Chapter 9 - THE VERDICT
The trial of Gerald and Patricia Hutchinson lasted only four days.
The defense had tried to argue that the video was a "distorted representation" of a private family matter, but when the state’s attorney played the audio of the belt hitting Lily’s small body through the high-quality courtroom speakers, three of the jurors had turned their heads away, their faces pale and set.
I sat on the witness stand on the third day, my eyes fixed on the back of the courtroom where James sat with Chloe.
“Mrs. Hutchinson,” the prosecutor asked, a young man named Davis who had worked with me on my last homicide case. “What did your mother say to you when your daughter was lying unconscious on the floor?”
“She said,” I paused, my voice carrying clearly through the quiet room, “that my daughter deserved it for being rude.”
The jury looked at Patricia. She was sitting at the defense table, her face covered in a thick layer of makeup that couldn't hide the deep, dark lines of fear around her eyes. She didn't look back at them. She looked down at her hands, her fingers twisting her wedding ring round and round until the skin was raw and red.
The jury deliberated for less than two hours.
They found Gerald Hutchinson guilty on all counts: first-degree child cruelty, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and felony battery. He was sentenced to twenty-five years in the state penitentiary, with no possibility of parole for the first fifteen.
Patricia Hutchinson was found guilty of first-degree child endangerment and accessory after the fact. She was sentenced to eight years, with three to be served in a minimum-security facility and the remainder on active probation.
As the deputies led them away through the secure door behind the jury box, my father stopped. He turned his head to look at me, his eyes filled with that same old, heavy rage that had terrified me for thirty years.
But as I looked back at him, I realized something.
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The fear was gone. It had evaporated, leaving behind nothing but a quiet, clean empty space. He was no longer the giant who had ruled my childhood with a leather strap; he was just a sixty-year-old man in a cheap orange jumpsuit, his shoulders hunched, his hands shaking as the steel cuffs clicked around his wrists.
He had no power over us anymore.
