“One of the reasons you twelve people are here is because of your maturity and human experience. You’ve been around. You’ve seen people fall in and out of love, experience the euphoria and the despair. You have seen people behave irrationally for emotional reasons. But if there is one thing that is obvious to anybody who has ever been in love, it is that logic has nothing to do with it.
“The prosecutor says that my client planned all of this for ten years. That he bought those baby clothes on his own. That he contrived the hospital log. He implies that he stole the letters and the graduation announcement. That he took photographs from a distance.
“He says that because he has no other explanation that is consistent with Elizabeth Garrett telling the truth. Well, I’m going to say something that will surprise him and maybe you. Is that possible? Yes, it is possible because almost anything is possible. But is it realistic to believe?
“To believe Mr. Jamison’s theory you have to be certain not just that it is possible, but that it is what happened. And you have to be certain beyond all reasonable doubt. You can’t make a mistake. You have to be sure today, tomorrow, next week, next month, and when you are sitting in your car driving to work next year. You have to be that sure. You have to believe that everything, everything Alex St. Claire said is a lie. Because the reality is that if you believe even one thing Alex St. Claire said may be true, then that means that Elizabeth Garrett is not telling the truth.
“Is that possible, that Elizabeth Garrett is not telling the truth? In the swirl of emotion that is this case? In the swirl of emotion that is created by love? Ladies and gentlemen, when it comes to what is or is not true in the emotional relationship between two people only these two people know what is or isn’t true, and perhaps even they don’t know it. Nothing is so unquestionably true or untrue that there can be no reasonable doubt.
“Mr. Jamison would have you believe that if you find Alex St. Claire not guilty, then you are deciding Elizabeth Garrett is not telling the truth. I would say to you that if you find Alex St. Claire not guilty the only thing you are deciding is that you aren’t sure what the truth is.
“Ladies and gentlemen, Alex St. Claire is entitled to your verdict of not guilty. Do that and you will sleep well because you will know that whatever may be the truth in this case, it will never be clear beyond a reasonable doubt.
“Your responsibility isn’t to make sure that all guilty people are found guilty. Your responsibility is to make sure that only people who you are certain are guilty, are found guilty. And in this case, nothing is certain except the tangled mess made by two people. Find Alex St. Claire not guilty and tonight and tomorrow and next week and next year, you will know that you did the right thing because uncertainty in this case is the only thing you can be sure of tonight, tomorrow, next week, and next year.”
Jamison rocked back in his chair at the counsel table. He stood slowly and buttoned his suit jacket while he walked back to the center of the courtroom for his closing argument.
“Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. McGuiness is right that the burden is on me to prove Alex St. Claire guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. I ask you to look at the evidence and consider whether you believe Elizabeth. If you believe her, then that is enough. There is only one proven liar in this case and that is Alex St. Claire. Does anyone think for a moment that he would have gotten back on the stand if he hadn’t been caught in his lie?
“Yes, he has an explanation for everything. He saved the evidence for years. He is the victim of a cruel and conniving woman. He loved her but his love was unrequited. Still, he loved her, despite all she had done to him. And according to him, years later when this woman called he went running right back, and she did the same thing again as he claimed when she falsely accused the defendant of kidnapping her and taking her against her will to Los Angeles. Let me break this case down this way. If Alex St. Claire is lying when he says Elizabeth went willingly with him to Los Angeles ten years ago, then he is lying now. And lie he did.
“If you believe his explanation for why he lied you have to believe he was so distraught over Elizabeth, the mother of his child, the woman he loved to distraction leaving him, that he went to a wax museum.
“And when this same woman, this woman who once had him arrested, who once falsely accused him of kidnapping and rape, calls him ten years later, he goes running out to a shopping mall to see her and then agrees to meet her on some dark road out in the country so they could once again play what he describes as ‘their little game.’
“And he would have you believe that this young woman—who is so afraid of what her parents think that ten years ago she refused to testify against him because they would see those pictures, who still lives with her parents, this schoolteacher—that this fragile young woman would meet him on a dark country road and leave her car door open.
“And I remind you, Elizabeth said he had a knife and that he cut her. How did the blood, Elizabeth’s blood, end up on the seat of her car along with an unmistakable knife silhouette left on the upholstery? When you walk into that jury room, I want you to think about that. How did Elizabeth Garrett’s blood get on that seat and how did that outline of that knife happen to that seat? There is only one way that happened that makes any sense and that is the way Elizabeth Garrett said it happened.
“Alex St. Claire planned everything he did. That is the only explanation. This young woman is the victim of a man with an obsession that knew no bounds. As frightening as it is to believe, for years the defendant has thought about her, lusted after her, and on that cold night at the border of a cemetery he took her.
“Only you can bring this to its proper end. Give Elizabeth Garrett freedom from a life of fear of this man. Find him guilty because that is what he is.”
Jamison searched for more words, something that would end it more forcefully. But all he could think of were the same words. “Find him guilty.” He let his gaze move from juror to juror before he walked back to the counsel table.
Chapter 36
Waiting for a verdict was always a time of excruciating uncertainty. Time took on a presence of its own, the ticking of the clock, the silent phone, and the etching of stomach acid rising up in a dry throat. Second-guessing every question asked during the trial and every strategic maneuver filled the minutes as time took its pleasure in slow drips. There was nothing for Jamison to do but wait.
His two investigators kept him company. They had as much invested in the case as Jamison did. O’Hara had waited through hundreds of jury verdicts, so many that he couldn’t remember more than a handful. He didn’t need to. Whether the time spent waiting was measured in hours or minutes, it always felt as if the wait was longer than his patience could accept. As usual, Ernie sat quietly, thumbing through a magazine. Because he had nothing to say, he said nothing.
When Jamison looked at him, frowning, O’Hara realized the thrumming of his fingers on the desk thundered like hoofbeats in Jamison’s silent office where they had gathered. Jamison hadn’t said much all afternoon and even less as the hours stretched into evening. A used and reused paper coffee cup sat on his desk, sagging from the saturation of cold dregs.
Jamison kept going over the case in his mind, day by day, witness by witness, word by word. As he had argued, he could feel his confidence in the truthfulness of Elizabeth Garrett building and with that, the anger rising as he realized he was all she had to convince people about what happened.
Now as he sat waiting, he began to detach himself from the argument. Emotionally he believed everything he had said. Logically he knew that emotion clouded judgment. The question was one of certainty for the jurors. Unlike the jury, he didn’t have to be right beyond a reasonable doubt in what he believed. He just had to believe it.
The ringing phone startled him even though he had been staring at it and waiting for it to ring for hours. He hesitated momentarily before lifting the receiver. It was the court clerk. “Judge Wallace wants you to return to the courtroom. He’s releasing t
he jury for the evening.”
The courtroom was almost empty when Jamison arrived. He was immediately confronted by a reporter from the newspaper as well as a local television reporter hoping for a comment, which he declined to give. They all sat in silence until McGuiness arrived with St. Claire. McGuiness ignored the reporters’ questions and pushed St. Claire past them. Jamison couldn’t tell if St. Claire was nervous or relieved that after five hours there was still no verdict. He always looked the same, as if he had just walked away from a full-length mirror after making sure his tie was straight.
Every lawyer tries to read the faces of jurors like tea leaves and with the same level of success. Jamison was no exception, but now he sensed there was some emotional distance between the men and the women on the jury, a subtle indication that telegraphed that the two genders had separated in some way. The women moved around the men without acknowledgment. Wallace excused the jurors for the evening and the jurors shuffled out the same way they had shuffled in, moving as a group but with visible separation. Other than that there was nothing on their faces to read.
The three men waited until they were back in Jamison’s office before saying anything. O’Hara spoke first. “That jury’s deadlocked and it’s the women against the men. You could see it. Reminded me of my second wife.” He paused. “Reminded me of my first wife too. When women are pissed at you they have a way of walking around you like they’re stepping around dog shit.”
It wasn’t what he wanted to hear but Jamison knew O’Hara was right. He nodded. “I think the women believe her, and the men either believe him or aren’t sure. Either way, unless something happens, we’ll have to go at this again.”
Ernie’s face took on a thoughtful expression. “Maybe a hung jury isn’t a bad thing. Next time we’ll know what’s coming and we’ll have more time to break down his alibi.”
Jamison accepted that Ernie might be right. “Okay, but this case turns on the credibility of both of them, Garrett and St. Claire. There’s no in-between. You either believe her or you don’t. Sometimes why that happens isn’t all that clear.”
“Amigo, it’s too soon to do this Monday morning quarterbacking. We have to wait and see. Let’s go home. Get some rest. Tomorrow we can start looking at what we got left, including the murder cases that we’ve been working on, and trying to find holes in St. Claire’s story.”
The continued lack of acceptance of the impact of the Garrett case on the murder cases underlaid the frustration in his voice as Jamison responded, “Without this case we have no murder case. Nobody seems to understand that. Okay, you two go home. I’ll leave in a minute. First I need to call Beth.” He waited until O’Hara and Ernie left before he picked up the receiver and dialed.
The next morning Jamison sat at his desk picking through stacks of reports on the murders that Ernie had put together while he and O’Hara had been in trial. He studied pictures of the victims, searching for something he hadn’t seen before. When he told O’Hara they needed the Garrett case in order to make the other murders provable, he meant it.
As their only victim who had survived St. Claire, she could provide testimony as to St. Claire’s modus operandi. Her testimony could provide the explanation of what had happened in the other cases. But without her case they only had speculation. Unless the evidence tightened considerably, they couldn’t walk into the murder cases without a conviction in Garrett’s case; McGuiness would eat them alive, ripping apart the gossamer-thin strands of the circumstantial case that depended on Garrett to pull it all together. Jamison knew it. His gut wasn’t just roiling from a quart of coffee and churning stomach acid. He pushed more paper around his desk. He was always like this until the verdict came in.
As he continued going through papers, the lunch hour came and went, and still nothing had come out of the jury room, not a question, not a sound. Then at two o’clock the phone rang. It was the court clerk. “Mr. Jamison, we have a verdict.”
He put the phone down and picked up his file. There was no hurry. The clerk would have to call McGuiness at his office and it would be at least a half hour before everyone was ready. Jamison walked out into the hallway. Already his colleagues’ heads were sticking out of their offices with wishes of good luck. As he turned down the hall O’Hara was already walking toward him, wrestling his frame into his coat. Ernie met them at the top of the stairs.
Some people said the pitcher’s mound was the loneliest spot on earth. It couldn’t be any lonelier than the counsel chair for a lawyer waiting for a verdict in a big trial. Prosecutors weren’t supposed to take the verdict personally, but the people who said that either weren’t trial lawyers or they were on Valium. It was always personal.
Ignoring St. Claire, Jamison acknowledged McGuiness out of politeness. He knew that McGuiness felt no differently than he did. The trial had been a gun-fight and they both knew there could be only one winner.
The twelve people who would decide the final answer filed into the courtroom. Wallace asked his bailiff to take the verdict forms from the foreman and began to go through them, shuffling them around and discarding pages that weren’t applicable. Like most judges, Wallace never showed much emotion when he was looking at verdicts. But Jamison caught a moment’s hesitation when Wallace pulled the verdict forms apart and dropped them into separate piles.
Finished with his housekeeping, the judge turned to the jury. “Are these your verdicts?” It was a question that every judge asked. Jamison never understood why they asked that before the verdicts were read. Who else’s verdicts could they be? But much of what happened in a courtroom was ritual and much of the justification was simply that was the way it had always been done. The forewoman nodded and then managed to get out a barely audible yes. The word seemed stuck in her throat.
Jamison placed his hands flat on the counsel table. It was his ritual. His hands would stay there until the verdicts were read. When he turned his head slightly, he could see St. Claire at the other end of the counsel table, his face almost serene. If there was any sense of uncertainty or insecurity, it didn’t show. Jamison felt himself involuntarily swallowing hard as the stomach acid crept into the back of his throat.
Wallace handed the verdict forms over to his clerk. “The clerk will read the verdicts, please.”
Wallace’s clerk quickly scanned the verdicts before reading them. Jamison caught a subtle glance at him before she began reading. “In the case of the People of the State of California versus Alex St. Claire, to the charge of assault with a deadly weapon in Count One, we the jury find the defendant not guilty.” The words rang through the silent courtroom like a funeral bell.
“To the charge of attempted rape in Count Two, we the jury find the defendant not guilty.
“To the charge of kidnapping in Count Three, we the jury find the defendant, Alex St. Claire, guilty of the lesser included charge of false imprisonment.”
As the sound of the clerk’s words slowly faded, there was a gap when silence filled the courtroom. Then a sudden jumble of sound began to grow around him, but it was lost on Jamison. He could feel the blood pulsing through his body. He lifted his hands from the counsel table and looked down at the puddle of water in the shape of two handprints.
They had lost everything, the assault, the attempted rape, the kidnap. False imprisonment had been a lesser charge that Wallace had insisted be put into the verdicts. Judges did that when they felt the evidence was susceptible to a different interpretation and one could not commit the greater charge without committing the lesser one. One could not kidnap a person without falsely imprisoning them, but a person could falsely imprison someone, hold them in one place against their will, without moving them and thereby kidnapping them. It was a minor charge.
The jury had found that all they were sure of was that Elizabeth Garrett was tied up without her consent. Now Jamison understood he was right when he detected a split in the jury. The women had held out for some form of guilt, something that was supportive of Garrett.
&n
bsp; But compared to the rest of the charges that St. Claire was acquitted of, the false imprisonment was nothing. St. Claire would walk out of the courtroom a free man and McGuiness would give a sound bite to the reporters that would portray the false imprisonment charge for what it was, nothing but a slight blemish on St. Claire’s good name.
He had lost. Jamison felt the blood draining from his body and heard the sounds of the courtroom returning as his mind refocused. St. Claire was thanking McGuiness.
Wallace’s voice could be heard over the courtroom reaction, asking him if he wanted the jury polled, asking each juror if that was their verdict. Jamison looked vacantly around the courtroom, trying to regain his composure. “Yes, Your Honor.” He could feel O’Hara’s hand on his back. None of it mattered at that moment. The loneliest spot on earth had just become lonelier.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Alex St. Claire looking at him, his mouth turned up ever so slightly into the faintest trace of a smile. Jamison knew it was meant for him alone to see.
Chapter 37
Everyone stood while the jurors filed out of the courtroom. Some of the women looked back at Jamison and gave him a nod or a sympathetic smile. None of the men looked at him. He could pretty well figure out what had happened. The women were not going to go along with any verdict unless Alex St. Claire got punished for something and the men weren’t going to go along with anything unless he got acquitted. The jury had compromised on the minor charge of false imprisonment. It happened a lot more than the public realized.
“Gut justice” O’Hara called it. The women knew St. Claire did it or at least did part of it, and the men were just as convinced that it was all Elizabeth Garrett’s fault. They had found common ground by agreeing on the false imprisonment but it wasn’t much. It was only better than nothing, but it wasn’t much better.
Fractured Justice Page 31