Buried Evidence (26 page)

Shana asked, “What’s the determinate-sentencing law?”

“Every state has different laws, Shana,” Richard explained. “Here in California we have what’s called the ‘determinate-sentencing law.’ Only a handful of crimes have indeterminate terms, such as first- and second-degree murder, for example. An indeterminate term would be twelve years to life. In this case the parole board would come into play in deciding when the person gained release. The greatest majority of crimes fall under the guidelines I mentioned first.”

“I’m confused.”

Lily said, “I can’t begin to tell you how confused people get interpreting some of our laws. Isn’t that right, Richard?”

He nodded, but wanted Lily to continue. Motioning for the waiter to bring them a dessert menu, he ordered coffee for himself. Shana and Lily asked for tea. Then they all took a moment to select a dessert. Lily wanted to make things as clear as possible. Her daughter’s desire to become an attorney was fueling a portion of her interest, yet sadly, her mother knew she was also attempting to prepare herself. If worse came to worst, and the authorities decided to prosecute her on the crime her father had almost certainly committed, she had every right to know what kind of punishment she might be facing.

“Okay,” Lily continued, “a determinate term is where the judge has to decide between three different sentences.”

“How does he decide?” Shana asked. “Does he just pick one or the other?”

“Of course not,” Lily explained. “The Judicial Council in San Francisco provides certain guidelines or rules that every judge and court must follow. These are called circumstances in mitigation and aggravation.”

“I know what those words mean,” she said, “but I need you to explain what they mean in relationship to a court case.”

“Once a defendant has been judged guilty,” Lily told her, “either by a judge or a jury, or even if he enters into what we
call a negotiated disposition, just a less offensive term for a plea agreement… “

The waiter arrived with their desserts, and Lily stopped to take a bite of her cheesecake. “To explain this in as simplistic a fashion as possible,” she said, “circumstances in mitigation could mean that the defendant stole a bottle of milk or some other type of food product because his baby was starving, that he had never committed a crime before, and he was sorry for what he did.”

“Remorse, right?”

“Precisely,” Lily said, having to remind herself that Shana was a college student and not a child any longer. She found it uncanny how both of their minds appeared to track in almost an identical fashion. Most people marveled at the similarities in their physical appearance. Lily thought the fact that their thinking and ability to comprehend fell along the same level was far more unique. “One of the guidelines the court provides poses the question of whether or not the crime was an isolated incident, not likely to reoccur. Such could be applied to the case I just made up, as our fictional offender would more than likely get a job and be able to provide for his family after his case was resolved.”

“Why do you think that would happen?”

“Intervention,” her mother explained. “Meaning, once this guy came into contact with the authorities, even if he still couldn’t obtain employment, someone in the system would hopefully assist him in applying for some other form of state assistance so he wouldn’t have to commit another crime.”

“That makes sense,” Shana said, nodding thoughtfully.

“Now,” Lily continued, “let’s backtrack for a moment. Since the court has decided that circumstances in mitigation applied, the law would charge the judge with imposing the lesser of the three terms for whatever crime this person had committed. Am I clear?”

Shana’s jaw dropped. “They’d send someone to prison for stealing a bottle of milk?”

“Probably not,” her mother said. “Remember, I’m only using these scenarios so you can grasp the overall concept. Stealing a bottle of milk would be classified as a misdemeanor theft, and
people don’t go to prison for theft. They can go to jail, but they can’t be sentenced to prison. That is, unless they used a gun. Then they would have committed an armed robbery.”

Shana was stunned. “Even if all they took was a bottle of milk?”

“Absolutely,” Lily said. “A robbery is a robbery. Like I said, people take years to fully understand the complexity of our laws. There’s also what’s classified as a strong-armed robbery. That means you either rob someone by hitting them, or by any means of force, even if you simply threaten them and never follow through on your threat.”

“I’ve got it,” Shana said, crossing her legs under the table. “Tell me more.”

Lily was getting hoarse from talking. She stopped and drank some of her tea. “So,” she went on, “mitigating circumstances just means that the person who committed the crime might not be such a bad person. On the other hand, an example of what would influence a judge to impose an aggravated or longer term would be an offender with a lengthy criminal history, who also showed no remorse, or who had been proven to have been under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time he committed the crime.”

“What about the middle term?” Shana asked. “What would make a judge go in that direction?”

Lily pushed her dessert plate aside, happy to share the knowledge she possessed with her daughter. “Envision the scales of justice.”

Shana’s face lit up. She held her palms out on both sides of her body. “I get it,” she said. “A judge would select the middle term if all these factors you just described were more or less evenly balanced, right?”

“Exactly,” her mother said, smiling at Richard. “There’s no doubt that you’ll pass your law school entrance exam.”

“You really think so?”

“For sure,” Richard agreed. “Of course, with Lily as your mother, I wouldn’t have expected anything less.”

“Can you have breakfast with us tomorrow morning?” Lily
asked, feeling as if they hadn’t had a chance to simply visit with one another due to the nature of their dinner conversation. “There’s a great breakfast place in Summerland. I’m certain it was there when you were growing up, Rich, but I don’t remember the name.” Summerland was a small town only a few miles away, yet far more casual and beachy than Montecito. The rich and famous, however, still showed up there from time to time. People claimed Hillary and Bill Clinton had even shopped for homes in Summerland several years back.

“As long as I can get to the courthouse by ten,” Richard said. “Is eight too early?”

“Eight is perfect,” Lily told him. She was still uncertain how she was going to proceed in regard to Shana’s school and living situation. She knew she would have to check into the office for a few hours the next day, if for nothing else than to touch base and bring some paperwork home to work on over the weekend.

They proceeded to toss around the merits of various law schools. Shana wanted to make arrangements to see Greg as well, but since she didn’t know where she was going to be living, she asked his father for his phone number and jotted down her e-mail address. Like most of the college kids today, she seldom went anywhere without her computer.

“I wasn’t putting Greg down about his job,” Richard said, slightly defensive. “He’s working hard. He probably told you I pitched a fit when he told me he didn’t want to be a lawyer. In retrospect, I think he would have made a mistake if he’d gone into law.”

“Why’s that?” Shana asked, tilting her head to one side.

“At this point in history,” he told her, “I think the world needs more marine biologists than it does attorneys.”

Shana took a bite of her chocolate cake, then placed her fork back on the table. “Do you think I’m making a mistake as well?”

“No,” Richard answered. “I think people have different aptitudes and interests. I didn’t mean to imply that being an attorney isn’t a worthwhile way to earn a living.”

“Shana will be wonderful,” Lily said, placing her arm around her daughter. They were sitting together, with Richard on the
opposite side of the table. The interior of the restaurant was similar to a cave or a wine cellar. The stone walls gave it a damp, chilly feeling, even with several logs burning in the fireplace. Above the bar there were three circular stained-glass wall hangings, each one depicting a different season. Lily spotted autumn, spring, and summer. For some reason, perhaps space constraints, the one for winter had been positioned on the wall next to their booth. “We were talking this afternoon, Rich,” she continued. “I believe Shana has what it takes to become a fabulous legislator. I’d like to see her writing laws someday, or at least working toward cleaning up some of the convoluted language and outdated statutes.”

“The problem is, Lily,” he said, “that when anyone makes an attempt to improve things, we generally end up with what turns out to be nothing more than some politician’s catchy campaign slogans. We’re still dealing with the three-strikes-and-you’re-out bill. Wasn’t it supposed to put an end to recidivism? I personally thought it was absurd. Where are we going to warehouse all these prisoners? We need more rehabilitation programs, not more ridiculous laws.”

“I concur to some degree,” Lily said. “I forgot to mention, Shana, that there were some outlandish instances where offenders received life sentences for stealing something as trivial as a candy bar.”

Shana asked, “How did that happen?”

“It was their third felony conviction, and that’s what ‘three strikes and you’re out’ means.” Lily paused. “The problem is, we’re not talking about baseball. These are human lives.”

“If the crime they committed was a felony,” Shana argued, “then they must have taken the candy bar during a robbery. Isn’t that the way you explained the analogy of the guy stealing milk for his kid? So what if the person they robbed didn’t have a lot of valuables? That law doesn’t sound absurd to me. A robbery is a serious crime. No one can predict what kind of property the person has on them, unless it’s a bank or they’ve already been inside their house.” She stopped and stared out over the restaurant, for her thoughts had returned to the missing picture.

“I’d hire you,” Richard blurted out, placing his hands on the edge of the table. “Next summer you can intern in my office if you’re interested. It’s hard to find young people with your kind of reasoning ability.”

“Really?” Shana said, excited. “You realize I’m only in my second year of college.”

“Trust me,” he said, asking the waiter for a check, “I could use you right now. That was a valid job offer I just made. And it has nothing to do with my friendship with your mother.”

Shana leaned back in her seat, flattered by his offer. Lily was sad their evening together was about to come to an end. For the past hour and a half they had enjoyed themselves. Richard was the proverbial charmer, and Shana had grown into a polished young lady. Seeing her in jeans and sweatshirts most of the time, Lily reflected on how stunning she looked in the clingy black dress, her hair slicked away from her face in a French twist, the top portion exploding in what resembled a flower arrangement of shiny red curls. She didn’t wear eye makeup, only a touch of mascara, but she loved lipstick. When they had first walked into the restaurant, people had stared at them as if they were celebrities. Lily had no doubt that it was Shana who generated the attention. She didn’t mind being in her daughter’s shadow. The only thing she regretted was coming to the realization that her only child was maturing so quickly.

“Let me pay for this,” Lily said, picking the check up off the table. “You drove all this way.”

“In my book,” Richard said, smiling rakishly, “ladies don’t pay. Besides, I can think of a dozen men who would give their right arm to have dinner with two gorgeous and intelligent women.”

“Don’t lay it on too thick,” Lily said, shifting her eyes to her daughter. “Let’s set the record straight. I’m buying breakfast tomorrow. And whether you realize it or not, women have a tendency not to believe a man when he heaps on too many compliments.”

“At school,” Shana laughed, a wispy strand of hair tumbling
onto her forehead, “my friends and I think guys who drool all over us are just saying things to get in our pants.”

“Listen to your friends,” he said, a fatherly expression on his face.

As Richard escorted them to their car, he recalled his dinner with Joyce at the Indian restaurant. She hadn’t moved her things out of his house yet, but she’d called the office that morning and apologized for the way she had behaved, claiming she didn’t want them to end their relationship as enemies. Rather than take a chance on her having another tantrum, though, he had no intention of returning to the house until he was certain she was gone. While Joyce had been at her office that morning, he’d sent June over to pick up some of his clothes. After the nerve-racking pace of the previous week, he’d booked himself into the resort for the weekend. Of course, he didn’t want to say anything in front of Shana, but he hoped to entice Lily to come back to his bungalow later that night. This would also give him a chance to speak to her privately about what he had learned about Marco Curazon. He was also somewhat reluctant for Lily and her daughter to stay in the guest house alone, one of the reasons he had rented such a large place for the weekend.

Shana realized she’d left her purse in the restaurant and hurried back inside, leaving Richard and Lily waiting for the valet. He pressed a key into her hands, and a card with directions to his bungalow. “Come over later,” he whispered. “We can talk privately.”

“I can’t,” Lily said, sensing he wanted to do more than talk. “Not when Shana is here.”

“Listen to me,” Richard said, seizing her arm. “Didn’t you tell me some of her friends attend the university here in Santa Barbara?”

“She has several girlfriends that go to school here,” Lily said. “What are you suggesting?”

“She’s a young girl, Lily,” he told her, wanting to accomplish his objective without being blatant about it, reluctant to frighten Shana any more than she already was. “Maybe it would be good for her to be with someone her own age, you know. She could
stay at one of their houses tonight. That way we’d have some private time together.”