Her Kind of Case

by Jeanne Winer

  “So that’s what the defense will prove,” she said. “During the second half of the trial, I’ll be calling numerous witnesses, including Jeremy’s mother, his best friend from Colorado Springs, a bartender, and a guard at the juvenile detention facility. In a criminal case, the defendant is presumed to be innocent. The burden is on the prosecution to prove the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, which means if you have any doubt about my client’s guilt, you are required to find him not guilty.

  “Who is Jeremy Matthews? Is he a seventeen-year old monster who intentionally aided and abetted the murder of Sam Donnelly, or is he a teenager who got in over his head and was unable to stop a group of older, homophobic men from killing the one person in the world he loved? Ultimately, it’ll be up to you to decide. Please make the right decision. Thank you.”

  When Lee sat down, the judge called a twenty-minute recess, after which Dan would begin presenting his witnesses. Lee guessed he’d start chronologically with the two college students who’d found Sam’s body on Flagstaff.

  Phil and Carla both assured Lee that her opening had been effective.

  “I mean I’m scared,” Phil said, “but I think it was good.” He closed his notepad and placed it face down on the bench beside him. “I’ve had a lot of trials where the truth was stranger than fiction, but this one takes the cake.”

  Lee simply nodded. Once a trial had started, it was her policy never to reveal how nervous she was to anyone, not even to the members of her team. And of course never to her client, who in this case was sitting quietly beside her, looking very grave.

  “Hey, buddy,” Phil told him, “you’ve got the best lawyer in Colorado defending you.”

  “What do you mean in Colorado?” Carla asked, pretending outrage. “In the country!”

  Lee smiled at them and said, “I’m going to the bathroom and then I’m going outside to think. Jeremy, watch the table for me. Make sure no one touches anything.”

  “Okay,” he said, brightening a little.

  Inside the bathroom, Lee gazed at her reflection in the mirror. In a couple of weeks, whether she was ready or not, she’d turn sixty. Did she actually look that old? After turning her head from side to side, she decided no. Her face looked tan and healthy, with only five or six wrinkles and a sunspot or two. Not bad at all. Thanks to her favorite hair stylist, who was Dan’s as well, her silver hair had been cut so that it swept almost carelessly past her ears. Her eyes, which looked almost black in the bathroom light, were the only giveaway. They were tired; they’d seen too many sad, unconscious people fucking up and doing terrible things. She shrugged. The cost of doing business.

  As she headed down the hallway toward the stairs, she saw Dan waiting for her. He looked relaxed and confident, as if he were on vacation. Tennis anyone? Sure, Lee thought. Why not.

  “Hey, Dan,” she said, stopping in front of him. “What’s up?”

  “That was quite a story.”

  “Thanks.” She smiled innocently. “Anything else?”

  He started to laugh.

  “You are so good, Lee.”

  “You’re not so bad yourself. I’d better go, though. We don’t have much time.”

  “Okay, fine. So at first I thought it was you. That in complete desperation, you’d imagined the perfect defense and then somehow convinced both yourself and your client it was true. But then I realized only your client could have concocted such a bizarre, unbelievable story. Upon further reflection, I wondered if he was really that clever and decided he wasn’t. So then what?”

  “Right,” Lee said. “So then what?”

  “So then I put myself in his shoes. He’s scared, in pain, and in denial. How can he live with himself if the allegations are true? So they can’t be true. Maybe they aren’t. And so eventually he comes up with an alternate version of reality—wishful thinking about him and Sam and how he might have behaved if only he’d been a better, more principled person. How’s that?”

  Christ, it was brilliant. She pretended to think about it.

  “Not bad.”

  “Not bad? Oh come on, it’s brilliant.”

  “Okay, it’s brilliant.”

  “That’s why you’re such a difficult opponent, Lee. Most of the time you actually tell the truth. It’s only now and then, you don’t.”

  She glanced at her wristwatch.

  “So the upshot is …”

  “That you’re not going to win.” He said it almost kindly. “You’re not going to pull one last tired rabbit out of a hat. I’ve not only come up with a brilliant explication and defense to your defense, but I have the co-defendants’ testimony and your client’s statements.”

  “Well, you’re right,” she said. “Except for one thing.”

  “What thing?”

  “The thing it always comes down to: reasonable doubt.”

  His shoulders slumped a little.

  “I hate reasonable doubt.”

  “Well, of course you do. It’s how I win cases. I don’t have to prove that my defense is true. The jurors just have to worry that it might be.”

  “The evidence against him is overwhelming.”

  “Yes, but what if the defendant is telling the truth? If so, it would be a horrible miscarriage of justice to send him to prison for the rest of his life.”

  “Well, thank goodness he confessed, so we don’t have to worry. Who do you think will be foreman?”

  “The bank manager from Wells Fargo,” she replied, “the one whose brother is gay.”

  “Yeah, I should have struck him.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you didn’t.”

  “Yes,” she said, “that was a mistake.” She thought for a moment and then groaned. “I asked if he liked his brother and he said he respected him, but I didn’t follow up. What if he respects his brother, but doesn’t actually like him? What if it all comes down to whether he likes his younger brother?”

  “You know what?” He was massaging his right temple. “I think I’m getting a headache.”

  “Me too. We’d better get back to the trial.”

  “I’m going to kill myself if I lose,” Dan said.

  “Me too.”

  After the college students, Dan called two crime-scene investigators, who described finding Sam’s body curled into a fetal position, his face contorted by “pain, exhaustion, and a dawning sense of despair.” This last observation was clearly objectionable, but Lee remained seated. She wouldn’t object to anything unless it challenged or contradicted her defense. The investigators carefully discussed what they’d found: footprints in the dirt surrounding the body, and cigarette butts, empty beer cans, and broken bottles of Southern Comfort littering the ground.

  In her cross-examination, Lee emphasized that the evidence implicated the three co-defendants, and not her client.

  “The footprints surrounding the body had all been made by heavy boots?” she asked the second investigator.

  “From what we could tell.”

  “No footprints made by sneakers?”

  “Well, many of the footprints were smeared and distorted by other prints on top of them.”

  “But from what you could tell, none of them were made by sneakers?”

  “From what we could tell.”

  “Thank you,” Lee said. “All the evidence you collected was tested by CBI, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation?”

  “Correct.”

  “None of it could be linked to Mr. Matthews?”

  The crime scene investigator hesitated.

  “We didn’t do the testing ourselves. You should ask one of the CBI techs.”

  “I will, thanks,” Lee said, smiling. “But it’s your understanding there was no physical evidence at the scene that could be linked to Mr. Matthews?”

  “That’s my understanding, yes.”

  The art of pulling teeth.

  “Thanks. No further questions.”

  After lunch, Dan showed the crime-scene video. It was o
nly eight minutes long, but it seemed to last forever. Lee, of course, had seen it many times, but the jurors hadn’t. When it was over, their faces registered shock and disgust. During the last fifteen seconds, the videographer had slowly pulled her camera back from the scene. With each backward step, Sam’s body got smaller and smaller until it eventually disappeared. The effect was extremely disconcerting, as if Sam’s death meant very little in the scheme of things, which unfortunately was true. During the screening, Jeremy remained totally still. Afterward, Lee saw tears running down his face. She would have tried to comfort him, but worried it might look staged or disingenuous. Better to just let him cry and hope that some of the jurors noticed.

  The Boulder County Coroner then testified about the various injuries Sam had suffered and opined that the cause of death was a combination of blood loss and suffocation due to broken bones. Lee had very few questions.

  Finally, a forensic expert from CBI testified that the three co-defendants’ DNA had been found on most of the items submitted by the Boulder Police Department. He also confirmed that Sam’s blood had been found on two of the co-defendants’ boots, in the car that had been impounded, and on Jeremy’s sweatshirt. During Lee’s cross-examination, the expert agreed that the blood on her client’s sweatshirt could have come from sitting in the car sometime after the murder.

  After Lee’s opening statement, there had been no other surprises, but there undoubtedly would be—there always were—which was the fun and horror of trying cases. Court adjourned early at four-thirty.

  When most of the spectators were gone, the guard from the juvenile detention center placed Jeremy in handcuffs. The guard, a heavyset man with a goatee, was someone new. Mr. Clean, like all of the defendants’ proposed witnesses, had been sequestered. Lee approached the man and introduced herself. The guard grinned at her.

  “Leroy Atkins,” he said. “Pleased to meet you. Mr. Clean told me to take good care of your client.” He looked at Jeremy. “The cuffs aren’t too tight, are they?”

  “They’re fine,” Jeremy said. His face looked pale and drawn. There was a large ink stain on the front of his shirt. Good thing Carla had bought him a dozen.

  “Okay, good.” The guard turned back to Lee. “This is a real interesting trial. I’m enjoying being here.” He obviously meant well.

  “So what do you think about the case?” Lee asked.

  “Well, if what you told the jury was true, it would be a shame if the kid was convicted.”

  Phil had come up behind them.

  “A shame? Is that all it would be? A shame?”

  The guard looked confused.

  “As you can tell,” Lee said, smiling warmly, “we all feel strongly about Jeremy’s innocence. Thanks for taking such good care of him. We really appreciate it.”

  “Sure, no problem,” the guard replied.

  When they were alone, Phil apologized.

  “I understand,” she said. “But it doesn’t help to get angry.”

  “Sometimes it does.” Then he looked contrite. “But not often. So what do you do to blow off steam?”

  “That’s easy. I go to the dojo and beat the crap out of as many people as possible.”

  Phil started laughing, and then stopped.

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Only a little,” she conceded.

  On Friday, Dan called the clerk from the north Boulder liquor store, the one who’d identified Rab as the tall, menacing skinhead with the animal tattoo on his neck who came into the store on the night of the murder to buy beer and Southern Comfort. The clerk also identified the white car Rab was driving. “The passenger door was all bashed in from an accident.” The clerk helped Rab carry the liquor out to the car and saw four more skinheads sitting inside the car, waiting. One of the passengers was obviously younger than the others.

  “So you could see the passengers?” Dan asked him.

  “Yes, but only for a couple of seconds. I can’t identify them.”

  “That’s okay. Did all of the skinheads have tattoos?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “Even the youngest one?”

  “Him too. They were all kind of scary.”

  Lee nodded to herself. Dan, having guessed she might revisit the issue of whether Jeremy’s tattoos were admissible, was eliciting as much testimony as possible concerning their relevance.

  After a short recess, Dan called two waitresses from the Sapphire Lounge who’d overheard Rab, Casey, and Johnny bragging about how they’d kicked a gay man to death. Both women were pale, skinny blondes who’d worked at the lounge for more than a decade. The first one, Donna, had three kids under fifteen and worked two other jobs besides this one. She was nervous about testifying and was worried about taking time off from her day job as a maid at a Motel 6. During the preliminary questions, she made a point of checking her watch every few minutes.

  “I’ll be as quick as I can,” Dan promised, but then took his time setting the scene and making sure she repeated everything the men had said.

  “So why did you call the police?” Dan finally asked.

  “Do I have to say?” She looked embarrassed.

  Judge Samuels cleared his throat and said, “Unless it’s going to get you in trouble.”

  “Oh no,” she replied, “nothing like that.”

  “Then you have to answer the question,” the judge said.

  “Okay, so the truth is, my ex-husband was gay. He died a few years ago from AIDS. Right before he died, he called to say he was sorry and wished things had gone differently between us. I kept thinking about him while those jerks were yukking it up. Usually, I tune out what my customers are saying, but this time I couldn’t. So I called.”

  The other waitress, Joy, had a scar running down the side of her face, a souvenir from a boyfriend now serving time in prison.

  After being sworn in, she stated, “I don’t really want to be here. I’m scared for my safety.”

  “I understand,” Dan said, “but as I’ve already told you, the men in the bar have all pleaded guilty and been sentenced to forty-eight years. No one’s going to hurt you.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m still scared. I mean, they have friends, right?” She fingered the scar on her cheek. “I’m thinking about moving away, but I don’t want to say where.”

  Dan hid his annoyance well.

  “That’s fine, although I think you’re safe where you are.”

  “You don’t know those guys.”

  “Tell me about them.” He knew Lee would ask if he didn’t.

  “Well, let’s see. Casey’s just plain crazy. Half the time, he comes in barefoot, even when it’s snowing. And Johnny? Johnny’s mean. But it’s Rab who’s the most dangerous. If he says he’s going to hurt someone, he means it. They all do what he says.”

  “So Rab’s the leader?”

  “Uh-huh, yeah.” Suddenly, she started coughing.

  “Would you like some water?” the judge asked.

  “No thanks. I cough all the time. It used to drive my boyfriend crazy.” She coughed for another five seconds and then stopped. “I think I’m all right now.”

  “Are you sure?” the judge asked.

  “Yeah, I should probably stop smoking. My mom died of emphysema.”

  Dan was pretending to study his notes. Finally, he looked up and pointed at Jeremy.

  “Have you ever seen the defendant before?”

  The witness squinted toward the defense table.

  “I think so, although he looked really different then.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, his head was shaved and he looked a lot thinner, like he never got enough to eat.”

  “Was he friends with the guys we’ve been talking about?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Did he have tattoos similar to the ones they had?”

  “Uh-huh, but he wasn’t nearly as creepy. He was real quiet. Actually, I thought maybe he was Rab’s younger brother.”

  “Real
ly? How come?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. He just kind of stuck close to him.”

  At the end of his examination, Dan assured her again she was safe.

  The witness looked doubtful.

  “Well, I sure hope you’re right.”

  Lee waited until Dan sat down and then slowly walked to the podium.

  “Sounds like you’ve had too many experiences with violent men,” Lee said.

  The witness smiled ruefully and answered, “I’ve definitely had my share.”

  “The three men we’ve been talking about—they’re really dangerous, aren’t they?”

  “Uh-huh, yeah.”

  “They wouldn’t be easy to stand up to.”

  “No, they wouldn’t.”

  Lee looked back toward the defense table. Both Phil and Carla were leaning forward in their seats, their hands resting on Jeremy’s shoulders. It was hard to tell if he even noticed.

  “Joy, this is important. Are you sure my client wasn’t at the Lounge on the night the others were bragging about the boot party?” She’d interviewed the witness, of course, and knew what she’d say.

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  “Did the others mention anything about my client’s involvement in the murder?”

  “No.”

  “Did they say anything about anyone helping them murder the victim?”

  “No.”

  “Did they say that anyone acted as the lookout?”

  “No.”

  “Did you get the sense the three men had acted alone?”

  “Yes.”

  So far so good, but Lee wanted more.

  “So the three older men seemed violent and dangerous to you?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Which is why you’re still afraid of them?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Did Jeremy seem dangerous too, or did he seem different?”

  “Different.”

  “Did he in fact seem kind of gentle?” She was taking a little bit of a chance here.

  The witness glanced at Dan before turning back to Lee.

  “Yeah, he did seem kind of gentle.”

  “Thanks very much,” Lee said. “No further questions.”

  Detective Bruno was Dan’s advisory witness, which meant he’d been sitting next to Dan at the prosecution table since the first day. Years ago, Dan had confessed to Lee how much he disliked the detective, but during a trial, no juror would have guessed Dan’s feelings. He was unfailingly polite to his advisory witness and listened attentively to his many suggestions. As soon as Dan called Detective Bruno to the stand, Lee asked if she and Dan could approach the bench.