Miles walked to the jury box, smiled at the jurors, thanked them for their service, as if they had a choice, and said, “I ask you to ignore the testimony of the last witness, Major Rusconi, from New Orleans. Nothing he said was relevant to this case, to this charge of murder. I’m not asking you to forget the service and sacrifice of the defendant. It was extraordinary, even legendary, but that’s where it ends. This country just won the greatest world war in history, and we have many reasons to be proud. Four hundred thousand Americans died, and today across this great land families are still picking up the pieces. Over five million men and women served, most of them bravely, even heroically. But, being a war hero does not give anyone the right to come home and commit such a senseless and horrible murder. What if all of our war heroes decided to take the law into their own hands and start firing away?”
Miles was pacing slowly and speaking without notes. He had rehearsed for hours, prepared for weeks, and knew this would be his finest hour.
“Instead, I ask you to think about Jackie Bell and her children. Three wonderful kids who will live the rest of their lives without their father. A fine man of God, a fine pastor, a great father and husband. A man cut down at the age of thirty-nine in cold blood, and for no apparent reason. A man with no defense, no warning, no reason to question why his friend suddenly showed up with a gun. No way to escape, no time to defend himself, no means to avoid a sudden and tragic end. A preacher who either was reading the Bible or had just finished when the defendant suddenly appeared without warning and took his life. I suppose we’ll never know the cause of the conflict between Dexter Bell and Pete Banning, but I’ll ask the question we’ve all asked each other since last October: Why in God’s holy name could it not have been settled without bloodshed?”
Miles turned and glared at the defendant. He held his arms open wide and asked, “Why?”
Pete stared straight ahead, unflinching.
“But bloodshed is what we have, and it is now your duty to deal with it. There can be no doubt about the facts. The defense could not bring itself to suggest someone else did the killing. The defense did not claim that Pete Banning was mentally unstable. The defense did its best but there is no defense. Pete Banning shot and killed Dexter Bell. He acted alone and with premeditation. He planned it and he knew exactly what he was doing. When you retire to deliberate in a few moments, you’ll take with you a copy of the deed he signed just three weeks before the murder. It was an attempt to transfer his biggest asset to his children, to protect his land. In legal terms, it is known as a fraudulent conveyance. A fraud, in preparation for a murder. We’ll never know how long the defendant planned the killing, and it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that it was carefully thought out, it was premeditated.”
Miles paused, stepped to his table, and took a sip of water. He was an actor in the middle of a fine performance, and the jurors, as well as the others in the courtroom, were spellbound.
He continued, “Guilt in this case is simple, as is the punishment. You and you alone have the power to sentence the defendant to death in the electric chair, or life without parole in Parchman prison. The reason we have the death penalty in this state is that some people deserve it. This man is guilty of first-degree murder, and under our laws he has no right to live. Our laws are not written to protect the interests of the wealthy, the privileged, or those who served this country in the war. If I am found guilty of first-degree murder, I deserve to die. Same for you. Same for him. Read the law carefully when you get back to the jury room. It’s simple and straightforward and nowhere can you find an exception for war heroes. If at any time back there you find yourself tempted to show him mercy, then I ask you to take a moment and think about Dexter Bell and his family. Then I ask you to show Mr. Pete Banning the same mercy he showed Dexter Bell. God bless him. You took an oath to do your duty, and in this case your duty demands a verdict of guilty and a sentence of death. Thank you.”
Judge Oswalt had set no time limits on the final summations. Truitt could have gone on uninterrupted for an hour or two, but he wisely did not. The facts were simple, the trial had been short, and his arguments were clear and to the point.
John Wilbanks would be even briefer. He began with the startling question of “How do we benefit by executing Pete Banning? Think about that for a moment.” He paused and began pacing, slowly, back and forth before the jurors. “If you execute Pete Banning, do you make our community safer? The answer is no. He was born here forty-three years ago and has lived an exemplary life. Husband, father, farmer, neighbor, employer, church member, West Point graduate. He served this country with more courage than we can ever imagine. If you execute Pete Banning, do you bring back Dexter Bell? The answer is obvious. All of us have tremendous sympathy for the Bell family and their great suffering. All they want is their father and husband back, but that is not within your power. If you execute Pete Banning, do you expect to live the rest of your lives with a feeling of accomplishing something, of doing what the State of Mississippi asked you to do? I doubt it. The answer, gentlemen, is that there is no benefit in taking this man’s life.”
Wilbanks paused and gazed around the courtroom. He cleared his throat, and refocused on the jurors, meeting them eye to eye. “The obvious question here is, if killing is wrong, and we can all agree that it is, why is the State allowed to kill? The people who make our laws down in Jackson are no smarter than you. Their sense of good and evil, of basic morality, is no greater than yours. I know some of those people and I can assure you they are not as decent and God-fearing as you. They are not as wise as you. If you look at some of the laws they pass you’ll realize that they are often wrong. But somewhere along the way, somewhere in the lawmaking process, someone with a little sense decided to give you, the jurors, a choice. They realized that every case is different, that every defendant is different, and there may come a moment, in a trial, when the jurors say to themselves that the killing must stop. That’s why you have the choice between life and death. It’s in the law that you have been given.”
Another dramatic pause as Wilbanks looked from face to face. “We can’t bring back Dexter Bell and deliver him to his children. But Pete Banning has children too. A fine young son and beautiful daughter, both away at college, both with their lives in front of them. Please don’t take away their father. They’ve done nothing wrong. They don’t deserve to be punished. Granted, Pete Banning will not have much of a life inside prison walls, but he will be there. His children can visit him on occasion. They can certainly write letters, send him photographs on their wedding days, and allow him the joy of seeing the faces of his grandchildren. Though absent, Pete will be a presence in their lives, as they will be in his. Pete Banning is a great man, certainly greater than me, greater than most of us in this courtroom. I’ve known him for practically his entire life. My father was close to his father. He is one of us. He was bred here of the same black dirt, raised here with the same beliefs and convictions and traditions, same as you and me. How do we benefit by sending him to his grave? If we the people execute one of our own, there will be a bloody stain on Ford County that will never wash away. Never, never, never.”