by Kenneth Eade
“Yes, sir, we were.”
“And, did you have occasion on the night of October 7th to pull over the defendant, William Thomas?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Have you filed a report with regard to this incident?”
“Yes, sir. I have.”
“Showing you what has been marked for identification as People’s Exhibit 1, can you identify this document as a true copy of your report?”
“Yes, sir. That is it.”
“And does your report fully and accurately reflect what actually happened that night during the traffic stop that resulted in the death of Officer Shermer?”
“Yes, sir, it does.”
“Your Honor, I move People’s Exhibit 1 into evidence.”
“Any objection? Subject to cross examination, it will be received,” boomed the baritone voice of Judge Hinman.
Taylor was sharp. The rules allowed him to present the police report in lieu of live testimony at the preliminary hearing. He was not going to allow Brent a preview of Albright’s testimony at trial after all. But this decision had a double edge. It gave Brent the advantage of nailing down the details of Albright’s version of the story to something he could not change at trial.
“Cross examination?”
“Thank you, Your Honor,” said Brent. “Officer Albright, it says in your report that Mr. Thomas wrestled you to the ground; is that correct?”
“Yes, sir. It is.”
William’s lawyer’s eyes were trained on Albright’s. The cop averted his gaze from Brent’s.
“And he wrestled you to the ground after you had hit him in the kneecap with your baton, isn’t that correct?”
“Yes, sir, it is.”
“You struck him in the knee hard enough to break it, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And it did disable him, didn’t it?”
“Well, not entirely.”
Just say yes!
“He lost the use of his knee, and he fell to the ground, isn’t that true?”
“Well yes, but…”
The obvious question was, ‘Yes, but what?’, but Brent didn’t want to give Albright the opportunity to expand on his answer.
“So your next move was to handcuff him, so he could pose no more threat to you or Officer Shermer’s safety, isn’t that correct?”
“Yes, sir. That is correct.”
“Describe how you did that, please.”
William leaned over to Brent, concerned. “I thought you weren’t supposed to ask him anything you didn’t know the answer to?”
“Usually, that’s true,” Brent said. “But I have a hunch that he doesn’t know the answer to this question any more than we do. We need to pin him down to one story.”
“Could you repeat the question, please?”
“Yes. Describe how you attempted to handcuff Mr. Thomas.”
“May I refer to my report?”
“I’d like your recollection please.”
“I have no independent recollection other than what is stated in my report.”
“Is that your answer?”
Taylor stood up. “Your Honor, may we approach?”
Once at the bench, Taylor vehemently lodged his protest.
“Your Honor, there’s no jury here.”
Hinman squinted his furry salt and pepper eyebrow-covered eyes at Taylor.
“I know this is your show, Mr. Taylor, but Mr. Marks has the right to cross examine the witness.”
Both the lawyers went back to their respective places.
“So, Officer Albright,” Brent continued. “You don’t remember where your body was in relation to Mr. Thomas’s when you attempted to handcuff him and he wrestled you to the ground, is that correct?”
“That is correct.”
“And you didn’t hit Mr. Thomas in the ribs with your baton before he wrestled you to the ground, is that correct?”
“That is correct. He became violent. I had to subdue him. It occurred during the struggle.”
“By wrestling you to the ground, do you mean that he was already on the ground and forced you down as well?”
“That is correct.”
“So he didn’t stand back up, correct?”
“No, sir.”
“How did he pull you down?”
“He wrestled me to the ground,” Albright repeated, looking a little confused.
“Move to strike as non-responsive, Your Honor.”
“Sustained.”
“With what did he wrestle you to the ground? His arms, his legs, his head?”
“Objection, compound!” interjected Taylor.
“Sustained.”
“Did he bring you to the ground with his arms or his legs?”
“Both.”
“Did he knock you off balance?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How did he knock you off balance?”
Again, Brent asked an open-ended question. Taylor jumped up immediately.
“Objection, Your Honor. Counsel is using this hearing as a deposition.”
“Overruled.”
“He knocked me off balance with his arms and legs. He wrestled me to the ground.”
“Did you have your handcuffs out before he knocked you off balance?”
“I can’t recall.”
“But you did attempt to handcuff him before he wrestled you to the ground, is that correct?”
“Yes I was about to.”
“And after he wrestled you to the ground, you ended up on top of him, isn’t that correct?”
“Yes.”
“Describe how you did that?”
“I don’t understand the question.”
“It’s a simple question, Mr. Albright. If the defendant wrestled you to the ground and you ended up on top of him, how did that happen? Did you land on top of him when he wrestled you to the ground?”
“Yes.”
“And then you drew your weapon, isn’t that correct?”
“I had my hand on my weapon, and withdrew it when I sensed that I was losing control of the suspect.”
After extracting every painful detail of the struggle from Albright, Brent finally gave up and Taylor called the officers who appeared on the scene, who testified as to what they observed. Brent opted not to cross-examine them. Jack had already done a pretty good job in his interviews with them.
Taylor called a gun expert, who testified that the gun had been tampered with. Brent had no questions for this witness. He would need to retain his own gun expert to prepare a set of cross-examination questions. He hoped that Taylor would not be tipped off to Brent’s strategy by his questioning of Albright and the mechanics of the struggle.
The half day turned into a whole day, thanks in part to Brent’s lengthy cross-examination of Albright. After all the evidence was in, Judge Hinman announced the result which didn’t surprise anyone.
“The Court finds that sufficient evidence has been presented by the People to hold the Defendant to answer for the charge of capital murder.”
Although Brent knew what the outcome would be, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was missing something. There seemed to be something that Taylor was holding back; but why, and, more importantly, what?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Two weeks after the preliminary hearing, the State of California filed an information charging William with capital murder and Brent entered a plea of not guilty. He tried again to get William released on bail, but it was again denied. At this point, since William did not waive his right to a speedy trial, the clock began ticking on a sixty day countdown to that trial.
Brent kept busy during this time – gathering evidence, interviewing witnesses - and Jack was looking for that nagging piece of the puzzle that Brent suspected was missing: the one he thought Taylor knew and was saving for something. If William could only regain his memory, it may solve the mystery. However, Dr. Reading wasn’t making much progress with him.
Jack felt like a ham
ster running on a wheel. He was busy, but not getting anywhere, so he began to focus on the LAPD. As would be expected, Jack was not very popular with the crowd at the training academy bar.
The Los Angeles Police Revolver and Athletic Club Café was a bar and grill with a long history. Jack walked in, past the gift shop and the gun shop, and into the bar. When he took a calculated stool at the bar, it didn’t take long for a chill to set into the room.
“I remember this place from my days in Metro before I joined the FBI,” he said to a grey-haired man with a white shirt and yellow tie, sitting next to him.
“You’re a fed?”
“Ex-FBI and ex-LAPD. Can I buy you a beer?”
“Only if you’re drinking. Jerry Dalton,” said the man, extending his hand.
“Jack Ruder,” said Jack, completing the shake.
“Ruder. Aren’t you the private dick working for that cop killer?”
“For Brent Marks, the lawyer for William Thomas.”
“In that case, we don’t have anything to say to each other,” he said as the bartender put two tall ones in front of them.
Jack’s choice of the 50s era diner for lunch and that particular seat was no accident. It was a little place right on the academy campus in Elysian Park, and its walls were littered with LAPD memorabilia. Although it was open to the public, most of the patrons were cops or trainees. Jerry Dalton was the Commander of the elite Metro Division, without his uniform, but Jack had recognized him from his file photo.
“Relax; have your beer. You don’t have to talk to me.”
“But I suppose you’re going to try.”
“Of course,” Jack said, lifting up his mug. “Cheers.”
“Cheers.”
“There’s just something bothering me about this case.”
Dalton just looked ahead as he sipped his beer, indicating he was listening but may not care to comment or answer.
“What was a Metro unit assigned to North Hollywood doing on Burbank Blvd. in Sherman Oaks?”
“Our officer’s been cleared by Force Investigation Division. Why should I care what they were doing on Burbank Blvd.?”
“I know, I know; but if you look at the force involved, does it really set well with you? Metro can’t afford an incident like the Rampart scandal. If this is one bad apple, I would think you’d want to know.”
“I suppose your fancy Santa Barbara lawyer is going to spin it that way,” said Dalton, downing the rest of his beer in one gulp as he pushed off. “Thanks for the beer.”
Jack asked around to see what he could turn up, if anything. It was enough to make everyone there uncomfortable to the point he was starting to feel like a nuisance himself. He finally figured that this was a dead end, and set off to serve subpoenas on Albright’s fellow members in the Metro Division. At this point he was out of ideas, so he just decided to shake as many trees as he could to see what would fall out.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Dr. Reading was frustrated. The attorney visiting room in the Men’s Central Jail was no place to conduct a decent clinical examination. She showed the videos to William on her iPad to try to jar his memory.
“I’m sorry, Doc, but you’re just wasting your time.”
“I don’t think so, William. In most cases of post-traumatic stress disorder, the memory loss is temporary. I want you to look at the videos and tell me as much as you remember.”
William watched the video clips over and over, but nothing seemed to spur his memory.
“Nothing, Doc.”
“That’s okay. Let’s repeat.”
* * *
After Jack finished making himself public enemy number one with the LAPD’s Metro Division, he joined Brent back in Santa Barbara at the video editor’s lab to watch the enhanced videos. The video technician, a graduate of Brooks Institute, had brightened the contrast and reconstructed information from the data that was available on the original tapes, then spliced them together in chronological order. In a small viewing theater, Jack and Brent sat in the first row while the new video was projected onto a screen.
“The quality of the technology is good,” said the technician. “It’s just the lack of ambient light that makes it grainy and pixilated in places. I reconstructed what I could from the digital information we had so we can see the detail better.”
The video was 100% better than it was before, but it was still not perfect, and, since it was taken in 10 second intervals, a lot of what had really happened was not even recorded. Hopefully, if Dr. Reading’s therapy with William worked, he could fill in the blanks.
“Stop there!” said Brent, at a point in the video where Albright was on top of William. “Can you play it from here frame by frame?”
“Sure.”
“There! See that, Jack?”
“Yeah, I do. He’s pulling out his gun.”
“But look where the handcuffs are.”
“I don’t see them.”
“Stop. Go back a couple of frames,” Brent said to the technician. “Stop. Can you blow this part up here?”
“Sure.”
“See the handcuffs now, Jack?
“Yeah. They’re still on his belt, in the case.”
“Right. He’s sitting on William and, instead of reaching for his handcuffs, he pulls his gun.”
* * *
William spent as much time in the jail law library as he could, doing legal research. He sent letters to Brent every day, summarizing the cases he had found. Several of the inmates who frequented the library themselves had asked William to help them with their cases, but he always politely declined, until he ran into Curly and his entourage. Curly was not accustomed to taking no for an answer.
“Whattaya mean you ain’t no criminal lawyer? You a lawyer, right? And you in here, that means you also a criminal.”
Curly was a tall, bald black man with big hands. He wore the sleeves of his scrubs rolled up, exposing his enormous biceps, which were covered with gang tattoos.
“The thing is, Curly, I’m still licensed. If I do legal research for you, or give an opinion, that makes me your lawyer.”
“So what? That’s what I want.”
“It creates potential professional responsibility issues for me.”
“What I seen, you already got issues.” Curly laughed, and his three buddies laughed with him in chorus.
“I’m sorry, Curly.”
“Man, you don’t know sorry,” said Curly, who shoved over a stack of books William had placed on his table as he turned and left. His buddies stared William down, flashing gang signs as they slowly backed away.
I hope he calms down.
* * *
William waited in line at the cafeteria as the trustees dished out food for dinner. As soon as his tray was full of slop, he made a beeline to his table. A group of men in dreadlocks taunted him as he walked by.
“You think you’re tough, cop killer: eat this!” said one of them, grabbing at his crotch.
“Settle down over there!” called out a Sheriff’s Deputy who was supervising the cafeteria.
As William prepared to sit down, two men jumped up in front of him and two in back of him. One of the men in front slapped his tray upward and the food went flying, raining down mashed potatoes and meatballs all over the next table and causing an instant riot.
As the guards ran to address the disturbance, a free-for-all broke out among the inmates. Like a bar fight from an old Western, a group of about 80 slugged it out with each other as the guards sounded the alarm and the other inmates, not wanting to be involved, shuffled off to the deputies’ calls for lockdown.
William was stuck in the middle of the melee with no way out. Suddenly he was grabbed from behind under his arms in a wrestling hold as another inmate appeared in front of him, bearing a home-made knife, which he thrust at William’s stomach. William winced and tried to move out of the way.
* * *
As Brent prepared William’s defense, he pored through cases of excessiv
e force not just from California, but from every jurisdiction in the States, to find anything similar fact-wise that may apply to William’s case. He followed all the library leads that William had sent, even though he had already uncovered most of them himself.
In the jail, William used the traditional research method that Brent had learned in law school, which involved sorting through large bound indexes, then cases; each kept in their own hardbound volume, while Brent was speeding through key words in the legal research program on his computer. He had forgotten about his lunch date with Angela, since he was so involved in the research and taking care of some other cases that had been languishing since he had been concentrating so much on William’s, and the day had flown by before he had even realized it.
At six o’clock, Brent’s eyes began burning and his stomach churned. Melinda had locked up an hour earlier and Brent hadn’t even heard her leave. He glanced at the clock in the right bottom side of his screen and realized that it was time to go home. By the time he reached his neighborhood in Harbor Hills, the sun was making a spectacular light show as it bedded itself down over the ocean.
Brent saw that Angela’s car was in the driveway. Did we have a date tonight? Did I forget? As he stepped inside, Calico whisked by, disinterested. She stopped and casually looked at Brent, stretched and yawned, and continued on her way without giving him the usual “welcome home” greeting. Angela had obviously already fed her.
The wonderful mixture of veal osso bucco, tomatoes, carrots and onions led Brent to the kitchen, where he found Angela busy brewing up a special gourmet meal.
“I hope I didn’t mess up any date plans.”
Angela turned away from the stove, and hugged Brent with her arms, as her hands were occupied with a spoon and a dish towel. She kissed him.
“You actually did, and I was really angry with you. I almost didn’t show up here, but I decided to have our date anyway.”
“Sorry,” Brent said, making his best puppy dog face.
Angela put her hands on her hips. “I decided to forgive you, but don’t you dare do it again.”