Wordlessly, the deputies unstrap Willie from the chair and peel the electrodes from his skin. One pulls the hood from his face; Willie blinks at the sudden light, gasping for breath. His lips are oozing, and strands of drool stretch between them. Polly watches the deputies flit around him, unbuckling and unbinding, revealing swaths of scorched skin. He feels oddly calm, collected, resolved, as if something nebulous inside him has crystallized.
“Bloody hell,” Seward curses. He jabs a finger in Willie’s direction. “I’m going to go fix that generator and I’m coming right back, and if the electricty doesn’t kill you this time, well then I’m gonna kill you with a rock.” He slams his fist into his hand and leaves the room, knocking the chair with his hip as he passes it.
Sheriff Grazer takes Willie by the arm and helps him out of the chair; Willie takes a few unsteady steps forward, his body shaking. “Am I dead?” he’s asking. “What’s happening? Am I dead?”
“Take him back to the holding room,” Sheriff Roselle instructs. “Lay him down on the cot in there.”
The remaining witnesses watch Willie go, Sheriff Grazer’s arm around his waist. Even after the two are gone, the others in the room stand in stunned silence. The coroner’s assistant, a very young man, is quietly weeping; Polly puts a hand on his thin shoulder.
“What does one do, in a situation like this?” It is the coroner who breaks the silence.
“Never been a situation like this,” Roselle says, gruffly. He sniffs. “I reckon if that fool can get the chair fixed right we’ll try it again.”
Polly’s mind races, and he can feel a peculiar energy gathering inside him; it is a familiar sensation, one he used to get all the time when arguing a case in court.
“It doesn’t seem right,” he hears the priest say.
“Jones was sentenced to die on a specific date. It’s our duty to fulfill that order,” Roselle says. “This been a long time coming, and if we don’t get this done, well, boy, will there be hell to pay.” He gestures out the window. “Look at that crowd.”
Polly clears his throat. “Sheriff,” he says. “I’m not sure we are sanctioned to proceed as you suggest.”
All the men in the room look at him in surprise.
“As the prosecuting attorney, I sought capital punishment in this case. But as a legal scholar, I’d say it’s unconstitutional to put Willie Jones back into that chair.”
“What are you saying, man?” Roselle demands.
“What I’m saying is this: Willie Jones was tried and convicted of the rape of Grace Sutcliffe. That’s an undeniable fact. He was sentenced to die, and tonight, he was brought to the parish jail for that purpose. Everything was done to electrocute this boy up to and including the pulling of the switch and the passing of electricity into his body. You saw it,” he says, gesturing toward the chair, askew. “The state failed in its attempt to electrocute him. And so I ask, can the state electrocute a man twice? I don’t think so.”
“Well, I’ll be,” Sheriff Roselle says. “If he ain’t a nigger lover after all.”
Polly shakes his head. “It is a legal matter, sheriff. Not a personal one. It involves our constitutional right of freedom from cruel and unusual punishment. It involves our constitutional right of due process of law and double jeopardy.”
“Double jeopardy?”
“Yes. To send Willie back to the chair would consitute double jeopardy. He has already suffered the tortures of death for the same crime. It cannot be repeated.”
“I’m afraid that ain’t your decision to make.”
“No, it’s not,” Polly admits. “It is one that must be made in a court of law. And until it is, I’d argue that we cannot in good conscience put him back into the chair.”
Roselle glares at Polly, his eyes flickering angrily. “You ain’t the one in charge here,” he says. “I’m going to call the governor.”