A Time to Kill

The council talked of ways to raise more money. It was not easy getting money from poor people, but the issue was hot and the time was right, and if they didn’t raise it now it would not be raised. They agreed to meet the following day at the Springdale Church in Clanton. The NAACP people were expected in town by morning. No press; it was to be a work session.

Norman Reinfeld was a thirty-year-old genius in criminal law who held the record for finishing Harvard’s law school at the age of twenty-one, and after graduation declined a most generous offer to join his father and grandfather’s prestigious Wall Street law factory, opting instead to take a job with the NAACP and spend his time fighting furiously to keep Southern blacks off death row. He was very good at what he did although, through no fault of his own, he was not very successful at what he did. Most Southern blacks along with most Southern whites who faced the gas chamber deserved the gas chamber. But Reinfeld and his team of capital murder defense specialists won more than their

share, and even in the ones they lost they usually managed to keep the convicts alive through a myriad of exhausting delays and appeals. Four of his former clients had either been gassed, electrocuted, or lethally injected, and that was four too many for Reinfeld. He had watched them all die, and with each execution he renewed his vow to break any law, violate any ethic, contempt any court, disrespect any judge, ignore any mandate, or do whatever it took to prevent a human from legally killing another human. He didn’t worry much about the illegal killings of humans, such as those killings so artfully and cruelly achieved by his clients. It wasn’t his business to think about those killings, so he didn’t. Instead he vented his righteous and sanctimonious anger and zeal at the legal killings.

He seldom slept more than three hours a night. Sleep was difficult with thirty-one clients on death row. Plus seventeen clients awaiting trial. Plus eight egotistical attorneys to supervise. He was thirty and looked forty-five. He was old, abrasive, and ill-tempered. In the normal course of his business, he would have been much too busy to attend a gathering of local black ministers in Clanton, Mississippi. But this was not the normal case. This was Hailey. The vigilante. The father driven to revenge. The most famous criminal case in the country at the moment. This was Mississippi, where for years whites shot blacks for any reason or no reason and no one cared; where whites raped blacks and it was considered sport; where blacks were hanged for fighting back. And now a black father had killed two white men who raped his daughter, and faced the gas chamber for something that thirty years earlier would have gone unnoticed had he been white. This was the case, his case, and he would handle it personally.

On Monday he was introduced to the council by Reverend Agee, who opened the meeting with a lengthy and detailed review of the activities in Ford County. Reinfeld was brief. He and his team could not represent Mr. Hailey because he had not been hired by Mr. Hailey, so a meeting was imperative. Today, preferably. Tomorrow morning at the latest, because he had a flight out of Memphis at noon. He was needed in a murder trial somewhere in Georgia. Reverend Agee promised to arrange a meeting with the defendant as

soon as possible. He was friends with the sheriff. Fine, said Reinfeld, just get it done.

"How much money have you raised?" Reinfeld asked.

"Fifteen thousand from you folks," Agee answered.

"I know that. How much locally?"

"Six thousand," Agee said proudly.

"Six thousand!" repeated Reinfeld. "Is that all? I thought you people were organized. Where’s all this great local support you were talking about? Six thousand! How much more can you raise? We’ve only got three weeks."

The council members were silent. This Jew had a lot of nerve. The only white man in the group and he was on the attack.

"How much do we need?" asked Agee.

"That depends, Reverend, on how good a defense you want for Mr. Hailey. I’ve only got eight other attorneys on my staff. Five are in trial at this very moment. We’ve got thirty-one capital murder convictions at various stages of appeal. We’ve got seventeen trials scheduled in ten states over the next five months. We get ten requests each week to represent defendants, eight of which we turn down because we simply don’t have the staff or the money. For Mr. Hailey, fifteen thousand has been contributed by two local chapters and the home office. Now you tell me that only six thousand has been raised locally. That’s twenty-one thousand. Fpr that amount you’ll get the best defense we can afford. Two attorneys, at least one psychiatrist, but nothing fancy. Twenty-one thousand gets a good defense, but not what I had in mind."

"What exactly did you have in mind?"

"A first-class defense. Three or four attorneys. A battery of psychiatrists. Half dozen investigators. A jury psychologist, just to name a few. This is not your run-of-the-mill murder case. I want to win. I was led to believe that you folks wanted to win."

"How much?" asked Agee.

"Fifty thousand, minimum. A hundred thousand would be nice."

"Look, Mr. Reinfeld, you’re in Mississippi. Our people are poor. They’ve given generously so far, but there’s no way we can raise another thirty thousand here."

Reinfeld adjusted his horn-rimmed glasses and

scratched his graying beard. "How much more can you raise?"

"Another five thousand, maybe."

"That’s not much money."

"Not to you, but it is to the black folk of Ford County."

Reinfeld studied the floor and continued stroking his beard. "How much has the Memphis chapter given?"

"Five thousand," answered someone from Memphis.

"Atlanta?"

"Five thousand."

"How about the state chapter?"

"Which state?"

"Mississippi."

"None."

"None?"

"None."

"Why not?"

"Ask him," Agee said, pointing at Reverend Henry Hillman, the state director.

"Uh, we tryin’ to raise some money now," Hillman said weakly. "But-"

"How much have you raised so far?" asked Agee.

"Well, uh, we got-"

"Nothin’, right? You ain’t raised nothin’, have you, Hillman?" Agee said loudly.

"Come on, Hillman, tell us how much you raised," chimed in Reverend Roosevelt, vice-chairman of the council.

Hillman was dumbfounded and speechless. He had been sitting quietly on the front pew minding his own business, half asleep. Suddenly he was under attack.

"The state chapter will contribute."

"Sure you will, Hillman. You folks at state are constantly badgerin’ us locals to contribute here and donate there for this cause and that cause, and we never see any of the money. You always cryin’ about bein’ so broke, and we’re always sendin’ money to state. But when we need help, state don’t do a thing but show up here and talk."

"That’s not true."

"Don’t start lyin’, Hillman."

Reinfeld was embarrassed and immediately aware that

a nerve had been touched. "Gentlemen, gentlemen, let’s move on," he said diplomatically.

"Good idea," Hillman said.

"When can we meet with Mr. Hailey?" Reinfeld asked.

"I’ll arrange a meetin’ for in the mornin’," Agee said.

"Where can we meet?"

"I suggest we meet in Sheriff Walls’ office in the jail. He’s black, you know, the only black sheriff in Mississippi."

"Yes, I’ve heard."