Poker is 100 percent skill and 50 percent luck. -Phil Hellmuth
[This is a work of poker fiction set ten thousand hands in the future. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.]
The wall of Ben Parsons' jail cell was covered with the graffiti signatures of many of its former inhabitants. Josef K. and Y. Bok had scrawled their names, as had Billy Pilgrim and Kilgore Trout. Parsons' cell had also, it seems, housed inmates from "A"-The Prisoner of Azkaban to "Z"-The Prisoner of Zenda. Wall scrawls had also been left behind by Prisoner No. 6-"I am not a number!" and Inmate C.C.3.-"The prisoner who dares not speak his name." With little else to do, Parsons added his own scrawl, "I Love Poker."
"The Prison Warden," said Parsons' court-appointed lawyer, "frowns on inmates vandalizing their cells."
"What are they going to do? Charge me with defacing public property?"
"No, they're going to let that infraction slide and charge you with eleven counts of terrorist murder."
"Terrorist murder?"
"That's only in federal court. After you plead guilty there, you'll have to plead guilty in state court to eleven counts of premeditated first degree murder."
"I'm not pleading guilty to anything in any court. I'm innocent!"
"Innocence requires a lack of guilt. In your case, the firebombing of the Calamity Jane's poker room, there is no lack of evidence of your guilt."
"Wait a minute!" exclaimed Parsons. "Aren't you supposed to presume I'm innocent?"
"No," replied his lawyer, "I'm only supposed to defend you."
"Well, I am innocent."
"OK. You're innocent. But can you prove it?"
"Isn't the burden of proof on the prosecution?"
"The prosecution?" laughed the lawyer. "You, my friend, have watched far too many courtroom movie melodramas. I'm not Atticus Finch and you're not Tom Robinson. The prosecution has witnesses who will swear that you threatened to get even with a table full of poker players, several of whom died in the firebombing you are charged with. They also have a surviving snippet of video surveillance tape from the poker room showing you getting up from your seat, followed several seconds later by a pipe bomb rolling under that seat. Can you provide a witness to prove otherwise?"
In fact Parsons could provide such a witness. Winston Smith, who knew the identity of the real firebomber, could clear him of all charges by just coming forward and telling the truth. Only Parsons had sworn a solemn oath to never tell anyone that Smith was involved and so he stayed silent.
His lawyer took that silence as an admission of guilt.
"Listen, I tried to make a deal to save your life. The prosecution refused to even consider life without the possibility of parole in exchange for your guilty plea. They're going for the death penalty. Plead guilty, throw yourself on the mercy of the court, and maybe, just maybe, one of the judges will spare your life but, to be honest, I doubt it."
"But," said Parsons, "I'm innocent."
"Maybe you are," said his lawyer, getting up to leave, "but innocence is not a defense. Jails are full of people who are innocent. Sometimes it's the justice system. Sometimes it's the miscarriage of justice system. What is it you card players call it? The luck of the draw?"
In the days to follow, Ben Parsons had a Bonnie Raitt song stuck in his head. "It's in the luck of the draw, baby, the natural law/Forget those movies you saw, little baby It's in the luck of the draw."
(To be continued in the next issue of Poker Player)
