Sycamore Row

“It might be argued that a man planning his own suicide cannot be of sound mind. You gotta be crazy to kill yourself, right? Not always. Not necessarily. As jurors you are expected to rely on your own experiences in life. Perhaps you’ve known someone, a close friend or even a family member, who came to the end of the road and chose his or her own final exit. Were they out of their minds? Perhaps, but probably not. Seth certainly was not. He knew exactly what he was doing. He’d battled lung cancer for a year, with several rounds of chemotherapy and radiation, all unsuccessful, and the tumors had finally metastasized to his ribs and spine. He was in terrible pain. At his last visit to his doctor he was given less than a month to live. When you read what he wrote the day before he died, you’ll be convinced that Seth Hubbard was in complete control of his life.”



As a prop, Jake was holding a legal pad but he wasn’t using it. He didn’t need it. He walked back and forth before the jurors, making eye contact with every one of them, speaking slowly and clearly as if they were sitting in his den and chatting about their favorite movies. But every word was written somewhere. Every sentence had been rehearsed. Every pause was calculated. The timing, cadence, rhythm—all memorized to near perfection.



Even the busiest of trial lawyers spend only a fraction of their time in front of juries. These moments were rare, and Jake relished them. He was an actor on a stage, in the midst of a monologue he created, speaking words of wisdom to his chosen audience. His pulse was spiking; his stomach was flipping; his knees were weak. But those internal battles were all under control and Jake calmly lectured his new friends.



Five minutes in, and he had not missed a word. Five minutes to go, with the roughest part just ahead.



“Now, ladies and gentlemen, there is an unpleasant part of this story, and that’s why we’re all here. Seth Hubbard was survived by a son and a daughter and four grandchildren. In his will, he left them nothing. In language that is plain and clear, but also painful to read, Seth specifically excluded his family from inheriting under his will. The obvious question is, Why? It is our natural tendency to ask, ‘Why would a man do this?’ However, it is not your responsibility to ask that question. Seth did what he did for reasons known only to him. Again, he made the money—it all belonged to him. He could have given every penny to the Red Cross, or to some slick televangelist, or to the Communist Party. That’s his business, not yours, not mine, not this court’s.



“Instead of leaving his money to his family, Seth left 5 percent to his church, 5 percent to a long-lost brother, and the remaining 90 percent was given to a woman by the name of Lettie Lang. Ms. Lang is sitting right here between me and Mr. Lundy. She worked for Seth Hubbard for three years as his housekeeper, his cook, and sometimes his nurse. Again, the obvious question is, Why? Why did Seth cut out his family and leave almost everything to a woman he’d known for such a short period of time? Believe me, ladies and gentlemen, that is the greatest question I’ve ever confronted as a lawyer. That question has been asked by me, by the other lawyers, by the Hubbard family, by Lettie Lang herself, by friends and neighbors, and by virtually everyone in this county who’s heard the story. Why?



“The truth is that we’ll never know. Only Seth knew and he’s no longer with us. The truth, folks, is that it’s none of our business. We—the lawyers, the judge, you the jurors—are not supposed to concern ourselves with why Seth did what he did. Your job, as I’ve said, is to decide only one important issue, and that is simply this: At the time Seth wrote his last will, was he thinking clearly and did he know what he was doing?



“He was, and he did. The evidence will be clear and convincing.”



Jake paused and picked up a glass of water. He took a quick sip, and as he did so he scanned the crowded courtroom. On the second row, Harry Rex stared at him. He nodded quickly. You’re doing fine so far. You have their attention. Wrap it up.



Jake returned to the podium, glanced at his notes, and continued: “Now, with this much money on the line, we can expect things to get somewhat tense over the next few days. The family of Seth Hubbard is contesting the handwritten will, and they are not to be faulted for this. They sincerely believe the money should have been given to them, and they’ve hired a bunch of good lawyers to attack the handwritten will. They claim that Seth lacked testamentary capacity. They claim his judgment was clouded. They claim he was unduly influenced by Lettie Lang. The term ‘undue influence’ is a legal term and will be crucial in this case. They will attempt to convince you that Lettie Lang used her position as a caregiver to become intimate with Seth Hubbard. Intimacy can mean many things. She cared for Seth, at times bathed him, changed his clothes, cleaned up behind him, did all the things that caregivers are supposed to do in those delicate and awful situations. Seth was a dying old man, hit with a debilitating and deadly cancer that left him weak and feeble.”



Jake turned and looked at Wade Lanier and the gang of lawyers at the other table. “They will imply a lot, ladies and gentlemen, but they can prove nothing. There were no physical relations between Seth Hubbard and Lettie Lang. Only hints, and suggestions, and implications, but no proof because it never happened.”



Jake tossed his legal pad on his table and wrapped it up. “This will be a short trial with a lot of witnesses. As in every trial, the issues at times might become confusing. This is often done on purpose by the lawyers, but don’t be led astray. Remember, ladies and gentlemen, it’s not your job to distribute Seth Hubbard’s money. It’s your job to determine if he knew what he was doing when he wrote his last will. Nothing more, nothing less. Thank you.”



At Judge Atlee’s heavy-handed direction, the contestants had agreed to streamline their opening and closing remarks by allowing Wade Lanier to handle them. He strode to the podium in a wrinkled blazer, a tie too short, and a shirttail barely tucked in. The few patches of hair around his ears shot out in all directions. He gave the impression of a scatterbrained plodder who might forget to show up tomorrow. It was all an act to disarm the jury. Jake knew better.



He began with “Thank you, Mr. Brigance. I’ve been trying lawsuits for thirty years, and I’ve yet to meet a young lawyer with as much talent as Jake Brigance. You folks here in Ford County are lucky to have such a fine young lawyer among you. It’s an honor to be here doing battle with him, and also to be in this grand old courtroom.” He paused to look at his notes as Jake stewed over all the fake praise. When he wasn’t in front of a jury, Lanier was smooth and articulate. Now, though, onstage, he was folksy, down-to-earth, and immensely likable.



“Now, this is just an opening statement and nothing I say or nothing Mr. Brigance just said is evidence. The evidence comes from only one place, and that’s this witness chair right here. Lawyers sometimes get carried away and say things they cannot later prove at trial, and they also tend to leave out important facts the jury should know about. For example, Mr. Brigance did not mention the fact that when Seth Hubbard wrote his last will, the only person in the building with him was Lettie Lang. It was a Saturday morning, and she never worked on Saturdays. She went to his house, and from there she drove him in his nice new Cadillac over to his office. He unlocked it. They went in. She says she was there to clean his office, but she had never done this before. They were alone. For some two hours they were alone in the offices of the Berring Lumber Company, Seth Hubbard’s main headquarters. When they arrived there on that Saturday morning, Seth Hubbard had a last will and testament prepared a year earlier by a fine firm of lawyers in Tupelo, lawyers he had trusted for years, and that will gave almost everything to his two adult children and four grandchildren. A typical will. A standard will. A sensible will. The kind of will virtually every American signs at one time or another. Ninety percent of all property that passes through wills passes to the family of the deceased. That’s the way it should be.”



Lanier was now pacing too, his stocky body lumbering back and forth, bowed somewhat at the waist. “But after spending two hours in his office that morning, alone with no one but Lettie Lang, when he left he had another will, one he’d written himself, one cutting out his children and cutting out his grandchildren and leaving 90 percent of his fortune to his housekeeper. Does that sound reasonable, folks? Let’s put things in perspective. Seth Hubbard had been battling cancer for a year—a terrible struggle, a fight he was losing and he knew it. The closest person in the world to Seth Hubbard during his last days on this earth was Lettie Lang. On good days she cooked and cleaned and took care of his house and things, and on bad days she fed him, bathed him, dressed him, cleaned up after him. She knew he was dying—it was no secret. She also knew he was rich, and she also knew his relationship with his adult children was somewhat strained.”



Lanier paused near the witness chair, spread his arms wide in mock disbelief, and asked loudly, “Are we to believe she was not thinking about money? Come on, let’s get realistic here! Ms. Lang will tell you herself that she’d spent her career as a housekeeper, that her husband, Mr. Simeon Lang, who’s now in jail, had a spotty work record and could not be depended on for a paycheck, and that she’d raised five kids under difficult financial circumstances. Life was tough! There had never been a spare dime anywhere. Like a lot of folks, Lettie Lang was broke. She’d always been broke. And as she watched her boss inch closer and closer to death, you know she was thinking about money. It’s human nature. It’s not her fault. I’m not suggesting she was evil or greedy. Who among us would not have been thinking about the money?



“And on that Saturday morning last October, Lettie drove her boss to his office where they were alone for two hours. And while they were alone, one of the greatest fortunes in the history of this state changed hands. Twenty-four million dollars was transferred from the Hubbard family to a housekeeper Seth Hubbard had known for only three years.”



Brilliantly, Lanier paused as his last sentence rattled around the courtroom. Damn he’s good, Jake thought, glancing at the jury as if all was well. Frank Doley was glaring at him with a look that said, “I despise you.”



Lanier lowered his voice and continued: “We will attempt to prove Seth Hubbard was unduly influenced by Ms. Lang. The key to this case is the issue of undue influence, and there are several ways to prove it. One sign of undue influence is the making of a gift that is unusual or unreasonable. The gift Seth Hubbard made to Ms. Lang is grossly, unbelievably unusual and unreasonable. Forgive me. I can’t think of the right adjectives to describe it. Ninety percent of twenty-four million? And nothing for his family? That’s pretty unusual, folks. In my book, that’s pretty unreasonable. That screams of undue influence. If he wanted to do something nice for his housekeeper, he could’ve given her a million bucks. That’s a pretty generous gift. Two million? How about five? Actually, in my humble opinion, anything over a million dollars would be considered unusual and unreasonable, given the brief nature of their relationship.”