By noon, Judge Slattery was fully in charge of the situation, and
though he tried hard to hide it, he was enjoying immensely this
brief interval in the center o f the storm. First, he had dismissed
the jury and lawyers in today’s civil trial. He had spoken to the
clerk of the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans, then to Justice
McNeely, then to Supreme Court Justice Edward F. Allbright in
Washington. Allbright was following every stage of the case. The
reporters quickly learned that a hearing of some type was going
to happen, and the phones in Slattery’s office began to ring.