She nodded. “I want to fight it.”
“Are you sure? There’s no going back after today.”
“I’m sure.”
He glanced to another inmate, who was drooling and staring blankly at the wall. “I will do everything I can to take care of you.”
“I know you will.”
Brigham went back into the judge’s chambers. Ganche and Vince were laughing about something. They stopped when he came in. Brigham didn’t sit this time.
“My client has turned down the offer. We’ll be moving forward.”
The judge sighed. “It’s a mistake, son. She’ll die.”
“All of us in here know the state of Utah isn’t going to execute a woman. Especially one that killed a homicidal rapist pedophile. So both of you can stop trying to intimidate me.”
“I would watch your tone, young man,” the judge warned. “You need to respect this Court as you would respect the law itself.”
“Respect the law?”
“Counsel, you better—”
“If I sense that you are not being fair, totally fair, for even a second, I will file a motion to recuse you. I’m sure you don’t want to be recused from a case that’s getting national press any more than Vince does.”
Brigham paused to see the effect of his words on both men. Vince was grinning, but the judge’s face was twisted in anger and slightly blushing.
Brigham turned and walked out. His heart was thumping as if it were trying to break out of his chest and fly away.
Nineteen
The preliminary hearing was set on a Wednesday morning. On the Tuesday morning before, Brigham was in his office reading transcripts of murder trials where the defense had obtained an acquittal. Every single one had the exact same strategy: paint the victim as the biggest lowlife in the world. Make it seem like the defendant had done the world a favor by offing the victim. In this case, it wouldn’t be difficult to do.
Tommy walked in with an unlit cigar dangling from his mouth. He placed a check on the desk and slid it toward Brigham. The check was for $4500.
“What is this?”
“For you. The murder.”
“It’s more than a quarter.”
“I know. You’ve earned it. And when you get to trial, I’m going to let you keep the full thing.”
Brigham stared at the check. He had never seen one for this amount. “I’m fine with the deal. You don’t have to do this, Tommy.”
“I know I don’t have to. I want to. You’re doing good work. Besides, Law Offices of TTB is in the news every week. You can’t buy that kind of advertising.”
He turned and left, leaving Brigham staring at the check. $4500. Enough to pay rent for a year, or buy groceries for just as long. He could stretch this money out for a long time. He placed the check in his bag and went back to the transcripts.
Over the past two weeks, he and Molly had been spending the evenings together.
After the first couple of dates, their initial format of dinner and a movie had turned into drinks at her place. Now, he was over there almost every night.
She lived in a high-rise downtown that Brigham didn’t think he would ever be able to afford. The condo overlooked the entire city and had white carpets with mirrored walls. More than once, Brigham had fallen asleep in the hot tub next to the pool on her roof while reading legal treatises on Molly’s iPad. Her soft touch would wake him and they’d go downstairs to her bedroom.
Brigham had always felt somewhat awkward in the bedroom, but Molly knew exactly what to do. She was perfect in the nude, an image of feminine beauty. Even the way she smelled drove him crazy, and he found himself thinking about her when he wasn’t with her.
One night, when they were lying in her bed with moonlight cascading over them, she told him that she hadn’t been with a man in a long time—not since her messy divorce complete with all the clichés, including an insane husband who used to beat her in drunken rages, an affair, and a nasty financial split, which all culminated in her leaving her hometown of Los Angeles and moving to Salt Lake City, of all places.
Brigham listened quietly. He could tell this was something she hadn’t intended to share with anyone, so he didn’t say anything. He just held her and they watched the moon out the windows.
The next morning, he felt a bond to her that he knew hadn’t been there the night before. She had shown him a wound she didn’t want seen and it was a secret between them now. Secrets had the power to make people stick together against the rest of the world.
On the morning of the preliminary hearing, Brigham had a breakfast of Cap’n Crunch and rode his bike straight to the courthouse. The bailiff had now seen him on three separate occasions and still got out his wand for him.
In the courtroom he waited a good half hour while the judge took care of some housekeeping matters: two cases that had motions for him to sign. Then the judge called Amanda Pierce.
Tommy had told Brigham that the preliminary hearing was the most important hearing in a criminal case—what the state or the defense thought a witness was going to say was almost never what they were actually going to say, and prelim was the place to discover that. It was held in front of a different judge than that assigned to the trial, so the trial judge wouldn’t know the case before the trial.
Today’s judge was an older woman with white hair. Her face looked carved of stone: no emotion whatsoever. Her voice was deadpan. Even when she was sentencing the defendant of the case before to jail, she sounded like she was reading a phone book.
The Court had to wait ten minutes for Vince Dale to show up. The judge didn’t say anything as he and his assistant set up a laptop on the prosecution table. Brigham figured that if he had been the one who was ten minutes late, he’d probably be in cuffs.
He glanced behind him. Molly was sitting where the defense attorneys usually sat in line. She smiled at him and he couldn’t help smiling back. Scotty sat next to her, nodding off.
“Your Honor,” Vince said, “the state is ready to proceed with the Amanda Pierce preliminary hearing.”
The bailiff brought Amanda out to sit next to Brigham. He had several legal pads in front of him, and on his laptop were the cross-examination questions he had prepared for the officers and witnesses.
“Your Honor, the state moves to admit eleven-oh-two statements in lieu of today’s witnesses,” Vince said.
“Any objection from the defense?”
“Um, one moment, Your Honor.” He turned to Molly and leaned close to her ear. “Can he do that?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Eleven-oh-two lets them submit affidavits instead of testimony. But I’ve never seen a prosecutor do it with all their witnesses. They usually do it with one or two.”
Brigham faced the judge. “Your Honor, I would object on the grounds that my client doesn’t get an opportunity to confront her accusers.”
“This is prelim, I don’t believe she has that right here.”
“I think if we look at the intent of a preliminary hearing, it is so the client is not wrongly accused of a crime, so that someone can sit on that stand and point the finger and say ‘yes, that’s her right there.’ The state is denying her a preliminary hearing by submitting these documents. How am I supposed to cross-examine documents?”
“Mr. Dale?” the judge said.
“The law is clear, Your Honor,” he said, winking at Brigham. “The preliminary hearing is a procedural hearing, not a substantive one. The accused has no right to confront anything. This hearing is strictly for the judge. If the Court feels the affidavits from four sworn law enforcement personnel and three civilian witnesses are inherently trustworthy, that’s enough. The accused gets a trial. She doesn’t need two.”
The judge took a second to think. “That’s essentially how I see it, Counsel. I’m allowing the eleven-oh-two statements in lieu of testimon
y. My clerk will read them into the record.”
Brigham sat down as the clerk began reading the statements. They were about as he expected—no one doubted what had happened. Amanda deliberately shot Tyler Moore in the head. The only question in Brigham’s mind was whether a jury would convict her for it.
When the clerk had finished reading the last statement, the judge said, “Unless you intend to call the defendant, I’m ready for arguments.”
“I’d like to renew my objection,” Brigham said, “for the record. And the defendant will not be testifying.”
“So noted. Mr. Dale?”
“We’ll submit, Your Honor.”
The judge began writing on a red file. “I find there is probable cause to bind the defendant over for trial. I’m setting second arraignment out three weeks unless someone has a problem with that. Thank you, Mr. Dale, Counsel.”
Amanda turned to Brigham and said, “What does that mean?”
“It means we lost. I’ll come visit you soon.”
Brigham sat at the defense table as Amanda was taken back to the holding cells. She had a crutch, but every step was a struggle. The bailiff was texting on his phone rather than really helping her.
“It doesn’t matter,” Molly said behind him. “I’ve never even seen the defense win a prelim and get the case dismissed.”
“Why do I get the feeling we’re playing a rigged game?”
“Because you are.”
Twenty
The days quickly fell into a pattern as the trial approached. The mornings were spent hunting for the perfect expert for Amanda’s trial, and the nights were spent at Molly’s talking about Amanda’s case.
Molly told Brigham several times not to get so attached to one case. If he lost, it would embitter him. But he couldn’t help it—the case was the only thing he could think about.
He visited Amanda a couple of times a week, and each time she looked worse. She was losing weight and no longer taking care of herself. She wouldn’t talk during their meetings, but instead nodded or shook her head when he asked her something.
Brigham sat in his office a few weeks before the trial. Tommy had given him another case: a misdemeanor DUI. The client had been driving to an AA meeting and stopped at a liquor store on the way. She bought a bottle of whiskey and was drunk by the time she got to the meeting. They called the police before she was even in her seat.
Molly appeared at his door. “Did you hear?”
“Hear what?”
“About Amanda?”
“No, what?”
She hesitated. “Someone tried to kill her in jail.”
“How? Is she all right?”
“She’s at University Hospital right now.”
Brigham jumped up and was out the door. Molly followed behind him, saying, “They’re not going to let you see her. Brigham? Brigham . . . well, at least let me drive you.”
The hospital emergency room had valet parking and, as they rolled to a stop, a man in a red shirt gave them a claim check. Brigham pushed through the revolving doors and up to the front counter. Two receptionists were there doing paperwork.
“I need to see Amanda Pierce, please,” he said.
“I’ll be with you in a moment, sir.”
Brigham paced nervously. Molly had already sat down and was flipping through a magazine. It took nearly ten minutes for the receptionist to say, “Amanda Pierce is a prisoner, sir. She isn’t allowed visitors.”
“I’m her lawyer.”
“I don’t care if you’re the Pope. No visitors.”
Brigham nodded and said, “Let’s go, Molly.”
As they walked past the double doors leading to the patients’ rooms, Brigham glanced back to the receptionist. She’d already returned to whatever paperwork she was doing. A man in scrubs was coming out of the doors. Brigham said, “Wait in the car for me,” and pushed through the double doors before Molly could protest.
The linoleum squeaked underneath his shoes as he made his way to the police officer sitting outside a door at the end of the hall. Brigham pulled out his Utah State Bar card and flashed it at the police officer.
“I’m her attorney.”
He walked into the room without looking at the officer, as though he’d done it a thousand times and it was routine. His heart was pounding and he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t be shot. But he made it into the room and shut the door behind him. The officer had stood up and was watching through the glass viewing window on the door.
Amanda looked like a skeleton. Brigham had seen her a few days ago. He wondered if he just hadn’t noticed or if she’d really deteriorated in that time. She was in a hospital gown and the side of her neck was bandaged. A dark red stain leaked through the white gauze. Brigham moved closer and sat in a chair next to the bed.
She stirred and her head rolled to the side. Her eyes were red with dark circles below them. Her nostrils flared as if she was having trouble breathing.
“I guess,” she rasped, “I just can’t stay out of trouble.”
“What happened?”
“It’s not her fault. She’s schizophrenic and shouldn’t be in there. She didn’t mean to do it.”
He shook his head. “It was the woman you were in the holding cells with, wasn’t it? I’m going to see if we can have you transferred.”
“No. The only place they can transfer me is administrative segregation. I don’t want to go there. You’re alone twenty-three hours a day.”
He exhaled. “I’m so sorry this happened.”
Amanda’s eyes welled up with tears. Whatever strength she had to hide her emotions from him had faded. She began to sob, and he let her.
“I couldn’t save her,” she cried. “My baby, my baby . . . That monster tore her apart and I couldn’t save her.”
Brigham put his hand over hers and let her cry.
Twenty-one
The University of Utah was nearly empty at this time of night. Brigham sat on the lawn of the law school. It was a place he’d come many times when he’d been studying for the Bar exam. When the stress got to be too much, he’d come there and stare at the traffic. Usually, he didn’t have the money for booze. But now he’d brought along a bottle of schnapps and he sipped at it as he watched the passing traffic.
Amanda Pierce was probably going to die. If not by the state, then in prison. It wasn’t that she was soft, but that she had given up.
Molly texted and asked where he was, and he told her. Within fifteen minutes, she had parked on the street and walked up the lawn. She sat down without saying anything and took a sip of his schnapps.
“I used to sit here and dream about what being a lawyer was like,” he said. “I thought it’d be so glamorous. That I’d be pounding a table for my clients and screaming about injustice.” He took a long drink. “But injustice is all it is. There’s nothing to scream about because there is nothing else.”
“That’s not true.”
“They don’t need a conviction—they’ve already ruined her life. She won’t have a job when she gets out, she’s lost her house . . . she’s lost her daughter. She’s down, and the government just won’t stop kicking.”
Molly placed her hand on his arm. “Then change that. Don’t let Vince get a victory because you laid down and felt sorry for yourself. And this is your first big case, Brigham. There’ll be other ones where justice does win out. In the end, I think it has to win out.”
Brigham took another swig and handed the bottle to her. “If I go down, I’ll go down swinging. But I’m not sure it matters in the end.”
She placed her fingers lightly on his chin and turned him toward her. “That’s all that matters—how well you can walk through flames.”
They kissed, and then rose and walked to her car.
The next day, Brigham met with the expert who had gone in to do an evalu
ation of Amanda. He’d gone through two dozen résumés to find her. She was overly qualified and personable. A jury, he guessed, would like her and be impressed by her.
The evaluation had been scheduled at the jail but had to be moved to University Hospital.
The psychiatrist, Christine Connors, specialized in post-traumatic stress disorder in veterans. She sat down across from him and placed several documents on the desk between them.
“So don’t sugarcoat it,” Brigham said. “What do you think?”
“Well, the problem with any diminished capacity type of defense is that I wasn’t there. Any interview with a mental health expert is almost always so far after the fact that it’s irrelevant, because we need to determine her mental state at the time of the crime. But given certain descriptions, I don’t think she understood the nature of her crime. She had a temporary psychotic break. I don’t think she was fully aware of what she was doing when she killed Mr. Moore.”
“There’s always a ‘but,’ I’m guessing.”
“But she immediately surrendered and didn’t try to shoot herself or any of the officers, which suggests she was consciously aware of the nature of her actions.”
Brigham swiveled his chair a little and saw Dr. Connors’s eyes drift down to it, so he stopped. Perhaps it looked unprofessional given how serious this case was. “So what are you going to testify to?”
“As a whole, I think she lacked the capacity to conform her conduct to the requirements of the law. But there is some evidence to the contrary, which I will have to reveal to the jury.”
He nodded. “And the evidence is that she didn’t shoot anybody else or do anything crazy.”
“Essentially, yes. I’ll write up a full report for you.”
He tapped his fingers against the desk.
“This is your first mental health defense case, isn’t it, Brigham?”
The Neon Lawyer Page 9