“No cameras, gentlemen,” he said without looking up.
The two reporters in the room whispered to their cameramen, who went outside as the reporters pulled out spiral notebooks and pens instead.
Judge Ganche looked at the two attorneys. “Counsel, any chance this is resolving today?”
“No, Your Honor,” Brigham said, rising to address him.
Another long silence descended before the bailiff brought Amanda out. She’d applied some makeup and her hair was pulled back with a clip.
The judge watched her hobble across the courtroom and sit down before he addressed her. “Ms. Pierce, do you understand that you are forgoing any plea options and moving forward with a jury trial today?”
“I do.”
The judge nodded. “Okay. Well, let’s bring the panel out.”
The bailiff bellowed, “All rise for the jury.”
A jury panel of thirty people filed out of the back of the courtroom. The lawyers turned around as the panel was placed in the audience seating. Sheets of paper were handed out with each juror’s name and where they were sitting. Brigham glanced through the names quickly.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the judge began, “thank you for joining us today. You have been impaneled . . .”
The judge spoke for nearly half an hour. He went over the criminal justice process, what they would be doing that day, the type of case they would be hearing, when they would be taking breaks, and then had the lawyers introduce themselves and ask if anyone on the panel knew them.
The jury selection process, known as voir dire, was the aspect of trial that attorneys hated the most. It could take more than two days, especially on civil cases where millions of dollars were at stake, and at the end of it, it proved nothing. Human beings were unpredictable. All the research Brigham had done showed him that you could not predict how someone would view new information based on old information about that person.
“Counsel will now begin with their voir dire. Mr. Theodore,” the judge said.
“No questions for the panel, Your Honor.”
Vince and the judge stared at him. The courtroom was quiet for a moment. The judge finally said, “Counsel, approach.”
Brigham hiked to the judge and waited for Vince. He leaned against the judge’s bench. Both men were staring at him like he was a child about to be scolded.
“Mr. Theodore, I know you haven’t done many of these, but it’s customary to thoroughly question the panel. You may have someone on there you don’t wish to have.”
“I understand, Judge. But I don’t have any questions for them.”
“All right, well, Mr. Dale, I assume you do?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“Proceed.”
Brigham sat down and watched as Vince spoke to the panel. He began asking them about their criminal convictions, about how many of them had been through the legal system, family members, their favorite TV shows.
“What just happened?” Amanda whispered.
“I don’t want to ask them questions. Five people saw you commit this crime, Amanda. If you want an unpredictable verdict, you need an unpredictable jury. I want as little known about them as possible.”
Vince joked and laughed and talked about the criminal process. He was using this time with the jury to get them to like him rather than find out anything about them. But once that was established, he began grilling them about every minute area of their lives. He even asked whether any of the jury panel had ever had any sexually transmitted diseases.
Another forty-five minutes passed. By the time the panel was finished with the questions, they looked like they’d been through a polygraph test. Brigham studied their faces. One of the older women smiled at him, a man in a Levi’s jacket gave him a dirty look, and another man with dreadlocks looked like he was high. None of which, Brigham guessed, said anything about how they would find on this case.
When Vince was done with his questions, another sheet of paper was passed back and forth between Vince and Brigham. It had the jurors’ names on it with a space next to the names. Each attorney was to consider if each particular juror should be stricken for cause, meaning they were unfit to be on the jury. Brigham passed the sheet back without writing anything. Vince struck six people. Brigham didn’t object. Then they each had four peremptory challenges, where they could strike whatever jurors they wanted. Again, Brigham left it blank. The jury was chosen after the people Vince struck were excluded. There were twelve jurors on a capital case. Six women and six men, mostly white.
The judge then called a ten-minute break before opening statements. Brigham went out into the hall with Molly. Scotty was there too, shuffling around the halls and peeking into the various courtrooms. He came back to where Brigham was sitting and said, “Vince looks really confident. I wouldn’t want to go up against him.”
“Thanks, Scotty.”
Molly rubbed Brigham’s back as he stared at the jurors filing in and out. The attorneys weren’t allowed to speak to them. Even a casual comment could result in a mistrial.
Vince came out, too. He gave a few statements to the reporters hanging around and then made a call. He winked at Brigham before going back into the courtroom.
“You okay?” Molly asked.
He took a deep breath and let it out through his nose. “Not really.”
“You’ll be fine. Tommy wouldn’t give this to you if he didn’t trust you.”
When they went back into the courtroom, the judge was already seated. He was leaning back and staring at the ceiling as though he had been waiting hours. Brigham realized Amanda hadn’t been allowed to move.
The attorneys took their seats facing the judge, and the twelve jurors took their seats in the jury box. Brigham’s hands were trembling so badly he had to force them under the table.
“Mr. Dale,” the judge said, “all yours.”
“Thank you, Your Honor,” he said, standing and facing the jury. “And thank you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, for your service here today. And make no mistake, this is a service.” Vince paced in front of the jury and then planted himself near the box, one hand placed on the wooden banister. “On July twelfth of this year, a Friday, Amanda Pierce woke up, she had breakfast, she took a shower, and then took a forty-caliber Smith & Wesson pistol out of a gun safe in her home. She got into her car and drove down behind the courthouse—this very courthouse that you’re sitting in now. A man was being escorted down the stairs. Ms. Pierce lifted her weapon, and pulled that trigger seven times.” Vince stopped and one of his assistants put up an enlarged autopsy photo of Tyler Moore on plasterboard. It must’ve been taken right after the autopsy, because he was pure white with blue holes in his head, neck, and chest. “She could have shot and killed two innocent sheriff’s deputies, she could have killed any number of innocent bystanders, but she didn’t care. She wanted to kill this man so badly that she just didn’t care if anyone else got hurt.”
A long pause.
“I’m not going to stand here and tell you that Tyler Moore was a good man. He was facing charges for the murder of Tabitha Pierce, the defendant’s daughter. Did he actually commit the crime? Well, he wasn’t convicted because”—Vince pointed to Amanda and stepped closer to the defense table—“she didn’t give him his day in court. She didn’t allow it. She was judge, jury, and executioner. And no one else was allowed to have a say.”
Vince paused and looked each member of the jury in the face.
“You will hear from five witnesses who will tell you they saw the defendant shoot and kill Mr. Moore. Five witnesses. I understand that some of you might be thinking, ‘well, vigilante justice is still justice.’ Is it? For those of you thinking that, I ask you this question . . . What if Tyler Moore was innocent?”
Another long pause.
“The evidence in this case is irrefutable. The defense will pl
ay games and try to find excuses. They may even come right out and try to justify murder. But there is no justification. Amanda Pierce took the law into her own hands, and killed a man. When you go back to that jury room, you must find her guilty. You tell her that she is not allowed to kill whenever she feels like it.” He stepped close to the jury box and slapped both hands on the banister, leaning over the jury. “You tell her that murder is wrong.”
Vince took a few moments before he sat back down. Brigham sat still. He didn’t move even a muscle. Every part of him felt as if it was frozen in a block of ice. Amanda reached over and lightly touched his hand. He turned and faced her. Their eyes held for a moment before he rose. He reached behind him to the few things he’d had Scotty bring to court, and lifted a large photo of his own, three feet by four feet.
Brigham walked over to the photo of Tyler Moore and placed his photo over it. It was of Tabitha Pierce on her first day of school, the same photo he had gotten for Amanda out of storage.
“This is Tabitha Pierce,” he said. “Her favorite show was Sesame Street, and her favorite food was pizza. But not with pepperoni, because she thought pepperoni made you fart.”
The jury laughed. Even the judge smirked. Vince held a cold, steely gaze on him. Brigham knew he wanted to object, but objecting during his opening statement while he was talking about a young girl might alienate the jury.
“She was supposed to start first grade in August of this year. She never got to. Tyler Moore didn’t just kill her. In the back of his filthy van, for three hours, he . . .”
Brigham stopped. He looked to her photograph and didn’t move. Ten seconds went by in silence. No one spoke, coughed, or cleared their throat. Twenty seconds went by. No one said anything. Finally, Brigham looked up at the jury. He wanted them to picture it. He wanted them to paint the canvas, not him. And they had painted.
Two men were crying. They held it back as well as they could, but the tears were rolling down their cheeks. Brigham had thought perhaps the women would cry first, but maybe the two men, one Hispanic and the other, the white guy with the Levi’s jacket, had daughters the same age as Tabitha. Something Vince, in his joking around with the jury, hadn’t asked.
Brigham let a good half minute go by in silence before he said, “Her mother sat in a cold police interrogation room as the detective read her Tyler Moore’s confession. All the things he’d done to this beautiful . . .”
He stopped. Completely unintentionally, emotion was now choking him. He took a moment before he looked up to the jury. “The prosecution told you that it’s wrong to murder. But they’re asking you to murder my client. This isn’t justice.”
Brigham sat down. Another person on the jury was wiping tears away as she stared at the photo of Tabitha. Vince said, loudly enough for Brigham to hear, “Get that down.”
His assistant jumped up and took down both photos and placed them where the jury couldn’t see them. The judge cleared his throat and said, “First witness, Mr. Dale.”
Twenty-five
The first witness in the case was Detective Steve Pregman. He was an older man, skinny with hair that was almost an afro. He was sitting at the prosecution table when he rose and walked to the witness stand. The clerk made him raise his right hand and swear the oath that he would tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. He said he would, and then lowered his hand and took a sip of water.
Vince ambled up to the podium. He leaned one hand against it and said, “State and spell your name, please.”
“Steven H. Pregman. That’s P-R-E-G-M-A-N.”
“And what do you do, Mr. Pregman?”
“I’m a homicide detective with the Salt Lake City Police Department.”
Brigham noticed that when Pregman spoke, he always looked at the jury—not the judge or Vince. His back was straight and he wore a suit that was impeccably clean: a professional witness for the prosecution.
“Tell us a little about your training and experience for that position, if you would.”
“I’ve been a police officer for fourteen years, and before that I was in the military. I joined the homicide unit four years ago.”
“Do you remember what happened in relation to this case on July the twelfth?”
“Yes, I do. I was doing some follow-up investigation for another case when I got a call from Detective Robert Jones. He said there had been a homicide at the Matheson Courthouse and that the suspect was being held by the bailiffs there. So I met Detective Jones here and we went up to the holding cell where they were keeping the suspect.”
“Who was that suspect?”
“Amanda Pierce.”
“Identify her for the jury, please.”
“She’s sitting at the defense table in the dress.”
Vince leaned against the podium. “So what happened next?”
“I sat down with her and turned on my digital recorder. I read her her Miranda rights and asked if she would speak with me. She didn’t respond, so I asked her about this incident.”
“And what’d she do when you asked her?”
“She started crying.”
“Did she speak to you at any point?”
“No, she was just crying.”
“So what did you do, Detective?”
“After about five minutes, I knew I wouldn’t be getting anything out of her, so I ended the interview. I stationed a unit to stay by her while I went out to the courthouse steps in the back. The Crime Scene Unit was already there processing the scene. They had a body, a forty-two-year-old Caucasian male. He was identified as Tyler J. Moore.”
“What did you think had happened to Mr. Moore?”
“Well, he suffered from several gunshot wounds to the neck and head. Blood at the scene was consistent with that. I spoke to five witnesses.” The detective looked at a notepad he’d brought up with him. He read the names of five men. “They were all in the vicinity when this incident occurred.”
“And what did they say happened?”
“They all said the same thing. Mr. Moore was coming down the stairs, and they saw the defendant, Amanda Pierce, approach him from the sidewalk. She moved up a few steps, turned, and fired several rounds. We recovered seven rounds total, five of which struck Mr. Moore.”
“Was anybody else hurt?”
“No.”
“Well, thank goodness for that,” Vince said, glancing to the jury. “No children were nearby, I hope?”
“No, none that we saw.”
Vince nodded. “Now at some point, you tried to talk to Ms. Pierce again, didn’t you?”
“After the scene was processed and the Coroner’s Office removed the body, yes, I tried talking with her again. We transported her down to the station. I again read her Miranda because I felt that enough time had elapsed, and I asked her to speak with me.”
“Did she?”
“No, sir. She didn’t speak with me at that time.”
“Did you ever determine why she killed this man?”
“Mr. Moore was responsible for the death of Ms. Pierce’s daughter. He was facing trial for it.”
“Revenge killing.”
Brigham shot to his feet. “Objection, Your Honor.”
“Sustained. Keep it relevant, Mr. Dale.”
Vince smiled widely. “Of course, Your Honor. Thank you.” He looked to the detective. “That’s all I had, Detective. Thank you for your time.”
Brigham took a sip of water. His throat was so dry it ached and felt swollen. He stood up and moved to the podium.
“When you first saw her in that room, Detective, how did she look to you?”
“Look as in . . . her appearance?”
“Yes.”
He shrugged. “She looked pale. Shaken up.”
“Were her hands trembling?”
“I think so, yes.”
“And she was crying?”
“Yes.”
“The entire time?” Brigham said.
“Yes.”
“Would you say she was crying uncontrollably?”
The detective thought a moment. “Yes. It didn’t seem like she could communicate at the moment.”
“Could she say anything? Ask for some water? Ask where she was or what was going to happen?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
Brigham hesitated. “Do you blame her for what she did, Steve?”
“Objection!” Vince bellowed. “That’s completely irrelevant.”
The judge was about to speak when the detective quickly said, “No, I don’t blame her. How could you blame someone after going through what she went through?”
Vince looked like he was about to throw something at the detective’s head.
“Objection sustained. Move on, Mr. Theodore.”
“No further questions.”
“No redirect, Your Honor,” Vince said.
“This witness is excused.”
As the detective walked in between the defense and prosecution tables, Vince glaring at him the entire time, the detective gave a slight nod to Brigham, which Brigham returned.
“Next witness,” the judge said.
The rest of the morning and well into the afternoon was a technical information dump, like reading the encyclopedia. Vince put the medical examiner on the stand and went through the autopsy. Half the jury looked like they wanted to fall asleep. But it was necessary. The law wasn’t a piece of wood to be carved by cutting away pieces. It was a house that you built piece by piece, from the ground up. The foundation had to be laid. Even though it was obvious to everyone in the courtroom that Tyler Moore was dead, the prosecution still had to establish it through the testimony of the ME.
They broke for lunch around 1:30. The jury was excused and they agreed to be back in an hour to continue with the medical examiner’s testimony.
The Neon Lawyer Page 11