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THE LAW IS A ASS for 04/24/2001
DOCKET ENTRY
"The Law is a Ass" Installment # 92
Originally written as installment # 81 and published in Comics Buyer's Guide issue # 663, August 1, 1986 issue
If you pay attention to these Docket Entries, you'll have noticed that last week's column # 80, was published in Comics Buyer's Guide # 666. This week's installment, # 81, was published in CBG # 663. Why was 81 published before 80?
I don't know.
Maybe they misplaced column 80 so went with 81 first. Or maybe Don and Maggie Thompson, the editors of Comics Buyer's Guide had memories of these Superman stories as fond as my own. So, when my column about this two-part story came in, they couldn't bear to sit on it.
For the record, I'm going with B. We all come off looking so much better under it.
******
"The Law is a Ass"
Installment # 92
by
Bob Ingersoll
At last! The stories I've been waiting for.
There was this two-part Superman story from Action Comics # 358 and 359 that I remembered reading as a kid, but didn't own any longer. Superman was on trial for murder. I knew they'd be perfect for a column. Unfortunately, I no longer owned them. Thankfully, both Randy Freeman of Riverside, California and Keith Bowden of Rockaway, New Jersey also thought they'd be perfect for a column and sent copies of the stories to me. (Both Keith and Randy's mailings arrived on the same day and in the same cover envelope from Krause. How's that for parallel thinking?)
These stories are delights! How delights? Just follow.
Ron Noble, the head of the Metropolis branch of the International Crime Exchange, a kind of stock exchange for the underworld--"Put me in for 500 shares of Kidnap, Inc. They're planning to snatch an oil millionaire... their stock is bound to boom!"-- wants to frame Superman for murder. So Noble arranges to substitute for Jimmy Olsen in a boxing exhibition with Superman.
Superman hits Noble and pulls his punch. Noble crumples to the canvas, but still alive. Ordinarily, this would make it hard to frame Superman for a murder. Ah, but Noble has the answer. He swallows a pill given him by Dr. Frost, your typical criminal doctor. The pill was supposed to put Noble into suspended animation, so that Superman would be tried for homicide, then Noble would come back and resume his life with his wive and daughter. (One wonders how this plan was to supposed work after the poor "victim" came back to life. Governors have this annoying habit of pardoning homicide inmates, if their victims suddenly show up alive. Even the ones from Texas.)
Seems Dr. Frost had ambitions of his own. He wanted to take over the Crime Exchange. So the pill he gave Noble was really an untraceable poison and Noble really died.
Days later, Frost disguises himself as the coroner and presided over the coroner's inquest. He has Superman reenact the punch on a dummy which is connected to a machine which will gauge the force of the blow. The machine is rigged, so that instead of registering nothing, it says the blow was fatal. (Incidentally, Randy, to answer the question you asked in your cover letter, that's why the autopsy didn't show the cause of death wasn't from a blow to the head. The real autopsy was never made, because the real coroner didn't do it.)
A good touch that gauge part. Probably inadmissible evidence but a good touch. Why inadmissible? There's this case called Frey v. United States, which says, that before a new scientific principle can be used as evidence, it has to have been "generally accepted" as reliable by the scientific community, so that convictions aren't based on some untried and inaccurate scientific principle. Any of you ever hear anything about a gauge for measuring the strength of Superman's fists? General acceptance? A Punch-o-meter probably accepted as often as a collect phone call from the IRS.
Okay, I realize that they could have used some sort of variant of an actually existing machine which does measure force of blows, like the ones they use to measure the strength of shark bites on every episode of every special during a Discovery Channel "Shark Week." Something that measures pounds per square inch of the blow and simple calculations about the strength of the average skull could produce the conclusion that it was a fatal blow. But if I blindly accepted the machine, I could never have told you about the Frye case. And wouldn't your life have been the less for it?
(This is where you make me feel good, by answering, "Yes.")
At the trial Superman is represented by Earl Barton, a famed criminal defense attorney, who had to give up his career, when an accident put him in a wheel chair. Hmmm. A famous criminal defense attorney, now trapped in a wheelchair. Now, I'm going to get a burr up my butt trying to figure out who they patterned this guy after. I understand that before Barton became a lawyer he helped Tokyo fight off a giant radioactive dinosaur.
The prosecutor is Alonzo Kroll, who wants to win because the fame he'll get will guarantee his being elected governor. That's a troubling thought. Not only is it a totally improper reason to prosecute--a prosecutor is ethically obligated to seek justice not convictions and especially not convictions for personal gain; it shows a disturbing ignorance of human nature. Kroll would probably get more votes by convicting Santa Claus of smuggling.
The trial begins. It has lots of errors in it, but at least this trial only lasted eleven pages not two years. (Guess that answers the age-old question of who's faster, Superman or the Flash?) First error: Kroll dismisses every prospective juror who's ever been helped by Superman and regards him as a hero, because the juror is a hero worshiper who couldn't be fair and impartial. Not only does Kroll do this himself without asking for the judge to rule on it--lawyers can only request that jurors be removed, it's the judges, who decide the law, who must do the actual removal--but if he excuses everyone who has ever been helped by Superman, he's not going to have anyone left for the jury except Lex Luthor, Metallo, and Mxyzptlk. (Well, maybe Kroll wasn't so stupid after all.)
Bruce Wayne is dismissed as a prospective juror, because Bruce is a friend of Batman, who is also Superman's partner. Wrong? Of course wrong. Just because a prospective juror and the defendant have a mutual friend isn't, by itself, enough cause to excuse the juror. Kroll has to prove, that because of his friendship Bruce couldn't be fair and impartial. Kroll didn't ask Bruce any questions about his ability to be fair and impartial. Kroll didn't, prove what he was supposed to prove to bump Bruce. But don't worry. Not proving what he was supposed to prove in jury voir dire was just his warm-up for the trial.
A less obvious mistake is, what the heck was Bruce Wayne doing in the jury pool in the first place? Superman's jury would have been pulled from the registered voters in the county where Metropolis sits. Are Gotham City and Metropolis in the same county? Are they even the same state? Does Hex really take place in the official DC universe? Those are rhetorical questions, by the way; you don't have to answer them. First, because we know the answer is, "no." And second, because we don't really care what the answer is. Especially that one about Hex.
Kroll mounts a telling case against Superman. His first witness is a scientist who testifies that Superman invented a new metal, which the scientific community called Supermanium in his honor. This proves Superman's super ego, as "even Madam Curie was too modest to have radium named after her." The fact that Superman didn't name the metal and couldn't control what others decided to do without his permission doesn't seem to matter. Superman didn't stop people he couldn't stop and that makes him vain. I don't know how it proves he's a murderer, but at least we know Carly Simon can be singing about him.
Kroll's second witness is a stamp collector who testifies that several foreign countries have stamps honoring Superman. Again, proof that Superman is vain. After all, the United States won't honor people with stamps, while they're still alive. So, because Superman isn't modest enough to tell these people not to honor him--again assuming he could control their actions in the first place--he's conceited enough to commit a homicide.
I don't know about you, but me, I'm ready to convict that swell-headed swine right now.
Well, I would be, if this type of evidence weren't completely inadmissible. See there's a well-established trial principle that forbids the prosecution from attacking the defendant's character, in order to prove he must be guilty, because he's the kind of bad person who would naturally commit the crime charged. Unfortunately, it wasn't well-established enough that the people responsible for this story knew about it.
Jimmy Olsen is the third witness. He testifies about how destructive Superman can be, by showing slides of Superman destroying satellites while under the influence of Red Kryptonite. Lois Lane, the fourth witness, testifies that once Superman moved a mysterious nuclear device away from an inhabited island. The fallout then struck down and killed the crew of a passing ship, which coincidentally enough were all extraterrestrials, who had been condemned to death but escaped, which proves Superman is capable of killing.
As evidence goes it proves that if not in his right mind or ignorant of certain facts, Superman is capable of killing someone accidentally. As evidence goes, it's about as telling as a monk under a vow of silence. Oh, and it's also as inadmissible as the other evidence Kroll presented. It's another one of those well-established legal principles. Just as you can't attack a defendant by showing his character, you also can't attack a defendant with prior alleged criminal acts, which didn't result in a conviction, because he should only have to defend himself against the crimes charged. Well, I thought these were well-established principles.
Finally the state calls Superman as its last witness, which, of course, it can't do without violating the Fifth Amendment. (Yes, another well-established principle.) Superman gets so flustered under cross-examination that wouldn't have phased Shemp Howard, ("You mean you really expected a mere boxing glove to absorb the impact of your super-punch?") that he breaks the arm of the witness stand in frustration and proves that he can't control his powers. I hope Superman isn't ever my witness, if he folds that easily. I've seen veneer that was harder to crack.
With this the State rests.
No evidence that Noble died or how he died, just this evidence that shows Superman is a bad, bad man.
I don't know how Kroll hoped to win a homicide trial without ever proving that Noble died, or that he died as the result of a blow to the head, or that Superman delivered that blow. Maybe little things like proving a death even occurred in a homicide prosecution are beneath great metropolitan prosecutors. I guess you only have to worry about such minutia in the sticks like Cleveland.
(For the record, as juries can only convict based on what they heard in court, they couldn't find Superman guilty because they had read about the case in the newspaper. Not unless Kroll was skimming that newspaper during the breaks and they were being so impolite as to read it over his shoulder.)
The defense case is even better. First Superman builds a giant space bubble, so he can take the entire court room into space and watch the crime by overtaking and viewing old light rays. Remember that part about general acceptance? How many scientists do you think have experience catching old light rays in outer space? So you think light ray catching is generally accepted? Do you think Star Brand will win this year's award for the most original origin?
Sure the principle that light travels on forever is generally accepted. And there is a theory that if one could convert those light rays into something viewable, one could see the past. But what would one use to convert the rays of light? And would that apparatus have general acceptance? (But better I should let it lie. If I don't let Superman put on his defense, this trial might go on for a third issue.)
While watching the incident Superman sees Noble bite the pill which killed him. With microscopic vision he sees Frost's fingerprint on it. He compares that to the fingerprint of an identical pill that Superman saw Frost drop at Noble's funeral. (I forgot to tell you about that, didn't I? I'm sorry. You see, Superman went to Noble's funeral and he saw Dr. Frost and while Superman was watching, Dr. Frost accidentally dropped this pill which Superman picked ...
(Oh you've got the idea. Okay. Onward!)
Superman examines the pill. It contains an untraceable poison Suddenly Superman knows what really happened. Frost poisoned Noble with an untraceable poison. But how to prove it?
I suppose they could exhume the body and have the real coroner examine it, so that he could discover that Noble didn't die from a blow to the head, as there is no evidence of a blow. Then they could have the pill Superman found analyzed, and confront Frost with the fact that just before Nobel died, he ate a poison pill with Frost's fingerprint on it. Even if that didn't prove Frost killed Noble, it would clear Superman. That's one way. Is it the way Superman and Barton did it?
No.
See, that's the Matlock way, when Ben only raises a reasonable doubt by pointing out the probability that someone else was the real murderer. But Ben doesn't get the real killer to confess in open court. Defense attorney Barton was patterned after Raymond Burr. That model requires a court-room confession. So...
They call Dr. Frost as a defense witness, ask him to produce the bottle of pills he carries (The moron is stupid enough to carry this poison--incredibly incriminating poison, might I add--with him wherever he goes), then demand that Dr. Frost eat one. He refuses, but Clark Kent steps forward, says clearing Superman is worth any risk, and takes one.
He dies.
Now Dr. Frost sees the hopelessness of his situation. They proved he carries poison, so obviously he must have murdered a man the world thinks was beaten to death. What else can he do? He confesses and clears Superman.
To clear up the loose ends Superman (who was really Batman in disguise) pretends to give Clark (who was really Superman faking death by stopping his heart) an antidote, Clark comes back to life to write another great exclusive, and Superman pays Barton's legal fee by using his X-ray vision to spot the damage in Barton's legs, so that they can be repaired surgically.
Which, of course, leaves a couple of loose ends uncleared. Why did they have to fake the death of Clark Kent? Why didn't they just analyze the pill, establish it was poison and wring the same stupid confession out Frost? And why establish that Superman helped Barton walk to pay his legal fee? Does that mean Superman only does these nice things for people he owes?
Kind of kills Supe's old image, doesn't it?
******
BOB INGERSOLL, lawyer, CBG columnist, and minority shareholder in Imelda's Shoetree, a cute little boutique we're opening in Hawaii, didn't have a letter in the letters page to Action Comics # 359. On the other hand, Marty Pasko, Tony Isabella, Dave Cockrum, and Mark Evanier all did. It's like having your own mini-USA For Africa Comic years before they were fashionable.
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