My college roommate, C. Thomas Cone, was for over 50 years Indiana’s foremost criminal attorney. I’ve been rereading some letters he sent me over the years. In one he says that in the court room, everyone pledges to tell the truth, but everyone lies. He lived to catch a witness or another attorney in a lie. “I love to see them sweat,” he said.
I have been in several court rooms over the years, never as a plaintiff or a defendant, but as a spectator or a witness. Almost always because of my profession, but in retirement, because I was a CASA volunteer, Court Appointed Special Advocate for children in the judicial system. Most often, it’s a child custody case, but sometimes the child itself is caught in the legal machinery. A CASA’s sole role is to think about a child’s best interests, not the parents’ or society’s, and to advise the court accordingly. It’s not an easy task. I was always sweating in the court room as a CASA for fear I’d get it wrong.
When I was in a court room, I always thought about my roommate, Tom, and I was glad he was not the attorney grilling me. I was able to make myself sweat without his help. I was always afraid that I would make some misstep that would cause a malfeasance of justice. I was afraid I’d be caught in a lie even when I was trying to tell the truth.
We lie, mostly, either to make ourselves look better than we are, or to get out of trouble. But I’ve never been good at lying. It wasn’t that I was more moral than anyone else. I just couldn’t stand the guilt. When I explained that I had not gone down to Washington Street, my mother would just stare at me until I said, “That’s a lie.” It got to the place that I said “That’s a lie” almost before I had finished the lie.
My most sweaty time in a court room was a trial in which I was only a spectator, a trial of a man for murdering his girlfriend and their unborn child. Hard to get into sweat trouble when you’re only a spectator, right? Not with my conscience!
I had not been present for jury selection, waiting to attend until the day arguments began. To my chagrin, when the jury marched in, there was one of my church members, who was also a good friend. Helen and I had spent a lot of social time with her and her husband. That in itself would have been fine; I’m in favor of church members doing civic duties. But I was the only person in that court room who knew for sure that Charles was guilty, because he had confessed this to me in the jail. I thought, “What if Janet can see in my face what I know?” I wanted the jury to find Charles guilty, even though I was sympathetic with him, because he was guilty, but I did not think they should do it because Janet could see in my eyes what I knew. Ridiculous, of course, but a court room can do that to you. or at least, it always did to me. It makes you sweat.
I think Tom loved to see people sweat when he caught them in a lie not because he was mean-spirited, but the opposite. He loved the truth.
I like to think I always tried to be honest because I love the truth, too. But that would be one of those lies to make us look better than we are. I liked the truth because I didn’t like to sweat. At least, not in a court room. That’s not a lie.
John Robert McFarland
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