The Lincoln Lawyer Collection

by Connelly, Michael

  We had been through three days of jury selection and were now ready to put on the show. The trial was scheduled for another three days at the most — two for the prosecution and one for the defense. I had told the judge that I would need a day to put my case before the jury, but the truth was, most of my work would be done during the prosecution’s presentation.

  There’s always an electric feel to the start of a trial. A nervousness that attacks deep in the gut. So much is on the line. Reputation, personal freedom, the integrity of the system itself. Something about having those twelve strangers sit in judgment of your life and work always jumps things up inside. And I am referring to me, the defense attorney — the judgment of the defendant is a whole other thing. I’ve never gotten used to it, and the truth is, I never want to. I can only liken it to the anxiety and tension of standing at the front of a church on your wedding day. I’d had that experience twice and I was reminded of it every time a judge called a trial to order.

  Though my experience in trial work severely outweighed my opponent’s, there was no mistake about where I stood. I was one man standing before the giant maw of the system. Without a doubt I was the underdog. Yes, it was true that I faced a prosecutor in his first major felony trial. But that advantage was evened and then some by the power and might of the state. At the prosecutor’s command were the forces of the entire justice system. And against this all I had was myself. And a guilty client.

  I sat next to Louis Roulet at the defense table. We were alone. I had no second and no investigator behind me — out of some strange loyalty to Raul Levin I had not hired a replacement. I didn’t really need one, either. Levin had given me everything I needed. The trial and how it played out would serve as a last testament to his skills as an investigator.

  In the first row of the gallery sat C. C. Dobbs and Mary Alice Windsor. In accordance with a pretrial ruling, the judge was allowing Roulet’s mother to be in the courtroom during opening statements only. Because she was listed as a defense witness, she would not be allowed to listen to any of the testimony that followed. She would remain in the hallway outside, with her loyal lapdog Dobbs at her side, until I called her to the stand.

  Also in the first row but not seated next to them was my own support section: my ex-wife Lorna Taylor. She had gotten dressed up in a navy suit and white blouse. She looked beautiful and could have blended in easily with the phalanx of female attorneys who descended on the courthouse every day. But she was there for me and I loved her for it.

  The rest of the rows in the gallery were sporadically crowded. There were a few print reporters there to grab quotes from the opening statements and a few attorneys and citizen onlookers. No TV had shown up. The trial had not yet drawn more than cursory attention from the public, and this was good. This meant our strategy of publicity containment had worked well.

  Roulet and I were silent as we waited for the judge to take the bench and order the jury into the box so that we could begin. I was attempting to calm myself by rehearsing what I wanted to say to the jurors. Roulet was staring straight ahead at the State of California seal affixed to the front of the judge’s bench.

  The courtroom clerk took a phone call, said a few words and then hung up.

  “Two minutes, people,” he said loudly. “Two minutes.”

  When a judge called ahead to the courtroom, that meant people should be in their positions and ready to go. We were. I glanced over at Ted Minton at the prosecution’s table and saw he was doing the same thing that I was doing. Calming himself by rehearsing. I leaned forward and studied the notes on the legal pad in front of me. Then Roulet unexpectedly leaned forward and almost right into me. He spoke in a whisper, even though it wasn’t necessary yet.

  “This is it, Mick.”

  “I know.”

  Since the death of Raul Levin, my relationship with Roulet had been one of cold endurance. I put up with him because I had to. But I saw him as little as possible in the days and weeks before the trial, and spoke to him as little as possible once it started. I knew the one weakness in my plan was my own weakness. I feared that any interaction with Roulet could lead me into acting out my anger and desire to personally, physically avenge my friend. The three days of jury selection had been torture. Day after day I had to sit right next to him and listen to his condescending comments about prospective jurors. The only way I got through it was to pretend he wasn’t there.

  “You ready?” he asked me.

  “Trying to be,” I said. “Are you?”

  “I’m ready. But I wanted to tell you something before we began.”

  I looked at him. He was too close to me. It would have been invasive even if I loved him and not hated him. I leaned back.

  “What?”

  He followed me, leaning back next to me.

  “You’re my lawyer, right?”

  I leaned forward, trying to get away.

  “Louis, what is this? We’ve been together on this more than two months and now we’re sitting here with a jury picked and ready for trial. You have paid me more than a hundred and fifty grand and you have to ask if I’m your lawyer? Of course I’m your lawyer. What is it? What is wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong.”

  He leaned forward and continued.

  “I mean, like, if you’re my lawyer, I can tell you stuff and you have to hold it as a secret, even if it’s a crime I tell you about. More than one crime. It’s covered by the attorney-client relationship, right?”

  I felt the low rumbling of upset in my stomach.

  “Yes, Louis, that’s right — unless you are going to tell me about a crime about to be committed. In that case I can be relieved of the code of ethics and can inform the police so they can stop the crime. In fact, it would be my duty to inform them. A lawyer is an officer of the court. So what is it that you want to tell me? You just heard we got the two-minute warning. We’re about to start here.”

  “I’ve killed people, Mick.”

  I looked at him for a moment.

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  He was right. I had heard him. And I shouldn’t have acted surprised. I already knew he had killed people. Raul Levin was among them and he had even used my gun — though I hadn’t figured out how he had defeated the GPS bracelet on his ankle. I was just surprised he had decided to tell me in such a matter-of-fact manner two minutes before his trial was called to order.

  “Why are you telling me this?” I asked. “I’m about to try to defend you in this thing and you — ”

  “Because I know you already know. And because I know what your plan is.”

  “My plan? What plan?”

  He smiled slyly at me.

  “Come on, Mick. It’s simple. You defend me on this case. You do your best, you get paid the big bucks, you win and I walk away. But then, once it’s all over and you’ve got your money in the bank, you turn against me because I’m not your client anymore. You throw me to the cops so you can get Jesus Menendez out and redeem yourself.”

  I didn’t respond.

  “Well, I can’t let that happen,” he said quietly. “Now, I am yours forever, Mick. I am telling you I’ve killed people, and guess what? Martha Renteria was one of them. I gave her just what she deserved, and if you go to the cops or use what I’ve told you against me, then you won’t be practicing law for very long. Yes, you might succeed in raising Jesus from the dead. But I’ll never be prosecuted because of your misconduct. I believe it is called ‘fruit of the poisonous tree,’ and you are the tree, Mick.”

  I still couldn’t respond. I just nodded again. Roulet had certainly thought it through. I wondered how much help he had gotten from Cecil Dobbs. He had obviously had somebody coach him on the law.

  I leaned toward him and whispered.

  “Follow me.”

  I got up and walked quickly through the gate and toward the rear door of the courtroom. From behind I heard the clerk’s voice.

  “Mr. Haller? We’re about to s
tart. The judge — ”

  “One minute,” I called out without turning around.

  I held one finger up as well. I then pushed through the doors into the dimly lit vestibule designed as a buffer to keep hallway sounds from the courtroom. A set of double doors on the other side led to the hallway. I moved to the side and waited for Roulet to step into the small space.

  As soon as he came through the door I grabbed him and spun him into the wall. I held him pressed against it with both of my hands on his chest.

  “What the fuck do you think you are doing?”

  “Take it easy, Mick. I just thought we should know where we both — ”

  “You son of a bitch. You killed Raul and all he was doing was working for you! He was trying to help you!”

  I wanted to bring my hands up to his neck and choke him out on the spot.

  “You’re right about one thing. I am a son of a bitch. But you are wrong about everything else, Mick. Levin wasn’t trying to help me. He was trying to bury me and he was getting too close. He got what he deserved for that.”

  I thought about Levin’s last message on my phone at home. I’ve got Jesus’s ticket out of the Q. Whatever it was that he had found, it had gotten him killed. And it had gotten him killed before he could deliver the information to me.

  “How did you do it? You’re confessing everything to me here, then I want to know how you did it. How’d you beat the GPS? Your bracelet showed you weren’t even near Glendale.”

  He smiled at me, like a boy with a toy he wasn’t going to share.

  “Let’s just say that is proprietary information and leave it at that. You never know, I may have to pull the old Houdini act again.”

  In his words I heard the threat and in his smile I saw the evil that Raul Levin had seen.

  “Don’t get any ideas, Mick,” he said. “As you probably know, I do have an insurance policy.”

  I pressed harder against him and leaned in closer.

  “Listen, you piece of shit. I want the gun back. You think you have this thing wired? You don’t have shit. I’ve got it wired. And you won’t make it through the week if I don’t get that gun back. You got that?”

  Roulet slowly reached up, grabbed my wrists and pulled my hands off his chest. He started straightening his shirt and tie.

  “Might I suggest an agreement,” he said calmly. “At the end of this trial I walk out of the courtroom a free man. I continue to maintain my freedom, and in exchange for this, the gun never falls into, shall we say, the wrong hands.”

  Meaning Lankford and Sobel.

  “Because I’d really hate to see that happen, Mick. A lot of people depend on you. A lot of clients. And you, of course, wouldn’t want to go where they are going.”

  I stepped back from him, using all my will not to raise my fists and attack. I settled for a voice that quietly seethed with all of my anger and hate.

  “I promise you,” I said, “if you fuck with me you will never be free of me. Are we clear on that?”

  Roulet started to smile. But before he could respond the door from the courtroom opened and Deputy Meehan, the bailiff, looked in.

  “The judge is on the bench,” he said sternly. “She wants you in here. Now.”

  I looked back at Roulet.

  “I said, are we clear?”

  “Yes, Mick,” he said good-naturedly. “We’re crystal clear.”

  I stepped away from him and entered the courtroom, striding up the aisle to the gate. Judge Constance Fullbright was staring me down every step of the way.

  “So nice of you to consider joining us this morning, Mr. Haller.”

  Where had I heard that before?

  “I am sorry, Your Honor,” I said as I came through the gate. “I had an emergency situation with my client. We had to conference.”

  “Client conferences can be handled right at the defense table,” she responded.

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “I don’t think we are starting off correctly here, Mr. Haller. When my clerk announces that we will be in session in two minutes, then I expect everyone — including defense attorneys and their clients — to be in place and ready to go.”

  “I apologize, Your Honor.”

  “That’s not good enough, Mr. Haller. Before the end of court today I want you to pay a visit to my clerk with your checkbook. I am fining you five hundred dollars for contempt of court. You are not in charge of this courtroom, sir. I am.”

  “Your Honor — ”

  “Now, can we please have the jury,” she ordered, cutting off my protest.

  The bailiff opened the jury room door and the twelve jurors and two alternates started filing into the jury box. I leaned over to Roulet, who had just sat down, and whispered.

  “You owe me five hundred dollars.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Ted Minton’s opening statement was a by-the-numbers model of prosecutorial overkill. Rather than tell the jurors what evidence he would present and what it would prove, the prosecutor tried to tell them what it all meant. He was going for a big picture and this was almost always a mistake. The big picture involves inferences and suggestions. It extrapolates givens to the level of suspicions. Any experienced prosecutor with a dozen or more felony trials under his belt will tell you to keep it small. You want them to convict, not necessarily to understand.

  “What this case is about is a predator,” he told them. “Louis Ross Roulet is a man who on the night of March sixth was stalking prey. And if it were not for the sheer determination of a woman to survive, we would be here prosecuting a murder case.”

  I noticed early on that Minton had picked up a scorekeeper. This is what I call a juror who incessantly takes notes during trial. An opening statement is not an offer of evidence and Judge Fullbright had so admonished the jury, but the woman in the first seat in the front row had been writing since the start of Minton’s statement. This was good. I like scorekeepers because they document just what the lawyers say will be presented and proved at trial and at the end they go back to check. They keep score.

  I looked at the jury chart I had filled in the week before and saw that the scorekeeper was Linda Truluck, a homemaker from Reseda. She was one of only three women on the jury. Minton had tried hard to keep the female content to a minimum because, I believe, he feared that once it was established in trial that Regina Campo had been offering sexual services for money, he might lose the females’ sympathy and ultimately their votes on a verdict. I believed he was probably correct in that assumption and I worked just as diligently to get women on the panel. We both ended up using all of our twenty challenges and it was probably the main reason it took three days to seat a jury. In the end I got three women on the panel and only needed one to head off a conviction.

  “Now, you are going to hear testimony from the victim herself about her lifestyle being one that we would not condone,” Minton told the jurors. “The bottom line is she was selling sex to the men she invited to her home. But I want you to remember that what the victim in this case did for a living is not what this trial is about. Anyone can be a victim of a violent crime. Anyone. No matter what someone does for a living, the law does not allow for them to be beaten, to be threatened at knifepoint or to be put in fear of their lives. It doesn’t matter what they do to make money. They enjoy the same protections that we all do.”

  It was pretty clear to me that Minton didn’t even want to use the word prostitution or prostitute for fear it would hurt his case. I wrote the word down on the legal pad I would take with me to the lectern when I made my statement. I planned to make up for the prosecutor’s omissions.

  Minton gave an overview of the evidence. He spoke about the knife with the defendant’s initials on the blade. He talked about the blood found on his left hand. And he warned the jurors not to be fooled by the defense’s efforts to confuse or muddle the evidence.

  “This is a very clear-cut and straightforward case,” he said as he was winding up. “You have a man who attac
ked a woman in her home. His plan was to rape and then kill her. It is only by the grace of God that she will be here to tell you the story.”

  With that he thanked them for their attention and took his seat at the prosecution table. Judge Fullbright looked at her watch and then looked at me. It was 11:40 and she was probably weighing whether to go to a break or let me proceed with my opener. One of the judge’s chief jobs during trial is jury management. The judge’s duty is to make sure the jury is comfortable and engaged. Lots of breaks, short and long, is often the answer.

  I had known Connie Fullbright for at least twelve years, since long before she was a judge. She had been both a prosecutor and defense lawyer. She knew both sides. Aside from being overly quick with contempt citations, she was a good and fair judge — until it came to sentencing. You went into Fullbright’s court knowing you were on an even level with the prosecution. But if the jury convicted your client, be prepared for the worst. Fullbright was one of the toughest sentencing judges in the county. It was as if she were punishing you and your client for wasting her time with a trial. If there was any room within the sentencing guidelines, she always went to the max, whether it was prison or probation. It had gotten her a telling sobriquet among the defense pros who worked the Van Nuys courthouse. They called her Judge Fullbite.

  “Mr. Haller,” she said, “are you planning to reserve your statement?”

  “No, Your Honor, but I believe I am going to be pretty quick.”

  “Very good,” she said. “Then we’ll hear from you and then we’ll take lunch.”

  The truth was I didn’t know how long I would be. Minton had been about forty minutes and I knew I would take close to that. But I had told the judge I’d be quick simply because I didn’t like the idea of the jury going to lunch with only the prosecutor’s side of the story to think about as they chewed their hamburgers and tuna salads.