INTERVIEWScott Turow cut his teeth as a prosecutor but made his name with the original lawyer thriller, 'Presumed Innocent'. Now, with a sequel to promote, he's more interested in talking real-life politics, writes MARK HENNESSY, London Editor
WEEKS INTO A tour to promote his latest novel, Innocent, Scott Turow is clearly tired of talking about the sequel to Presumed Innocent, the book that brought him international fame. In Claridge's hotel in London, Turow, a youthful 61-year-old Chicago-based writer, says: "I'm grateful for it, but I said this morning, 'God, if I have to do one more interview . . .'."
Presumed Innocent broke a path in fiction when it was published in 1987 and John Grisham and a host of others have followed the template in the years since. Turow slips into a polite, but well-rehearsed account of the sequel – one that sees the return of lawyer Rusty Sabich, who, having been cleared of murder of his former mistress in the first account, now finds himself facing charges over the death of his wife, Barbara. He comes alive, however, when the questions turn to law and politics. And Turow knows more than a piece about the connections between both, having served on a death-penalty commission in his home state of Illinois.
The commission made 80 recommendations, but none of them were enacted into law, until then-governor George Ryan acted unilaterally and commuted the sentences of all of those on death row. At this stage, Barack Obama, a state senator and friend of Turow’s, had become involved, which led to reforms that imposed tougher rules on police investigating murders.
“There are still people being sentenced to death, but there is a gubernatorial rule that none of them will actually be put to death. The people of the state of Illinois are very happy with this. They are having their cake and eating it. They are seeking vengeance and not taking it and, of course, the murder rate has gone down throughout that period,” he adds drily.
“Candidly, I don’t believe whether you have the death penalty, or whether you don’t have it, has any impact on murder rates. Nobody really knows why the murder rate has gone down. You would have thought it was economic but then we went into recession and the murder rate stayed down.”
The lawyer/author then bridles at the relaxation of hand-gun controls by the US supreme court. The controls were “doing just great until the supreme court jumped into that with one of the most intellectually-mendacious opinions of my lifetime,” he says. Turow has a low opinion of most of those on its bench. The current Republican majority in the court is the product of actions taken in the 1980s by Ronald Reagan’s attorney general, Edwin Meese. “[He] realised that the Republicans could shape the judiciary by appointing extremely young people because they serve for life. They did that wherever possible.” Now, it is Obama’s turn, but it depends on fate: “You can’t replace people. You just have to wait for them to die, or resign.”
So far, Obama has appointed Sonia Sotomayor and has proposed solicitor general Elena Kagan to replace John Paul Stevens, but the Republicans are already mounting challenges. “[Obama] has to get one more in order for the liberal and moderate role of the supreme court to resume. Were that to happen, it would be a watershed.”
Turow is particularly scathing of Antonin Scalia. “He is now in his 70s. I met the justice recently and he seems to be extremely vigorous,” he admits. “People get sick, people get fed up. But it’s not likely.” Scalia’s view of the supreme court is that judges should interpret the US constitution as it was written by its authors in 1789 – an approach he used in his “absolutely mendacious” opinion in the gun-control case. However, while Turow disparages Scalia’s rulings on this and other cases, he admires him for opposing the Bush administration’s efforts to “imprison citizens without a hearing, which if anything was one of the things that our revolution was about.”
The Bush administration was in tune with American public opinion, he concedes: “There is a substantial part of the Democratic party that continues to be concerned about civil liberties. But they are not a majority of Americans. Most Americans believe when it comes to terrorists, take them out, torture them, find out whatever you need.” Yet, most Americans have little understanding of the actions taken by the Bush government, including the wholesale interception of telephone and internet traffic: “They have no clue, no clue.”
Turow insists that because he is a liberal, it does not make him “soft” on terrorism: “I was a prosecutor. I understand that it is one thing to stand on the sidelines and quite another to feel responsible for the safety of everybody who is depending on you, and I am not naive about the depth of the threat that all Western countries are facing now. I grieve for my children that they will grow up in this world. I just think that you surrender when you say that somebody is a terrorist without proving that they are a terrorist.”
So far, Obama has done much to change the nature of society in the US: “In terms of racial tensions in the US, I think it has had a remarkable impact, I think that it has dramatically softened some of the resentments that African Americans had. They do not look at people of other colours as being inherent enemies. That doesn’t mean that life is markedly better for the poor; it isn’t because there are no god damn jobs. But it has changed the sense that there was this massive conspiracy which includes everybody who is white. I am sure that people are still angry and resentful, but I can tell you, walking down the street in an integrated community, it is a lot different. People say hello to one another in a way that they just didn’t do five years ago. I don’t put all of it down to the election, but I do think that if I had to point to one event, I would certainly point to the election. If somebody grows up believing, with plenty of evidence, that ‘they are all against me’ and all of a sudden it turns out that a substantial portion of those people were happy to vote for somebody who looks like you, you change your analysis.”
In particular, Obama is changing African-Americans’ view of education. “It is a lot easier to persuade somebody from San Antonio, or a poor community in southern California, ‘Look at what Columbia and Harvard did for Barack Obama’. It’s subtle; what I am talking about doesn’t overcome the massive inadequacy of public education in the US. You can look at a poor African American and be sure of the fact that there is a substantial possibility that he is going to end up in the penitentiary.”
But Turow insists that Obama must do more, and quickly – before the Democrats lose seats in the US senate and house of representatives in the November elections, particularly on taxes, which, Turow believes, must rise.“He can’t raise taxes by himself. He has actually had the political majority now to do it and it is not likely that he will have a majority that large after November, so where are we going to end up?”
Equally, Obama must persuade Americans that their economic model no longer works in a world where the most successful economy, China, does not live by free-market rules, but by regulation and government ownership. “I thought the president was going to be a little more forceful on that front and just try to embrace a vision of a partnership of entrepreneurship, government and regulation. And he hasn’t done that yet. They are scared of it.”
Despite the experience of 40 years working in legal circles, which began as a community probation officer in Bristol, England during a summer spent there as a young man, Turow remains an optimist of sorts. Back then, in between helping to build a children’s play area in the city, Turow worked with a local boy who had stolen a bus and left it teetering over water on a quay. “He was very proud of himself. He got pissed and stole the bus out of the yard in the middle of the night. Somebody had been dumb enough to leave the keys. He was not exactly repentant, but he was really a good guy.”
Did Turow ever find out what had happened to his charge? “No, but the subsequent experience of 30 years in criminal law would make me say that he came out just fine. I’d bet that he is a hard-working husband and father now.”
Innocentis published by Mantle (£17.99)
