from his present position to the car. About thirty yards, he estimated. He didn’t see any policemen, and the firemen were still busy wrapping up the last of the fire. He decided that the best plan would be to follow the woods to the street, then casually and unobtrusively walk toward the car, unlock it, and drive away as if nothing were wrong. Anything else would draw too much attention, he reasoned.
Deciding that it was worth a try, Buzz crept through the woods until he reached the street. The car was now just ten yards to his right. Still no sign of any police near the car. He couldn’t remember if he had locked the doors or not—probably not, he guessed, as that was not his usual practice. He had the key ready in his hand, just in case, as he began to walk slowly and deliberately toward the car. Twenty feet, ten, five…his hand reached for the door. It was unlocked! His pulse quickened as he glanced right and left before quickly opening the door. No one noticed…unbelievable! Relief flooded his awareness as he moved the key toward the ignition and turned on the engine. The motor engaged with a low custom muffler-type revving sound, and he reached for the gearshift.
It was just at that point that he felt something cold and hard pressing against the back of his skull, quickly followed by the command, “Turn off the engine and get out of the car.”
Four Months Later
Judge Frances Walker looked down over the tops of her glasses toward the counsels for the plaintiff and the defendants. The trial had been going on for several days, and since it involved rather politically sensitive issues, particularly in light of the post-9/11 tensions with Iraq, there had been a huge amount of media attention. She had excluded the TV cameras from the courtroom, but the atmosphere was highly charged nonetheless. Portland, a city renowned for its liberal thinking and home to several extremist groups, was now under national scrutiny. The Northwest Neo-Nazis had filled the courtroom with tattooed bikers and put on quite a show for the press. At the same time, Portland’s Muslim community had expressed outrage over this seemingly blatant attempt to ridicule their religion and cultural values, to say nothing of this threat to the freedoms granted to them by the US Constitution. The time had finally come for the closing arguments, and Judge Walker wanted nothing more than to wrap this case up and get all these strange-looking people out of her courtroom. Motioning to the plaintiff’s counsel, she requested that the closing arguments begin.
Winston Merriweather III was almost a household name in the Portland legal community. Merriweather and Merriweather had been handling criminal cases in Portland for over fifty years now, even though WM Jr. had now largely retired and left most of the cases to his son, WM III. Winston was himself in his late forties now, graying a bit at the temples, and probably a few pounds heavier than he would have liked. He looked every bit like a successful attorney would be expected to look, however—dark suit, starched white shirt, conservative tie, wire-rimmed glasses, nice haircut. His trademark neatly trimmed beard, also graying a bit now, was somewhat of an anomaly, but it gave him a very powerful appearance and a force most other Portland attorneys did not look forward to reckoning with. He had taken the Quitan case for several reasons, not the least of which was his desire to rid Portland of these sort of radical groups who found nothing better to do than prey on upstanding citizens like the Quitans, whose only “fault” was not belonging to the “chosen” social, political, and racial genre. Winston detested their white supremacist attitudes and their total disregard for the law. He had hoped to use this case to make a strong statement to groups like NNN, reflecting that the law would not tolerate their tactics or condone their bigotry. In addition, he happened to be a great admirer of Dr. Quitan and an avid follower of his research and publications. In Winston’s mind, there was no man less deserving of this sort of treatment than Mazen Quitan, and he had intended to do his very best to right the injustice that had been perpetrated upon him and his daughter.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” he began, “we have shown clearly beyond any shadow of a doubt that on Saturday night, October 26, 2002, the three defendants seated before you, Ralph “Buzz” Henderson, Barry “Big Bear” Hartman, and John “Blood” Stimmel,—all members of the gang known as the Northwest Neo-Nazis—entered the Beaverton home of the plaintiffs, Dr. Mazen Quitan and his daughter, Mariah, intent upon forcing Ms. Quitan to make a pornographic and religiously inflammatory internet film, gang-raping her, and then burning the Quitan home to the ground with her in it. Ms. Quitan’s unwavering resolve, keen mind, and ingeniously engineered escape are the only reasons she is sitting here before you today and these men are charged with aggravated assault and arson, rather than rape and murder. Ms. Quitan’s own firsthand testimony along with the gasoline can found at the scene of the crime, covered with fingerprints from all three men, AND the arrest of Mr. Henderson as he later attempted to move his car from the scene of the crime make it abundantly clear that these men were involved not only in the assault of Ms. Quitan, as she has described, but also in the burning of the Quitan family home. I urge you to recommend the maximum penalty available to you by law for these atrocious acts, which would have been far worse were it not for the uncommon valor of Ms. Quitan. The prosecution rests its case, Your Honor.”
Judge Walker, looking down from the bench at the two attorneys and their clients, spoke briefly. “Thank you, Mr. Merriweather.” Shifting her gaze toward the defense attorney, Albert Marrazzi, she added, “Mr. Marrazzi, are you ready to begin your closing statement for the defendants?”
“Yes I am, Your Honor,” replied Mr. Marrazzi as he rose to face the jury. Unlike his counterpart, WM III, Albert Marrazzi was short, a bit rotund, and had fairly long gray hair that he slicked back in a sort of pompadour. His appearance was not as dapper as Mr. Merriweather’s, nor was his posture as erect and formidable. He seemed to be perspiring rather freely and had removed his coat to be a bit more comfortable. As he prepared to address the jury, he seemed undaunted by the plaintiffs’ closing remarks. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” he began, “the esteemed prosecutor has, in fact, proved nothing. My clients are not on trial here for being members of an unpopular organization. This is a free country, and it is no crime to belong to any group that you so choose. My clients’ misfortune was only being in the wrong place at the wrong time. To summarize our previous contentions, Mr. Henderson’s car coincidently quit running right in front of the Quitan home on the Saturday night in question, at approximately 9:00 p.m. His friends, Mr. Hartman and Mr. Stimmel, were in the car with him. Mr. Henderson had borrowed the gas can from Mr. Stimmel a week or so earlier, when he noticed that the fuel gauge in his car was not functioning properly. He had neglected to fill the can, but kept it in his trunk for emergencies. When his car stalled on Saturday night in front of the home in question, he got the can out of the trunk and rang Ms. Quitan’s doorbell in hopes that she might have some gas for a lawn mower or something like that, which he could borrow to try to start his car. She told him that she would check, and to come around to the side of the garage. In a moment, as the garage door was raised, she came screaming out of the garage, saying there was a fire in the kitchen and to run, since they had a gas stove and she was afraid that it would explode. Barely had she stated those words when a large explosion came from the center of the house and both of them ran off into the woods in different directions. Mr. Henderson must have dropped the gas can in the garage, where the police found it. With all the commotion, his two friends got out of the car and ran away, wanting to get away from all the noise, police, fire trucks, etc. I don’t know what Ms. Quitan was doing in the kitchen to start a fire, but to concoct this ridiculous story is preposterous. When Mr. Henderson recovered from the whole fire-and-explosion ordeal, he returned to his vehicle and tried to start it, hoping that it had stalled for some reason other than being out of fuel. It is not a crime to run out of gas or ask for help. There was a policeman in his back seat who erroneously arrested him when he returned to the car. My clients are totally innocent of all charges brought by Ms. Quitan, who apparently must have been doing something inappropriate in her own kitchen, caught her house on fire, and fortuitously found some unfortunate men in need of a little help that she could pin the blame on, rather than face her father’s anger for her own misdeeds. We rest our case and hope the jury will not be swayed by allegations which have no basis in fact, Your Honor.”
Judge Walker looked over to Mr. Merriweather
