The Law of Innocence

by Michael Connelly

  Once Trammel was seated on the witness stand, Dana Berg moved to the lectern and began to draw out her story.

  “Ms. Trammel, where do you currently reside?”

  “I’m at the Central California Women’s Prison in Chowchilla.”

  “And how long have you been there?”

  “Uh, six years. Before that, I spent three down at Corona.”

  “That’s a prison, too, in Corona?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why are you incarcerated?”

  “I was sentenced to fifteen years for manslaughter.”

  “And what were the details of that crime?”

  “I killed my husband. It was an abusive relationship and I ended it.”

  I was watching the jurors more than I was watching Trammel. How they reacted to her would influence how Maggie would conduct her cross-examination. For the moment, they were attentive, even having just come from lunch. Trammel was enough of a change of pace to keep them interested and alert. I noticed that the Hollywood Bowl chef was leaning forward and sitting at the edge of her seat.

  “Are you familiar with the defendant in this case, Michael Haller?” Berg asked.

  “Yes, he was my lawyer,” Trammel said.

  “Can you point him out for the jury?”

  “Yes.”

  Trammel pointed at me and for the first time our eyes locked. I saw the hate burning behind hers.

  “Can you tell us about that relationship?” Berg asked.

  Trammel was slow to break her stare away from me.

  “Yes,” she said. “I hired him about eleven years ago to try to save my home. I was a single mother of a nine-year-old son and I had gotten behind on the mortgage and the bank was foreclosing on me. I hired him to help me after I got a flyer in the mail.”

  Trammel had come to me during the wave of foreclosures that swept across the country following the 2008 financial crisis. Foreclosure defense was the growth sector in law and I signed on like many other criminal defense lawyers. I made a lot of money, kept several people in their homes, and unfortunately met and agreed to defend Lisa Trammel.

  “Did you have a job then?” Berg asked.

  “I was a teacher,” Trammel said.

  “Okay, and was Mr. Haller able to help you?”

  “Yes and no. He delayed the inevitable. He filed papers and challenged the bank’s actions, and he delayed things more than a year.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “I was arrested. I got accused of killing the man at the bank who was taking away my home.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Mitchell Bondurant.”

  “And were you put on trial for the murder of Mitchell Bondurant?”

  “Yes.”

  “And who was your attorney?”

  “It was him. Haller. The case got a lot of attention. In the press, you know. And he, like, begged me to let him defend me.”

  “Do you know why that was?”

  “Like I said, the case got a lot of media attention. It was free publicity for him and that was the deal. I didn’t have any money for a lawyer, so I said yes.”

  “And the case went to trial?”

  “Yes, and I was found innocent.”

  “You mean not guilty?”

  “Yes, not guilty. By the jury.”

  Trammel turned and looked at the jury as she said this last part, as if to say, a jury believed me before and you must believe me now. My eyes scanned down the two rows of jurors—their eyes all on Trammel—and then continued into the crowded gallery. I saw my daughter watching with rapt attention as well.

  “Did there come a time when you had a financial dispute with Mr. Haller?” Berg asked.

  “Yes, there did,” Trammel said.

  “And what was that about?”

  “There was a movie producer who had attended the trial and was interested in making a movie about the case. Because of the foreclosure angle, it was a story that spoke to the time and people would be interested, especially because I was innocent, you know?”

  “What was the movie producer’s name?”

  “Herb Dahl. He had a deal at Archway Pictures, where he brought them projects. He said they were interested in the movie.”

  “And how did that become a dispute with Mr. Haller?”

  “Well, he told me he wanted to get paid. Halfway through the trial, he said he wanted part of the movie money.”

  I slowly shook my head at the lie. It was an involuntary response, not meant for the jury. But Berg noticed and turned her attention from Trammel to the judge.

  “Your Honor, could you please instruct Mr. Haller not to make demonstrations distracting to the jury?”

  Warfield looked at me.

  “Mr. Haller, you know better,” she said. “Please refrain from showing reaction to the testimony.”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” I said. “But it’s hard not to react to lies about your—”

  “Mr. Haller,” the judge barked. “You know better than to make such a comment as well.”

  The judge closed her mouth in a tight line as she probably considered slapping me with a contempt citation. She thought better of it.

  “You’ve been warned,” she finally said. “Proceed, Ms. Berg.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” the prosecutor said. “Ms. Trammel, did Mr. Haller tell you how much money he wanted?”

  “Yes,” Trammel said. “A quarter million dollars.”

  “And did you agree to pay him that?”

  “No. I didn’t have it, and Herb Dahl said I would be lucky to get half of that as an up-front payment from the studio for my story.”

  “How did Mr. Haller respond to that?”

  “He threatened me. He said there would be consequences if I didn’t pay him what he deserved.”

  “What happened next?”

  “I was found not guilty and I told him a deal was a deal. He got good publicity for the case, especially when I was found innocent. I said that he would probably get paid when they made a movie because they would need to use his name and what he did at the trial and all.”

  “Did he accept that?”

  “No. He said that there were consequences and I would be sorry.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “The police came to my house with a search warrant and they found my husband. He was buried in the backyard. I had buried him after he died. I was afraid that nobody would believe me about the abuse and that I would lose my son.”

  Trammel was tearful now. It could be heard in her voice rather than seen on her face. To me it was all an act. A good one. Berg underlined the moment with a strategic pause and I saw the jury watching the witness closely, looks of sympathy on some of their faces, including the Hollywood Bowl chef.

  This was an unmitigated disaster.

  I leaned toward Maggie and whispered.

  “This is so much bullshit,” I said. “She’s an even better con artist now than she was back then.”

  At that moment, I thought I saw sympathy on Maggie’s face as well. It made me not want to turn to see my own daughter’s face.

  “Did Mr. Haller represent you in the new case involving your husband’s death?” Berg asked.

  “No, no way,” Trammel said. “He was the one who told them I had buried Jeffrey. I needed somebody I could—”

  “Objection, hearsay,” Maggie said.

  “Sustained,” Warfield said. “The answer is no. The jury will disregard the rest of the answer.”

  Berg retooled for a moment, obviously looking for a way to get to the answer she wanted—that I had ratted out Trammel when she wouldn’t pay me. It wouldn’t be much of a leap from that to believing I would kill Sam Scales when he didn’t pay me.

  “Did there come a time when you began to suspect that you could not trust Mr. Haller as your attorney?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Trammel said.

  “And when was that?”

  “When they found my husband’s body a
nd I got arrested for murder. I knew he had told the police.”

  “I object again,” Maggie said. “Assumes facts not in evidence. Ms. Berg is trying to put something in front of the jury that is pure speculation. There is no record anywhere that Mr. Haller or any member of his staff broke the rules of the attorney-client relationship, yet the prosecution persists in—”

  “You told them!” Trammel yelled, pointing her finger at me. “You were the only one who knew. This was the payback—”

  “Silence!” Warfield yelled. “There is an objection before the court and the witness will remain silent.”

  The judge’s voice had cut Trammel off like an ax coming down. She paused and looked at all parties before continuing.

  “Ms. Berg, you need to school and control your witness on what is hearsay and what is not,” she said. “One more improper outburst and you will both be held in contempt.”

  She turned to the jury.

  “The jury will disregard the statements of the witness,” she said. “They are hearsay and not evidence.”

  She turned back to the attorneys.

  “You may continue, Ms. Berg,” she said. “Carefully.”

  As attention in the courtroom returned to Berg, I heard a low whisper from behind and turned to see Cisco offering a file across the rail. I tapped Maggie on the arm and signaled her to take the file. She immediately opened it on the table between us.

  Meanwhile, Berg was only too happy to end her direct examination of Trammel. She had gotten the message to the jury that I was vindictive when it came to money.

  “Your Honor, I have nothing further for this witness,” she said.

  The judge threw it to the defense, and Maggie asked for a brief recess before she questioned the witness. The judge gave us fifteen minutes and we spent the time reading the correspondence that had come in from Trammel over the years.

  When court reconvened, Maggie was ready. She got up with her legal pad and went to the lectern. She came out aggressive.

  “Ms. Trammel, have you ever lied to the police?” she asked.

  “No,” Trammel said.

  “You’ve never lied to the police?”

  “I said no.”

  “How about under oath? Have you ever lied under oath?”

  “No.”

  “Aren’t you lying right now under oath?”

  “No, I—”

  Berg objected, saying McPherson was badgering the witness, and the judge sustained the objection, telling Maggie to move on. She did.

  “Isn’t it true, Ms. Trammel, that early on, you agreed to share any movie revenues from your story with Mr. Haller?”

  “No, he wanted publicity, not money. That was the agreement.”

  “Did you kill Mitchell Bondurant?”

  Trammel involuntarily pulled back from the witness-stand microphone as the question came out of the blue. Berg stood and objected again, reminding the judge that Trammel had been found not guilty in the Bondurant case.

  “Everyone knows that a not-guilty verdict is not a finding of innocence,” Maggie argued.

  The judge ruled that Trammel could answer the question.

  “No, I did not kill Mitchell Bondurant,” she answered pointedly.

  “Then, was it established at trial who did?” Maggie asked.

  “There was a suspect named, yes.”

  “Who was that?”

  “A man named Louis Opparizio. A Las Vegas mobster. He was brought in to testify, but he took the Fifth because he didn’t want to.”

  “Why was Louis Opparizio a suspect in Mr. Bondurant’s murder?”

  “Because they had shady dealings together and Mr. Bondurant had contacted the FBI about it. There was an investigation starting and then Mr. Bondurant got killed.”

  “After you were found not guilty, was Opparizio charged with the crime?”

  “No, he never was.”

  We now had Opparizio on the trial record and known to the jury. If nothing else came out of Maggie’s cross, that was the one thing we could take into the defense phase and work with.

  But Maggie wasn’t finished. She asked the judge for a moment and then walked to the defense table, where she retrieved the letters that had been in the Trammel file. She had planned it that way. She wanted Trammel to track her movements as she went to pick up the loose pages. She wanted Trammel to know what was coming.

  “Now, Ms. Trammel, you clearly blame Mr. Haller for your current situation in prison, correct?” she asked.

  “I’ve owned what I did,” Trammel said. “I didn’t go to trial. I pleaded guilty and have taken full responsibility.”

  “But you blame Mr. Haller for the police finding your husband’s body buried in the backyard, do you not?”

  “I thought the judge said I can’t answer that.”

  “You can speak for yourself. You can’t speak for him.”

  “Then, yes, I blame him.”

  “But isn’t it true that you are the one who has threatened Mr. Haller and repeatedly told him that there would be consequences for his actions?”

  “No, that’s not true.”

  “Do you remember writing Mr. Haller a series of letters from prison?”

  Trammel paused before answering.

  “It was a long time ago,” she finally said. “I don’t remember.”

  “What about more recently,” Maggie pressed. “Say, a year ago. Did you send a letter from prison to Mr. Haller?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “What is your inmate number at the prison in Chowchilla?”

  “A-V-one-eight-one-seven-four.”

  Maggie looked up at the judge.

  “Judge, may I approach the witness?” she asked.

  After receiving permission from the judge, Maggie handed an envelope to Trammel and asked her to open it and remove the letter that was inside.

  “Do you recognize that as a letter you sent last April ninth to Mr. Haller?” she asked.

  Berg stood to object. She couldn’t know what was in the letter but she knew it was bad.

  “Your Honor, I have not been shown the document,” she said. “It could be from anyone.”

  “Overruled,” Warfield said. “You’ll get your chance when Ms. McPherson is done authenticating the letter through this unexpected witness, Ms. Berg. You may continue, Ms. McPherson.”

  “Is that your prisoner number on the outside of the envelope, Ms. Trammel?” Maggie asked.

  “Yes, but I didn’t write it there,” Trammel said.

  “But that is in fact your signature at the end of the letter, correct, Ms. Trammel?”

  “It looks like it, but I can’t be sure. It could be forged.”

  “Please examine these four other letters and confirm that they also bear your signature and inmate number.”

  Trammel looked at the letters put down in front of her.

  “Yes,” she finally said. “It looks like my signature, but I can’t be sure. There are a lot of women in prison who are there because they forged signatures on checks.”

  “And you say it is possible that they forged letters to your attorney over a span of nine years?” Maggie asked.

  “I don’t know. Anything is possible.”

  Except it wasn’t, and Maggie was destroying her.

  “Your Honor,” she said. “The defense offers in evidence what will be marked as defense exhibits A through E.”

  Maggie handed the exhibits to the clerk to be marked.

  “If further authentication is needed, Mr. Haller’s office manager can testify to receiving the letters and securing them over the years in a file,” she said.

  “Let’s take a look at these letters,” Warfield said.

  I trailed Maggie to the bench for the sidebar. The judge quickly scanned the original letters while Berg was handed copies.

  “As an officer of the court and a prosecutor for twenty-plus years, I can represent to the court that the state prisons do not allow inmates to send letters anonymously,” M
aggie said. “That was why her inmate number was written on the return address of each envelope.”

  “Even if the letters are from her, there is a relevancy issue here, Judge,” Berg said.

  “Oh, they’re relevant all right, Ms. Berg,” the judge said. “She just sat there and accused the defendant of threatening her over money. The exhibits are admitted. Ms. McPherson, you may proceed.”

  We returned to our positions and Maggie approached the witness stand. She put another letter down in front of Trammel.

  “Ms. Trammel, did you write this and send it to Mr. Haller from Chowchilla?” she asked.

  Trammel looked at the letter and took a long time to read it.

  “The thing is,” she said, “I was diagnosed as bipolar at the inmate-reception center nine years ago, so sometimes I kind of slip into a fugue and do things I don’t always remember doing.”

  “Is that your inmate number on the envelope?”

  “Yes. But I don’t know who put it on there.”

  “Is that your name on the letter?”

  “Well, yes, but anybody could have written that.”

  “Could you read the letter to the jury, please?”

  Trammel looked at Berg and then at the judge, hoping someone would say she didn’t have to read what she had sent to me.

  “Go ahead, Ms. Trammel,” Warfield said. “Read the letter.”

  Trammel looked at the letter for a long moment before finally beginning to read.

  “Dear Asshole-at-law,

  Just wanted you to know that I haven’t forgotten about you. Never. You ruined everything and you will one day answer for it. I have not seen my son in six years. Because of you! You are a piece of shit to the end. You call yourself a lawyer but you are nothing. I hope you have found God because you will need him.”

  I watched the jury as she read it. I could see that Trammel’s credibility disintegrated with each word she read. And some of that probably rubbed off on Berg. The prosecutor sat at her table, realizing that she had been blinded by greed. Greed for one more piece of evidence against me. She had heard Trammel’s story through Drucker and thought it was the thing that would slam the prison door shut on me.