Brooks-Lotello Collection

by Ronald S. Barak

  “Ma’am?”

  “Mr. Randall, didn’t Mr. Reilly have to go over the words with you several times because in fact you couldn’t really remember the words the first time he asked you to say them?”

  “Uh, well, I guess you sort of got me there, ma’am.”

  “And the second time? And the third time? You didn’t remember the words until Mr. Reilly rehearsed them with you. A whole bunch of times. Isn’t that right, Mr. Randall?”

  “Uh, yes. I guess so, ma’am.”

  “How many times, Mr. Randall?”

  “Ma’am?”

  “How many times did Mr. Reilly have to rehearse with you until you got it down just right?”

  “Objection, Your Honor. Argument. Counsel’s badgering the witness.”

  “Overruled, Mr. Reilly. She’s not badgering the witness. She’s badgering you. Answer the question, Mr. Randall.”

  “I don’t really recall the number of times Mr. Reilly had to go over it with me.”

  “Let me see if I understand. You don’t remember how many times Mr. Reilly rehearsed these lines with you. Even though that was just last night. But you remember what you supposedly heard Mr. Norman say some seven months ago?”

  “Objection.”

  “Never mind, Your Honor. I’ll withdraw the question.

  “Mr. Randall. You said that Rachel Santana interviewed you after the incident?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I believe you said, quote, when, unquote. Is that correct?”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “You said that Ms. Santana interviewed you ‘at the time of the arrest.’ Have I got that right? Isn’t that what you said?”

  “Yes, ma’am, that is what I said.”

  “When did Ms. Santana interview you?”

  “Ma’am, I don’t remember exactly. It was a day or two after, maybe three days. Something like that.”

  “So, again, you don’t remember something here. You don’t remember how many times Mr. Reilly had to rehearse the words with you just last night. To make sure you got the words down pat for your testimony today. And now you don’t remember how long it was between when you heard Mr. Norman shouting and when Ms. Santana came and spoke with you. Right?”

  “Wow. Why are you doing this to me? I’m no fancy lawyer like you. I don’t remember these kinds of things.”

  “Mr. Randall,” Brooks interceded, “your job here today is to answer questions. Not to ask them. If you don’t understand a question, by all means inquire. Other than that, please confine your remarks to answering the questions asked of you. Do you understand that, Mr. Randall?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Mr. Randall,” Ms. Klein continued. “When you met with Ms. Santana and gave her the words you did—two or three days after the incident as best you recall—you had not written the words down. Right?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “How did you remember the words, then?”

  “Well, I might have been filling in a little bit. But I think I had it pretty close to what Mr. Norman had said.”

  “So, Ms. Santana might also have filled those words in a little bit for you. Correct?”

  “Well, maybe a little, ma’am, yes. But I think I had it pretty close on my own.”

  “I see. Let’s focus on your close recollection of what you think Mr. Norman said. In the first clause you say Mr. Norman said something like, quote, it’s all your fault. Did I get that right, Mr. Randall?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I think that’s what Mr. Norman said.”

  “That’s what he said, Mr. Randall? Or that’s what you think he said? Which is it, Mr. Randall?”

  “That’s what I think he said.”

  “Okay. And when you think he said, quote, it’s all your fault, who was the your that Mr. Norman was referring to? Whose fault was it, Mr. Randall?”

  “Hmm, I don’t have any idea whose fault he thought it was.”

  “So, you don’t know who Mr. Norman was supposedly blaming. Correct?”

  “Yes, ma’am, that’s true.”

  “Would the same be true with respect to the second clause, quote, you did it? Meaning you don’t know who you was?”

  “Uh, I guess that’s right, ma’am. I don’t know who he was saying did it.”

  “Do you know what the it is that the unknown person did?”

  “Uh, no, ma’am, I sure don’t.”

  “In the next clause, the one that says, quote, you killed Ryan, do you have any idea who Mr. Norman supposedly thought killed Ryan?”

  “No, ma’am, I really don’t.”

  “Finally, then, Mr. Randall, referring to the last clause, quote, I’m going to get even, that’s what you think you heard Mr. Norman say?”

  “Yes, ma’am, it was something like that.”

  “Which is it, Mr. Randall? That’s what he said, or that’s something like what he said?”

  “That’s something like what he said, ma’am.”

  “And do you know who he said he was going to get even with?”

  “No, ma’am, I don’t.”

  “Do you know how he was going to get even? What he was supposedly going to do?”

  “No, ma’am. I don’t.”

  “Do you know what he meant by even?”

  “No, ma’am, I don’t.”

  “Okay, Mr. Randall. Let’s see if I understand your testimony. Some seven months ago you heard Mr. Norman shouting something over and over in front of the building where you worked. You didn’t write it down. You’re not really sure exactly what he said. You don’t know who he was shouting it to. And you don’t know what it was he was threatening to do. Or to whom he was going to do it. Isn’t that correct, Mr. Randall?”

  “Ma’am, I guess that’s just about right.”

  “Thank you for your honesty, Mr. Randall. No more questions for this witness.”

  “Mr. Reilly, do you have any redirect for this witness?”

  “No, Your Honor.”

  “You may step down, Mr. Randall. You’re free to leave the court. Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll take our morning recess. Fifteen minutes.”

  * * *

  REILLY WAS AGONIZING. KLEIN had humiliated him along with Randall. Prepping him for his testimony, I had no idea how much that bitch Santana had manipulated that moron. I thought I was just refreshing his own recall. Not her fabrication. I would have liked to fix things on redirect. But it only would have made matters worse. Careers have been destroyed on less. No choice but to move on.

  CHAPTER 101

  Wednesday, August 5, 10:00–11:30 a.m.

  “WE’RE READY TO GO. Please call your next witness, Mr. Reilly.”

  “The people call James Ayres.”

  “Mr. Reilly. Haven’t you previously examined Mr. Ayres? Why are you calling him again? Didn’t you say you were through with Mr. Ayres?”

  “No, Your Honor, I did not say that. What I said was we had no more questions for him at that time. We now need to examine him on an entirely new subject. I thought it would have been confusing for the jury to have previously pursued the different examination we now need to conduct.”

  “You’re skating on thin ice, Mr. Reilly, not having cleared this with me first. However, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt without asking the court reporter to read back what you did say at the conclusion of Mr. Ayres’s earlier testimony. Mr. Ayres is here. And I don’t want to waste the jury’s time. Or his. Mr. Ayres, you may come forward and be seated. Please understand that you are still under oath.”

  Ayres took the witness seat. “I understand, Your Honor.”

  “Mr. Ayres,” Reilly asked, “have you ever met Mr. Norman?”

  “Well, we weren’t ever formally introduced, but I have had some personal interaction with him.”

  “Please tell the jury when that interaction occurred and what it was.”

  “As best I can recall, sometime late in January of this year, Mr. Norman managed to get past building security and into
the reception area of Senator Wells’s offices. He demanded to see the senator. Senator Wells was not there at the time. When I heard someone rather loud and boisterous in our reception area, I came out from my office to see what was going on. It was the defendant, Cliff Norman. He was rather belligerent. He appeared to be agitated, confused. He was uttering something about it being someone’s fault. Someone had killed Ryan. He was going to do something about it.”

  “Do you recall more specifically what it was that Mr. Norman said or what it was he was going to do?”

  “I really don’t. I did interpret his remarks as being threatening to someone. Perhaps to the senator, since he had come to the senator’s office.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I asked Mr. Norman to leave our offices. I told him that I would call the authorities if he did not promptly do so.”

  “And what did Mr. Norman do?”

  “He left.”

  “I have no further questions. Your witness, Ms. Klein.”

  “Thank you. Mr. Ayres. To your knowledge, had Mr. Norman ever come to the senator’s offices before or has he ever done so since?”

  “No, not to my knowledge. At the time I asked the rest of the senator’s staff if any of them had ever seen Mr. Norman before. No one had. By the way, to be clear, although I refer to the defendant by name today, I didn’t know his name at that time.”

  “And that occasion was just the day before Mr. Norman was first arrested on or about January twenty-third, 2013?”

  “I believe so, yes.”

  “And you say that as far as you know, Mr. Norman never came to the senator’s office again? Or tried to make any further contact with the senator?”

  “As far as I know, he did not.”

  “Were you concerned about Mr. Norman at the time, Mr. Ayres? Did you consider him to be a threat to the senator?”

  “Ms. Klein, in our work, we tend to see and hear from all kinds of people. On occasion some of them appear quite odd. Mr. Norman was unkempt, disoriented. In this day and age, we don’t ignore anyone who looks and behaves like Mr. Norman did. We keep our eyes and ears open all the time. But if we don’t experience any follow-up incidents with the given individual, we generally don’t become all that concerned. This just seems to be something that goes with the territory.”

  “And you say you never heard from Mr. Norman again?”

  “Yes and no.”

  Brooks looked at Klein. She was noticeably thrown by this answer. She’s done it again, asked a question without knowing the answer. She’s hoist on her own petard now. The jury will certainly want the follow-up question. If she doesn’t ask it, Reilly will on redirect. She’s got to ask now while she has a chance to immediately defuse the answer if need be, without having to wait for recross.

  “What do you mean by ‘yes and no,’ Mr. Ayres?”

  “Well, on February eleventh, 2013, about one week after the senator was murdered, Mr. Norman showed up in front of the Capitol building and supposedly was ranting and raving about something. He reportedly made a statement about having killed someone. I didn’t personally see or hear this. But I understand that Mr. Norman was detained by building security, who called the police. And that the police came and arrested Mr. Norman. I later read about all of this in the newspapers, including that Mr. Norman was then charged with the murder of Senator Wells.”

  “I see. Do you have any personal knowledge of what Mr. Norman said on that occasion?”

  “No.”

  “Mr. Ayres, do you have any personal knowledge that Mr. Norman murdered Senator Wells?”

  “I don’t.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Ayres. No further questions for this witness. However, I still reserve the right to call Mr. Ayres to the witness stand in defendant’s case-in-chief.”

  “Any redirect, Mr. Reilly?”

  “No, Your Honor.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Ayres. You may step down and you are now free to leave the court. I hope you will not be called to testify a third time. But apparently that remains to be seen. I feel constrained to let Ms. Klein put on her case as she deems best for her client. So, we’ll just have to wait and see.”

  “I understand, Your Honor.” Mr. Ayres left the courtroom.

  “Mr. Reilly, I believe you have one last witness to call?”

  “Yes, Your Honor. The people now call Alfred Marshall to the stand.”

  For the second time in one day, a uniformed person took the witness stand.

  “Officer Marshall, are you employed as a security officer at the Capitol building?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “And were you so employed on February eleventh, 2013, shortly following the murder of Senator Wells?”

  “I was.”

  “On that date, February eleventh, 2013, did you have occasion to come into contact with the defendant in this case, Cliff Norman?”

  “I did.”

  “Please tell the jury about your contact with Mr. Norman on that date.”

  “Sometime around midmorning on that day, I heard some kind of disturbance out in front of the building. I left my post in the rotunda and went out to see what was going on. I observed the defendant, Mr. Norman, pacing back and forth in front of the building in a rather anxious state. I heard Mr. Norman repeatedly stating the words, ‘It’s all your fault. You did it. You killed Ryan. Now I’ve killed you.’”

  “You’re sure those are the exact words he used?”

  “Yes. He said them several times. And I wrote them down as I heard and observed him saying them.”

  “You’re sure you wrote down the exact words Mr. Norman was saying?”

  “Yes, I did. The exact words.”

  “Your Honor, I have here marked as People’s Exhibit D a copy of the notes Mr. Marshall made on February eleventh as he listened to Mr. Norman’s remarks. I would like Exhibit D admitted into evidence before I proceed further with this witness.”

  “Mr. Reilly, please hand copies of Exhibit D to the witness, to Ms. Klein, and to my clerk, who will in turn hand the document to me.” After examining the notes, Brooks questioned the witness. “Sir, are these your handwritten notes?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you made them precisely at the time Mr. Norman was speaking the words that you wrote down?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Any objections, Ms. Klein?”

  “No, Your Honor.”

  “Okay then, Exhibit D will be admitted into evidence. You may continue, Mr. Reilly.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor. Mr. Marshall, please read your notes out loud to the jury.”

  “My notes of what Mr. Norman said numerous times read, quote, It’s all your fault, you did it, you killed Ryan, and now I’ve killed you, unquote.”

  “Officer Marshall. After observing Mr. Norman on February eleventh, 2013, and after making your notes of Mr. Norman’s statements, did you have any further interaction with Mr. Norman?”

  “I did.”

  “And what was that, sir?”

  “Well, even though I wear this uniform and even though I am employed as a private security officer, I am not technically a public law enforcement officer. I am merely a private citizen. However, as I have been trained, any private citizen has certain limited rights under appropriate circumstances to make what is known as a citizen’s arrest. I believed those circumstances were present on February eleventh. So, I told Mr. Norman that I was placing him under citizen’s arrest and I detained him while I then called the police.”

  “What happened next?”

  “The police showed up in just a few minutes. They took custody of Mr. Norman and removed him from the scene.”

  “Do you know what happened with Mr. Norman after that?”

  “Only what I read in the newspapers: that Mr. Norman was arrested and charged with the murder of Senator Wells.”

  “Thank you, Officer Marshall. Your witness, Ms. Klein.”

  “Thank you. Mr. Marshall, you didn’t hear Mr. Norman make
any reference to Senator Wells, did you, sir?”

  “No. I didn’t.”

  Brooks smiled to himself. Amusing how Reilly consistently refers to these two security guards, who are just private employees, as officers, but that Klein refuses to call them officers. Same as I would do, depending on which side of the case I was on. You never know what little things influence jurors.

  “So, when Mr. Norman said, quote, It’s all your fault, you did it, you killed Ryan, and now I’ve killed you, you have no idea who Mr. Norman was speaking to, do you?”

  “I don’t.”

  “And again, to be perfectly clear, you never heard Mr. Norman refer to Senator Wells by name?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “You didn’t hear Mr. Norman say anything like, quote, It’s all your fault, Senator Wells, you did it, Senator Wells, you killed Ryan, Senator Wells, and now I’ve killed you, Senator Wells? You did not hear Mr. Norman say anything like that, did you, Mr. Marshall?”

  “No. I did not hear him say anything like that.”

  “Mr. Marshall, how many members of Congress maintain an office in the Capitol building?”

  “I wouldn’t know the exact number. It’s in the hundreds.”

  “Mr. Marshall. To your observation, would it be fair to say that Mr. Norman was in a disoriented and possibly deranged condition at the time you observed him on February eleventh marching up and down out in front of the Capitol building?”

  “Objection. The question goes beyond Mr. Marshall’s training.”

  “To the contrary, Your Honor, this witness is employed as a security officer. He is trained to spot and observe persons acting in an unbalanced and possibly dangerous manner. And to detain them when he considers it appropriate. Precisely as Mr. Marshall did in this very instance.”

  “Objection overruled. The witness will answer the question.”

  “I’m sorry, could you repeat the question?”

  “Did you consider Mr. Norman to be in a disoriented and possibly deranged condition at the time you detained him on February eleventh?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “And was that not at least part of the reason you placed him under citizen’s arrest?”

  “Yes. That’s true.”