The Institute for Planetary Justice had only Herman and Susan… and, of course, the butterflies. The glass terrarium sat covered with a hospital towel, awaiting the appropriate moment in his opening statement to be introduced to the jury.

"Oyez, oyez, oyez. Federal District Court Fifteen is now in session. The Honorable Judge Melissa King, presiding. All rise," the bailiff called out.

The courtroom rose in unison as the back door opened and Melissa King strode into court.

Jesus! The woman is ready to give birth any minute, Herman thought as she waddled through the door and around the mahogany platform, then labored up the three steps to the bench. Her narrow shoulders were thrown back for counterbalance. She had gained thirty pounds since she had thrown his last case out. A dishwater blond with a pinched expression and narrow eyes, she looked uncomfortable and angry in her last month of pregnancy. She eased herself into the big, high-backed judicial swivel, looked down at the court, opened a folder, and then while everybody waited began reading documents.

Aside from the jury and the attorneys, there was the usual array of courtroom groupies: old men and women who preferred daily legal jousts in air-conditioned comfort to the eighty-degree L.A. heat in the park across the street. They sat like a row of vultures in their baggy street clothes, cutting up apples with penknives and drinking tap water out of recycled Evian bottles.

"So, this is the butterfly thing… CO3769M." Judge King said, looking at her folder. "Is everyone present? Can we get moving?" No bullshit from Melissa this morning.

"Yes, Your Honor," Herman said. "The Institute for Planetary Justice is ready to try its case." "Good morning, Herman. New suit?"

"Yes, Your Honor. I wanted to look nice for you." She smiled down at him, but it was a grim, humorless little number that could peel the paint off a grain silo. Then she snapped her gaze over to the crowded defense table. "Are there enough of you over there, Mr. Amato?" she quipped.

Joseph Amato smiled and stood. "Your Honor, we represent the FDA, the EPA, the Department of Agriculture, the Pierpoint Laboratories, Gen-A-Tec, and Malorite Labs, et al. I've been selected as lead counsel. I think you've been supplied with a list of my co-counsels.

Judge King held it up. "I have my score card all ready, Counselor. Let's play ball."

Herman thought she was in fine form-smart-assing her way along. He had absolutely no traction with the woman. She turned to him. "An amended complaint form was delivered to me this morning by messenger. What's the deal?"

"Yes, Your Honor, we have dismissed on behalf of two plaintiffs and substituted a new one."

"I see you removed the Concerned Scientists. Did they become 'concerned' with your legal tactics?"

"Your Honor… uh… is it really necessary to…"

"Yes, Herman? What?" A clear challenge.

Herman paused. Shit. It pissed him off that she had just insulted him in front of the jury, but he also didn't want to start the case in a mud fight with the judge.

"Nothing, Your Honor," he said softly.

"And this new plaintiff, the Danaus Plexippus Foundation. What is that?" She went on reading from the amended complaint before her.

"It is the foremost foundation researching the world migration and breeding habits of the monarch butterfly."

"The foremost foundation?" she said, milking it for laughs. "In the whole world?”

"Yes, Your Honor… the whole wide world." Herman smiled, trying to keep it light.

"In the whole wide world. Well, fancy that." She heaved a sigh, tired of him already. "Okay, I'm going to take that under submission pending demonstration by testimony that the Danaus Plexippus Foundation does, in fact, have fiscal damages as well as a history of protecting the monarch butterfly and the public's interest in it." Melissa King shifted uncomfortably, as did Herman, who didn't like the sound of that. "Let's get this show-stopper rolling," she continued. "What's in the box, Herman?"

"Uh, Your Honor, if I might get to that in due course."

"You have some butterflies in there?"

"Your Honor, I really appreciate your help, but perhaps you might let me put on my opening statement by myself?"

"Sure. Let's do it then. You're up."

Herman looked at Susan, who reached over and squeezed his hand.

He stood and straightened his tie, then moved around in front of the plaintiff's table. Herman looked at the jury while the street people swigged their Evian bottles and leaned forward in expectation.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury," Herman began. "I come before you today to tell you about an issue that may very well affect your lives.

"Most of you have seen butterflies; perhaps some of you, or all of you, even enjoy them. They are beautiful creatures. They decorate our lives, and enhance the God-given wonder of our planet." He let that sink in, pausing for dramatic effect, letting the moment hang there while he put a look of concern on his flushed face.

"Do you have anything else, or is that it?" Judge King interrupted, rudely stepping on his heartfelt moment.

"I have more, Your Honor," Herman said, getting pissed.

"Well, let's go then. Get to it."

Herman nodded, composed himself, and went on: "Perhaps you think about the beauty of the butterfly, or perhaps many of you might not think of butterflies at all. But in the next few days I am going to ask you to think about them. I'm going to ask you to pause in your busy day and look at them, study them. Think about the millions of years of evolution that it took to beautify them and bring them to this place in the history of our planet. I'm going to ask you to wonder about the awesome process of their metamorphosis, from lowly caterpillar to graceful winged beauty. I'll ask you to notice how effortlessly they take flight, how magnificently they flutter, soft as a feather, traveling with powerful determination to distant locations. As a matter of fact, did you know that a butterfly can travel thousands of miles over the span of their short lifetimes? Incredible, isn't it?"

Judge Melissa King now stifled a yawn and shifted uncomfortably in her swivel chair. The jury shifted their gaze toward her. She had broken his rhythm again.

Herman needed some drama to get them back. So he strode over and, like David Copperfield, snapped the towel off his case with a flourish, revealing the three beautiful monarchs, which were flying around inside the terrarium as if on cue. The eyes of the jury were riveted as Herman stood aside to afford them a better view. "Behold the plaintiff," he said with a touch too much drama. "In this state alone monarch butterflies travel a distance of two thousand miles each year, down the coast of California to the middle of South America, where they build their homes and raise their families. Amazing, isn't it? Amazing and inspiring." Herman had planned another Wild Kingdom pause here to allow the jury to study the beautiful species of butterfly, but he didn't want Melissa King to jump in again, so he kept going.

"Amazing that their little brainstems know exactly where to go, guiding them year after year to the same breeding ground thousands of miles from where they came from. I'm asking you to keep this fact in mind the next time you see one of these breathtaking organisms.

"Over the course of the next few days I'll be inviting some brilliant doctors and professors from around the country to explain these butterflies to you. Dr. DeVere is going to explain their eating patterns and how they breed, reproduce, and migrate. Dr. Masuka is going to explain, and even demonstrate to you, why they are dying in such vast numbers. Professor Viotti is going to explain the evolution of these magnificent creatures-take you on a voyage of natural selection and show you the evolutionary steps, millions of years in the making, that created this unbelievable species of butterfly that is now being threatened with destruction by one generation of careless science.