A Gambler's Jury

by Victor Methos

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hi, Mom. Dad told me you called.”

  “Yeah, I just wanted to hear about your day.”

  “It was fine.”

  “That’s it? It was fine?”

  “Yeah, it was fine.”

  I put my elbows on the counter and, for the first time that day, actually relaxed a little. “So what’s going on with you? How’s soccer?”

  “Boring. I like baseball.”

  “I like baseball, too. It’s relaxing. Why don’t you play baseball?”

  “Maybe, I don’t know. They practice, like, every day after school.”

  “So what? It’ll be fun. You gotta follow what you love. Be a Jim Morrison.”

  “Who?”

  “Never mind.” I waved to the cashier behind the counter and pointed to a bottle of Sunkist. She popped it open and slid it in front of me. “So what else is new?”

  “Nothin’. We’re going to the mall, Mom, so I gotta go.”

  “What do you guys do at the mall so much?”

  “Nothin’. Just hang out. Get something to eat.”

  “Well, how about me and you get something to eat tomorrow? I’m free all day.”

  “Maybe.”

  “I’ll take a maybe.” I paused. I wanted to tell him that, after the wedding, I would be moving, but the words wouldn’t come out. “Jack, I just want you to know you’re the best thing in my life. You’re my knight in shining armor.”

  “Don’t be weird, Mom. I gotta go; they’re gonna be here soon.”

  “I love you.”

  “Love you.”

  I hung up and noticed I had a smile on my face that hadn’t been there before.

  I still wasn’t hungry, but I sipped at my drink slowly. I didn’t feel like being anywhere near a courtroom right now, and the thought of Teddy sitting in a holding cell eating whatever the guards could scrounge from the cafeteria wasn’t helping my appetite.

  Eventually I had to suck it up and go back. I rose from the stool at the counter and noticed for the first time that four of the jurors were sitting together at a booth. They smiled at me and I smiled back. I once had a mistrial declared because I had said hello to some jurors walking down the hall. This time I was extremely careful and hurried past them.

  When I got back to the court, Sandy wasn’t there but Double D was. He was flipping through some pages when I sat in the chair next to him.

  “I can’t do anything,” he said, not taking his eyes off the page. “I already told you.”

  “She’s not a trial lawyer, Jasper.”

  “So?”

  “So she looks to you for advice. If you told her you guys were losing and to give my boy a misdemeanor with no more jail, she would do it.”

  He sighed and leaned back, tossing the paper on the tabletop. “We are losing, aren’t we?”

  “Your star player just broke his ankle. He got caught in a lie and the recording made it sound like he knew Teddy was innocent. Get me a misdemeanor. Everybody’s happy.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not? I mean, at least bring it up and see what she says.”

  He shook his head. “She’s taking this one seriously. I don’t know why.”

  “Shit, I know why.”

  He looked at me, and I saw genuine surprise on his face. He didn’t know the Führer’s master plan to craft a pure race, from childhood on. It surprised me that Sandy hadn’t trusted him with that knowledge. Or maybe she had, and he was just too dense or naïve to realize what she was saying.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “You should ask her. Frankly, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  He picked up his paper again. “I know how bad she wants this. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do.”

  I let out a long breath and stared at him, disgust rolling up and down my body like the shockwaves of an earthquake. “Do you know that the Nazis didn’t have high suicide rates?”

  “What?”

  “The Nazis. After the war ended, they didn’t have high suicide rates. All the horrible shit they did, and they could still live with themselves. You know who had high suicide rates? The civilian contractors who collaborated with the Nazis. The guys who never fired a single shot in the war. They couldn’t live with themselves. You wanna know why?”

  “I’m sure you’ll tell me.”

  “They couldn’t live with themselves because inaction is action, Jasper. God won’t forgive you for sitting one out. They could’ve done something to stop the injustice they were seeing and they didn’t, and they couldn’t live with themselves, and you won’t be able to either.”

  I went back to my table, unable to look at him. I kept my head down over my phone and reviewed the notes I had made about my closing arguments. Sandy came in a few minutes later, and Teddy was brought in a little after that. He had Jell-O smeared on his face, and I asked the bailiff for napkins and wiped it off. He said, “I had a hamburger and applesauce and Jell-O.”

  “I can tell, buddy. It’s all over your face.”

  I tossed the napkins in the trash as Roscombe lumbered into the courtroom. The sadistic bastard was humming something. He actually looked happy. Happy to be in a courtroom where someone’s life was at stake and he had rigged the odds to give him such an uphill battle that it matched Custer’s Last Stand. Actually, Custer could have run away at any time. Teddy’s situation required him to just sit there and take it.

  “Okay,” Roscombe said, “looks like we’re all back. Did we have any preliminary matters to handle?”

  “Your Honor,” I said, rising, unable to hold it in. “I would renew my objection to this entire proceeding. This court does not have jurisdiction over my client, and the law and procedure required by the Rules of Juvenile Procedure were blatantly ignored. I was not allowed sufficient time to explore defenses for my client, most notably a mental health defense. This entire case is a gross miscarriage of justice violating the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendment rights of my client.”

  “So noted,” he said, putting on his glasses without looking at me.

  “That’s it?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re not going to justify all this to me or try to say it was all in accordance with this or that case?”

  “No, Counsel, I will not. I am the judge here, and you are a guest in my courtroom. I do not have to explain anything to you.”

  “Judge,” I said, anger rising in me, “look at him. Just fucking look at him! He doesn’t belong here. Somewhere under your Frankensteinish exterior I know is a human being. You can’t let this happen to him.”

  He grinned and slowly removed his glasses, placing them on the bench. “Counsel, if your client didn’t want to be in this spot, maybe he shouldn’t have sold drugs. Now, are we ready to call in the jury?”

  Nothing. It was like talking to someone who’d had his empathy surgically removed. That was the most frightening type of person: someone who had conclusively made up his mind and refused to be persuaded any other way.

  On the verge of tears—something I sure as hell wasn’t going to show Roscombe—I said, “You’re right. How silly of me to believe fairness has anything to do with a court of law. Hey, drinks on me after this, Judge. I mean, after we firebomb a black church or something. Maybe burn a few crosses on lawns. Is that still a thing? Because the cross seems so Middle Ages. We should update it to something else, iPods or something.”

  “Counsel, you must really enjoy the holding cell.”

  “Actually, it’s better than my first apartment.”

  He flexed his jaw muscles and said, “Sit down.”

  I didn’t obey. Fuck it. Everything was rigged against me anyway. Maybe it was best to go out in a blaze of glory and get into the papers as the lawyer who got arrested during a trial for nailing the judge in the head with her purse. It would at least call attention to Teddy’s case.

  I felt a hand on my arm, a soft touch. Teddy looked up at me with his big eyes
and said, “Sit down, Danielle.”

  If I exploded, I wouldn’t suffer. I’d be in the holding cells maybe one night. Teddy’s trial would be declared a mistrial, and new counsel would be appointed. The new lawyer would have to catch up on the case and then would probably plead him the first chance he got. Teddy would be held in jail, and then transferred to prison within a few months. The only person who would truly suffer for my actions was Teddy.

  I sat back down.

  “Now,” Roscombe said. “I have here the jury instructions both parties have agreed to. Are there any amendments or corrections I should be aware of?”

  “No, Your Honor,” Sandy said.

  “No,” I said, unable to look at him.

  “Excellent. Now I believe, Mrs. Tiles, you have one more witness, is that right?”

  “Correct.”

  “And Ms. Rollins, will your client be taking the stand today?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, then I anticipate,” he said, looking at the clock on the wall, “that we will take a quick recess after these two witnesses and then start into closing arguments. I prefer to give the jury over to deliberation before dinner.” He looked to the bailiff. “Please bring out the jury.”

  The bailiff shouted for everyone to rise for the jury and we all stood. When we sat back down, Sandy called Detective Bo Steed, who strolled to the stand like a man who had just eaten Thanksgiving dinner and needed a place to lie down. He was sworn in, gave his name and how long he’d been with the sheriff’s office, and then went into a résumé-reading frenzy. He went through every qualification he had and every seminar he’d ever attended. Normally I would stipulate to his credentials to get him to shut up, but it was taking so long that the jury looked annoyed, so I let him keep going.

  Sandy finally asked her first question. “Tell us what you remember about April second, Detective.”

  Steed went into detail about getting the tip on a buy between Zamora and Teddy. He said Zamora had been working with them, and had said that Teddy had made frequent sales of cocaine to him before.

  “We were positioned around the home and listening on microphones secreted throughout the porch and on Mr. Zamora’s person. Once we had notification of the exchange, we moved in and made the arrests.”

  “But you arrested Mr. Zamora, too, correct?”

  “Correct. It’s customary to arrest CIs on a bust so that suspicion isn’t immediately thrown on them.”

  “I’d like to play a video for you, Detective Steed. Please narrate it for us.”

  The video showed the interviews with all three boys. Kevin, Freddy, and Clint all pointed the finger at Teddy. Steed explained what he was doing throughout the video, why he asked the questions he did, and the jury looked attentive for once.

  I was really interested in the video with Freddy, but not one of the jurors reacted in any way. They didn’t see that the detective was subtly leading him in his questions. I would get up and point it out to the jury, just in case, but I knew they couldn’t see it. Steed was too good at covering it up.

  Next, Sandy said, “And you have another audio recording of the exchange, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your Honor, for this recording, I’ve marked it ‘plaintiff’s exhibit four’ and would move for its introduction.”

  “No objection,” I said.

  The audio was of the actual exchange. I’d already heard it a couple times. You could barely hear what was said, and someone sounding like Teddy said something like “here,” and then Zamora said “thanks.” But it could’ve been Kevin, too. The audio just wasn’t clear.

  All in all, Steed’s testimony hadn’t really added anything. I debated whether to question him at all, but then I rose and said, “You admitted today that Mr. Zamora is a confidential informant, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Detective, it’s customary not to use confidential informants once their identities have been revealed in a case, correct?”

  “That is correct.”

  “So we can assume that Mr. Zamora is no longer working as a CI?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “How many cases did he work on with you?”

  “Over the years Mr. Zamora and I worked together, I would say about thirty.”

  “Thirty cases, and now he’s done. Each case a CI works is dangerous for that CI, isn’t it?”

  “It is, yes. They’re dealing with individuals who typically don’t hesitate to use violence against those who testify against them.”

  “So a CI wants to stop working with you as quickly as possible, right?”

  “I guess so.”

  “‘I guess so’ or ‘yes’?”

  “Yes.”

  “So Zamora just had to wrap this case up and he’d earned his freedom, so to speak?”

  “I wouldn’t know about that. As I said, he informed us of a frequent buyer, and we moved on the information.”

  “Did he have any evidence of these frequent buys?”

  “Such as?”

  “Any text messages, voice mails, photographs . . . anything corroborating his story that he’d bought from my client several times before?”

  “No, nothing like that, ma’am.”

  “So it’s just his word that these previous transactions took place?”

  “Correct.”

  “The word of someone who gained his freedom as a CI by setting up this deal?”

  “I wouldn’t characterize it that way, but yes, that’s essentially correct.”

  “Mr. Zamora ever lie to you?”

  Steed hesitated and glanced at Sandy. I got between them, so he was forced to look at me.

  “Umm, yes, ma’am.”

  “What did he lie about?”

  “There was a previous incident where he had accused someone of purchasing narcotics from him, and it turned out to be false.”

  My heart raced. One member of the jury shook his head. I moved closer to Steed. “Who?”

  “I don’t recall his name. Monty something or other.”

  “What did Zamora say?”

  “Basically that this person was a frequent drug buyer and had bought from him recently. We tracked the man down and found that he had left the state for work and had been gone about three weeks. He couldn’t have purchased drugs from Mr. Zamora.”

  “Did you figure out why Zamora lied?”

  “He admitted that he was incorrect. I couldn’t say why he did it.”

  “He did it to impress you, right? I mean, you said CIs want to be done working with you as fast as possible.”

  “I guess that’s accurate, yes.”

  “And after you knew that this CI was a flat-out liar, you continued to use him?”

  “I didn’t say he was a flat-out liar.”

  “What would you call it, Detective? I mean, you saw him lie on the stand today, right?”

  “He was mistaken back then.” He hesitated. “Frankly, I believe he was high when he was speaking to us. Mr. Zamora had a drug problem himself.”

  “What was his drug of choice?”

  “Heroin.”

  “How often would he use?”

  “I couldn’t say.”

  “Were there other times he called you while high?”

  “I don’t believe so, but I can’t say for certain.”

  “Can you say for certain he wasn’t high when he called you about Teddy and claimed Teddy set this whole thing up?”

  “I . . . can’t be certain. No.”

  I turned and looked at Sandy. “Are you aware, Detective, that the State did not give any of that information over to the defense in this case?”

  “Objection,” Sandy said. “That’s a discovery issue that has nothing to do with the jury.”

  “Overruled.”

  Two objections overruled in my favor was a new record in Roscombe’s courtroom. When this case eventually went up on appeal, a couple of objections in my favor would make it look like he was actually
hearing me out, so he had an incentive, but still. I would take what I could get.

  I turned back to the detective. “A lying drug addict. Perhaps you should choose your CIs more carefully, Detective.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “One more thing, Detective. Do you know an officer Stuart Lively?”

  He glanced to Sandy. “I do, yes.”

  “He was just a few minutes away from this bust, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes, he was.”

  “Every other officer in this case that came to help was much farther away, right?”

  “I don’t recall.”

  “But Lively was on his way down when you told him that it wasn’t necessary. Do you recall that?”

  “I do.”

  I stepped close to him. “Officer Lively is black, isn’t he, Detective?”

  “That had nothing to do with—”

  “The one black officer nearby and you tell him to turn away but accept two white officers farther away helping you on the case. Seems odd, doesn’t it?”

  “I . . .”

  He didn’t know what to say, and it confirmed what I suspected: Stuart Lively had been turned away because of his race.

  “You were gonna get the one black kid in this whole thing and Officer Lively might’ve gotten in the way of that.”

  He turned a shade of light pink. “I didn’t care about his race.”

  He said it just a little too loud, a little too forceful. I glanced to the jury and they were all staring at him. I figured I’d gotten as much mileage out of him as I could.

  I sat down. Sandy stood. “Did Mr. Zamora have an opportunity to lie in this case?”

  “No, ma’am. After the mix-up before, we made sure to monitor everything. I saw the defendant with my own eyes carry that bag up to the porch and hand it off.”

  “Thank you, Detective, no further questions.”

  Roscombe said, “You may step down, Detective Steed. Any further witnesses, Mrs. Tiles?”

  “No, Your Honor. At this time, the State would move to introduce the additional exhibits, and rests.”

  “Any objection?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Okay, the time is now yours, Ms. Rollins.”

  I looked at Teddy. He was playing some game with his fingers and smiling to himself.