Accomplice Liability

by Stephen Penner

  Brunelle had managed to keep his mind on business up to that point. But the purr in Robyn’s voice as she said that last sentence sent his heart racing again. “Right,” he forced himself to say. “Great. We’ll be in touch. Or whatever.”

  Carlisle and Robyn exchanged goodbyes as Brunelle pushed into The Pit to talk to Lannigan. By the time he reached Lannigan’s hiding spot at a table in the back corner, Carlisle had caught up to him.

  “Hey, Nick,” Brunelle said. “How’s it going? This is Gwen Carlisle, my co-counsel.”

  Lannigan stood up and greeted Carlisle warmly. They shook hands and then Lannigan got right to it. “My client is interested in making a deal.” He looked around the crowded room. “Is there somewhere private we can go to discuss it? I don’t think she’d like me talking about a deal for testimony out here where anyone could hear.”

  Brunelle could understand that, although it would all come out in the end. Prosecutors had to hand over any statements made by witnesses in the case prior to trial. That included giving snitch statements to the non-snitch defendants. Still, until and unless the statement actually happened, Brunelle was willing to give Lannigan whatever assurances he needed to turn Lindsey Fuller from a codefendant with the right to remain silent to a cooperating witness testifying against Hernandez and the others.

  “What about one of the conference rooms you guys use to talk privately with your out-of-custody clients?” Brunelle suggested.

  Lannigan nodded. “Yeah, that will work. Perfect.” He scooped up his file and almost ran through the crowd and out of The Pit. The conference rooms were a series of glorified closets off the main hallway. By the time Brunelle and Carlisle got out of The Pit, Lannigan was already halfway down the corridor, holding the door to one of the rooms open. “Over here, guys,” he called out, as if they couldn’t just see him standing there.

  Once inside, Lannigan practically collapsed into one of the two chairs jammed inside the room. Brunelle and Carlisle both remained standing.

  “I’m glad Ms. Fuller wants to cooperate,” Brunelle started. He didn’t get any further.

  “Yeah, well, I’m not sure I can say that just yet,” Lannigan interrupted. “But I think I can get her there. I mean, if the offer is good enough.”

  Brunelle raised a pained hand. “Wait. You just said she was interested in making a deal. Not two minutes ago, Nick. You just said that.”

  Lannigan surrendered a nervous laugh. “Well, yeah, I guess I did say that. What I meant was, I think she should cut a deal for testimony, and I think I can talk her into it, if the deal is good enough.”

  “That’s a pretty big difference,” Carlisle observed.

  Lannigan shrugged. “I dunno. We end up in the same place either way.”

  Carlisle disagreed. “No, if she’s ready to cooperate, we’re at our destination. If you need to talk her into it, then we’re just looking at ticket prices.”

  Brunelle liked the metaphor. “She’s right, Nick. If your client wants to be first in line to cut a deal, we’re willing to make that happen. But if she’s not ready yet, we’ll talk to whoever is. And if, after we talk to Rittenberger or Keller, we don’t need your client anymore, well, then she will have missed her opportunity and she can sit next to Hernandez at the trial. And you can sit next to her.”

  Brunelle knew the last thing Lannigan wanted was to have to actually try a murder case. He wasn’t ready for that.

  “Okay, okay.” Lannigan held his hands up in a surrender gesture. “I get it. But you gotta understand. She’s not some normal person who got a DUI on the way home from the office Christmas party. She’s a street-toughened drug addict. I can’t talk her into it just because it’s the right thing to do. She’s gonna want something in return.”

  “Of course,” Brunelle huffed back. “That’s why it’s called a deal for testimony.”

  “So what’s the deal?” Lannigan asked. “Make it good and I bet I can get her to do it.”

  Carlisle looked to Brunelle, but Brunelle closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “That’s not how it works, Nick. You know that. Or maybe you don’t. I don’t give deals to snitches in advance. I need to hear what they have to say, and how they say it. I agree not to use it against them at trial if we don’t reach a deal, but I’m not binding myself into a deal before I know what they have to say. If I knock it down to rendering criminal assistance and then she says she pulled the trigger, then I’m screwed.”

  “She didn’t pull the trigger,” Lannigan assured.

  Brunelle sighed. “Yeah, I know that. But that’s not the point. No deals until I hear what she has to say.”

  Lannigan looked down and chewed his lip for a moment. “Okay, and if you don’t like what she has to say, the others don’t find out she snitched, right?”

  “Wrong.” Brunelle shook his head. “I can drag my feet a little bit in releasing it to the others if we’re in the middle of plea negotiations, but it’s evidence in the case. I can’t withhold it. If she talks, the others will know about it, whether we reach a deal or not.”

  Lannigan looked down again and shook his head. “She’s not gonna like that.”

  Brunelle didn’t have much sympathy. “Yeah, well, I doubt Derrick Shanborn liked getting three bullets to the chest.”

  Lannigan looked up. “Well, sure. But that’s kind of irrelevant to my client. She just cares about herself.”

  Brunelle suddenly felt glad the negotiations had failed. “And that’s the problem, Nick. Good luck fixing it.” He put his hand on the doorknob. “I think we’re done here.”

  But Carlisle added one more thought. “Tell Lindsey that Josh is ready to talk. First one who talks gets a deal, the other goes down for murder. It’s a pretty easy decision, really.”

  Lannigan turned to Brunelle. “Is that true, Dave? Did Josh Rittenberger already offer to snitch?”

  “He started to snitch when the cops first talked to him,” Brunelle answered without answering. “He might as well finish it up.”

  Lannigan nodded. “Okay, okay. Give me a couple days. I’ll have to work on her, but I think I can do it.”

  Brunelle nodded. “Two days. Then we take Rittenberger’s statement and your client is out of luck.”

  “Deal,” Lannigan responded. “I’ll make it happen. One way or another, I’ll make it happen.”

  The lawyers separated at that point and Brunelle and Carlisle huddled in the hallway.

  “That didn’t go quite like you said it would,” Carlisle said.

  Brunelle shrugged. “I may have underestimated Fuller’s resistance to snitching. But I was right about Lannigan’s fear of trial. He’ll talk her into it.”

  “In the meantime, do we talk to Rittenberger’s lawyer?”

  “Rainaldi?” Brunelle shook his head. “Not yet. She’s going to do the same thing Robyn did. File a motion to sever codefendants, and try to get some leverage against us.”

  “How do you know that?” Carlisle asked.

  “Because she’s a good lawyer,” Brunelle answered. “And that’s what any good lawyer would do.”

  Chapter 15

  Sure enough, Rainaldi, Edwards, and Dunn all filed the same motion to sever. They had obviously worked together; the briefs were almost identical, down to the footnotes, with the only noticeable difference being the name of the defendant in the caption and the name of the attorney in the signature block. Jacobsen, on the other hand, had written his own brief. It cited most of the same cases, but also added three accusations of misconduct by Brunelle and/or his office and two demands for production of documents that either didn’t exist or didn’t exist yet, including statements of any cooperating codefendants. Lannigan didn’t file anything. Although if all the other attorneys succeeded in severing their clients from the others for trial, Lannigan would benefit from that equally, without having to put a single fingertip to a keyboard.

  “How do you want to respond to these?” Carlisle asked Brunelle at their next brainstorming sess
ion. “Do you want to split them up, you do two and I do two, or do you want me to just do all four, since the argument is basically the same?”

  Brunelle voiced a third option. “Or I could write the responses to all of them myself.”

  “Oh,” Carlisle replied. “Sure. If you want. I just figured, since I was second chair, I’d be doing more of the grunt work.”

  But Brunelle shook his head. “No, that’s not how I work. We’re partners. I just thought it might be easier for me to do since I’ve been doing criminal a lot longer than you. Have you even dealt with the issue of testifying codefendants and severance of trials before?”

  “I’m familiar with the problems that arise from joint trials,” Carlisle responded. “We had those all the time in civil. The plaintiff gets punched in the mouth by some homeless guy on a bus. He sues the homeless guy, but he also sues the county for letting him on the bus in the first place. Not because the county really can control everyone, but because the homeless guy doesn’t have any money but the county does.”

  “I guess that makes sense,” Brunelle answered. “But it’s more complicated in a criminal setting. See, there are two constitutional rights in direct conflict. The right of one codefendant to confront the witnesses against him, and the right of the other codefendant—”

  But Brunelle’s law school lesson was interrupted by the ringing of his phone. He looked at the caller ID, but didn’t recognize the number. If he had, he might have been able to determine whether he could let it go to voicemail. As it was, he couldn’t tell if it was important or not, so he decided to go ahead and answer it.

  “Brunelle. Homicides.” Yeah, he liked that after all.

  “Wow, Dave.” Jessica Edwards laughed on the other end of the line. “That almost sounds menacing. Good thing I know you better.”

  “I can be menacing,” Brunelle insisted. Carlisle cocked her head askance at him.

  “Maybe to Nick Lannigan,” Edwards replied, “but not to me.”

  “Nick Lannigan is an excellent judge of character,” Brunelle said. “And an astute attorney with deadly instincts.”

  “He has no client control,” Edwards returned, “and he’ll never get Lindsey Fuller to cooperate with you.”

  “Who said I wanted cooperation from Lindsey Fuller?” Brunelle asked. He finally covered the mouthpiece and whispered, “Jessica Edwards,” to Carlisle, who nodded in response.

  “Everybody in The Pit saw the three of you leave to go cut a deal in the hallway,” Edwards said. “By the way, who was that with you? I didn’t recognize her.”

  “That, my dear Jessica, was the infamous Gwen Carlisle, late of the Civil Division of the King County Prosecutor’s Office and hand-picked for this case to unleash purifying justice upon the wicked persons responsible for the tragic death of one Derrick Shanborn.”

  There was a pause, then Edwards asked, “She’s right there with you, isn’t she?”

  “Yep,” Brunelle confirmed.

  “Put me on speaker. I’ll save you the time of having to relay this to your wickedness vanquishing co-counsel.”

  “As you wish,” Brunelle agreed, and he pressed the speaker button on the phone base. “Can you hear us?”

  “Loud and clear,” Edwards replied. Then, “Hi, Gwen. Nice to meet you. Just try to ignore Dave sometimes. We all do.”

  “Thanks for the advice,” Carlisle responded. “I’ve already been doing that.”

  Brunelle gave her a ‘What the hell?’ expression, but Carlisle just smiled more broadly.

  “Anyway,” Brunelle said, “you didn’t call to give my co-counsel advice on how to deal with me. What can we do for you, counselor?”

  “It’s not what you can do for me,” Edwards replied. “It’s what I can do for you. Or more correctly, what my client can do for you. He wants to talk.”

  Brunelle and Carlisle exchanged glances. Carlisle’s was excited, but Brunelle’s held consternation. Wilkins seemed to be the second most culpable, right after Hernandez. Brunelle wanted to work his way up the ladder. If it went the way he wanted it, Hernandez and Wilkins would be the last two standing to face trial, with the others all having taken deals in exchange for testimony. Wilkins wasn’t the bottom of the ladder; they’d be skipping a rung or two, at least, to work with him.

  “I don’t know, Jess,” Brunelle responded cautiously. “I’m waiting to hear back from some other attorneys. I’m not sure I want to start with your guy.”

  “Start?” Edwards repeated. “Okay. Good. That means you haven’t talked to anyone else. And you won’t need to either. My guy will give you everything you need on everyone you’ve charged, plus more maybe.”

  “More?” Brunelle asked. “Are you saying there were even more people involved?”

  “I’m saying, you should talk to my guy. If you do, you won’t need anyone else. I’ve talked to him. He’s ready to spill.”

  Brunelle thought for a moment. Carlisle raised an eyebrow and gave an encouraging nod.

  “What does he want in return?” Brunelle asked.

  “I’ve already been through that with him,” Edwards answered. “He knows how this works. You give him transactional immunity for the statement. It can’t be used against him, unless he takes the stand and testifies differently at trial. He gets one shot at this. He has to tell you everything and he has to be believable. If you think he’s holding back, or downplaying his own involvement, you won’t want to work with him. And he knows that’s the worst possible result: he rats out his buddies, they read every last word of it, but he doesn’t get a deal because he pissed you off. I know the drill, Dave, and so does he. He’s ready to give you Hernandez and all the others too. All you have to do is call Chen and schedule the when and where.”

  Brunelle paused to think. This wasn’t how he wanted it to go. He looked up to Carlisle. Her smile was gone, replaced by a serious, thoughtful expression. Then she nodded.

  “Okay, Jess,” Brunelle said. “I’ll call Larry. Then he’ll call you. The when and where will depend on his schedule.”

  “Good call,” Edwards answered. “You won’t regret this.”

  But Brunelle frowned as he hung up the phone. He was experienced enough to know people only said that when they thought you probably would.

  Chapter 16

  “Are you sure about this?” Chen asked.

  Brunelle and Carlisle were huddled in one corner of a conference room in the basement of the King County Jail, along with Chen and Jackson. Chen because he knew the case; Jackson because he knew Wilkins. Edwards and Wilkins were huddled in the other. Two corrections officers guarded the only door in or out of the room.

  “Am I sure I want to cut a deal to one of the most culpable people involved? No, I’m not sure about that,” Brunelle answered. “Am I sure he’s the only one who’s offered to talk to us so far? Yes. And am I sure I’m going to need at least one of these guys to turn on the others to have any sort of chance of winning at trial? Yeah, I’m pretty sure of that too. So, I guess we see what Mr. Wilkins has to say, and then go from there. One step at a time.”

  Edwards had been quick to the phone and almost quicker to the conference room. Once Brunelle put the call in to Chen, it was only a few hours before Chen and Edwards had scheduled the meeting for two days hence. In the meantime, no word from Lannigan. Also nothing from Rainaldi or Dunn. Jacobsen had filed another motion to compel something or other. Brunelle was pretty sure they’d already provided it, so he gave the motion to his legal assistant to figure out. That left just Nate Wilkins who was willing to talk to them. Well, him and Amanda Ashford.

  “Amanda Ashford is a liar,” Wilkins began, after they had taken their seats around the conference table, Chen and Brunelle up front next to Edwards and Wilkins, and Jackson and Carlisle hanging back at the other end of the table.

  Right out of the gate with a problem for Brunelle. Not the best way to start, Brunelle thought. He needed Ashford’s testimony to be believed, not undercut by another witness.

/>   “She didn’t go into the back bedroom when it all went down,” Wilkins continued. “She was there the whole time, taunting Shanborn. ‘You thought you were gonna get to fuck me, didn’t you, Derrick?’“ he mimicked a high-pitched voice. “‘Didn’t you? Well, you’re the one who’s fucked now, huh, Derrick?’“

  Brunelle raised a hand. “Okay, okay. Let’s not get carried away right at the outset. We’ll decide who’s telling the truth and who’s lying. You just tell us what you know and we’ll take it from there.”

  But Wilkins wasn’t one to take direction that easily. “I’m just saying, she lied to you. She played you guys. And now I’m locked up because of her lies.”

  “Is that why you wanted to talk to us?” Brunelle asked. “To claim Amanda lied about what happened?”

  “Look, man.” Wilkins put his hands on the table. “I know I’m going to prison. Those drug delivery charges you booked me on were bogus. I can beat those. But a dead snitch? No, I know I’m going down. But I’ll be damned if I’m the only one. And I’ll be damned if it’s because some bitch lied.”

  Brunelle took a moment to look at Chen. In truth, it wasn’t a bad preamble. If Wilkins actually gave them some useful information, Brunelle and Carlisle would have to convince the jury to believe him. What he’d just said about not going down alone had the ring of truth about it. But it was also going to go to a jury of school teachers and retirees. “Let’s try to avoid name-calling, okay, Mr. Wilkins,” Brunelle cautioned him. “In fact, let’s try to avoid cursing altogether. You seem like an intelligent guy. I bet you can articulate what happened without having to resort to swearing.”

  Wilkins leaned back and fought off a grin. “You are super uptight.” He looked to his lawyer. “You were right, Jessica. Way uptight.” Then he turned back to Brunelle. “Okay, Mr. Clean, I’ll try not to cuss. I wouldn’t want your ears to bleed.”

  Brunelle stood up, pushing out the chair behind him. “And we’re done,” he announced. “You had your chance, Mr. Wilkins. Good luck at trial.”