boones arrived. Across the street, the neighbors were on their porches, watching."

"At eleven-fifteen it rang again, and Jake received his first death threat, anonymous of course. He was called a nigger-loving son of a bitch, one who would not live if the nigger walked."

"Baggy and the boys were in the Bar Room on the third floor, not directly under the cupola, but not far from it. In fact, they were probably the closest humans to the sniper when he began his target practice. After the shooting resumed for the ninth or tenth time, they evidently became even more frightened and, convinced they were about to be slaughtered, decided they had to take matters into their own hands. Somehow they managed to pry open the intractable window of their little hideaway. We watched as an electrical cord was thrown out and fell almost to the ground, forty feet below. Baggy?s right leg appeared next as he flung it over the brick sill and wiggled his portly body through the opening. Not surprisingly, Baggy had insisted on going first. Oh my God, Wiley said, somewhat gleefully, and raised his camera. They?re drunk as skunks. Clutching the electrical cord with all the grit he could muster, Baggy sprung free from the window and began his descent to safety. His strategy was not apparent. He appeared to give no slack on the cord, his hands frozen to it just above his head. Evidently there was plenty of cord left in the Bar Room, and his cohorts were supposed to ease him down. As his hands rose higher above his head, his pants became shorter. Soon they were just below his knees, leaving a long gap of pale white skin before his black socks bunched around his ankles. Baggy wasn?t concerned about appearances?before, during, or after the sniper incident. The shooting stopped, and for a while Baggy just hung there, slowly twisting against the building, about three feet below the window. Major could be seen inside, clinging fiercely to the cord. He had only one leg though, and I worried that it would quickly give out. Behind him I could see two figures, probably Wobble Tackett and Chick Elliot, the usual poker gang. Wiley began laughing, a low suppressed laugh that shook his entire body. With each lull in the shooting, the town took a breath, peeked around, and hoped it was over. And each new round scared us more than the last. Two shots rang out. Baggy lurched as if he?d been hit?though in reality there was no possible way the sniper could even see him, and the suddenness evidently put too much pressure on Major?s leg. It collapsed, the cord sprang free, and Baggy screamed as he dropped like a cinder block into a row of thick boxwoods that had been planted by the Daughters of the Confederacy. The boxwoods absorbed the load, and, much like a trampoline, recoiled and sent Baggy to the sidewalk, where he landed like a melon and became the only casualty of the entire episode. I heard laughter in the distance. Without a trace of mercy, Wiley recorded the entire spectacle. The photos would be furtively passed around Clanton for years to come. For a long time Baggy didn?t move. Leave the sumbitch out there, I heard a cop yell below us. You can?t hurt a drunk, Wiley said as he caught his breath. Eventually, Baggy rose to all fours. Slowly and painfully, he crawled, like a dog hit by a truck, into the boxwoods that had saved his life, and there he rode out the storm."

"Barb hung a wreath on the door and locked it."

"As a society, we adhere to the belief in a fair trial for a person accused of a serious crime, but some of us struggle when it comes to the business of providing a competent lawyer to guarantee said fair trial. Lawyers like me live with the question But how do you represent such scum? I offer a quick Someone has to as I walk away. Do we really want fair trials? No, we do not. We want justice, and quickly. And justice is whatever we deem it to be on a case-by-case basis. It?s just as well that we don?t believe in fair trials because we damned sure don?t have them. The presumption of innocence is now the presumption of guilt. The burden of proof is a travesty because the proof is often lies. Guilt beyond a reasonable doubt means if he probably did it, then let?s get him off the streets."

"As she watched it leave, she felt like the helpless victim in a backward country where the police ran rampant and rights were nonexistent. It was simply wrong. She was being bullied by the cops because of her association with Jeff. Now her property was being confiscated, and her clients? confidentiality was compromised. She had never felt so helpless."

"At times he thinks like a terrorist, then he cries like a little child."

"Blackburn v. Alabama, the Court said, ?Coercion can be mental as well as physical.? In reviewing whether a confession was psychologically coerced by the police, the following factors are crucial: (1) the length of the interrogation, (2) whether it was prolonged in nature, (3) when it took place, day or night, with a strong suspicion around nighttime confessions, and (4) the psychological makeup?intelligence, sophistication, education, and so on?of the suspect."

"Back to Big Law. Her goal had been to make partner by the age of thirty-five, one of few women at the top, and nail down a corner office from which she would play hardball with the boys. She would have a secretary, an assistant, some paralegals, and a driver on call, a golden expense account, and a designer wardrobe. The hundred-hour workweeks would shrink into something manageable. She would knock down two million plus a year for twenty years, then retire and travel the world. Along the way she would pick up a husband, a kid or two, and life would be grand."

"Billing was the lifeblood of the firm. Everything revolved around it."

"Because I was single, there was a chance I was a homosexual. Because I went to Syracuse, wherever that was, then I was probably a Communist. Or worse, a Liberal. Because I was from Memphis, I was a subversive intent on embarrassing Ford County."

"Burr holes are made in the skull, and a power saw is used to fashion a bone flap more or less like the top of a cookie jar (fig. 2). The dura mater?a membrane"

"But rituals are important to the men who run prisons, and nothing gets their adrenaline pumping like an execution. Their little lives are mundane and monotonous, but occasionally the world tunes in when it?s time to kill a killer. No effort at heightened drama is to be missed."

"By chasing the wrong suspect, the police and prosecutors had allowed the real killer?s trail to grow cold. He has yet to be found."

"But the Court of Criminal Appeals was not always a rubber stamp for the prosecution. Much to Mark Barrett?s delight, he received the news on April 16, 1991, that a new trial had been ordered for Greg Wilhoit."

"Capps earned over nine million last year and paid a pittance in taxes."

"Boone looked Theo squarely in the eyes and said, Okay, let?s have it. There?s something else to the story. Theo was constantly amazed at how easily his mother could do this. He could tell only half of a story, and she immediately looked for the other half. He could offer up a little fib, nothing serious, maybe something just for fun, and she instinctively pounced on it and ripped it to shreds. He could duck a direct question, and she would fire back with three more. Theo suspected she had acquired this skill after years as a divorce lawyer. She often said that she never expected her clients to tell her the truth. I agree, said Mr. Boone. Theo couldn?t tell if he really agreed, or whether he was just tag-teaming with his wife, which he often did. Mr. Boone was a real estate lawyer who never went to court, and, while he missed little, he was usually"

"Bolick. Mrs. Finnemore was sound asleep in the downstairs bedroom, she heard nothing, and at some point she got up to check on April. That?s when she realized she was gone. Theo looked at Mrs. Finnemore, who again shot him a fierce look. He knew the truth, and she knew he knew the truth. Trouble was, Theo couldn?t tell the truth because he?d made a promise to April. The truth was that Mrs. Finnemore had not been home for the past two nights. April had been living alone, terrified, with all the doors and windows locked as tightly as possible; with a chair jammed against her bedroom door; with an old baseball bat across the end of her"

"Crime? No, he was not. He insisted he knew nothing"

"Cage fighting appeals to the savage instinct in some people, including me, and we?re all here for the same reason?to see one fighter annihilate another. We want to see bleeding eyes, gashes across the forehead, choke holds, bone-ripping submissions, and brutal knockout punches that send the corners scrambling for the doctor. Mix in a flood of cheap beer, and you have five thousand maniacs begging for blood."

"Dear Miss Sam: Thanks so much for your lovely epistle. You?ve gotten so soft in only three months. Must be all those cookies. If I read you right, you want some assurances that you?ll be (1) adored by your bosses, (2) worshipped by your colleagues, (3) appreciated by your clients, (4) virtually guaranteed a partnership which will lead to a long, full, happy life, and (5) given enough office space to make you happy, in spite of the obscene prices per square foot now being demanded by Manhattan landlords (our clients), recession or not."

"Dianne was suddenly concerned. Two boys see the same event. One goes into shock. It?s reasonable to believe the other would be affected. She hadn?t thought of this. She leaned down next to him. Mark, are you all right? He knew he had her. I think so, he said with a frown, as if a migraine were upon him."

"Death row is a nightmare to serial killers and ax murderers. For an innocent man, it's a life of mental torture that the human spirit is not equipped to survive."

"Everything is carefully designed to make people crave the food that looks far more delicious on the walls than on the tables."

"Denice Haraway was killed by a single gunshot wound to the head. Her remains were found the following January by a hunter deep in the woods near the settlement of Gerty, in Hughes County, twenty-seven miles from Ada and far from any place that had been searched."

"Focused ultrasound therapy is still in its early stages, still experimental, but there is enough research to date to be very optimistic."

"Divorces, and Woods Boone upstairs all alone in a large cluttered room with sagging bookshelves and stacks of files littering the floor and an ever-present cloud of fragrant pipe smoke rolling gently across the ceiling. Rounding out the firm, there was Elsa, who answered the phone, greeted the clients, managed the office, did some typing, and kept an eye on Judge, the dog; there was Dorothy, a real estate secretary, who worked for Mr. Boone and did work that Theo considered horribly boring; and there was Vince, the paralegal, who worked on Mrs. Boone?s cases. Judge, a mutt who was Theo?s dog, the family?s dog, and the firm?s dog, spent his days at the office, sometimes creeping quietly from room to room keeping an eye on things, oftentimes following a human to the kitchen where he expected food, but mostly snoozing on a small square bed in the reception area where Elsa talked to him whenever she typed. The last member of the firm was Theo, who happily suspected that he was the only thirteen-year-old in Strattenburg with his own law office. Of course, he was too young to be a real member of the firm, but there were times when Theo was."

"Every morning I wake at 6am or 6.30am, champing at the bit."

"Everyone felt some measure of relief. Drug trafficking was dealt a severe blow."

"Fifty feet away, five volunteers waited behind a curtain with high-powered rifles, though only four were loaded. The theory was that none of the five would ever know for sure that he killed a man, and this was somehow supposed to assuage his guilt later in life, in the event that he had a change of heart and became burdened. What a crock! There was a long list of volunteers, all eager to put a bullet dead center in another's man's heart."

"Four months ago, he had a mild heart attack and his doctor told him to retire. He found another doctor."

"Four rehabs meant a fifth was somewhere down the road."

"Gertrude?s was an old diner on Main Street, six blocks west of the courthouse and three blocks south of the police station. It claimed to serve pecan waffles that were famous around the world, but Theo had often doubted this. Did people in Japan and Greece really know about Gertrude and her waffles? He wasn?t so sure. He had friends at school who?d never heard of Gertrude?s right there in Strattenburg. A few miles west of town, on the main highway, there was an ancient log cabin with a gas pump out front and a large sign advertising DUDLEY?S WORLD-FAMOUS MINT FUDGE. When Theo was younger, he naturally had assumed that everybody in town not only craved the mint fudge but talked about it nonstop. How else could it achieve the status of being world famous? Then one day in class the discussion took an odd turn and found its way to the topic of imports and exports."

"Had it not been for two notorious murders in the early 1980s, Ada would have gone unnoticed by the world. And that would have been just fine with the good folks of Pontotoc County."

"Hardy said Ricky might be locked up in some institution for months, maybe years, if the doctors weren?t told the truth about what the boys witnessed. Hardy was okay, not too bright, and he was making the mistake of talking to Mark as if he were five years old instead of eleven."

"God help us, if ever in this great country we turn our heads while those who have not had fair trials are executed. That almost happened in this case."

"Funeral services took place with the casket open, so that the mourners were required to view the deceased while great things were said about him. It was an odd custom, one aimed at making the moment far more dramatic than necessary."

"He did smile at her, though, but she did not return the smile. Her teeth were somewhere in the house."

"He and the police are able to follow him, what are the odds that he?ll lead them to the strip club."

"He mentioned this to you? the detective asked. Never, Theo said. He had learned that with April?s weird family there were many secrets, many things she kept to herself. The detective put away the photo, and Theo was relieved. He never wanted to see the face again, but he doubted if he could ever forget it. Sergeant Bolick said, We suspect that April knew the person who took her. How else can you explain the lack of a forcible entry? Do you think he would hurt her? Theo asked. We have no way of knowing that, Theo. This man?s been in prison most of his life. His behavior is unpredictable."

"He had hired more mature women to negate any physical temptation, but, as a rule, they had been bossy, maternal, menopausal, and they had more doctors? appointments, as well as aches and pains to talk about and funerals to attend."