WHIPPER And you never looked at them? Never even peeked at one of them?
STARK SIMS No sir. Wouldnt of done me no good to.
WHIPPER And why is that?
STARK SIMS I caint read.
There is a long silence. Whipper looks from Sims to the prosecutor to the table where McEvoy sits with his lawyers and to the jury. All look back with no expression at all.
Interior. Oil lamp-lit kitchen in a negro shack. The kitchen is the temporary law office of Mr Whipper and there are lawbooks in a cabinet behind him and books open on the table and legal pads and a quill and inkcruse. Mr Whipper s black face is lightly beaded with sweat and he speaks to the man across the table from him, who is Mr McEvoy.
WHIPPER Mr Jordan says that your son wont hang. What do you want me to tell you?
MR MCEVOY I dont know. I caint be satisfied in my mind. I got no friends to tell me right. Folks turn their head in the street. I know my boy done wrong. But he aint like they’re tryin to make him out. If my boy were a Gregg he’d not even be tried.
WHIPPER If your son were black he’d not be tried.
MR MCEVOY If they was to send him to the penitentiary that would be hard. But if they was to hang him. I dont believe I could live with that. My boy is no better and no worse than most any boy in this town. I know he must of had some reason to do what he done. If you’d just let him get up there and tell it hisself.
WHIPPER That’s not possible.
MCEVOY Why aint it?
WHIPPER He’s full of wild accusations. Slander. That wont help him now. I tried.
MCEVOY You tried what?
WHIPPER There’s nothing to be done about that. Best let sleeping dogs lie.
MCEVOY If I just had some sign . . .
McEvoy looks at Whipper as if to read some reassurance.
WHIPPER A lawyer aint a priest. Nor a doctor. Law’s more vagrant than sickness or sin. We make our case. We’d be fools to say what a dozen other fools might think of it.
MCEVOY Mr Jordan said that all the law dont go on in the courtroom.
WHIPPER Ahhh.
MCEVOY They say God is just. I reckon if he wasn’t there’d be no justice.
WHIPPER If men were no more just than God there’d be no peace in this world. Everwhere I look I see men trying to set right the inequities that God’s left them with.
MCEVOY I caint accept that.
WHIPPER Look around you, man. We’ve all seen murderers carouse in the streets while the righteous go to the scaffold.
MCEVOY It might be that the righteous have sins that are hid.
WHIPPER Yes. Seven times seven I believe is the just man’s daily lot. I tried a law case in Beaufort a few months back. In the course of the proceedings I turned to the court and I said: Is there anybody here who believes in justice? Would you raise your hand?
Whipper laughs quietly to himself.
MCEVOY Did anyone?
WHIPPER Oh yes. There were in the courtroom at that time seven or eight of the most notorious scoundrels in the state and every man-jack of them raised his hand. Just them. Even the judge busted out laughing.
ME EVOY We come here nine year ago. We tried to stay on at home after the war but they wasnt no way. I wanted the children to have somethin. If I could have foresaw my life as it’s become. I would rather to of been dead than this.
WHIPPER They say that God sends no man a burden greater than what he can bear.
MCEVOY Ay. Nor much less, neither.
WHIPPER No man’s lot is so bad he cant look at a neighbor’s who’s not worse.
MCEVOY Where is he? Where is that neighbor?
Interior. Night. Oil lamps, Aiken County courthouse.
JUDGE Mr Steedman, has the jury reached a verdict?
FOREMAN The jury has, your honor.
The bailiff takes a paper from the foreman of the jury and carries it to the judge. The judge takes the paper. He unfolds it. He reads it and folds it back.
JUDGE Robert McEvoy, hold up thy hand.
McEvoy raises his hand.
JUDGE Put it down. Thou wast heretofore indicted for that thou didst willfully and feloniously and of thy malice aforethought kill and murder James J Gregg, against the peace and dignity of the state of South Carolina. Now thou hast been found guilty of that murder . . .
Robert McEvoy has stopped chewing tobacco.
JUDGE ... by a jury of thy peers and I do solemnly demand that thou show cause, if any thou hast, why execution of the judgement established by law for the state should not be passed upon thee.
Robert McEvoy does not answer.
JUDGE He saith nothing. It is considered by the court and pronounced as the judgement of the law that the said Robert McEvoy be taken to the place whence he last came and there be kept in close and safe custody until Friday the thirtieth day of June next, and that on said Friday between the hours of ten in the forenoon and four in the afternoon he be taken to the place of legal execution in this county and there be hanged by the neck until his body be dead and may God have mercy on his soul.