The 37th Amendment: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

Rocki said helplessly. “Hang on.”
    “No, gotta run,” Ted said. “Thanks for trying.” He clicked the phone off and leaned back in his chair, spreading his hands wide apart and shrugging, half at the screen and half at the sky.
    The quiet chime broke the silence in the office and the concentration of C. Dobson Howe. He pressed a button on the brass panel set into the top of his desk. “Yes?” he asked. His tone was polite but the power of his voice nearly shook the windows.
    “I’m so sorry to interrupt you, Mr. Howe,” the British accent of his assistant floated from unseen speakers. “But there’s a Mr. Jackson on line three and he insists that it’s an emergency.”
    “That’s all right, Casey, I’ll speak to him.” Howe pressed another button on the brass panel. “This is Dobson Howe,” he boomed.
    “Hello, Mr. Howe,” said a casual voice. “This is John Morley Jackson.”
    “Yes, Mr. Jackson, how are you, sir?”
    “Fine, thanks,” Jackson said. He sounded surprised by the polite reception. “I don’t know if you remember me,” Jackson began, “but we met at an ABA conference three years ago. You were speaking about the negative consequences of the 37th Amendment. Do you recall it?”
    “Refresh my memory,” Howe said. “I do remember the conference.”
    “Well, I’m the guy who came up to you afterwards and said it was your fault.”
    Howe frowned. He remembered Jackson now. “Yes,” Howe said, “and as I told you then, I opposed that amendment, I campaigned against that amendment, I did everything in my power to stop that amendment from being ratified. I warned repeatedly that the repeal of the Constitution’s due process clauses would be a mistake that we would all live to regret.”
    “All well and good,” Jackson said, “but it was your campaign for the Equality Amendment that opened the floodgates.”
    Howe was drumming the point of a pencil against a yellow legal pad. The man wasn’t telling him anything he hadn’t thought himself at least ten thousand times. “I must tell you that I reject that view,” Howe said. “The Equality Amendment was an entirely different matter. It cannot be blamed for every crackpot initiative campaign that followed it.”
    “I understand,” Jackson said. “Still, if you hadn’t shown the country that it was possible to organize a successful campaign to amend the Constitution, we’d still have the U.S. Supreme Court to protect us.”
    Howe’s pencil poked a hole three sheets deep into the legal pad. “We still have the Supreme Court, Mr. Jackson,” he said. “It’s the scope of judicial review, not judicial review itself, that has been cut down.”
    “Same thing,” Jackson said.
    “Mr. Jackson, I understood there was some type of emergency.”
    “There sure is,” Jackson said. “I represent Robert Rand.”
    Howe’s pencil froze in mid-thump. “Oh, no,” he said in a soft voice.
    “I see you watched the news this morning.”
    Howe closed his eyes. “You’re going to tell me he’s innocent,” he said.
    “Case of mistaken identity, plain as day.”
    “There’s nothing I can do,” Howe said. The energy drained from his voice as he ran down the list. “The Public Safety Act in California, the federal Ramirez Act, the statutory limitations on habeas corpus. The 37th Amendment says no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property, except by the law of the land. And according to the Supreme Court, that means the intent of the legislature must be upheld wherever it can be clearly demonstrated. If Californians choose to model their criminal justice system on a slaughterhouse, the courts have no authority to stop them. There’s nothing I can do.”
    “The governor will take your call. Justice Margulies will take your call.”
    “Mr. Jackson,” Howe said gently, “This governor is not known for his thoughtful consideration of requests for commuted sentences, to say nothing of pardons. And there’s no need to