Griffith Review 57 by Julianne Schultz

Author:Julianne Schultz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Published: 2017-06-24T02:00:03+00:00

MEMOIR

What ripples beneath

The chilling realities of equal justice

Bri Lee

JEREMY B PULLMAN was a tall, slim man with pale grey eyes and a number-three buzz cut along the sides of his skull. The rest of his dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail and tied together at the base of his neck, and then plaited down until it reached his waist. The way the strands thinned on top made it look shiny, a little greasy even, and I wondered how many times his solicitor had advised him to cut it off before getting in front of a jury. The other judge’s associates and I called it the ‘Ferguson effect’: if you’re on trial for paedophiliac offences your counsel will recommend you try as hard as you can to not resemble Australia’s most infamous paedophile, Dennis Ferguson. I was sitting at my desk at the opposite end of the courtroom watching him while the rest of the room bustled around me. He cocked his head to the right and I caught a glimpse of a smudgy neck tattoo. His skin had that permanent red-brown colouring indicating years of accumulated sunburns. A literal redneck.

I indulged these nasty thoughts about Pullman because he was a nasty man and because I am, of course, incredibly biased. Throughout my childhood my father would return home from work in his crisp police uniform with stories of justice being done. The morality he spoke about was addictive in how binary it was. Decisions were right or wrong, people were good or bad. I am also a woman, and Pullman had a rape conviction on his record. He was on trial in front of me that particular day for doing similarly violent, sexual things to his ten-year-old stepdaughter, so when he turned his head again and looked straight down the middle of the courtroom, right at me, his pale eyes unblinking, I felt myself sweat immediately. I flushed in panic and looked away. Another reminder that I could never be the impartial administrator the job demanded of me.

The twelve jurors were excitable when they first came in and took their seats, looking around the room at the funny wigs, but once the crown prosecutor finished his opening address a sombre kind of reverence replaced everything else. They stopped flipping through their complimentary notebooks and sipping their chilled glasses of water. The air became still and silent, as in a church. With all those wooden seats, and the leather-bound books, and the man at the top on the highest chair, the place smelt and felt like a church too.

As a child complainant, Sophie was allowed to give evidence via video link so she wouldn’t have to be in the same room as Pullman. The screens around the courtroom flickered on and we saw her in a bare room, her head and shoulders just visible over the top of the adult-sized desk in front of her. I noticed Pullman’s barrister becoming uncomfortable as Sophie’s chair was adjusted and the angle of the camera changed.

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