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“We’d be abdicating control over the situation,” Thomas Lonesco said.
“Yes,” I confirmed.
Martha turned to Barabas. “If we do this, what are her chances in court?”
Barabas grimaced. “Under Georgia law, and U.S. common law in general, duress or coercion is not a defense to homicide. The idea is that a person should not place their life above the lives of others.”
“Could it be self-defense?” the beta of Clan Nimble asked.
“No,” Barabas said. “Self-defense, by definition, is only applicable against the aggressor. Mulradin wasn’t an aggressor, he was a victim. To impose any kind of criminal liability, one has to prove both actus reus, the guilty act, and the mens rea, the guilty mind. Dorie committed the act, and if she denied it, there is videotaped evidence. That gives us the actus reus. Even if everyone believes her defense, that she had to choose between her life and Mulradin’s, the fact is, she made that choice, which means she meant to kill him. We now have both ingredients for a speedy conviction.”
“So the death penalty?” the Jackal alpha asked.
“Not necessarily. The big question is what will the DA want to do with this. If this is malicious homicide, and they would be fools not to charge her with that, we have to fight the death penalty. We can try to negotiate it down to voluntary homicide, which is a pointless battle unless we have something to trade. It’s possible they hate d’Ambray and will want her testimony if they manage to apprehend him and charge him. It’s also possible that they don’t want to take d’Ambray on and they would rather bury Dorie six feet under. Can we use it to our advantage? It depends on who’s in charge of the prosecution. An election is coming up. Do they want to plead it out quietly or do they want to make it an election issue? If we do go to trial, can we poke holes in their evidence? We don’t even know what the evidence is at this point, but the video will be difficult to circumvent. Dorie herself will be difficult. She is an unlikable defendant: she is a prostitute who engaged in bestiality with a married man.”
“I’d think the married man would be more unlikable,” Andrea growled.
“And you would be right, but he isn’t on trial. We can put him on trial, but it’s always a gamble. Who is the judge? Who are the jurors? Will attacking the victim predispose them to hate our client? Dorie is a shapeshifter,” Barabas continued. “The general public views her as being prone to violence.”
“Can you just give us a straight answer?” Jim growled.
Barabas pointed at Jim. “See? Prone to violence. And no, I can’t. You gave me a client who committed a murder under duress and who will likely have to confess to it to satisfy the People and asked me a question about her chances. I’m answering.”
My head was beginning to hurt. “Could you give us the idiot version, then?”
Barabas held up his hand. “Possible outcomes in order of most likely first.” He bent one finger. “One, conviction for malicious homicide, life in prison without possibility of parole or death penalty before a judge or jury. Two!” He bent his second finger. “Conviction for the lesser offense of voluntary manslaughter in front of a judge or jury. Three, a plea deal for a negotiated sentence or possibly immunity depending on how much they want to get at Hugh d’Ambray. That’s subject to many different factors. Four, acquittal before a judge or a jury based on reasonable doubt. Not bloody likely. Five, jury nullification. That would constitute a Hail Mary pass on our part. Jury nullification is much more rare than people think, and we would have to prove to the jury that Dorie was a victim of some great injustice. Six, we somehow blow holes in the prosecution’s case and get the whole thing dismissed. The likelihood of this last one is difficult to gauge because we don’t even know what evidence the prosecution has. Let me remind all of you that they may not have been notified of Mulradin’s murder.”
Silence claimed the table.
“If we go to the State with this,” Martha said, “they’ll use everything they have to smear all of us. There is a price to be paid here.”
“True,” the male beta of Clan Nimble said.
“We’ll face restrictions again,” the female alpha of Clan Jackal said.
“The alternative is worse,” I said.
“Depends on how you look at it,” Martha said. “No good choices, it’s true.”
I was losing them. My train was rapidly sliding off the rails.
Robert glanced at me and said very carefully. “What is the penalty for Dorie’s actions under Pack law?”
“Death,” Barabas said. “It was a malicious murder. A life for a life applies.”
He was helping me. I grabbed onto the straw. It was a weak straw, but people drowning in quicksand couldn’t be choosers.
“As alphas we have an obligation to our Pack members.” I made a mental note to thank Barabas again for making me learn the Pack laws backward and forward. “We must ensure the overall safety of the Pack and its individual members. Our first priority is the preservation of life.”
“We know, dear,” Martha said. “We’ve read the laws.”
“Barabas, what sentence would Dorie get if we gave her to the People?”
“Death,” he said.
“What if we try her?”
“Death.”
“What will she get if we turn her over to the State?”
“I don’t know,” Barabas said. “I can tell you that we will fight our hardest to keep the death penalty off the table.”
“So it’s a maybe?”
“It’s a maybe.” He nodded.
“Death, death, maybe.” I looked around the Council. “I vote for maybe. Who’s with me?”
Five minutes later the Council filed out of the room. Martha stopped next to me. “Nicely done.”
“Not really,” I said. “Have you heard from Mahon?”
She shook her head. “Don’t worry. They’ll show up.”
I hoped she was right.
At the door Jim spoke to someone and turned to me. “I just got a phone call from the city. The People have emptied the Casino’s stables. They’re coming for us.”
12
I STOOD ON the balcony of the main building, watching the last of the stragglers come in. They glanced at me as they arrived. I was wearing Evdokia’s sweater and doing my best to broadcast confidence. It was ten eighteen. There was no sign of the People yet, but Jim’s scouts reported a large number of vampires moving out of the city in the Keep’s direction. The scouts estimated at least seventy. Navigators had a limited range, which meant that the People’s Masters of the Dead and their journeymen had to be traveling with the undead.
