The Last Trial

The law is humanity’s sanctuary, where we retreat from unreason. And humans need the law, because they need to believe there is some justice to their interactions, a justice that God or Fate or the Universe, call it what you like, will never provide on their own.

Sandy, I believe in this medication. But I also believe in you. You know, we describe treatment response as a bell curve. At the far end, there are always patients who exceed expectations. Why? Will alone cannot subdue disease, Sandy. But wanting to live and having a reason to do so—every oncologist will tell you that it matters, even though no one can tell you why.

He has developed an aesthete's appreciation for the knavishness, the guile, the selfish cleverness of so many of his clients, appreciating human misbehavior for its miserable creativity. In almost every criminal case, there is a moment that combines inspired imagination with sheer audacity in a way that leaves Stern gasping, and full of perverse admiration for conduct he knows he would never have the courage to attempt.

Treatment for malignancies had become only a little better than the tortures of a CIA black site. Chemotherapy, unbearable nausea, surgery, disfigurement. His heart went out to Helen, who, being brave and loyal, would have to put up with all of this. He wanted to encourage her to treat him like a Spartan elder and drop him on a mountainside. Yet perhaps the worst part of all was facing the fact that he was not courageous enough to do that willingly. Like most humans, he would struggle to go on, beg for his life as it were.

Should the real jury return the same verdicts as the mock groups, Stern has recognized in cold instants alone that Kiril is likely to die in prison. And yet his mind has returned time and again to that first meeting in his office, when Kiril hugged Stern and, with tears brimming in his murky gray eyes, declared that he did not do as the prosecutors claimed. Whatever the lessons of logic and experience, a rush of hope, like a spring rising through the earth, had saturated Stern’s heart. He responded as habit and professional detachment had long taught him not to. Nonetheless, in the instant, he meant each word. Stern had told Kiril, ‘I believe you.

Winning is like sex—the spirit inevitably craves the next occasion.

Some speak of the nobility of the law. Stern has not always found that to be true. Too much of the grubby bone shop, the odor of the abattoir, emanates from every criminal courtroom. It is at heart a very nasty business to accuse, to judge, to punish. But the law, at least, seeks to govern misfortune, to ensure that a society’s wrath is not visited at random. In human affairs, reason will never fully triumph; but there is no better cause to champion. At

Donne had declared that no person is an island. He had it exactly wrong. We all are.

Laughter, it turns out, is the soul of liberty.

Science is where the truth is in our world,’ she said that night in the office. ‘What once belonged to religion or philosophy is now the business of science.

Democracy and the rule of law are much more fragile than most Americans realize.

Justice is good in its own right and makes life among other people more dependable. Yet Stern accepted long ago that even perfect justice will not change who we are. The law is erected on many fictions and perhaps the falsest one of all is that humans, in the end, are rational. Without doubt, our life--so far as we can tell--is one of cause and effect. That is what science depends on. But our most intimate decisions are rarely based on the kinds of calculations of pluses and minuses Jeremy Bentham, or the free-market economists for that matter, have wanted to believe in. We are fundamentally emotional creatures. In the most consequential matters, we answer faithfully to the heart's cry, not the law's.

Hope, that blind songbird. It flies through the bleakest skies.

That is one of the tragedies of aging, appreciating how many good and interesting people have passed by unknown.

In the last two decades, Stern and Helen had their share of friends relocate to Florida to escape state income and inheritance taxes up north. As far as Stern is concerned, no amount of money is worth the change. With swamps and alligators inland, and the gated communities and shopping malls in the traffic-clotted towns along the coasts, the state seems to Stern like a giant penal colony for America's elderly, where the residents--like characters in a famous play--have all been blinded by the sun and do not realize they are actually in hell.

I stole several glances at the jury,” Pafko says about the opening, “and they could not take their eyes from you.” Stern tempers his pleasure in his client’s compliments with the knowledge that Kiril has never abandoned the Argentinian way and frequently brings forth a river of fulsome bullshit.

once belonged to religion or philosophy is now the business of science. That’s where we’ll learn what’s really unknown about being here on Earth.

[Marta Stern to her father Sandy:] “Science is where the truth is in our world,” she said that night in the office. “What once belonged to religion or philosophy is now the business of science. That’s where we’ll learn what’s really unknown about being here on Earth.

education, she had neither the

Dr. Pafko said ‘I did some things to solve the problem’?” This,

question on cross-examination to which they don’t know the answer, but Stern’s instinct is that there is an opportunity for the defense