Sycamore Row

your job to give away Seth’s money, or to decide who should get what or how much. However, it is your job to determine if Seth knew what he was doing. The legal term is ‘testamentary capacity.’ To make a valid will, one that is handwritten on the back of a grocery bag or one typed by five secretaries in a big law office and signed before a notary public, one has to have testamentary capacity. It’s a legal term that’s easy to understand. It means you have to know what you’re doing, and, ladies and gentlemen, Seth Hubbard knew exactly what he was doing. He wasn’t crazy. He wasn’t delusional. He wasn’t under the influence of painkillers or other meds. He was as mentally sound and sane as the twelve of you are right now.
    “It might be argued that a man planning his own suicide cannot be of sound mind. You gotta be crazy to kill yourself, right? Not always. Not necessarily. As jurors you are expected to rely on your own experiences in life. Perhaps you’ve known someone, a close friend or even a family member, who came to the end of the road and chose his or her own final exit. Were they out of their minds? Perhaps, but probablynot. Seth certainly was not. He knew exactly what he was doing. He’d battled lung cancer for a year, with several rounds of chemotherapy and radiation, all unsuccessful, and the tumors had finally metastasized to his ribs and spine. He was in terrible pain. At his last visit to his doctor he was given less than a month to live. When you read what he wrote the day before he died, you’ll be convinced that Seth Hubbard was in complete control of his life.”
    As a prop, Jake was holding a legal pad but he wasn’t using it. He didn’t need it. He walked back and forth before the jurors, making eye contact with every one of them, speaking slowly and clearly as if they were sitting in his den and chatting about their favorite movies. But every word was written somewhere. Every sentence had been rehearsed. Every pause was calculated. The timing, cadence, rhythm—all memorized to near perfection.
    Even the busiest of trial lawyers spend only a fraction of their time in front of juries. These moments were rare, and Jake relished them. He was an actor on a stage, in the midst of a monologue he created, speaking words of wisdom to his chosen audience. His pulse was spiking; his stomach was flipping; his knees were weak. But those internal battles were all under control and Jake calmly lectured his new friends.
    Five minutes in, and he had not missed a word. Five minutes to go, with the roughest part just ahead.
    “Now, ladies and gentlemen, there is an unpleasant part of this story, and that’s why we’re all here. Seth Hubbard was survived by a son and a daughter and four grandchildren. In his will, he left them nothing. In language that is plain and clear, but also painful to read, Seth specifically excluded his family from inheriting under his will. The obvious question is, Why? It is our natural tendency to ask, ‘Why would a man do this?’ However, it is not your responsibility to ask that question. Seth did what he did for reasons known only to him. Again, he made the money—it all belonged to him. He could have given every penny to the Red Cross, or to some slick televangelist, or to the Communist Party. That’s his business, not yours, not mine, not this court’s.
    “Instead of leaving his money to his family, Seth left 5 percent to his church, 5 percent to a long-lost brother, and the remaining 90 percent was given to a woman by the name of Lettie Lang. Ms. Lang is sitting right here between me and Mr. Lundy. She worked for Seth Hubbard for three years as his housekeeper, his cook, and sometimes his nurse. Again, the obvious question is, Why? Why did Seth cut outhis family and leave almost everything to a woman he’d known for such a short period of time? Believe me, ladies and gentlemen, that is the greatest question I’ve ever confronted as a lawyer. That question has been asked by me, by the other lawyers, by the Hubbard family, by Lettie Lang herself, by friends and neighbors, and by virtually everyone in this county who’s heard the story. Why?
    “The truth is that we’ll never know. Only Seth knew and he’s no longer with us. The truth, folks, is that it’s none of our business. We—the lawyers, the judge, you the jurors—are not supposed to concern ourselves with why Seth did what he did. Your job, as I’ve said, is to decide only one important