“No, I don’t want a mistrial. All that will do is give the prosecution time to clean up its mess, get it all right and then come back at us.”
“Then what do you want?” she asked.
“What do I want? A directed verdict would be nice. Something with no comebacks from the state. Other than that, we’ll ride it out.”
The judge nodded and clasped her hands together on the desk.
“A directed verdict would be ridiculous, Your Honor,” Minton said, finally finding his voice. “We’re at the end of trial, anyway. We might as well take it to a verdict. The jury deserves it. Just because one mistake was made by the state, there is no reason to subvert the whole process.”
“Don’t be stupid, Mr. Minton,” the judge said dismissively. “It’s not about what the jury deserves. And as far as I am concerned, one mistake like you have made is enough. I don’t want this kicked back at me by the Second and that is surely what they will do. Then I am holding the bag for your miscon —”
“I didn’t know Corliss’s background!” Minton said forcefully. “I swear to God I didn’t know.”
The intensity of his words brought a momentary silence to the chambers. But soon I slipped into the void.
“Just like you didn’t know about the knife, Ted?”
Fullbright looked from Minton to me and then back at Minton.
“What knife?” she asked.
Minton said nothing.
“Tell her,” I said.
Minton shook his head.
“I don’t know what he’s talking about,” he said.
“Then you tell me,” the judge said to me.
“Judge, if you wait on discovery from the DA, you might as well hang it up at the start,” I said. “Witnesses disappear, stories change, you can lose a case just sitting around waiting.”
“All right, so what about the knife?”
“I needed to move on this case. So I had my investigator go through the back door and get reports. It’s fair game. But they were waiting for him and they phonied up a report on the knife so I wouldn’t know about the initials. I didn’t know until I got the formal discovery packet.”
The judge formed a hard line with her lips.
“That was the police, not the DA’s office,” Minton said quickly.
“Thirty seconds ago you said you didn’t know what he was talking about,” Fullbright said. “Now suddenly you do. I don’t care who did it. Are you telling me that this did in fact occur?”
Minton reluctantly nodded.
“Yes, Your Honor. But I swear, I didn’t —”
“You know what this tells me?” the judge said, cutting him off. “It tells me that from start to finish the state has not played fair in this case. It doesn’t matter who did what or that Mr. Haller’s investigator may have been acting improperly. The state must be above that. And as evidenced today in my courtroom it has been anything but that.”
“Your Honor, that’s not —”
“No more, Mr. Minton. I think I’ve heard enough. I want you both to leave now. In half an hour I’ll take the bench and announce what we’ll do about this. I am not sure yet what that will be but no matter what I do, you aren’t going to like what I have to say, Mr. Minton. And I am directing you to have your boss, Mr. Smithson, in the courtroom with you to hear it.”
I stood up. Minton didn’t move. He still seemed frozen to the seat.
“I said you can go!” the judge barked.
FORTY-TWO
I followed Minton through the court clerk’s station and into the courtroom. It was empty except for Meehan, who sat at the bailiff’s desk. I took my briefcase off the defense table and headed toward the gate.
“Hey, Haller, wait a second,” Minton said, as he gathered files from the prosecution table.
I stopped at the gate and looked back.
“What?”
Minton came to the gate and pointed to the rear door of the courtroom.
“Let’s go out here.”
“My client is going to be waiting out there for me.”
“Just come here.”
He headed to the door and I followed. In the vestibule where I had confronted Roulet two days earlier Minton stopped to confront me. But he didn’t say anything. He was putting words together. I decided to push him even further.
“While you go get Smithson I think I’ll stop by the Times office on two and make sure the reporter down there knows there’ll be some fireworks up here in a half hour.”
“Look,” Minton sputtered. “We have to work this out.”
“We?”
“Just hold off on the Times, okay? Give me your cell number and give me ten minutes.”
“For what?”
“Let me go down to my office and see what I can do.”
“I don’t trust you, Minton.”
“Well, if you want what’s best for your client instead of a cheap headline, you’re going to have to trust me for ten minutes.”
I looked away from his face and acted like I was considering the offer. Finally, I looked back at him. Our faces were only two feet apart.
“You know, Minton, I could’ve put up with all your bullshit. The knife and the arrogance and everything else. I’m a pro and I have to live with that shit from prosecutors every day of my life. But when you tried to put Corliss on Maggie McPherson in there, that’s when I decided not to show you any mercy.”
“Look, I did nothing to intentionally —”
“Minton, look around. There’s nobody here but us. No cameras, no tape, no witnesses. Are you going to stand there and tell me you never heard of Corliss until a staff meeting yesterday?”
He responded by pointing an angry finger in my face.
“And you’re going to stand there and tell me you never heard of him until this morning?”
We stared at each other for a long moment.
“I may be green but I’m not stupid,” he said. “The strategy of your whole case was to push me toward using Corliss. You knew all along what you could do with him. And you probably got it from your ex.”
“If you can prove that, then prove it,” I said.
“Oh, don’t worry, I could . . . if I had the time. But all I’ve got is a half hour.”
I slowly raised my arm and checked my watch.
“More like twenty-six minutes.”
“Give me your cell number.”
I did and then he was gone. I waited in the vestibule for fifteen seconds before stepping through the door. Roulet was standing close to the glass wall that looked down at the plaza below. His mother and C. C. Dobbs were sitting on a bench against the opposite wall. Further down the hallway I saw Detective Sobel lingering in the hallway.
Roulet noticed me and started walking quickly toward me. Soon his mother and Dobbs followed.
“What’s going on?” Roulet asked first.
I waited until they were all gathered close to me before answering.
“I think it’s all about to blow up.”
“What do you mean?” Dobbs asked.
“The judge is considering a directed verdict. We’ll know pretty soon.”
“What is a directed verdict?” Mary Windsor asked.
“It’s when the judge takes it out of the jury’s hands and issues a verdict of acquittal. She’s hot because she says Minton engaged in misconduct with Corliss and some other things.”
“Can she do that? Just acquit him.”
“She’s the judge. She can do what she wants.”
“Oh my God!”
Windsor brought one hand to her mouth and looked like she might burst into tears.
“I said she is considering it,” I cautioned. “It doesn’t mean it will happen. But she did offer me a mistrial already and I turned that down flat.”
“You turned it down?” Dobbs yelped. “Why on earth did you do that?”
“Because it’s meaningless. The state could come right back and try Louis again—this time with a better case because th
ey’ll know our moves. Forget the mistrial. We’re not going to educate the prosecution. We want something with no comebacks or we ride with this jury to a verdict today. Even if it goes against us we have solid grounds for appeal.”
“Isn’t that a decision for Louis to make?” Dobbs asked. “After all, he’s —”
“Cecil, shut up,” Windsor snapped. “Just shut up and stop second-guessing everything this man does for Louis. He’s right. We’re not going through this again!”
Dobbs looked like he had been slapped by her. He seemed to shrink back from the huddle. I looked at Mary Windsor and saw a different face. It was the face of the woman who had started a business from scratch and had taken it to the top. I also looked at Dobbs differently, realizing that he had probably been whispering sweet negatives about me in her ear all along.
I let it go and focused on what was at hand.
“There’s only one thing the DA’s office hates worse than losing a verdict,” I said. “That’s getting embarrassed by a judge with a directed verdict, especially after a finding of prosecutorial misconduct. Minton went down to talk to his boss and he’s a guy who is very political and always has his finger in the wind. We might know something in a few minutes.”
Roulet was directly in front of me. I looked over his shoulder to see that Sobel was still standing in the hallway. She was talking on a cell phone.
“Listen,” I said. “All of you just sit tight. If I don’t hear from the DA, then we go back into court in twenty minutes to see what the judge wants to do. So stay close. If you will excuse me, I’m going to go to the restroom.”
I stepped away from them and walked down the hallway toward Sobel. But Roulet broke away from his mother and her lawyer and caught up to me. He grabbed me by the arm to stop me.
“I still want to know how Corliss got that shit he was saying,” he demanded.
“What does it matter? It’s working for us. That’s what matters.”
Roulet brought his face in close to mine.
“The guy calls me a murderer on the stand. How is that working for us?”
“Because no one believed him. And that’s why the judge is so pissed, because they used a professional liar to get up there on the stand and say the worst things about you. To put that in front of the jury and then have the guy revealed as a liar, that’s the misconduct. Don’t you see? I had to heighten the stakes. It was the only way to push the judge into pushing the prosecution. I am doing exactly what you wanted me to do, Louis. I’m getting you off.”
I studied him as he computed this.
“So let it go,” I said. “Go back to your mother and Dobbs and let me go take a piss.”
He shook his head.
“No, I’m not going to let it go, Mick.”
He poked a finger into my chest.
“Something else is going on here, Mick, and I don’t like it. You have to remember something. I have your gun. And you have a daughter. You have to —”
I closed my hand over his hand and finger and pushed it away from my chest.
“Don’t you ever threaten my family,” I said with a controlled but angry voice. “You want to come at me, fine, then come at me and let’s do it. But if you ever threaten my daughter again, I will bury you so deep you will never be found. You understand me, Louis?”
He slowly nodded and a smile creased his face.
“Sure, Mick. Just so we understand each other.”
I released his hand and left him there. I started walking toward the end of the hallway where the restrooms were and where Sobel seemed to be waiting while talking on a cell. I was walking blind, my thoughts of the threat to my daughter crowding my vision. But as I got close to Sobel I shook it off. She ended her call when I got there.
“Detective Sobel,” I said.
“Mr. Haller,” she said.
“Can I ask why you are here? Are you going to arrest me?”
“I’m here because you invited me, remember?”
“Uh, no, I don’t.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“You told me I ought to check out your trial.”
I suddenly realized she was referring to the awkward conversation in my home office during the search of my house on Monday night.
“Oh, right, I forgot about that. Well, I’m glad you took me up on it. I saw your partner earlier. What happened to him?”
“Oh, he’s around.”
I tried to read something in that. She had not answered the question about whether she was going to arrest me. I gestured back up the hallway toward the courtroom.
“So what did you think?”
“Interesting. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall in the judge’s chambers.”
“Well, stick around. It ain’t over yet.”
“Maybe I will.”
My cell phone started to vibrate. I reached under my jacket and pulled it off my hip. The caller ID readout said the call was coming from the district attorney’s office.
“I have to take this,” I said.
“By all means,” Sobel said.
I opened the phone and started walking back up the hallway toward where Roulet was pacing.
“Hello?”
“Mickey Haller, this is Jack Smithson in the DA’s office. How’s your day going?”
“I’ve had better.”
“Not after you hear what I’m offering to do for you.”
“I’m listening.”
FORTY-THREE
T he judge did not come out of chambers for fifteen minutes on top of the thirty she had promised. We were all waiting, Roulet and I at the defense table, his mother and Dobbs behind us in the first row. At the prosecution table Minton was no longer flying solo. Next to him sat Jack Smithson. I was thinking that it was probably the first time he had actually been inside a courtroom in a year.
Minton looked downcast and defeated. Sitting next to Smithson, he could have been taken as a defendant with his attorney. He looked guilty as charged.
Detective Booker was not in the courtroom and I wondered if he was working on something or simply if no one had bothered to call him with the bad news.
I turned to check the big clock on the back wall and to scan the gallery. The screen for Minton’s PowerPoint presentation was gone now, a hint of what was to come. I saw Sobel sitting in the back row, but her partner and Kurlen were still nowhere to be seen. There was nobody else but Dobbs and Windsor, and they didn’t count. The row reserved for the media was empty. The media had not been alerted. I was keeping my side of the deal with Smithson.
Deputy Meehan called the courtroom to order and Judge Fullbright took the bench with a flourish, the scent of lilac wafting toward the tables. I guessed that she’d had a cigarette or two back there in chambers and had gone heavy with the perfume as cover.
“In the matter of the state versus Louis Ross Roulet, I understand from my clerk that we have a motion.”
Minton stood.
“Yes, Your Honor.”
He said nothing further, as if he could not bring himself to speak.
“Well, Mr. Minton, are you sending it to me telepathically?”
“No, Your Honor.”
Minton looked down at Smithson and got the go-ahead nod.
“The state moves to dismiss all charges against Louis Ross Roulet.”
The judge nodded as though she had expected the move. I heard a sharp intake of breath behind me and knew it was from Mary Windsor. She knew what was going to happen but had held her emotions in check until she had actually heard it in the courtroom.
“Is that with or without prejudice?” the judge asked.
“Dismiss with prejudice.”
“Are you sure about that, Mr. Minton? That means no comebacks from the state.”
“Yes, Your Honor, I know,” Minton said with a note of annoyance at the judge’s need to explain the law to him.
The judge wrote something down and then looked back at Minton.
“I believe for the reco
rd the state needs to offer some sort of explanation for this motion. We have chosen a jury and heard more than two days of testimony. Why is the state doing this at this stage, Mr. Minton?”
Smithson stood. He was a tall and thin man with a pale complexion. He was a prosecutorial specimen. Nobody wanted a fat man as district attorney and that was exactly what he hoped one day to be. He wore a charcoal gray suit with what had become his trademark: a maroon bow tie with matching handkerchief peeking from the suit’s breast pocket. The word among the defense pros was that a political advisor had told him to start building a recognizable media image so that when the time came to run, the voters would think they already knew him. This was one situation where he didn’t want the media carrying his image to the voters.
“If I may, Your Honor,” he said.
“The record will note the appearance of Assistant District Attorney John Smithson, head of the Van Nuys Division. Welcome, Jack. Go right ahead, please.”
“Judge Fullbright, it has come to my attention that in the interest of justice, the charges against Mr. Roulet should be dropped.”
He pronounced Roulet’s name wrong.
“Is that all the explanation you can offer, Jack?” the judge asked.
Smithson deliberated before answering. While there were no reporters present, the record of the hearing would be public and his words viewable later.
“Judge, it has come to my attention that there were some irregularities in the investigation and subsequent prosecution. This office is founded upon the belief in the sanctity of our justice system. I personally safeguard that in the Van Nuys Division and take it very, very seriously. And so it is better for us to dismiss a case than to see justice possibly compromised in any way.”
“Thank you, Mr. Smithson. That is refreshing to hear.”
The judge wrote another note and then looked back down at us.
“The state’s motion is granted,” she said. “All charges against Louis Roulet are dismissed with prejudice. Mr. Roulet, you are discharged and free to go.”
“Thank you, Your Honor,” I said.
“We still have a jury returning at one o’clock,” Fullbright said. “I will gather them and explain that the case has been resolved. If any of you attorneys wish to come back then, I am sure they will have questions for you. However, it is not required that you be back.”
The Lincoln Lawyer Page 36