Newton’s Butterfly: An Oral History, by David Rachels

 

Nicholas Freeman, county sheriff: The incident began during the opening hour of Elderwood’s 3^rd Annual Juneteenth Festival when 25-year-old Chance Gondry of Elderwood chained himself to the statue of Ambrose Collingwood on the courthouse square. He had gotten a bullhorn from somewhere, and he started shouting about “principles” and “Galveston” and “the real Juneteenth” and about how people would tear down that statue over his dead body, which didn’t make any sense because nobody had said anything about tearing down the statue. Everybody was just trying to enjoy the festival, and Chance was definitely making that hard to do.

Will Prescott, the accused: Chance Gondry was an asshole, and he was being too loud. I just wanted to shut him up, and next thing I knew he was dead. Thank god I had a lawyer who knows all about science.

Ephraim Foster, mayor: It was a terrible, terrible tragedy, really, really terrible. He was such a fine young man, and in the prime of his life, too. The Elderwood community was left with a lot of healing to do. We needed every possible thought and prayer.

Betty Harp, local historian: The Ambrose Collingwood statue was commissioned by the city of Elderwood in 1912 and dedicated in 1914. The sculptor was Felix Cage, who had a studio in New York City. The inscription on the base of the statue, which was written by Mayor Horace Appleton, says, “Ambrose Collingwood, 1821-1889. Man of Principle.” Collingwood is shown wearing his Sunday best and standing up very, very straight. I’ve had more than one person tell me they didn’t know a human being could stand up that straight, not even in a statue.

Randy Jett, high school principal: To my knowledge, Chance and Will didn’t have any kind of history together. They both made it to the 11^th grade, though Chance was two years ahead of Will. They both missed a lot of school, which I had mixed feelings about. As an educator, I wanted them to be in the classroom, but as an administrator, I knew my day would be easier if they weren’t around.

Betty Harp, local historian: No one knows for certain how many enslaved persons were living on Ambrose Collingwood’s property when the Civil War ended. Sources say anywhere from three to seven, but in any case, when Collingwood learned that Richmond had fallen, he moved everyone into his house, and that was the last anybody saw of them until 1889, and by that point there had been at least two births and possibly several deaths. The townspeople learned that Collingwood was dead when someone threw his body out onto the lawn. To my knowledge, there was no autopsy.

Chance Gondry, 10^th-grade civics paper: “Ambrose Collingwood had principles, and I have principles. Everyone agrees we should all have principles. But sometimes when people start arguing about details, they forget about principles. Details are the enemies of principles. People want you to believe that Ambrose Collingwood believed in slavery, but really he just believed in ownership. Suppose the government passed a law saying you don’t own your car anymore. Just like that. You don’t own a car. Now, would you care about the reason they decided to take away your car? No, all you would care about is that you paid for that car with your own money, so nobody has the right to take it away from you. You wouldn’t care about the details because the devil is in the details.”

Nicholas Freeman, county sheriff: Oh, sure, both those boys got arrested plenty of times, but it was nothing serious. They were just blowing off steam and being stupid.

Helen Dugan, 10^th-grade civics teacher: “Chance—I’m not sure that your logic holds water, but it’s good to see you attempting arguments rather than just assuming that everything you believe is true. Grade: B-”

Will Prescott, the accused: What are my principles? How about, people who are making my head hurt should shut up? Is that a principle?

Helen Dugan, 10^th-grade civics teacher: Do I regret giving a B- to a paper that you believe reflected a racist ideology that would ultimately get its author killed? Believe me, if I could show you a D- paper, you would retract that question.

Hon. Zendaya Torres, trial judge: To be honest, I thought the trial would be over in one day because the facts of the case were not in dispute. At that time, we knew of 15 people who had filmed the killing, and I assumed that the proceedings would last about as long as it took to watch those 15 videos. But lawyers will surprise you.

Jonathan Miller, Esq., prosecutor: I had planned to play three videos in chronological order. First, I would play the video where you can hear most clearly the victim ranting and raving. Then, I would play the video where you can see most clearly the actions of the accused. Finally, I would play the video where you can see most clearly the look on the victim’s face when he dies. I thought that would do it. The trial would be over in a day unless the defense threw some kind of curve ball, but what could they do? Temporary insanity? I didn’t think so. You’ve seen the videos. Didn’t they make you want to kill Chance Gondry? There’s nothing insane about that.

Mitchell Sneed, Esq., defense counsel: The first hiccup in the trial came because the speakers in the courtroom weren’t loud enough. I explained to Judge Torres that in order for the jurors to understand what happened, they had to hear Chance Gondry just as loud as my client heard him. So court recessed while they found better speakers, but once those speakers were in place, we had to agree on exactly how loud to turn them up. I had my acoustical expert ready to go, but we reached a compromise: Using the same bullhorn that Chance Gondry used, I shouted the transcript of his words. The prosecutor told the jury that I should have been ashamed for saying those things, but it was just ranting. It’s easy to imagine some kind of odious ideology behind what Chance Gondry said, but that’s just it—you have to imagine it. You’ve got to bring that stuff to the table yourself.

Gene Godwin, jury foreman: When the defense lawyer started yelling at us with the bullhorn, we tried to cover our ears, but the judge said we weren’t allowed to. On the video, Will Prescott doesn’t cover his ears, so we couldn’t do it, either.

Jonathan Miller, Esq., prosecutor: I never agreed to the bullhorn performance. That was all Judge Torres. Chance Gondry used that bullhorn outside, so what we heard inside was so much louder. You don’t need an acoustical expert to tell you that. I learned after the trial that the jury didn’t hear anything for the rest of the day because the ringing in their ears was so bad.

Hon. Zendaya Torres, trial judge: While we were sorting out the proper settings for the new speakers, Mr. Miller said, and I quote, “Why doesn’t defense counsel just use the damn bullhorn himself?” Now, I will grant you that Mr. Miller may have been speaking from a place of frustration, but he also should have been careful about what he was wishing for.

Blake Steeger, videographer: I took the best video, and don’t let anybody tell you any different. At first, I’d moved away from Chance because he was so loud, but when Will showed up and things started getting crazy, I was over there fast. Pretty much everybody had their phones out, but I got the prime spot. Will started yelling back at Chance, but you can’t hear him on the video because Chance is so loud. Then Will started with the water. It was about 100 degrees outside, so the city had put out these big barrels of ice with free bottles of water, and Will started getting bottles of water and spraying them all over Chance. For all I know, Chance might have liked it because it was cooling him off, but it’s not like he could have done much about it either way because he was chained to the statue.

Mitchell Sneed, Esq., defense counsel: I rooted the defense in hard science because modern juries demand modern evidence. Usually, they prefer DNA, but I couldn’t give them that, so I gave them something even better: Sir Isaac Newton.

Blake Steeger, videographer: After Chance was soaking wet, Will started running around behind all the food trucks. I don’t think anybody had any idea what he was planning to do, but we could see him messing with the portable generators that were powering the trucks. After a while, he found one that he could drag as far as the statue, and when Chance went to see what it was, Will shoved him over on top of it. Damn! The way Chance danced around on top of that generator! And everybody could smell it, too.

Gene Godwin, jury foreman: We didn’t like having to watch those videos, so when the defense started talking about science, we were relieved. Every last member of the jury was waiting for forensics. If there hadn’t been forensics, I don’t know what we would have done.

Will Prescott, the accused: I didn’t think it would work, but yeah, killing him was the goal.

Mitchell Sneed, Esq., defense counsel: I talked to the jury in a language they could easily understand, and I told them something that they already knew in their bones: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Then I used Sir Isaac Newton’s name to elevate folk wisdom into scientific fact. I told them, “That’s Newton’s Third Law, people. Since 1687, every scientist in the world has agreed that this law is true.” Then I reminded the jury what they had seen on those videos: action and reaction. According to Newton’s Third Law, Chance Gondry acted, and my client reacted in equal fashion. I let those words hang in the courtroom: in equal fashion. That is to say, my client’s behavior was not just appropriate to the situation, but he behaved as Newton’s Third Law dictated that he must behave. To have asked my client not to kill Chance Gondry would have been the same as asking him to violate the laws of physics, and how could anyone expect him to do that?

Sir Isaac Newton, Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica: “Whatever draws or presses another is as much drawn or pressed by that other. If you press a stone with your finger, the finger is also pressed by the stone. If a horse draws a stone tied to a rope, the horse (if I may so say) will be equally drawn back towards the stone: for the distended rope, by the same endeavor to relax or unbend itself, will draw the horse as much towards the stone, as it does the stone towards the horse, and will obstruct the progress of the one as much as it advances that of the other.”

Jonathan Miller, Esq., prosecutor: I had physicists lining up to set the record straight, but it didn’t work out.

Dr. Janice Bell, physicist: Mr. Miller warned me not to get too technical. He said, “Whatever you do, do not use any scientific equations!” With that in mind, I did my best to explain to the jury that Newton’s Third Law has nothing to do with human motivations and behaviors. I showed them a Newton’s cradle. I’m sure you must have seen one before. It’s one of those devices with silver balls lined up in a row, each one suspended from a pair of wires. When you pull back a single ball and release it, it strikes the nearest ball, but the ball at the opposite end is the only one that moves, and when that farthest ball falls back into place, the original ball is the only one that moves, and so on. I used this device to explain Newtonian mechanics to the jury, and I told them, “These balls cannot explain why one man would kill another man.” But the jurors just sat there and shook their heads at me like I was some kind of fool.

Jonathan Miller, Esq., prosecutor: I thought my only recourse was to give the jury a different scientist to believe, and I came up with Edward N. Lorenz. Also, given that several of the jurors seemed to have been previously familiar with Newton’s Third Law in some superficial way, I thought that one or two of them might already know the Butterfly Effect. So I ran with it. I brought out the big guns. I put three experts on the stand: a meteorologist, an atmospheric physicist, and a mathematician who specializes in chaos theory. Those were three mistakes. My thinking was backwards. I was the prosecutor, so why was I the one who was trying to create reasonable doubt? I thought that if I made the jury aware of the infinite network of factors affecting everything that happens in the world, one of those factors might cause at least one juror to doubt the simple Newtonian cause-and-effect posited by the defense. This may have been the worst strategy possible.

Edward N. Lorenz, “Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?”: “I am proposing that over the years minuscule disturbances neither increase nor decrease the frequency of occurrences of various weather events such as tornados; the most they may do is to modify the sequences in which they occur. The question which really interests us is whether they can do even this—whether, for example, two particular weather situations differing by as little as the immediate influence of a single butterfly will generally after sufficient time evolve into two situations differing by as much as the presence of a tornado.”

Mitchell Sneed, Esq., defense counsel: I said to the jury, “I’ve never heard of this Edward N. Lorenz. Have any of you ever heard of this Edward N. Lorenz? Apparently, this Edward N. Lorenz wants us to believe that Chance Gondry was killed by a butterfly in Africa!” And then we all laughed.

Jonathan Miller, Esq., prosecutor: I lost this case the moment I put my first physicist on the stand. When I did that, I told the jury we should take the defense seriously. Instead, I should have ignored the defense. Every time Mitchell Sneed mentioned Isaac Newton, I should have shown another video: Watch Will Prescott spray Chance Gondry with water. Watch Will Prescott shove Chance Gondry onto the generator. Watch Chance Gondry die. Here, from another angle, watch Chance Gondry die. As many times as you need to see it, we will watch Chance Gondry die. Would that have worked? Maybe not, but at least the jury wouldn’t have been laughing at me.

Mitchell Sneed, Esq., defense counsel: I told the members of the jury, there are laws and then there are laws, and I challenged them: Are you going to call Sir Isaac Newton a liar? Since 1687, not one man, woman, or child alive has dared to call Sir Isaac Newton a liar. Are you going to be the first?

Jonathan Miller, Esq., prosecutor: I thought about explaining to the jury that Albert Einstein had called Sir Isaac Newton a liar, but I knew they wouldn’t believe me.

Hon. Zendaya Torres, trial judge: Defense counsel had been using the word law quite freely, and I worried that this might be confusing to the jury. Therefore, when I gave the jury their instructions, I took pains to untangle the laws of the American legal system from the laws that govern the functioning of the physical universe. I shouldn’t have bothered.

Gene Godwin, jury foreman: I told my fellow members of the jury that we had one question to answer: Who were we going to believe, Sir Isaac Newton or Edward N. Lozenge? I’m proud to say that we voted unanimously for Sir Isaac Newton on the very first ballot.

Will Prescott, the accused: I think lots of people would be better off dead, but I wish somebody else had killed Chance, not me. I’m grateful that I’m not going to jail, but this whole thing has been a major pain in my ass. The next time I see a person who needs to die, I’ll let somebody else do it.

Betty Harp, local historian: I would predict that the death of Chance Gondry will get one paragraph in the next edition of History of Elderwood County, but I could be wrong. History develops in ways you never expect. This was our first murder trial since 1955, but will it have any lasting impact? The only impact I’ve seen so far is that Mayor Foster has canceled the Elderwood Juneteenth Festival indefinitely. He says the community needs time to heal. I’m tempted to say, therefore, that Chance Gondry got what he wanted—or at least part of what he wanted—but I’m really not sure.

Ephraim Foster, mayor: Could you repeat the question? I’m not sure I understand. Why would you object to healing? How can healing not be good?

Will Prescott, the accused: More than anything, I’ve got a newfound respect for school. School saved my life. I had a lawyer who might as well have been a scientist, and I had a jury who believed in the scientific method. They gave me a second chance, and I’ve taken it. I’m working as a motivational speaker. Mainly, I talk to kids, and I try to get them fired up about education. I tell them, you never know what school might do for you. It saved my life, and one day it could save your life, too.

David Rachels has published more than 50 short stories in a variety of places. As well, he has edited four volumes of stories by the classic noir writer Gil Brewer, published by Stark House Press.