Fiske looked at her curiously. “I thought the dissenters were on the losing side. What kind of leverage could they have?”
“Let’s say a justice doesn’t like how a majority opinion is shaping up, so the justice either circulates a draft of a scathing dissent that may make the whole court look bad if it’s published or that even undercuts the majority’s opinion. Or better yet, and easier, the justice will let it be known that he intends to write such a dissent, unless the majority opinion is scaled back. They all do it. Ramsey, Knight, Murphy. They go at it tooth and nail.”
Fiske shook his head. “Like one long political campaign, always scrounging for votes. The legal version of porkbellies. Give me this and you got my vote.”
“And knowing when to pick your battles. Let’s say one or more justices doesn’t like how a case was decided five years ago. Now, the Court doesn’t lightly overturn its own precedent, so you have to think strategically. Those justices might use a case in the present to start laying the building blocks for overturning the precedent they didn’t like years from now. That also goes for case selection. The justices are always on the outlook for just the right case to use as a vehicle to change a precedent they don’t like. It’s like a chess game.”
“Let’s hope one thing doesn’t get lost in all the game playing.”
“What’s that?”
“Justice. Maybe that’s what Rufus Harms wants. Why he filed his appeal. You think he can get justice here?”
Sara looked down. “I don’t know. The fact is the individual parties involved in the cases at this level really aren’t all that important. The precedents established through their cases, that’s what counts. It all depends on what he’s asking for. How it will impact others.”
“Well, that really sucks.” Fiske shook his head and gave her a penetrating look. “A damn interesting place, this Supreme Court.”
“So you’ll come to the party?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
* * *
Josh Harms assumed the police would now be covering the back roads, so he had taken the unusual tactic of driving on the interstate. It was dusk, though, and with the windows rolled up, they were okay; a police cruiser would have a tough time seeing inside. But despite all his precautions, he knew they were steering toward disaster.
Funny, he thought, after all the hell his brother had been put through, that he would even think about wanting to do the right thing at the risk of dying, of losing the freedom that never should have been taken away from him in the first place. He felt like both cursing and praising Rufus in the same breath. Josh’s outlook on life wasn’t complicated: It was him against everybody else. He didn’t go looking for trouble, but he had a hair trigger when confronted with anybody looking to piss on him. It was a wonder he’d lived this long, he knew.
Still, you had to admire a person like Rufus, who could fight through all that, through people who didn’t want to see the world change one iota since they were riding on top of it. Maybe the truth will set you free, Rufus, he thought. Suddenly out of the corner of his eye he saw something in the truck’s sideview mirror that made him ease his hand over and grip his gun.
“Rufus,” he called back through the open window connecting to the camper, “we got a problem here.”
Rufus’s face appeared at the window. “What is it?”
“Stay low! Stay low!” Josh cautioned. He again eyed the police cruiser, which was a fixture in the truck’s side mirror. “Trooper’s passed us twice and then dropped back.”
“You speeding?”
“Five clicks under.”
“Something wrong with the truck, taillight out?”
“I ain’t that dumb. Truck’s fine.”
“So what, then?”
“Look, Rufus, just because you’ve been in prison all these years doesn’t mean the world’s changed any. I’m a black man in a real nice-looking vehicle on the highway at night. Cops think I either stole it or I’m running drugs. Shit, going to the store for milk can be a real adventure.” He looked in the side mirror again. “Looks like he’s just about to hit his light.”