The Judge

by Steve Martini

  For this Angelo resorts to a series of large acetate overlays, showing a diagram of the human skull, which can be flipped back to reveal the subskeletal structures of the brain underneath.

  “In my opinion, death was caused by repeated blows in the form of blunt-force trauma to the frontal bone of the skull, causing severe fracturing here,” he says. He points to part of the skull we would commonly call the forehead, just above the left eye.

  “This resulted in a compressed fracture traversing approximately sixty-five millimeters from the left eye orbit to a place near the midline of the skull above the hairline.” He points high on the forehead of the drawing.

  “Fragments of bone, some of them quite sharp from the fractured skull, were driven into the structures of the frontal lobe of the brain, and successive blows caused severe lacerations to brain tissue in that area. There was a severe loss of blood and a draining of considerable amounts of brain fluid. This would have been followed by a general swelling of the brain, and eventual death.”

  “So death would not have been instantaneous?”

  “In my view, no. Though the victim would have been unconscious from the instant that she received the blow causing the skull to fracture.”

  “How can you tell that death was not instantaneous, Doctor?”

  “I took samples of brain tissue from the victim. These were samples of tissue from the cerebral cortex, the outer covering of the brain near the wounds. Under microscopic examination I was able to detect evidence of hemorrhagic contusions in the tissues on these slides. That would mean that there was hemorrhaging into these tissues after the initial wounds were inflicted.”

  “And from this you can tell that the victim was alive for at least a brief period after she suffered the initial wounds?”

  “Correct. If the blood pressure had fallen to zero with the initial blow, because the heart stopped pumping, there would be negative blood flow, and no evidence of bruising in these tissues.”

  “Doctor, did you have occasion to view the victim’s apartment?”

  “I have.”

  “And do you have an opinion as to the instrument or instruments which caused the fatal injury?”

  “Based on an examination of the death scene, in the living room of the victim’s residence, there is no doubt in my mind. The fatal injuries were caused by successive blows, forcing the head of the victim into the sharp metal corner of a low table in that room.”

  Kline has two bailiffs bring the table from Hall’s apartment forward into the well of the court, where Angelo identifies it. This is made of welded wrought iron, patinated to a green luster, with raised edges sculpted in the forms of leaves like sharpened spear tips at the corners. They have removed the heavy glass top from the table for ease of movement, and bring it out separately. Kline asks the medical examiner to demonstrate for the jury how the blows were administered. For this Kline has brought one of the secretaries from his office, a woman who by build and even the color of her hair looks amazingly like Hall.

  They have clearly practiced this, as the woman knows precisely where to stand in relation to the table, the moves all choreographed.

  “The assailant would have come up behind the victim, like this,” says Angelo. “His hands were placed around the victim’s neck in this manner.” Angelo has both thumbs pressed against the nape of the woman’s neck, the fingers of each hand gripped around her throat until the tips meet near her Adam’s apple in the front.

  “We found ligature wounds on the victim’s throat which would correspond to marks that would be left if someone gripped the victim hard in this fashion,” says Angelo.

  “Before we move on, Doctor,” Kline interrupts him. “Did you observe an abrasion on the left side of the victim’s neck in the area of these ligature marks?”

  “I did.”

  “Do you have an opinion as to what may have caused that abrasion?”

  “From its location on the neck, and the bruising in the tissues, it is clear that it was caused before death, part of the control wounds when the assailant gripped her throat from behind,” says Angelo. “In my opinion it was probably caused by a ring worn by the assailant, on the third finger,” says Angelo. “Here.” He holds up the ring finger of his left hand.

  The state’s inference is unavoidable. The murderer was a married man.

  It is only through peripheral vision that I glance the move that makes me shudder. Without thinking, Acosta slides his left hand off the counsel table onto his lap underneath. It is wholly innocent, one of those involuntary reactions, like a yawn. But when I look over, at least five members of the jury, those that I can count as obviously gaping, have noticed this gesture. It is the subtle things in a trial that can be more damning than the evidence.

  “You can continue with your demonstration,” says Kline.

  Angelo tells his assistant to assume a position on her knees, her head less than a foot from the corner of the table.

  All eyes are riveted in the jury box.

  “After being knocked to the floor from behind, we believe that the victim landed near the side of the table, roughly in this position,” says Angelo. “Her head was near the sharp edge of one corner. Here.” He points.

  “She would then have been dragged the few inches that separated her toward the table. We found heat abrasions on her knees that would correspond to her being dragged on a carpet. The assailant then thrust the victim’s head onto the corner of the table.” He mimics this but stops short with each blow. The image is akin to pictures I have seen from the South Seas: island natives husking coconuts on a sharp piece of bamboo driven into the sand. It has a sobering effect on the jury, some of whom are taking notes.

  “Thank you,” says Kline. He has Angelo resume the stand.

  “Doctor, in your professional view have you formed an opinion as to how many times the victim’s head was slammed against the table in the fashion you have demonstrated here in court?”

  “Based on examination of the body, as well as blood-spatter evidence, I would say between eight and ten times.”

  “Can you explain what you mean by blood-spatter evidence?”

  “There is often a pattern created by cast-off blood. Usually a trail in the form of an arc, flung onto a target, like a wall or a ceiling. In the usual case, this is the result of blood being picked up on a blunt instrument, for example a pipe, or a heavy stick. As the instrument is swung back in preparation for the next blow, blood on the weapon would be flung off onto, say, the ceiling. By examining the angle of the arc and the number of arcs, it is possible to determine the number of blows struck, the probable force of the blows, and the position of the assailant when each blow was struck.”

  “And you can tell all of this from blood found at the scene of Brittany Hall’s apartment?”

  “Yes. There was a definite arc of cast-off blood, in this case coming not from a blunt instrument but from the victim’s own head as it was slammed against the tabletop. We found successive patterns of cast-off blood against the living room wall, and on the carpet leading away from the table.”

  “So in your medical opinion this was no accidental fall in which the victim struck her head?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Angelo offers further opinion that the killer was right-handed, since the blows seemed to be directed more forcefully from the assailant’s right side.

  “Do you have an opinion, Doctor, as to how long it would have taken to inflict these particular wounds on the victim, from the first blow to the last?”

  “A matter of seconds, less than a minute.”

  “So in your opinion it would have been very rapid?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would the manner of death in the fashion which you have described here be consistent with a victim being taken by surprise?”

  “Ye
s.”

  “Would it be consistent with a larger assailant attacking a smaller victim?”

  “In my opinion, yes.”

  There is no disagreement as to how Hall died. Our own reconstruction experts have concurred with Angelo’s scenario. Lab experts have identified brain fluid on the glass tabletop. The fact that Hall was attacked from behind leads to two possibilities: First, that she was taken unawares by a killer she did not expect. The second is, however, more probable; that she may have said something to the murderer that sent him into a rage, perhaps some dismissive comment while her back was turned. A psychologist called earlier in the state’s case has testified that the circumstances surrounding the crime demonstrate considerable rage on the part of the killer. This is of course consistent with their theory that Acosta attacked her when Hall refused to back off the solicitation charge.

  They dispose quickly of any question of sexual assault. According to Kline, there was no seminal fluid found in or on the victim or her panties, no evidence of trauma to the genital area. Kline then turns to the last item on the agenda for Angelo.

  “Doctor,” he says, “in your examination of the victim did you find any other wounds on her body which in your opinion were unusual or significant?”

  “There was one thing,” he says. “A small sliver of glass was removed from the bottom of the victim’s foot.”

  “She was barefoot at the time of this injury?” asks Kline.

  “It would appear so.”

  “Were you able to make any findings regarding this glass?”

  “Yes. It was optical glass, from a pair of men’s spectacles found at the scene. The fragment fit perfectly a missing piece from the lens.”

  “And do you have an opinion as to how that fragment of glass came to be embedded in the victim’s foot?”

  “It would be my opinion that the victim stepped on the spectacles during the struggle with her assailant, breaking the frame and one lens and, as a consequence, the piece of the glass became embedded in her foot.”

  “That’s all we have for the witness at this time,” says Kline.

  The first thing we squabble over, Angelo and I, are the broken reading glasses from the scene.

  Harry and Acosta have engaged in a whispered dialogue. There is concern that we have not been given everything by the prosecution in discovery concerning these spectacles.

  I pick up where Kline has left off, pressing Angelo on his choreography of events, the scenario with Kline’s secretary. I ask him how it is possible that the assailant’s glasses could have ended up under Hall’s bare foot if she were attacked from behind and thrown forward.

  He has no easy answer for this, and sidesteps it by saying that he has not testified that the glasses belonged to the assailant, though this is clearly the inference Kline would have the jury make. I leave it and move on.

  “Dr. Angelo, isn’t it true that not everyone who dies issues a death rattle?”

  “That’s true,” says Angelo.

  “Is there a test that you can administer on a decedent to determine if at some point they have issued such an involuntary noise from the vocal box following death?”

  “No.”

  “So you cannot tell us with certainty that in fact Brittany Hall issued a death rattle after seven-thirty P.M. or any other time?”

  “Not with certainty,” he says.

  “You don’t know, do you?”

  A grudging expression from Angelo. “No.”

  “Isn’t it possible that the sound the neighbor heard in her apartment that evening, the noise she reported at seven-thirty, was in fact the victim, Brittany Hall, calling out for help as she was attacked?”

  “Objection, speculation,” says Kline.

  “Sustained.”

  “But you cannot say with certainty that it was a death rattle?”

  “Not with certainty,” he says.

  “Now, you talked about the wounds suffered by the victim, and particularly the first blow to her head, which I believe you stated would have rendered the victim unconscious. Is that correct?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Is it not possible, Doctor, that if the victim were surprised by the first blow, and rendered unconscious by it, that her attacker might not have been overpowering in terms of strength?”

  He gives me a quizzical look, as if perhaps he doesn’t follow this.

  “Is it not possible, Doctor, given the element of surprise, that the attacker in this case could have been a woman?” As I say this, I am looking not at the witness, but at Acosta, who suddenly brings his gaze up to meet mine. It is the first time I have ever broached the subject and it seems to catch the Coconut by surprise.

  “It’s possible,” says Angelo.

  I move on.

  “In your opinion, would it have been possible for the victim to have regained consciousness after receiving this initial blow?”

  “Not in my view. No.”

  “And why is that?”

  “The extensive cranial damage, total failure of the frontal bone, and the consequent trauma to the frontal lobe of the brain. This would have resulted in a massive concussion and immediate loss of consciousness.”

  I start to break in, but Angelo is not finished. As long as I’ve opened this door, he’s going to put the screws to me.

  “Then the loss of brain fluid and bleeding from the head wound would have brought on hydraulic shock, a dramatic loss of blood pressure. No, she could not have regained consciousness, not without dramatic and immediate medical intervention, and even then I’m not certain it would have been possible. There would have been massive and permanent brain damage.”

  “Are you finished?”

  He smiles at me, unless he can think of something more damaging in the next second or two.

  “Then I take it that in your opinion it would not have been possible for the victim to have issued any kind of a voluntary cry after the initial blow to the head?”

  “Except for a death rattle,” he says.

  “Which you have acknowledged you cannot prove occurred.”

  There is a grudging acceptance of this from the doctor.

  “Is it not physically possible, Doctor, that the victim might have cried out, briefly, in the instant that she was attacked from behind, just before her head was struck?”

  “Objection. Calls for speculation,” says Kline.

  “Your Honor, I’m not asking whether the victim did cry out, I’m asking whether in the scientific medical opinion of this witness there was anything that would have prevented her from doing so.”

  “Overruled,” says Radovich.

  “You can answer the question,” I tell Angelo.

  He’d prefer not to.

  “The assailant did have his hands around her throat.”

  “Did you find that there was damage to the victim’s larynx?” I already know the answer from the autopsy report.

  “No.”

  “Was there any injury to Ms. Hall’s voice box that would have prevented her from calling out in that instant before the head injury was inflicted?”

  “No.”

  “So it’s medically possible that the sound that the neighbor heard at approximately seven-thirty that evening was a cry from the victim at the moment she was being assaulted, is it not?”

  Angelo looks to Kline for a fleeting instant.

  “It’s medically possible,” he says.

  That is the problem with circumstantial evidence; it nearly always cuts in more than one direction.

  “You testified earlier that there was a good deal of bleeding as a result of the victim’s injuries. Is that correct?”

  “Yes.” Angelo is down to one-word replies.

  “You saw the victim’s apartme
nt, did you not?”

  “Yes.”

  “And there was a great deal of blood on the carpet?”

  “Yes.”

  “As well as on the wall, the blood-spatter evidence you referred to earlier?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, in a case involving so much blood, if the body were moved, say by vehicle, wouldn’t you expect to find blood, at least traces of blood, in that vehicle?”

  “Not necessarily,” says Angelo. “If the heart stopped pumping, the blood flow would stop. Also if the body were wrapped, as in this case in a blanket, you might not find much if any blood transferred to a vehicle.”

  He smiles at me. This was not helpful, and he knows it. The cops found no evidence of blood in Acosta’s county car.

  “Still there was blood on the blanket, wasn’t there?”

  “Some,” he says.

  “You examined the blanket, did you not, Doctor?”

  “I did.”

  “And tell me, Doctor, did you not find blood on both sides of that blanket?”

  For this he has to review his notes. While he is reading I find one of the photos, a shot of both sides of the blanket.

  “Doctor, People’s thirty-one, already in evidence.” I point to the photograph. “Isn’t it evident from the photograph that there is blood on both sides of the blanket, the side coming into contact with Brittany Hall’s body as well as the side facing out?”

  He studies the photo from a distance, adjusting his glasses.

  “It would appear so,” he says.

  “Wouldn’t this be evidence of the fact that there was sufficient blood to seep through the blanket?”

  “Not necessarily,” he says. “It’s possible that the blood on the outside of the blanket was blood that was transferred from the carpet around the area by the body, when the killer initially wrapped the victim.”

  “Are you saying that’s what it is?”

  “I believe from my examination of the blanket that’s what occurred. The blanket was not saturated with blood. Also the patterns of blood on the outside of the blanket revealed drag marks, like minute brushstrokes,” he says. “I believe these were caused by the blood-soaked carpet fibers as the blanket was dragged across them in the process of wrapping the body.”