CK: What do you think of your attorney team?
SM: They’re honest, hard-working, and interested in seeing that justice is done.
CK: Is there any significance to the fact that they’re both attractive women?
SM: What do you mean?
CK: Did you pick them because of their looks?
SM: I’m surprised you’d even ask me that. I don’t deal with people on the basis of their physical attributes.
CK: My readers want to know, Superman. Ms. Hunter and Ms. Collins make a striking team.
SM: They are both very capable attorneys. Irrespective of their level of attractiveness, I rather doubt that either of them is planning to appear as a magazine centerfold any time soon.
CK: I see. So, did you pick them for their looks?
SM: You’re as persistent now as you used to be. No, neither their gender nor their physical appearance was a factor in my decision to ask them to defend me. I want to see justice done, and so do Constance Hunter and Blair Collins. And let’s not have any more patronizing questions like that, okay?
Hmmm, Terry. This kind of exchange is not something I would associate with either Clark, Superman or the Daily Planet. On the other hand, perhaps it's true that the readers of the Daily Planet want to know why Superman has picked two female lawyers. In a world where women are still, as Simone de Beauvoir put it, "the second sex", women are going to be oddballs because of their sex in the world of white-collar professionals, and some people of Metropolis might conceivably wonder if Superman has chosen his attorneys mainly because he wants to have a good time with them.
CK: If you say so. Do you think this trial will interfere with your Superman duties?
SM: My duty as a law-abiding citizen requires me to submit to the judgment of the court, so no, I don’t see a conflict.
CK: What if you have to go rescue someone while the trial is going on?
SM: My attorneys plan to ask the judge about that early on. Whatever Judge Fields decides, that’s what I’ll abide by.
CK: Even if it means not helping at some emergencies?
SM: Yes. In that case, since I’ll be submitting to the authority of the trial judge, it will really be his or decision and not mine. As I just said, that’s Judge Fields’ decision, not mine.
CK: That’s good to know.
Very interesting. So if the judge has decided that Superman aboslutely mustn't leave the courtroom while the court is in session, then he would stay put even if there was a huge, major natural catastrophe occurring somewhere. In a way, I think I approve. It needs to be demonstrated to people what it would mean if Superman was sentenced to prison and was unable to help out at disaster sites.
CK: But you killed a man. How can you go on being Superman with that on your conscience?
SM: That’s why this trial is so important to me. I want the people of Metropolis to decide whether or not I should be punished for my actions. I don’t want to be perceived as some super-vigilante who sets his own standard of right and wrong. I only want to help, but if the people of this city decide they don’t want me to, I won’t force myself on them.
And this is where I still don't know if I understand what you are trying to tell us here. In your answer to my FDK on part five of this story, you said:
In the same manner, a Superman who takes a life is automatically suspect, but not automatically guilty. The American system of justice has a built-in presumption of innocence for the accused, which is why the prosecution must prove the guilt of the accused but the defense need not prove the innocence of the defendant. And one may only be convicted of a crime for which one is charged. There's no provision for being found partially guilty or partially innocent.
I understand that you can't be found guilty of a crime in the eyes of the law unless the legal system can prove that you are guilty of
exactly the crime you are being accused of. In Sweden a couple of years ago, two men broke into a house owned by an old man to burglarize it. When they got inside, they found the old man at home, and one of the burglars grabbed a frying pan from the kitchen and hit the old man on the head so that he died. The two burglars were quickly seized and brought to trial for murder. However, it turned out to be impossible to prove which of them had actually hit the old man with the frying pan, and since the prosecutor had only asked that the men should be found guilty of murder, not of complicity in murder, both had to be found not guilty of murdering the victim. In the eyes of the law these two men were innocent, but in the eyes of the public they were despicable murderers.
It seems to me that Superman is saying that he wants to be found
really innocent in the eyes of the public. He wants the American people to say that his killing of Billy Church was not reprehensible in any way. Clearly he wants to be found not guilty of any crime in the eyes of the law, too, but it may be even more important to him to be exonerated in the eyes of the public. And I don't understand how he can believe that all of the American public, except perhaps a small, perhaps xenophobic or badly educated part of it, will honestly think that he did
nothing wrong when he ripped Billy Church's heart out.
CK: What about prison time? If you’re convicted, how will the state hold you?
SM: Simple. They’ll close the cell door and I’ll stay put. I’ll do what they tell me to do. I’ll work where they want me to work and go to my cell when they tell me to. I’ll be a model prisoner.
CK: But there’s no way for the prison system to hold you if you don’t want to be locked up. What kind of assurances can you give them that you won’t just disappear into the air?
SM: I will give them my word.
CK: So you’re saying that your integrity should count for something after all?
SM: In this case, yes. The last thing I want to do is hurt someone.
I just want to point out that if the legal system
wanted to incapacitate Superman, it could do so by subjecting him to Kryptonite.
The last thing I want to do is hurt someone.
CK: Oh? What about Bill Church?
SM: You know, Mr. Kent, you’re just a little bit relentless.
CK: Thank you, Superman. Please answer my question.
SM: I can’t. Once again, the decision of whether my actions concerning Bill Church and Intergang were right or wrong, both legally and morally, is not mine to make. That’s why we’re holding this trial.
So Superman is still saying that it might have been legally as well as morally right to rip Billy Church's heart out. I don't know, Terry. When I read "The Maysonry of Life", I got the impression that Superman had been pushed past his own limits, and that he killed Billy Church in a fit of uncontrollable rage. I'm not questioning the fact that Superman's killing of Billy Church had the extremely beneficial effect of destroying Intergang, and I'm all for a trial that considers the good things that came out of Superman's bloodying of his own hands. But a society that declares a man innocent when he kills because he can't control his own fury... Terry, I don't want to live in a society like that.
CK: What are you plans for after the trial?
SM: I don’t have any. What I do after the trial isn’t up to me. That decision will be made by the citizens of this city. I trust that they will do the right thing.
I suspect that you will find a way to acquit Superman of any crime, even though I may certainly be jumping to conclusions here. In any case, I do expect you not to sentence him to prison, if only because I think that that would be the wrong thing to do in this case!
And if Superman is found sufficiently innocent not to have to go to prison, he
will have to consider his own future. Where does he go from here? Who is is now? What if the court finds his killing of Billy Church morally reprehensible, even if they could not find him guilty of a crime? How can he be Superman if he has offcially been slapped on the fingers because of what he did to Billy Church? And how can he be with Lois?
In this chapter Clark goes on being Superman, carrying out his Superman rescues, but he is tense and angry. And it is already becoming harder and harder for him to be with Lois:
Clark’s articles had arrived by messenger, but he hadn’t called her. He hadn’t called the Planet, nor her cell phone, not even left a message on her home answering machine. He wasn’t answering his cell phone or the phone in his hotel room, and his parents hadn’t spoken with him. As far as Lois knew, he’d put himself in high Earth orbit after leaving the dock and was still there.
There was nothing more for her to do but go home and get ready for the next day.
When Clark killed Billy Church he bit into his own fruit of knowledge from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The knowledge he got from eating that fruit changed him every bit as much as a woman may be changed from losing her virginity and perhaps becoming pregnant with a child. I think Clark is trying to deliver a "child" of his own, the man he is going to be after the legal system has questioned him and sentenced him. Not unlike the way God questioned Adam and Eve, by the way, and passed judgement on them.
Ann
P.S. I found it very interesting that the DA, Jack Reisman, possibly
wants to lose his own case. Well, well, well. He is not thinking only of his own glory, then.
