Until Proven Innocent (25 page)

I know exactly what’s going to happen tomorrow morning, so there probably won’t be any surprises awaiting us. It’ll probably be a lot like the prelim, only with more explanations, for the jury’s sake. They’ll do it by the numbers starting with the coroner and then move on to the motive argument and finally the ballistics. About the only thing I’ll have any chance of keeping out is several complaints of excessive force against Tony that were made by black people. Police personnel files are usually sealed, especially if the investigations haven’t been completed. Tony told me that as of this date there has been no final determination of his misconduct with respect to persons of color, so maybe we can dodge that bullet.

This isn’t normal procedure for me, but on the way back to the boat I tell Jack to stop at the Marina del Rey Liquor Store, where I pick up a six-pack of medicine. I intend to sleep tonight, even if it takes the entire container of six doses to get the job done.

*****

It worked. I slept like a baby. No need to worry about a dulling of my senses, because they won’t be needed today. The prosecution will put on their case, I’ll make a few objections that will be overruled, and then I’ll lose. What’s got me unnerved most may be the fact that Tony is a calm as he is. He must have nerves of steel, if he has any nerves at all.

As we approach the Santa Monica courthouse I see the press trucks with their satellite dishes extended up in the air, waiting for the juicy news item that a policeman has been convicted of murder. I’m sure they’ll be groups of protesters on both side of the issues waiting for their fifteen seconds of fame, when a newscaster desperate for an item to fill some dead air asks them a question about why they’re here and waving that sign.

I always wondered about the instantaneous protests I see covered on the news. If they’re so instantaneous, where do those nice signs they have come from?

Up ahead is a group of reporters who have spotted my yellow Hummer approaching and they’re waiting to ambush me as I walk up from the street to the courthouse entrance. In Santa Monica there’s no underground parking lot from which you can sneak in and out. No matter where you park or get dropped off, the press has a good chance to get at you.

From the time that Jack drops me off in front to the time I get to the courthouse door, they shout questions at me. There must be some instruction book that they’ve read, because their questions follow the same pattern. “Mister Sharp, will your client take the stand today?” “Do you have any alibi witness for your client?” “Are you going to try to blame the crime on someone else?” “Have you negotiated a plea bargain with the D.A.?”

Now that Myra’s been elected as District Attorney, there are new questions that they ask me. “Mister Sharp, how does it feel going up against your ex-wife?” Just before I enter the courtroom door and reach the metal-detector, I hear the last question. “Mister Sharp, is it true that your ex-wife is going to use your daughter to testify against your client?”

That’s a new one. I hope the kid was watching on television so she can see how her being cute can work to get her friend Tony the death penalty.

Inside the courtroom it looks like a sardine can. They purposely moved this case into the biggest room they have, but it sure doesn’t look that big with all these people packed in here. Renaldo is here with Evelyn and her daughter and those two women look great. What a shame they’re not going home tonight. And what an interesting seating arrangement there is here. The piracy gang is completely surrounded by Snell and his men.

The first few rows of the spectator seats are full of representatives from quite a few news organizations. Because of past cases in our County with police being charged with crimes, the press is always looking for another Rodney King type of case to help sell their newspapers for the next month.

The judge made a decision to allow one Court TV camera cover the trial, but because it’s mounted on a moveable platform controlled remotely, one camera is all they’ll need. They can swing the camera around to see everything but the jurors. Neither side objected to the camera coverage. Myra wants the publicity for her office, and I couldn’t care less one way or the other. There’s going to be no way to hide my loss this time, so they might as well televise it as a perfect negative example for future lawyers to see how not to conduct a trial.

There’s an empty seat in the back of the room that one of the bailiffs is guarding, probably for Myra to sit in when she gets here. Her chief trial deputy is an experienced woman who has handled many major cases here, but she doesn’t attract the press attention that I do, because she wasn’t married to the District Attorney. And, she doesn’t’ have a ‘daughter’ testifying against her case today.

Tony managed to have the bailiff save some seats for the members of his team. I’ve also been told that more cops will be coming later, including some top brass in the department. There’s a lot riding on this trial other than Tony’s fate, and local law enforcement agencies are all concerned about their images with the public. They’ve had some serious hits in the recent past, and they aren’t looking forward to another one. I guess they want to see the loss with their own eyes, so when it comes time to face the reporters they can say that they were there during the trial, and comment on it intelligently.

*****

As expected, the prosecution starts with the medical examiner. He testifies as to the cause of death. They arrested Tony at about eight-fifteen that evening, and know from his own statement that he arrived at the soundstage twenty minutes earlier, so it wasn’t too much of a stretch to expect the coroner to put the time of death at around eight PM.

On cross-examination, the only thing I can do is to try and push my perfect frame theory ahead, so I ask him if it was possible for the time of death to have been one hour earlier. Grudgingly, he finally admits that time of death is always a tough thing to pin down exactly, but yes, the murder could have possibly taken place an hour before Tony got there. Fine. That’s all I need from this guy, so I let him go and the D.A. doesn’t have any further questions for him on re-direct.

At least I’ve got the first part of the perfect frame in place. It is possible that the murder took place before Tony got there. Because possibilities are the only things I have to work with in this case, I’m happy to have the first one in place.

After the coroner, they play the recording of Tony’s call to the station, when he reported the shooting. We both stipulated to let it in. They’re using it to show how calm he sounded, and I’m using it to make sure the jury knows that Tony did in fact report the crime at least five or ten minutes before the cops arrived, giving him plenty of time to get that empty casing out of his gun - if he knew it was there.

Their next witness is the police supervisor who was first on the scene. They make sure that a cop calling in a shooting death is responded to by someone in a supervisory position instead of some rookie beat cop. The cop testifying is no young punk, and having been on the job at least fifteen years, he knows who Tony is, and it looks like he’s feeling the pressure of being torn between trying to put a bad guy away and trying to protect a fellow police officer.

When the D.A. is through with him, I only ask a few questions about Tony’s cooperation. This cop has made a lot of arrests, and I want him to let the jury know that Tony didn’t act like the typical guy who was guilty of something. This is another link in my chain of events that I hope will lead the jury to believe that Tony had no idea that empty shell casing was in his gun when he called in the crime and surrendered his weapon to the police.

A forensics lab tech is next, and after the supervising cop identifies Tony’s gun and the five shells removed from it, the tech testifies as to all five of them. He tells the jury that four of them were still unfired and the one empty shell casing was in the cylinder in the exact place it should be if it the gun had just fired the fatal shot.

Responding to a well-prepared set of questions, he also brings in some blow-ups of pictures taken of two fired shell casings, both from Tony’s weapon. One of them is the empty one that they found in the cylinder and another is one of the unfired rounds that they subsequently fired in the testing lab. The purpose of this display is to show the marks left on both casings from the firing pin and being slammed back against the breech. The tech shows that the firing pin indentation and breech mark patterns are identical on both bullets. In his expert opinion, they were both fired from the same weapon: Tony’s gun.

He does an adequate job of testifying to what the D.A. wants. On cross-examination, I get him to repeat how positive he is that both shells were fired from Tony’s weapon and then ask him the one question I want to pin him down with. “Can you testify with any certainty as to when the empty shell casing you found in the defendant’s weapon was fired?”

There’s no way he can answer that question, because it’s impossible to tell the passage of time between firing of the shells without any formation of rust. This is another little link in my perfect frame scenario. When I ask him whether or not he can definitely testify if the empty shell casing he found in Tony’s gun had been fired at eight PM on the night of the murder, or at three that afternoon, he answers that he can not.

On re-direct, the D.A. stresses the fact that Tony’s fingerprints were found on that empty shell, as well on the other four rounds in the cylinder. That’s when she springs the big question about any other fingerprints, and the tech responds that on the empty shell casing alone, there was another set of partial prints and that they appear to be from a child.

That’s all the press has to hear. They knew it was coming, and this is the high point of the trial they were waiting for. There is conversation and buzzing throughout the whole large room. The judge bangs his gavel a few times and makes some empty threats about clearing everyone out, before order is finally restored.

On re-cross, I simply wave that testimony aside by getting him to admit that it would have been more surprising not finding a gun owner’s prints on the ammunition in his own gun. As to the other set, I’m able to elicit testimony to the effect that just because there were some other person’s prints on the casing, there is no way he could tell when they got there or if they were placed there when the shell was put into the gun’s cylinder. He finally admits that some of Tony’s prints overlapped the child’s prints, so it’s likely that Tony handled the shell after the child did.

Their next witness is the lab tech who processed all of the prints on the shell casing. He explains how fingerprints removed from items were matched to prints already on file. His display shows both sets of fingerprints and identifies the persons they belong to as the defendant and one Suzi Braunstien. There’s a little more whispering, but not enough to disturb the judge. I assume that it was about forty people all saying the same thing under their breath - something to the effect that the kid is related to me.

After a short break so that the jury can stretch their legs, the judge lets us all know that he only expects the D.A. to put on two or three other witnesses and that they will probably rest their case some time shortly after we come back from lunch. In all the felony cases I’ve ever been involved with, I’ve never seen one go so fast. It’s the perfect case.

*****

It’s now time for them to establish Tony’s motive, so they bring in two witnesses. First Renaldo, who reluctantly testifies to the fact that Tony and Joe had argued quite a few times and in his opinion, they almost came to blows.

On cross-examination I get Renaldo to admit that he’s argued with his girlfriend many times, in as heated a fashion as Tony and Joe did, but he never contemplated killing her. That neutralizes his testimony.

Their last witness is a black activist who claims that there have been more complaints to him about Tony’s excessive use of force on black people then on any other policeman in his precinct. I don’t have any questions for him, because I think his testimony antagonized the jury more than it established Tony’s motive.

They saved their best for the last. The judge looks down at the D.A. and makes way for their final witness. “Do the People intend on calling their last witness now? And if so, is it the one we discussed earlier today in chambers?”

“
Yes, Your Honor. With the Court’s permission, we would like to call her now.”

“
Just to cover all the bases Mister Sharp, do you have any objection you’d like to make for the record?”

I stand up to give him my answer. “No Your Honor.” This lets the judge, jury, court reporter and the press know that this is okay with me. The judge feels that he should let the jurors in on the cast of characters now so that the record will reflect everyone’s informed consent to the witness appearing and the relationships involved.

“
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the People’s last witness will be called to the stand shortly, and I want to state for the record, the unique set of relationships in the courtroom today. This witness was the orphaned stepdaughter of an attorney who died in a plane crash not too long ago. Upon his death he left instructions that his close friend, neighbor and business associate should be appointed as the child’s legal guardian. This last wish of his was granted by another branch of this court. The witness being called is a young girl. Normally, we would insist on her having a parent or guardian present, but that’s not necessary in this situation, because her legal guardian is already here. He’s the defense attorney in this case, Mister Peter Sharp.