The Pelican Brief

There was some extremely light laughter from behind the fourth row, and it came from students who felt obligated to laugh but at the same time did not wish to call attention to themselves.

Sallinger, red-faced, just stared at Callahan.

“Why haven’t you read the case, Mr. Sallinger?” Callahan demanded.

“I don’t know. I, uh, just missed it, I guess.”

Callahan took it well. “I’m not surprised. I mentioned it last week. Last Wednesday, to be exact. It’ll be on the final exam. I don’t understand why you would ignore a case that you’ll see on the final.” Callahan was pacing now, slowly, in front of his desk, staring at the students. “Did anyone bother to read it?”

Silence. Callahan stared at the floor, and allowed the silence to sink in. All eyes were down, all pens and pencils frozen. Smoke billowed from the back row.

Finally, slowly, from the fourth seat on the third row, Darby Shaw lifted her hand slightly, and the class breathed a collective sigh of relief. She had saved them again. It was sort of expected of her. Number two in their class and within striking distance of number one, she could recite the facts and holdings and concurrences and dissents and majority opinions to virtually every case Callahan could spit at them. She missed nothing. The perfect little cheerleader had graduated magna cum laude with a degree in biology, and pla

Callahan stared at her in mock frustration. She had left his apartment three hours earlier after a long night of wine and love. But he had not mentioned Nash to her.

“Well, well, Ms. Shaw. Why is Rosenberg upset?”

“He thinks the New Jersey statute violates the Second Amendment.” She did not look at the professor.

“That’s good. And for the benefit of the rest of the class, what does the statute do?”

“Outlaws semiautomatic machine guns, among other things.”

“Wonderful. And just for fun, what did Mr. Nash possess at the time of his arrest?”

“An AK-47 assault rifle.”

“And what happened to him?”

“He was convicted, sentenced to three years, and appealed.” She knew the details.

“What was Mr. Nash’s occupation?”

“The opinion wasn’t specific, but there was mention of an additional charge of drug trafficking. He had no criminal record at the time of his arrest.”

“So he was a dope pusher with an AK-47. But he has a friend in Rosenberg, doesn’t he?”

“Of course.” She was watching him now. The tension had eased. Most eyes followed him as he paced slowly, looking around the room, selecting another victim. More often than not, Darby dominated these lectures, and Callahan wanted a broader participation.

“Why do you suppose Rosenberg is sympathetic?” he asked the class.

“He loves dope pushers.” It was Sallinger, wounded but trying to rally. Callahan placed a premium on class discussion. He smiled at his prey, as if to welcome him back to the bloodletting.

“You think so, Mr. Sallinger?”

“Sure. Dope pushers, child fondlers, gunru

“And, in your learned opinion, Mr. Sallinger, what should be done with these people?”

“Simple. They should have a fair trial with a good lawyer, then a fair, speedy appeal, then punished if they are guilty.”

Sallinger was perilously close to sounding like a law-and-order right-winger, a cardinal sin among Tulane law students.

Callahan folded his arms. “Please continue.”

Sallinger smelled a trap, but plowed ahead. There was nothing to lose. “I mean, we’ve read case after case where Rosenberg has tried to rewrite the Constitution to create a new loophole to exclude evidence to allow an obviously guilty defendant to go free. It’s almost sickening. He thinks all prisons are cruel and unusual places, so therefore, under the Eighth Amendment, all prisoners should go free. Thankfully, he’s in the minority now, a shrinking minority.”

“You like the direction of the Court, do you, Mr. Sallinger?” Callahan was at once smiling and frowning.

“Damned right I do.”

“Are you one of those normal, red-blooded, patriotic, middle-of-the-road Americans who wish the old bastard would die in his sleep?”

There were a few chuckles around the room. It was safer to laugh now. Sallinger knew better than to answer truthfully. “I wouldn’t wish that on anyone,” he said, almost embarrassed.

Callahan was pacing again. “Well, thank you, Mr. Sallinger. I always enjoy your comments. You have, as usual, provided us with the layman’s view of the law.”

The laughter was much louder. Sallinger’s cheeks flushed and he sank in his seat.

Callahan did not smile. “I would like to raise the intellectual level of this discussion, okay? Now, Ms. Shaw, why is Rosenberg sympathetic to Nash?”

“The Second Amendment grants the people the right to keep and bear arms. To Justice Rosenberg, it is literal and absolute. Nothing should be ba

“Do you agree with him?”

“No, and I’m not alone. It’s an eight-to-one decision. No one followed him.”

“What’s the rationale of the other eight?”

“It’s obvious, really. The states have compelling reasons to prohibit the sale and possession of certain types of arms. The interests of the state of New Jersey outweigh the Second Amendment rights of Mr. Nash. Society ca

Callahan watched her carefully. Attractive female law students were rare at Tulane, but when he found one he moved in quickly. Over the past eight years, he had been quite successful. Easy work, for the most part. The women arrived at law school liberated and loose. Darby had been different. He first spotted her in the library during the second semester of her first year, and it took a month to get her to di

“Who wrote the majority opinion?” he asked her.

“Runyan.”

“And you agree with him?”

“Yes. It’s an easy case, really.”

“Then what happened to Rosenberg?”

“I think he hates the rest of the Court.”

“So he dissents just for the hell of it.”

“Often, yes. His opinions are becoming more indefensible. Take Nash. For a liberal like Rosenberg, the issue of gun control is easy. He should have written the majority opinion, and ten years ago he would have. In Fordice v. Oregon, a 1977 case, he took a much narrower interpretation of the Second Amendment. His inconsistencies are almost embarrassing.”

Callahan had forgotten Fordice. “Are you suggesting Justice Rosenberg is senile?”

Much like a punch-drunk fighter, Sallinger waded in for the final round. “He’s crazy as hell, and you know it. You can’t defend his opinions.”

“Not always, Mr. Sallinger, but at least he’s still there.”

“His body’s there, but he’s brain-dead.”

“He’s breathing, Mr. Sallinger.”

“Yeah, breathing with a machine. They have to pump oxygen up his nose.”

“But it counts, Mr. Sallinger. He’s the last of the great judicial activists, and he’s still breathing.”

“You’d better call and check,” Sallinger said as his words trailed off. He’d said enough. No, he’d said too much. He lowered his head as the professor glared at him. He hunkered down next to his notebook, and started wondering why he’d said all that.

Callahan stared him down, then began pacing again. It was indeed a bad hangover.

At least he looked like an old farmer, with straw hat, clean bib overalls, neatly pressed khaki workshirt, boots. He chewed tobacco and spat in the black water beneath the pier. He chewed like a farmer. His pickup, though of recent model, was sufficiently weathered and had a dusty-road look about it. North Carolina plates. It was a hundred yards away, parked in the sand at the other end of the pier.