Can you hear it ? / The good witness
January 2010 - Reflections
by Allen Allnoch / Hank Wall
Can you hear it?
ecently, one of my friends visited a game reserve in South Africa. She said that early in the morning, the sound of lions roaring should be heard all across the property. Later, her tour guide told her, “Those lions were singing praise to their creator.”
The good witness
Every morning, Caiaphas would bolt through the door behind his high bench, proudly announced by his bailiff and followed by a doe-eyed law clerk who always seemed shell-shocked. Caiaphas would then begin that morning’s malevolent glare session, first at me, then at my hapless client. By lunch, his anger peaked like a pressure cooker. We would break abruptly at noon, mid-witness, mid-sentence if necessary. Caiaphas was always sleepy and mellow during the first hour after lunch, and I was grateful for the break.
By four o’clock, however, the old Caiaphas was back–glaring, insulting, raging, demeaning, ruling, judging. On Monday, the jury felt sorry for me. By Wednesday, they felt sorry for my client. By Friday, they felt sorry for Caiaphas. And so the week slowly ground to its inevitable end, culminating in the outcome Caiaphas had intended all along, sweeping away with it my naïve belief that all judges were fair.
