CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“May it please the Court,” Larry began, “After a formal request from the state of Virginia, the United States has requested that my client, Lucy Atreides, be renditioned to Virginia, where, until three months ago, she was living. The government has the duty to rendition the defendant, they contend, under the 20__ Fetal Protection Act. For them to succeed, they must prove that my client left the state of Virginia, where all abortions are illegal, to go to Maryland, where abortions in the first three months of pregnancy are allowed, in order to obtain an abortion.”
“We respectfully submit, your honor, that the United States cannot bear its burden of proof. My client will testify that she had a menstrual period two weeks before she left Virginia. She will further testify that her only sexual activity after that time and before her departure for Maryland must have occurred when she was raped during her attempt to leave. Defendant has cooperated with the authorities in providing blood for a DNA test to establish the paternity of the fetus during discovery last week. None of the records of felons kept by the State of Virginia produced a match. Defendant has allowed the federal government to administer an ultrasound test to her, now six weeks after she first tested positive for pregnancy. The ultrasound is not able to pinpoint the date of conception more than seven days plus or minus and therefore cannot prove that defendant was pregnant more than two weeks before she left Virginia. It could have been two weeks; it could have been one day. Early ultrasounds are not capable of greater accuracy than that. Unless the United States can produce a sexual partner to testify that he had unprotected sex with the defendant more than ten days before she left for Maryland, her testimony that she did not stands, unrebutted. This case should be dismissed and my client released to pursue her life in freedom here in the great state of Maryland.”
Larry sounded so great, just adding up the points for her case. Lucy was so glad she had someone so brilliant and reasonable on her side.
“Mr. Erickson?” the Commissioner asked. “Do you have an opening statement?”
“May it please the Court,” Erickson’s confident baritone filled the courtroom. Although Picard had closed the courtroom to all media, Erickson always sounded like he was on stage. “The Defendant is, incontestably, pregnant. She was seen entering an abortion facility two weeks ago, one month after she arrived in the state. The ultrasound we have performed shows that she very probably was pregnant and would have tested pregnant with a simple urine strip before she snuck out of her mother’s home in the dead of night to go to a state where killing her baby is legal. Circumstantial evidence is evidence. The United States will place this evidence before this Court and ask that this court order Defendant be rendered forthwith to Richmond Virginia in the custody of her mother and stepfather, Clarissa and Arthur Atreides.
Our evidence is scientific and documentary your honor. We hereby tender to you copies of Defendant’s pregnancy test, a videotape of her entering the Planned Parenthood facility in Baltimore, Maryland, and a copy of her ultrasound test from the prison medical facility.”
“Mr. Glass, any objection?” the commissioner asked.
“No, your honor.”
“The government rests,” Erickson submitted.
“The defense,” Larry said, “moves for dismissal of the rendition. The government’s case does not meet the standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.”
That’s right! Lucy thought. Picard could do nothing but let her go now.
Erickson rose immediately. “Your honor, counsel for the defense, new to such proceedings, misstates the government’s burden of proof. This is not a criminal case. If rendered, defendant will be returned to the bosom of her family, not to prison or the firing squad. Although these rendition proceedings are not recorded formally, several other commissioners have ruled that the government only needs to prove by a preponderance of the evidence – little more than half, so to speak – a violation of the fetal act. I have affidavits from the lawyers in those cases, if your honor . . .
“That won’t be necessary Mr. Erickson,” Picart interrupted, “I’m sure your colleagues have accurately reported the rules for such proceedings. In any event, the defendant’s motion is denied,” Picart ruled. “Absent any testimony from the defense, I have no reason to doubt the government’s theory that defendant seeking an abortion is the only explanation for the facts I have before me at the moment. Call your first witness, Mr. Glass.”
Even though Larry – and Kelly and Josh – had warned her about the Commissioner, Lucy was still crushed. Larry so clearly had the better argument. Picard looked like a judge. He wore a robe, they stood when he entered. Lucy had let herself believe for a moment that reason might work. But he was acting like, well, the “tool” Erickson had boasted about.
“Lucy Atreides.”
Lucy swore to tell the whole truth.
“Ms. Atreides,” Larry began, “when did you have your last menstrual period?”
And Lucy told the men assembled in the secret federal courthouse where they had moved the trial after the hospital riot when she had had her last period. And how she had decided to run away in order to finish her schooling. She left out the part about her brother. He hadn’t helped her, but he was still bringing her mother the medicine from Baltimore, and that was all that counted. She just testified that she went to the Student Union and waited for a Guide. She figured they must have changed their pattern weeks ago when the news of her arrest and rendition reached them, so she wasn’t that worried about them being caught. She told them about the ferals and how they tried to rape her and waking up in a dark house somewhere.
“Your witness Mr. Erickson,” Larry said.
“Ms. Atreides,” Erickson began, “were you a virgin when you ran away from your mother’s house two months ago?”
“No.”
“Who was your first sexual partner?”
Lucy could not believe she was going to have to do this.
“Objection, relevance,” Larry intervened.
Picart looked at Erickson as if for guidance.
“The only relevant sexual partners,” Larry explained, are the ones from the last two months. She is certainly not more than two months pregnant, at the outer limits of the ultrasound.”
“Rephrase the question,” Picart told Erickson reluctantly.
Whew, Lucy thought.
“Who have you had sex with in the last two months?” Erickson asked.
“I told you about the ferals in the garage,” she answered. She didn’t want to tell an outright lie. Not that she cared what they thought. But keeping Arthur’s secret was the only weapon she had to protect her mom. He had been pretty clear about what he would do to her if Lucy said a word.
“you didn’t go to the police after the rape did you?” he asked.
“No. They knocked me out and when I woke up I was at the Guide’s house,” she answered.
“You didn’t tell us if you had a rape test after the garage. Did you?”
“No of course not.” Was he an idiot? Keep your tone respectful, Kelly had told her. No matter what he does, don’t let him get to you.
“In fact no doctor of any kind ever examined you for any signs of rape, right?”
“Right.”
“No one examined you at all, right?”
“Right.”
A Marshal emerged from behind the bench and whispered in the Commissioner’s ear for several minutes.
The Commissioner looked at his watch. “This might be a good time for lunch,” he suggested. “Stay in the building. The marshals brought sandwiches and stuff. Defendants in Room 100. Government can have 101. Marshal, don’t let her out of the lunchroom except to go to the bathroom. She’s a little unpredictable for my taste. And we may be moving the hearing to yet another location after we break. Lawyers, you should stay in touch with your offices. We seem to have attracted a crowd. If I find out that anyone on either team leaked our location . . . “
They could hear the noise as soon as they opened the door at the back of the courtroom, but the marshals hustled them into the windowless conference room. Larry took out his phone. Wordlessly he turned the picture to the group. The sidewalk around the temporary courthouse building was packed with women. Naked to the waist, with pink scarves around their necks and red stripes plastered down their backs. “We are Lucy,” they were chanting. “Lucy! Lucy!” The media were running from their vans, holding cameras in front of them, elbowing each other aside.
“It is widely believed that the rendition trial of Lucy Atreides was moved to this remote office building in suburban Baltimore in an effort to avoid the demonstrations,” a newscaster reported from Larry’s phone screen,” but The ‘Lucies’” as the women are calling themselves, somehow found out where the trial was going to be held.
“Protesters,” he continued, “have been showing up in many places besides where Lucy, the Virginia runaway, is being tried.” A picture of Fifth Avenue appeared on the screen. “At a recent Pride Parade,” the commentator announced, “marchers wore scarves of Lucy’s uniform pink. Several recipients of this year’s TONY awards sported similar symbols. We haven’t seen anything like this since the AIDS ribbons decades ago. When Governor Gifford left the mansion in Albany yesterday a demonstrator ran up the steps and before the State Police could bring her down, presented the governor with a scarf. ‘Save Us Sylvia,’ she shouted. The video is already viral. They’re selling pink Save Us Sylvia T shirts on the internet.”
“Gosh,” Lucy said to Larry and the others. “Sylvia Giffords. Fifth Avenue. How did this happen?”
The news announcer picked up again. “The Blue State Governors Convention starts in Chicago next week. The Rescue movement was already organizing busloads of protesters to demonstrate against the renditions of women to the Red States. After San Francisco declared itself a sanctuary city for any Red State refugees, California’s Governor Fitzpatrick Grant announced that he will not allow any renditions from California at all. ‘If the federal government wants to send women back to the Red States,’ he announced, ‘they will apply to California for extradition and we will hold a trial in our own courts with all available defenses that any refugee seeking asylum can make, including human rights abuses. There will be no more Federal Rendition proceedings in California.’ It is widely believed he will demand his fellow blue state executives sign a similar pledge.”
“That’s why, Lucy,” Kelly said. “It’s been coming for a year at least. The blue states are starting to defy the feds. They’re mobilizing the state national guards. The feds have the nukes, but the skirmishes are coming faster and faster. You were in Virginia and I bet they didn’t talk much about it. But you walked right into it. Lucy, in a way we’ve all been waiting for you.”
Lucy could practically touch the elephant in the room: what Kelly knew. It would be so helpful to the movement. But it would kill Lucy’s Mom.
“Kids,” Larry said soberly, “We still have a trial here to win. Nothing that happens in Chicago is going to help Lucy if she’s locked up in her stepfather’s house in Richmond being force fed maternity vitamins. Lucy, he’s going to ask you if you had sex with someone else in the last two months. If you say no and they can produce a witness, they’ll indict you for perjury. If you say yes, that will just push them over the line to enough evidence to rendition you. They won’t have to produce someone. You will have made the case against yourself with your own words.”
“I get it,” Lucy said, looking at Kelly. Would she tell on Lucy? “I’m ready.”
The noise was, if anything, louder as they filed back into the makeshift courtroom.
“We are not going to allow those hooligans to interfere with our process,” Commissioner Picart announced at the beginning of the afternoon session. “I have two vans waiting in the garage and I have ordered the marshals not to let any protesters leave the premises until we are well on our way to another location. When we are done for the day, we will bring you back here to pick up your own cars. I don’t know how the protesters found us, but if they show up at the next venue, I am going to put all the defense lawyers in jail for contempt for as long as I have the power to put you there and assign a federal defender to represent your clients. I have asked the federal marshals to request reinforcements from Washington. We will bring in the U.S. Army if necessary. This is a court of law and the law will be enforced.”
When they filed into the Cos Cob County Courthouse, there was no one else in sight.
“Ms. Atreides,” Commissioner Picart said, “I will remind you that you are still under oath.”
“So,” Erickson resumed, quite as if nothing had happened since they broke for lunch, “Who else, Ms. Atreides, have you had sex with in the two months before you left Virginia?”