Anonymous Tip: To Appeal or Not To Appeal

A Review Series of Anonymous Tip, by Michael Farris

Pp. 174-178

Today we return to Donna, who is (not surprisingly) summoned to her boss’s office. Because we initially only knew Gerald Blackburn as Blackburn—because Farris wanted to hide his first name for us so that he could use it during his covert meeting with Dr. McGuire without us knowing who he was talking about initially—we’re going to keep calling him that.

Corliss knocked on his door.

“Come in, Corliss,” a stiff voice called from behind the door.

Blackburn was away from his desk closing the shades. It was a habit he had developed whenever he discussed a Code B file in the office.

It is not at all abnormal for Blackburn to meet with one of his department’s social workers in his office. It is, however, a bit abnormal to randomly pull the shades for 15 minutes during a meeting and then reopen them again. Who exactly is he worried will see him? Need I repeat that it’s perfectly normal for him to speak with one of his department’s social workers in his office? We’ll have to chalk this up with Blackburn being a very incompetent villain—if you remember, he met Dr. McGuire at a bar where he and the psychologist (and their cars) were conspicuously out of place. Blackburn appears to have learned everything he knows about villains from the movies.

Anyway, Blackburn is understandably upset with Donna for losing the case. “You know we have never lost a Code B case before,” he tells her coldly. Donna is visibly nervous—okay, okay, so Farris tells us she’s nervous—and suggests an appeal. Blackburn worries that an appeal would bring more scrutiny, but Donna insists that the record is clean. “There wasn’t a hint of any of our activities brought out in court,” she assures him. She pushes him for an appeal, and pushes hard.

Blackburn tells Donna that there will be “no more talk of an appeal” until she completes two assignments. First, she is to go to the clerk’s office and carefully read through the file McGuire faxed to the court to ensure that there is no mention of the bribe or their arrangement. Second, she is to go speak with Gail about what she thinks of an appeal. Blackburn emphasizes that he and he alone can make a decision to appeal. Donna tells Blackburn that she will get right on it and get back to him immediately.

Corliss went directly to her state car and drove to the courthouse.

Is it typical for social workers to drive a state car? I’m honestly curious. I’m also curious why Farris felt the need to mention that Donna’s car was a “state car.” It’s likely that he wants to emphasize that Donna is one of those big bad government workers suckling on the taxpayers’ teat.

The clerk is surprised when Donna arrives and asks for the Landis file. He notes that since Peter won, it should be up to him to “prepare the findings of fact and order of dismissal,” but Donna manages to lie her way in. She’s not allowed to take the file out of the room, though, because she’s not an attorney, so she sits at a table and spends about forty-five minutes looking things over.

She actually handled every document in the file, but kept going back to the McGuire exhibit. She didn’t want to be conspicuous in case the clerk was watching.

Because the clerk is totally going to notice what section of the file she’s looking at. Do McGuire’s faxed papers stand out from the rest of the file that much?

Anyway, Donna doesn’t find any mention of the arrangement, but she has trouble reading some of McGuire’s file because of his liberal use of abbreviations. “It appeared to be a kind of short-hand McGuire used to detail regular items he encountered in an interview,” Farris tells us. This really isn’t surprising. Donna eventually gets up and asks the clerk if she can copy the two exhibits—i.e., Dr. McGuire’s file and the photo Casey drew for Dr. Schram’s intern. “We appear to have everything on file except for these two,” Donna says. “Always like to keep complete records, you know.” We really are laying it on thick with the conspiracy here, aren’t we?

The clerk tells Donna that making the copies will cost twenty-five cents a page unless he has Gail copy them instead, because for attorneys it’s free. Donna doesn’t want Gail asking why she’s interested in those exhibits, so she quickly offers to pay the copying fee rather than wait for Gail. And suddenly it feels like this is all getting rather boring.

Corliss paid the clerk $3.75 and made a bee-line for Gail Willet’s office across the courthouse compound, taking care to stash the exhibits inside her leather portfolio.

Because there’s nothing more out of place than a person walking across a courthouse with papers in her hand, am I right? To be fair, Farris is probably simply trying to remind us that Donna doesn’t want Gail knowing she was making the copies.

Corliss opened the door and leaned in to be recognized.

“Oh, Ms. Corliss, come in. What’s up? Another sure-fire winner for me?” The sarcasm in her voice was unmistakable.

And of course she’s upset. She doesn’t know, remember, that the evidence regarding bruises was faked. She only knows that she lost, and that Donna’s inconsistent story played a role in that loss. Donna says she just has some follow-up questions, and starts by telling Gail that she is “one of the best prosecutors our department has ever worked with.” Gail isn’t interested, because she still lost—as she reminds Donna. But then they finally get down to business.

“Why did you come to see me today? I’m sure it wasn’t to tell me how wonderful I am.”

“OK, I’ll get to the point. My supervisor wants your opinion on an appeal.”

“Appeal! Are you serious? For what?”

“Well, we lost, and we think we should have won.”

“But the case turned on purely factual issues, and that is a pretty slim ground for any appeal.”

Two weeks ago, when Judge Romer released his decision, I asked the lawyers in my readership whether they saw any grounds for appeal. The answer was a uniform no. So far, Gail appears to agree. But Donna is not ready to give up!

“What about the judge’s ruling letting that homemaker parading as a psychologist testify? Isn’t that a legal issue?”

“Well, perhaps. But it is extraordinarily weak.”

“What about the issue of letting that police officer testify he thought there were no bruises because I supposedly said I would close the case if she would cooperate? Isn’t that hearsay or something?”

“No. It’s not hearsay—at least not the kind of hearsay we can object to. But,” Willet continued as she turned to stare at the wall, ” . . . it was pure speculation. And I did object. And that’s what the judge appeared to rely on most of all. Maybe you’ve got something there.”

And so the tides turn. Of course, Gail doesn’t give in as easy as that—she says she needs a few days to think about it, and Donna hastily reminds her that she didn’t say for sure that they want to appeal, that that’s up to her supervisor and she’s only there for Gail’s opinion. “As for me, I don’t like setting a precedent of judges disbelieving our testimony,” Donna notes. But that sets Gail off, because she remembers why the judge didn’t believe their testimony.

“You and Ms. Coballo gave completely different versions of the location of the bruises. I tried to cover the best I could. And why no pictures? What’s the deal with that?”

Corliss tried to not react. But her neck turned crimson involuntarily. She hoped Willet did not notice.

“Oh, I don’t know. This Landis chick called us a bunch of vile names. And her unruly child was in hysterics when we just tried to do a routine exam for bruises. I guess we just got distracted. I know the bruises were there. You can count on that.”

Somehow, Gail accepts that, which is weird, because surely she remembers that Rita stated in court that they had forgotten to bring the camera. Also, as much as I find Gwen troubling, I can’t get on Donna’s side not only because of the whole conspiracy thing, but also because she doesn’t appear to actually care about children. And that’s interesting, because I suspect it says something about how Farris thinks social workers view children. And that’s unfortunate.

I would find Gail’s willingness to consider an appeal out of character, except that Farris notes that “she was sure that she would like to get revenge sooner than later on Peter Barron, Esq.” and that “In her humble opinion, she was the best appellate lawyer on child abuse in the state—and she wasn’t far from wrong.” In other words, the idea of an appeal is appealing to Gail’s fondness for a challenging and interesting case—and her desire to best Peter. And I suppose that is rather in character.

Donna and Gail part ways on the understanding that Donna will check in with Gail early the next week, after Gail has had a few days to think on their prospects.

And next week we turn to Peter and Aaron’s weekly Bible study.