Her story ended with: “Why was Jarvis Decker allowed to roam free and rape me and other women? He should have been serving time in Mississippi, and he would have been if not for the slick moves of criminal defense attorney Jesse Rudy. Please don’t elect this man. He cozies up to violent criminals.”
Jesse was so upset he locked himself in his office, stretched out on the floor, and tried to breathe deeply. Agnes was down the hall, in the restroom, vomiting. The campaign volunteers huddled in the conference room and stared in muted horror at the mailing. The secretary ignored the phone, which rang nonstop.
* * *
Ten days before the election, Jesse Rudy filed suit in chancery court seeking to enjoin Rex Dubisson from distributing campaign materials containing blatant falsehoods. He demanded an expedited hearing on the matter.
The damage was done and the court did not have the power to repair it. The chancellor could order Dubisson to stop future mailings and ads that were not true, but, in the heat of a campaign, such injunctions were rare. Jesse knew he could not win the court battle, but winning was not the reason for the lawsuit. He wanted publicity. He wanted the story on the front page of the Gulf Coast Register so the voters could see what a sleazy campaign their district attorney was running. Moments after he filed in court, he drove to the newspaper’s office and hand-delivered a copy of his complaint to the editor. The following morning, it was front-page news.
That afternoon, the chancellor called the matter for a hearing and a nice crowd materialized. In the front row were several reporters. As the complaining party, Jesse went first and began with an angry description of the “rape ad,” as he called it. He paced around the courtroom, waving the ad, calling it “blatantly false” and a “sleazy campaign trick designed to inflame the voters.” Connie Burns was an alias for a woman who was probably paid by the Dubisson campaign to use her fictitious story. The real victims of Jarvis Decker were Denise Perkins and Sybil Welch, and he had copies of the indictments and plea agreements to prove it. He entered those into evidence.
The problem with his case was that he had no real proof, other than the paperwork. Connie Burns, or whoever she was, had not been found, nor had the two rape victims. With time and money, Jesse could have located them and tried to cajole them into either traveling to Biloxi or signing affidavits, but that could not be done with only a week to go.
Veteran trial lawyers knew the old adage: “When the case is weak, go heavy on theatrics.” Jesse was angry, indignant, wounded, the victim of a dirty campaign trick. When he finally wound down, he yielded the floor and Rex Dubisson had the chance to respond. He seemed taken aback, as if he’d been caught red-handed. After a few disjointed statements, the chancellor interrupted with “And so who, exactly, is Connie Burns?”
“It’s an alias, Your Honor. The poor lady is the victim of a violent sexual assault and does not want to get involved.”
“Get involved? She allowed you to use her photograph and statement, didn’t she?”
“Yes, but only with an alias. She lives far away and any publicity generated here will not find its way there. We’re being protective of her identity.”
“And you’re trying to blame Jesse Rudy for her being raped, right?”
“Well, not directly, Your—”
“Come on, Mr. Dubisson. That’s exactly what you’re doing. The sole purpose of this ad is to lay blame on Mr. Rudy and convince the voters that it’s all his fault.”
“The facts are the facts, Your Honor. Mr. Rudy represented Jarvis Decker and got him off. If he had gone to prison here in Mississippi, he would not have been able to rape women in Georgia. It’s that simple.”
“Nothing’s that simple, Mr. Dubisson. I find these ads repulsive.”
The lawyers took turns haggling and the hearing grew even more contentious. When the chancellor asked Jesse what type of relief he wanted, he demanded that Dubisson do another mailing in which he retracted his ads, admitted the truth, and apologized for deliberately misleading the voters.