The Guilty

by Gabriel Boutros

She shook his hand formally and gave him an appreciative smile without saying another word, then walked slowly out of his office, her head held proudly erect.

  What was behind all that? Is it just her religious devotion, or is there something deeper worrying her? The hell with it. I know what I’m doing, at least, and I know what I’m going to have to do. If she feels better for having prayed with me, then more power to her. But I have the defense that I want to present and I’m not going to worry about whose side God might be on.

  The last few days leading up to Marlon Small’s trial were spent putting the final touches to the pre-trial preparations, with little in the way of the ups and downs that had marked the previous weeks of Robert Bratt’s life. He and Kouri spent some time with Small at R.D.P., reviewing the testimony he would give.

  Their client was filled with nervous excitement about the upcoming trial, raring to go to battle, yet constantly asking Bratt if he felt good about their chances. Bratt’s answers always seemed to be tinged by a mild pessimism. There was a stubbornly petty part of him that refused to give his client any of the hope that might have eased his mind before the trial.

  Kouri, on the other hand, was positively brimming with confidence. When he spoke with Small, Bratt almost felt left out, as they both refused to share his negative views about the trial. They had decided they were going to win it, and he could go along with them for the ride if he wanted to. Bratt felt a twinge of jealousy at the ease with which the two younger men communicated, but knew that his feelings about Small, obvious and unchangeable, would always act as a wall between them.

  As for his witnesses, Jordan and Sims, Bratt ignored the nagging feelings that arose whenever he thought of their too-perfect alibi. He had too many other things to do to spend time honing their testimony, so he asked Kouri to meet with them again on his own. He was relying on Kouri more and more for the preparation of the defense, preferring to concentrate his own time on finding holes in the Crown’s case.

  Bratt read and reread Paris’s and Phillips’s preliminary inquiry testimony and compared it with the written statements they had given to the detectives in the early stages of the investigation, looking for inconsistencies and contradictions between the various accounts.

  Bratt thoroughly cross-referenced every change in the fact-patterns, no matter how small or banal it may have seemed to an outsider, whether it was how many seconds Phillips had to observe his assailants, or how many inches the gun was from his head. He knew that the weight of these numerous differences, piled one on top of the other, as well as the inability of Phillips or Paris to satisfactorily explain them away, could be the witnesses’ eventual undoing.

  All these natural human errors were like nuggets of gold for the experienced lawyer to dig up and wave under the noses of the duly impressed jurors. The witnesses rarely realized there were any inconsistencies in their testimony, until Bratt began pointing out these little glitches in their memories and holding them up for everyone to gaze at and wonder over. Then the witnesses would look like they were getting caught in their own lies.

  He had tried to teach Kouri that a good cross-examination did not simply mean asking questions in the hope of finding out some unknown information. A lawyer had to have a clear idea of all the useful information a witness could give before he asked a single question. And he certainly had to know the answer to every question he asked, or risk the kind of embarrassing surprises that were the staple of TV shows and second-rate movies. If there was ever one thing that had turned him off from watching the spate of legal dramas on television, it was the sight of lawyers constantly getting ambushed by answers they didn’t expect.

  No, cross-examination meant letting the jury in on what the lawyer and the witness already knew. It meant inducing that witness to reveal facts he may have preferred keeping hidden, or the relevance of which he was often unaware. The jurors might think they were witnessing some dramatic courtroom revelations, but if he had done his job right, then Bratt would have scripted the whole scene for them ahead of time. That was how he liked to think of what he did: he was writing a play, scene by scene. If everybody played their parts well and read their lines like they were supposed to, then it was sure to be a big hit.

  The weekend passed quickly for him and then it was Monday morning: time for jury selection.

  “Unfortunately, jury selection,” Bratt told Kouri as they got ready to head for court, “isn’t half as interesting in real life as it is on TV. At least not in Canada. We don’t use jury consultants; we don’t do mock trials or market testing.”

  Kouri only half-listened to his mentor’s rambling exposition as he put on his coat. Bratt could hardly contain the excitement he always felt on the first day of a trial, and all his nervous energy seemed to have been concentrated in his mouth that morning. He had put aside all thought of Leblanc’s death. He had forgotten about Claire’s humiliation on the stand. He was singularly focused now on the task at hand.

  “We don’t even get to ask them any questions as a general rule,” he continued. “Just peremptory challenges, take ’em or leave ’em, and that’s all just a guessing game anyway. All you get is a quick first impression and about two seconds to decide.

  “For our case, though, we’re real lucky. Since there was some newspaper coverage of the shootings last summer, Green is going to let me ask the jury candidates two whole questions: did you read about the shootings, and did you form an opinion as to who did it? That’s it. If they answer no to either question, that’s the end of my challenge for cause.”

  Bratt pulled his winter coat on over his robes and picked up a large document case. They headed onto the elevator with a few other tenants of their office building and Bratt let his motor-mouth idle a bit. His dissertation was for Kouri’s benefit alone. Since he had first met the young lawyer his opinion of him had changed a great deal. He no longer worried about having to be his nursemaid, and in fact enjoyed giving him the benefit of his experience on just about every topic under the sun.

  Out on the street again, he picked up where he had left off as they moved briskly along the sidewalk.

  “We’ll try to get you some good-looking young ladies on the panel. That’ll make the next couple of weeks a bit more enjoyable.”

  “Seriously, other than good-looking women is there anybody else we should try to get on this jury?”

  “Oh, sure. But it’s unlikely we’ll get twelve of Small’s peers up there, and that’s the only thing that would make a real difference in this trial.”

  They got into the courthouse and headed left from the main lobby toward the corridor leading to room 3.01. As they turned the corner Bratt heard Kouri let out a sudden rush of breath at the sight of over a hundred potential jurors crowding the hallway. He looked over and saw the nervousness etched on the younger lawyer’s face.

  “Buck up, me lad. You’ve dreamed of this moment ever since you saw Perry Mason on TV. These are your future fans, so give ’em a confident smile and keep walking.”

  Kouri managed a tight grin and they moved forward again, politely pushing through the crowd. Many of the jury candidates turned to look at them as they passed, several of them whispering comments to their neighbors. It was a gauntlet of sorts that Bratt had run many times. Once through it, they passed through the doors and into the arena he had once thought of as his second home.

  The courtroom was quiet and empty and, as they walked toward their side of the lawyers’ benches, Bratt kept looking over at Kouri, trying to see it all through his inexperienced eyes.

  I guess I’m just an old whore, he told himself. My first time is just a faded memory. I hardly remember if I was scared, if it hurt. I can’t even picture my client’s face, there have been so many since then.

  “What’s so funny?” Kouri asked, having noticed a little smile forming on Bratt’s face.”

  “Oh, nothing, nothing. Just try to remember this day, OK? Your first time. Hang on to the memory as long as you can.”

  “You�
�re a sentimental old fool, Robert Bratt.” Kouri smiled at him.

  “So I’ve discovered. Let’s keep it our little secret shall we?”

  “What secret is that?” a woman’s voice asked from behind them.

  Bratt turned and was surprised to find Nancy Morin standing there, laden with an armful of file folders. He reached out to take them from her.

  “Hey lady, need a hand with those?”

  “Sentimental and chivalrous,” Kouri noted, then quickly got out of the way.

  Bratt turned to give him a mock-angry glare, but couldn’t suppress the smile he felt coming on as Nancy came closer and put her hand on his arm.

  “That’s what I liked about him in the first place.”

  “What about the second place,” Bratt asked, jauntily.

  “That I won’t answer in public. I just came by before Parent got here to wish you luck, Robert.”

  “Really?” Bratt stood closer to her and whispered, “Aren’t you afraid to be seen consorting with the enemy.”

  She smiled and pulled back a couple of steps.

  “Yes, I am. So I’m going back to the safety of the Crown bench…for now.”

  Bratt smiled and restrained himself from going after her. There was a time for everything, and their time would come later, he was glad to see.

  Parent made his entrance soon after her, accompanied by St. Jean, whom Bratt now thought of as the prosecutor’s guard dog. They both nodded perfunctorily in Bratt’s direction before joining Nancy.

  Bratt was tempted to say something sarcastic to St. Jean in retribution for the policeman’s allegations in the bar the week before. He looked over at Nancy, who was looking worriedly at him from behind a file folder, and decided that for once he’d keep his big mouth shut.

  Getting the verdict he wanted would be the best retribution he could ask for.

  At 9:25 a.m. the court clerk announced over the intercom that all jury candidates should enter the courtroom. The hundred-plus people filed in slowly, almost hesitantly, and began looking for seats.

  There were not enough places for all of them in the gallery, so some of them sat next to the lawyers, others filled the jury box, and four nervous souls were directed to sit in the empty prisoner’s dock behind the defense bench. Looking worried, they constantly glanced over their shoulders at the locked door leading to the cells where Small was being held, almost expecting him to suddenly appear and be let loose among them.

  At 9:30 precisely, just as the last candidates were seating themselves, a bailiff entered and told them to rise again. Judge Benjamin Green entered immediately after him and over two hundred eyes, most of them wide-eyed with curiosity and nervousness, focused on the small, fragile-looking old man as he slowly took his place.

  “You may be seated,” the bailiff said, and everyone sat down at once, with an almost palpable sense of relief.

  “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” Green sain in a somber voice, “and thank you for being here. As you know twelve of you will be chosen to form a jury in the trial we are beginning today. Now, being on a jury may seem like an inconvenience to some of you, and we all understand that. However, it is also one of the most important civic duties that you will be called on to perform in your day-to-day lives.”

  Bratt half-listened to Green’s traditional welcoming speech. The actual words mattered little to him, but he felt a sense of comfort at the familiarity of the occasion. He was always a little nervous before the start of a trial, and doubly so when the stakes were so high. But it was a happy nervousness, one that reminded him of what it was that he loved about his work.

  He let slip a small smile at the realization that he had been able to use the “L-word” about his job again, something he wouldn’t have thought likely a week or two earlier.

  He looked across at Parent, who seemed to be wrapped up in Green’s words, but was probably making a last-minute review of his own strategy in his head. As much as Parent disliked him personally, Bratt knew the prosecutor had a healthy respect for his courtroom skills. He didn’t reciprocate the feeling entirely, but he wasn’t taking the veteran prosecutor lightly either.

  Green came to the end of his short speech and asked all the potential jurors to step out into the hallway. This allowed Nancy to recover her now-vacated seat next to Parent and sit down directly across from Bratt, from where she kept her attention focused on the judge.

  Those candidates who wished to seek exemptions were called in next, to give their reasons why they should not have to serve on the jury. Only once this sometimes-lengthy proceeding was over would the actual jury selection begin.

  As the first candidate re-entered the courtroom, Bratt looked across at Nancy to see if she would continue to avoid eye contact with him. He was sure she looked at him occasionally from the corner of her eye, and he was equally sure that a small movement on her lips from time to time was a smile meant for him. Happy memories of their cross-courtroom flirtation during the lengthy Hall trial came back to him, and he was more optimistic than ever about the way the next two weeks would unfold.

  One by one, men and women came in to petition for their release from the burden of jury duty. Some looked defiant, while others were obviously intimidated by the moment, but it seemed like everybody was looking for a way out today.

  It took over two hours to listen to the litany of reasons for exemption and for the judge to rule on them. The morning crawled to an end with less than half the jury selected. Everyone got up and stretched, then went for lunch. Kouri looked a bit disappointed that his first murder trial had gotten off to such a stuttering start. He had been looking forward to some dramatic action. Bratt smiled and reassured him that things would pick up soon enough. He would have to be just a little more patient.

  “This is just the salad,” Bratt said. “They make you wait a bit for the steak.”

  Chapter 10

  To Kouri’s chagrin, the main course was not served until Wednesday morning, March 15. Up to that point the trial’s preliminaries unfolded pretty much as expected.

  On Monday afternoon the last jurors were chosen with little fanfare. Only one candidate had been refused for having read about the shootings the previous summer and forming an opinion as to the guilt of the accused. Soon after Parent gave his opening statement to the jury and Bratt found it somewhat uninspired.

  “Young men with guns,” Parent had intoned in the gravest of voices. “Children, almost, playing at grown-up games with toys that kill. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the sad story that you will be hearing in this trial.”

  Bratt noticed that Jennifer Campbell made her first appearance at the trial that afternoon. She listened to Parent’s opening speech from the back of the room, staring coldly at his back. She had quietly slipped into the room during jury selection and then left quickly when court broke for the day, without saying a word to Bratt. He felt no particular need to speak to her either, but he couldn’t help wondering why she no longer seemed to need to speak to him.

  As for Small, he behaved as well as could be expected. He didn’t glare menacingly at anyone in the room, although the expression on his face was less than friendly. Most importantly, he listened attentively to Bratt’s instructions and did what he was told.

  The first witness, the crime-scene technician, was called on Tuesday morning. He filed into evidence three small albums containing a hundred-odd pictures of the shooting site, including some fairly graphic ones of the two deceased lying in pools of their own blood. Several jurors of both sexes squirmed at the sight of these photos and cast quick, awed looks in Small’s direction, seemingly amazed that he possessed the ability to commit such mayhem.

  The witness presented a floor plan of the apartment, with distances and angles of fire that had been determined by the location of bullets found imbedded in the walls and in the victims’ bodies. This map was key, Bratt thought, as he hoped it would show that from where the surviving victim, Dorell Phillips, had sat he couldn’t have had as good a look
at his assailant as he had claimed.

  The rest of Tuesday had been spent listening to two young patrolmen who took turns describing in detail how they had been first on the scene of the crime, had secured it to prevent the loss or destruction of evidence and had stayed with Phillips, placing pressure on his bleeding wounds until Urgences Santé had arrived.

  Phillips’s injuries had prevented him from speaking at that point, they said, or they surely would have gotten a description of the gunmen from him. As it was, they made it clear that their timely arrival had saved his life.

  Then, finally, on Wednesday morning the jurors got what they had been waiting for: Dorrell Phillips himself, with two small mounds of flesh protruding from the lower left side of his neck, where the miraculously non-fatal bullets had exited his body, took the stand.

  He was in his early twenties, with a short, wiry build. His eyes, behind his rimless glasses, flitted about the courtroom nervously when he first took the stand. However he quickly fixed them on an imaginary point on the countertop in front of him. When he answered questions he rarely looked up from that point to face his questioner, and he spoke with a soft, sad voice, as if retelling the story was something he would have preferred not doing.

  The faces of the jurors betrayed their evident sympathy for him. He had passed within millimeters of losing his life and then regained his consciousness just in time to find his older brother’s bullet-riddled body. That he should have recovered, at least physically, from such a trauma merited him that sympathy, Bratt had no doubt. He only hoped that it didn’t render his testimony beyond reproach in the jury’s eyes.

  Parent began the young man’s testimony by guiding him through a detailed description of how he had spent the day of June 14, 1999, letting him get comfortable on the stand, while allowing the jury to observe him and get to know him as a person. Phillips described whom he had been with and what he had done in the hours leading up to his arrival at the apartment on Carrier Street, where he had gone looking for his brother Dexter.