Fractured Justice

by James A. Ardaiz

  “I know nothing about photographs. Maybe it’s possible that I was farther away when I took the picture, but we were walking out to the car. It was an impulse.”

  “Where did you get this letter?”

  “I told you. Elizabeth sent it to me.”

  “You saved everything else from your relationship with Elizabeth, including ten-year-old receipts and a bag with baby clothes, but not the first page of a letter from her?”

  “I’m not sure how that happened.”

  Jamison laid the letter down on the rail in front of the jury. “Well, Dr. St. Claire, let me ask you. Isn’t it true that you don’t have the first page of the letter because that page would show that the letter wasn’t to you but to someone else?”

  “It was to me.” Jamison could see St. Claire’s hands rubbing against his thighs, although he knew the jury couldn’t see it.”

  “You stole that letter, didn’t you?”

  “That’s ridiculous. I’m a physician, not a thief.”

  Jamison walked over to the side of the jury box so that his voice came from behind the jurors. His question came out like a pistol shot. “Not a thief, Dr. St. Claire? But you are a liar, aren’t you?”

  McGuiness was on his feet, arguing that Jamison was badgering the witness. Wallace was tapping his gavel harder and harder to stop the murmuring in the courtroom. “Mr. Jamison, rephrase your question.”

  “Yes, Your Honor. Dr. St. Claire, isn’t it true that you watched as Elizabeth Garrett left the Packing Shed restaurant, and you called her and then hung up the phone knowing that she would call back?”

  “I did not call her and how would I know she would call back?”

  “Didn’t you say she called you? Did you forget that you called her first?”

  “What difference does it make? She called me and we were going to meet. I don’t recall who called first.”

  “Dr. St. Claire, you followed Elizabeth Garrett home from the Packing Shed Restaurant and made her believe you were a police officer, didn’t you?”

  “No, we agreed to meet. I didn’t have to stop her.”

  “You have been stalking Elizabeth Garrett for years, haven’t you, waiting for an opportunity. Isn’t that true, Dr. St. Claire?”

  “No, it’s not true. We had a relationship we both couldn’t deny. That is the truth.”

  “What is the truth, Dr. St. Claire? Is it that you had an obsession and you could not let this young woman go? Isn’t that the truth?”

  “No.”

  “I see. So now that we know you lied under oath we are supposed to believe you are telling the truth?”

  “I am telling the truth.”

  “And you are under the same oath that you violated before.” Jamison sat back down at the counsel table. “I have nothing further.”

  The courtroom was silent as stone. Jamison surveyed the jurors’ expressions. Some of the jurors were looking away. Others looked confused. Jamison noted with satisfaction that none of them were smiling at Alex St. Claire.

  A tie for the prosecution doesn’t win in a criminal trial. But Jamison had pulled his case back from disaster by impeaching St. Claire. Now he had to break it apart. The hard decision was going to be whether or not to put Elizabeth back on the stand. The other hard part was finding a photographic expert to justify his cross-examination. He had been guessing. He hoped he had guessed right. And he hoped he had guessed right about the letter.

  Chapter 32

  The People’s rebuttal case consumed the rest of the morning, filled with the testimony of the witness from the wax museum and the clerk from the children’s department of the Sears store in Torrance. Marchand testified that he was able to pinpoint the time the wax museum ticket had been purchased because there was a large purchase right after it and then the cash register was cleared so that a new tape could be put in. The time was written on the master tape when it was removed.

  McGuiness didn’t bother to ask any questions of the witness from the wax museum. He knew that asking more questions would only emphasize that his client had not been truthful. But as to Shirley Peterson from the Sears store, he brought out that the store made both summer and winter clothes available but the floor displays emphasized the clothing seasonal for that time of year. Jamison countered that a woman would understand that if you bought baby clothes you would pick clothing the baby would be wearing at the time of year when it was born. It was a small point but the women on the jury would understand.

  It was the first time that Jamison walked out at the end of the day feeling like he was in control. But he also knew that tomorrow was another day and he still had to corroborate that his guesses about the photograph that St. Claire said he took of Garrett, which she said she wasn’t aware of, were correct. At this point, everything was important.

  O’Hara had scrambled all evening and most of the morning to find a photographic expert. After he found one, Jamison learned his guess had been only partially right when O’Hara slipped him a note with what she would say. There was no time for him to ask questions. He would have to go with what O’Hara had told him.

  The expert would testify that the photograph introduced by McGuiness could have been taken at a distance without Garrett knowing it, but it also could have been improperly focused. He knew the testimony wouldn’t be clean but he had no choice. He had alluded to the expert in his cross-examination of St. Claire. Without the expert McGuiness could argue that Garrett had posed willingly for St. Claire and that would dramatically undercut her testimony that he had stalked her. So Jamison had to put the expert on and hope he could wring out something positive.

  “The People call Professor Cynthia Stafford.” A surprisingly young woman walked quickly to the center of the courtroom and raised her right hand. Jamison established Stafford’s education and experience. She taught photography at the university and was a self-described “experimental photographer.”

  “Dr. Stafford, have you examined this photograph of a young woman?” Stafford nodded and then answered affirmatively as she took the photograph of Elizabeth Garrett and stared at it. She testified that because the photograph of Garrett was slightly blurred and the background was clear, it was most likely that a telephoto lens feature was used when the photograph was taken, or that Garrett moved and the camera auto-adjusted on the background.

  McGuiness quickly pounced. “So, Professor Stafford, it’s possible this photograph was taken close to the woman in the photograph, say ten or fifteen feet away?”

  “I cannot exclude that as being possible.”

  McGuiness held up the photograph. “So if my client said he was standing ten or twenty feet away and simply pointed the camera at the person in the photograph and snapped the picture, then the result here is possible?”

  “Depending on the camera, yes, and because the person was moving the camera refocused on the background when the person moved out of the specific line of focus. But it’s also possible the person was a greater distance away and with a telephoto lens you could also get this result.”

  “Dr. Stafford, is it your experience that if a woman sees a camera and doesn’t want her picture taken that she will frequently turn and move away?”

  Stafford laughed. “Women are all alike. If they don’t want their picture taken, they turn away. Or,” she added, looking at the jury, “if they don’t know their picture is being taken they don’t pose.”

  As he leafed through his legal pad during the lunch recess, Jamison flinched at the scribbled reflections of his case—two steps forward and one step back. He had taken a risk with his cross-examination of St. Claire that a photography expert would confirm what his questions implied and broke a basic rule of cross-examination: never ask a question unless you knew what the answer was. He had done the same thing with the letter. But as he recognized, when the ship is underwater, going by the book isn’t going to help. All he had effectively accomplished with the photography expert was to establish that Elizabeth’s version was possible and that
she could be telling the truth. McGuiness had accomplished the same thing, that St. Claire might be telling the truth. The letter was a different issue.

  For most of the hour-and-a-half break, Jamison and O’Hara had been at it trying to decide whether to put Beth back on the stand. O’Hara was against it. McGuiness had popped the letter out of nowhere and he might have more that he would spring on her.

  Jamison listened carefully. He trusted O’Hara’s instincts, but this was a credibility contest. The letter was a problem. He had been guessing when he accused St. Claire of stealing it. If he hadn’t stolen the letter, then the only other way St. Claire could have gotten it was if it did come from Elizabeth. And if that was true it would wedge the cracks in his case wide open. So he had taken the only course consistent with his case, and he had done it hoping he was right.

  He had shown the letter to Elizabeth, and she said it was her handwriting. He had listened as she told him the letter was to a college boyfriend, but didn’t recall if she had mailed it. She was adamant that it hadn’t been written to St. Claire and she had no idea how he had gotten it.

  Reassured that he had made the only move he could in cross-examining St. Claire about the letter, he still was faced with the crucial hurdle of convincing Wallace to let him bring in the murder evidence that neither Wallace nor McGuiness knew anything about. At least he didn’t think McGuiness knew anything about it, but there was no real assurance of that either. He needed to buy time, to hear conclusively from the FBI on the presence of succinylcholine, and to get rid of the nagging concern in the back of his mind about the hair and fiber samples that T. J. had found in St. Claire’s car.

  He just couldn’t buy that T. J. had got so lucky with finding the single hair from Ventana and the carpet fiber from Johnson’s home and Symes’s apartment. He had sent Ernie out to go over St. Claire’s car one more time to see if there was anything, anything at all that might give him some assurance. He needed that answer before attempting to get Wallace to allow in the murder evidence.

  He was still unsure of how to handle all the unresolved questions when he returned to his place at the counsel table. “Your Honor, may we approach the bench?”

  “What is it?” Wallace waved both counsels forward.

  “Your Honor, there’s something I would like to discuss with you in chambers.”

  Wallace walked into his office, sat heavily in his chair, waiting for Jamison’s explanation. “I’m afraid I need some time. Some issues have come up. This letter is something I need to do more investigation about and there is other evidence that we have been developing that I am not prepared to discuss at the moment.”

  McGuiness hadn’t sat down and he moved right in front of Jamison’s face. “What evidence? You haven’t told me about any other evidence.”

  Jamison’s face flushed as he sought to control his own anger. “What are you whining about? Yesterday I walk in here and you lay that letter in front of the jury after your client got caught perjuring himself. You don’t think I need to look at that?”

  “You had time to look at it. I don’t hear you saying it isn’t her handwriting.”

  Wallace interrupted. “Now I can see this letter caught you off-guard, Matt, but what other evidence are you talking about? I expected to get this case to the jury by tomorrow. Apparently Mr. McGuiness has not been told about this evidence?”

  “No, Your Honor, Mr. McGuiness has not been told. I didn’t know whether this evidence would be relevant and admissible until after I heard the defense case. It’s clear that Mr. McGuiness is taking the position that Ms. Garrett is lying about everything and his client is innocent.” Jamison glanced at McGuiness. “Judge, I would prefer not to discuss this evidence at this time. If you give me a little time I can be prepared to discuss the evidence, but I’m waiting for more information.”

  Wallace kept silent for a few seconds, then stood up and looked out his window. “If you have other evidence, then I want to know right now what it is. If you expect me to give you more time at all, then it had better be damn good. I’m going to require that you hand everything over to Mr. McGuiness and I make no guarantees about whether I’ll let it in. I have to know first what it is. It’s your choice. Tell me now or I expect you to finish tomorrow, but I will give you some time to look at the letter. I know you didn’t expect that. So, what’s it going to be?”

  “Your Honor, what Dr. St. Claire has said is that he did do the acts he has been accused of but he did it with innocent intent. He did take Ms. Garrett, but she consented and it wasn’t kidnap. He tied her up, but it was with her consent. We argue that her version is correct and that Dr. St. Claire is lying. What’s at issue is Dr. St. Claire’s intent, as opposed to the usual case when the defendant says somebody else did it but it wasn’t him and leaves his identity in issue.”

  Wallace’s eyes were narrowing. He could sense that something was coming that was going to force him to make a ruling on which the whole trial would turn and maybe there would be a basis for an appeal. He began to tense. “Your point, please?”

  Jamison swallowed hard, anticipating the explosion from McGuiness and the judge when he finished. “My point, Your Honor, is that Dr. St. Claire has made his intent the issue and therefore all relevant evidence is admissible to prove that his intent is what Elizabeth Garrett said it was. He kidnapped her and he tied her to the bed. What we have not said is that we know he didn’t rape her, but we are sure he intended to kill her.”

  His face furrowing, Wallace leaned over his desk. “What? Where’s this coming from?”

  “Your Honor, it’s coming from evidence that we have that Dr. Alex St. Claire murdered three other women before he kidnapped Elizabeth Garrett.” He could feel the blood rushing to his ears as McGuiness started yelling about due process and his client’s constitutional rights, lack of discovery, and misconduct by Jamison.

  His voice was a low rumble as Wallace told McGuiness to sit down while he listened to what Jamison had to say. “What evidence?”

  “Your Honor, the basic evidence is that the three murders of young women followed exactly the same pattern that was used in the kidnap of Elizabeth Garrett. We have now tied Dr. St. Claire to all three of those women. We also have evidence that Dr. St. Claire used his position at the hospital to switch blood samples on those three women to make it look like they died as a result of an overdose of heroin and barbiturates.”

  “Then what did they die of?”

  “Your Honor, we have tissue samples that are still being tested at the FBI lab in Washington. We believe they may have died as a result of injection of a drug called succinylcholine, which can be used to induce respiratory failure and cause the heart to stop. We know Dr. St. Claire had access to this drug.”

  Before making his next statement Jamison hesitated. “We have hair and fiber samples from Dr. St. Claire’s vehicle that we can show are related to these murder victims. We believe that this evidence will show Dr. St. Claire murdered these three young women, and we believe that this evidence demonstrates that he kidnapped Elizabeth Garrett just as she said.”

  Wallace stared coldly at Jamison. “Now is a hell of a time to try to bring this kind of evidence in, especially without any warning to the defense, and you know it.”

  In order to have any chance of getting the evidence in, Jamison had to hold his ground. “Your Honor, we’ve been working day and night on those murder cases and we were pushed to go to trial on this case before our investigation was completed. We are asking the court to hear the evidence and then make its own decision.”

  McGuiness’s face was almost purple from anger. Wallace immediately said, “Tom, before you have a stroke, let me say this. I’m very disturbed that something like this would come up now. I’m going to hear this evidence outside the presence of the jury. Then I’ll decide.”

  The judge turned his focus to Jamison. “If you want me to even consider allowing you to do this, then you need to turn everything you have over to Mr. McGuiness and I mean
everything. I’ll give the jury a long weekend, and then I’ll hear your arguments the day after tomorrow.” Wallace paused. “And they better be damn good because if that evidence comes in and Dr. St. Claire is convicted, we all know the court of appeal is going to go over it looking for any sign there was an abuse of discretion.”

  “Your Honor, I understand. I wouldn’t be asking the court to do this if I didn’t think that not presenting it would cause a bigger injustice by allowing Dr. St. Claire to get away with what he did to Elizabeth Garrett and . . . get away with—”

  Before Jamison finished, Wallace rose and pushed his body halfway across the desk. His voice held an unmistakable warning. “That may be, but even if Dr. St. Claire is acquitted, you can still bring murder charges. And if he’s convicted of those murders, then he will get what he deserves even if he’s acquitted in this case. But on the other side, if he’s convicted of the charges in this case because of my error in allowing in evidence of uncharged murder, there is injustice in that too, isn’t there?”

  “Day after tomorrow, gentlemen, and, Mr. Jamison,” Wallace said, his eyes penetrating Jamison’s, “if I think for one minute you’re playing fast and loose with me, I’ll have you in front of the state bar on charges. Don’t think I won’t.”

  The judge stood, facing both attorneys. “And another thing. If you think you have enough evidence to convince me that Dr. St. Claire committed three murders, then you have enough evidence to charge him and arrest him. Why haven’t you done that?”

  Because Jamison had been concerned that Wallace would ask this question, he had an answer. He knew it wasn’t a good answer but it was an answer. “Your Honor, we have been doing the investigation while this trial has been going on. I didn’t want to risk a mistrial by arresting Dr. St. Claire in the middle of this trial. It was my decision.”

  As Jamison and McGuiness walked out of Wallace’s chambers, the defense attorney spoke up. “So, are you planning to arrest my client when we walk back into the courtroom, because if you are, then you can expect I will be making a motion for a mistrial.” McGuiness looked over at Wallace, who didn’t appear at all surprised that he made the threat.