Compelling Evidence

CHAPTER 28

All in all, things have gone well, far better than we had any right to expect. I know that there will be darker days to come, but for the moment we revel in our good fortune.

Harry is glowing over the jury. I burned the last peremptory on an older woman, and we came away with a panel of eight men and four women. The two alternates, in case of illness, death, or disqualification, are both men.

The four women are, from appearances, all solid, stable types, people who if the strings are played right should harbor no undue bent toward Talia.

There is nothing more prone to error than forecasts of what a fickle jury may do. But at this moment, I would stake my life that within twenty minutes of the time they retire to the jury room for deliberation, Robert Rath will be anointed jury foreman. Though he tends to hang back, a Jeffersonian kind of lawyer to whom silence is golden, Rath is smart, intuitive. He has the kind of competence others can smell.

Nelson is all dapper this morning, an expensive charcoal suit and French cuffs, a pound of gold at each wrist. He will be making his opening argument to the jury today, and impressions are vital.

From here I can see him across the room, a counter-image of myself, caught up in an aura of excitement, as if bathed in the glow of spotlights. People are talking to him but he’s not hearing, busy, a little mental hyperventilation, preparing for combat.

I look over, and Harry is having a few words with Meeks. Like diplomats at a summit, they are already working out the terms of instructions for the jury. These are little printed snippets of law, tailored to our case, that will be given as guidance by the court to the jury before deliberations. Nelson and I must have some understanding of these instructions now, if we are able to bend the facts of this case, to conform our theory of the crime to the governing law.

This morning will be consumed by the judge. He will give lengthy ground rules to the jury: that they may not discuss the case with anyone; what they may see and read; the limits of their conversations among themselves. He will tell them about the case in broad terms, and the procedures to be followed by the court during the trial so there are no surprises.

Harry leaves Meeks standing at the other table and comes over.

“We got a problem,” he says. “They want an instruction on aiding and abetting, a definition of an accomplice.”

This means that Nelson is trying to push the theory of a conspiracy to the jury, that he wants them to buy the scenario that Talia acted with a lover, this despite the fact that he has yet to arrest any accomplice.

“Did you say anything?”

“Not a word.”

“Good. Leave it alone. Let ’em try their case, see what evidence they’ve got.”

He nods.

This is no calculated risk. If the state fails to produce evidence of an accomplice, we will object to this instruction when it is offered to the court, argue that it assumes facts not in evidence.

Talia’s sitting at the counsel table looking lonely, a haunting emptiness in her eyes. For all of her innate comeliness, the stress of half a year under accusation and the anxiety of the first day of trial leave her with the kind of uninhabited stare one usually finds only in street people and other vagrants. Today, Talia has the appearance of a tenantless temple in search of a soul.

As if I didn’t already have enough reason for keeping her off the stand, her current mental state would be the capper. Those who do capital cases for a living call it the “death-penalty suicide.” A despondent statement by the defendant before the jury, entirely innocent, an off-hand apology for something she didn’t do, may elicit lingering inferences of guilt. Such a lowering of the guard has resulted in more than one execution in this country in recent years. I harbor concerns that Talia, in her current state, is capable of such fatalistic conduct.

I tap her on the arm.

“We’ve got a few minutes, let’s go outside.”

We get past the cameras and the commotions in the main corridor. She’s in front of me, moving down the hall, a silhouette of softness. I have read the rest of Bowman’s report on Talia, a few more secrets.

At age fourteen Talia went to live with her aunt, Carmen’s sister, in Capitol City. It seems the two sisters were as different as night from day. Luisa was a matronly woman, attractive in her own right, who had found her way out of a life of poverty and managed to marry a high school English teacher, John Pearson. The couple provided for Talia the things that had always eluded her when she lived with Carmen-love, though at a little distance, a stable home environment, and the encouragement to improve herself.

While her studies and schooling lagged and suffered from the years of neglect, with the help of her uncle Talia quickly made up lost ground. It seems that she possessed one of those minds capable of excelling on cruise control, with little effort. At graduation from high school she was near the top of her class. Her SAT scores and a good grade-point won her a scholarship to a small private college in the Bay Area.

She studied business, something that Talia perceived would give her independence and freedom in a male-dominated world. She remained distrustful of any close relationships, particularly with men. Talia had not shaken the horrors of her childhood and the memories of pawing hands. After graduating with honors, Talia returned home, to the only family she had, Luisa and John Pearson, and at the age of twenty-two decided to ditch her roots. Paying a two-dollar filing fee, she petitioned the superior court and formally shed the name of a father she had never known. She changed her name from Griggs to Pearson and in her own mind joined the world of respectability.

Within four months she landed her first real job, an executive trainee position with a small cable television station in the capital.

Before she met and married Ben, Talia had two serious romantic interludes with men closer to her own age. Both of these involved upward career moves. The first lasted a year, an apparently painless encounter with Harold Simpson, her supervisor on the job. They parted friends and from all appearances have continued to stay in touch over the years. The second, James Tarantino, was an executive with a trade association in the capital, a sometime lobbyist and public relations expert for the Wine Institute. Talia was learning to rely on her beauty as well as her intellect to get ahead. She lived with Tarantino for four months. He made the unhappy mistake of showboating her at the institute’s annual gala, a feast at the Hilton-tables of ice sculptures, an ocean of cocktail sauce, and shrimp the size of lobster. Over hors d’oeuvres Tarantino introduced his date to a distinguished guest, the senior partner for the institute’s law firm, Benjamin Potter. Incapable of any long-lasting relationships with men, Talia, it seems, had found the father figure she had never known. The rest is history.

I’m taking Talia to the little commons area-an atrium, some bushes and shade trees, landlocked by executive offices in the center of the courthouse building. This is off-limits to the public and press. A few judges sometimes eat lunch here, serenity in a sea of conflict. She sits on one of the little stone benches.

Talia’s got a cigarette out of her purse. She’s gone back to smoking, a habit once kicked, but a crutch she now seems to need. She lights up and looks at me, a picture of dependence.

“I want to prepare you,” I say.

Her expression tells me she is not looking forward to this, a train of long admonitions from her lawyer.

“In a few minutes you’re going to hear a lot of ugly accusations. Nelson’s going to get up in front of the jury and tell them that you killed Ben, that you planned it, that you waited until the right moment, and that you or a lover shot him in the head with the little gun, then mutilated the body to make it look like suicide.”

She cringes just a little at this, breaks eye contact with me.

“It’s important-it’s imperative that you keep your cool, that you control your temper, your emotions. The jury is likely to form some important first impressions today.”

“I’ll try,” she says.

“Don’t try. Do it. We can’t afford to give this jury a picture of a defendant out of control.”

By all rights, given the statistics and the realities in capital cases, Talia should have a big advantage, at least on the issue of death. She is rich, and good-looking, articulate, though the jury may have no chance to hear her firsthand. Juries generally don’t hate people who look like themselves. Since the preliminary hearing, when we are in court, I’ve had her dress down, a fashion show in reverse, so much so that today she is a symphony for the common man.

Talia wears a neat gray pleated skirt and simple white blouse, a little fluff around the collar, like Mary Queen of Scots ready for the injustice of this trial.

“For a while,” I tell her, “it’s going to look bad for our side, a little unbalanced.”

The state will bludgeon us with its opening argument. Strategy will dictate that we reserve our own opening until it’s time for the defendant’s case in chief.

“In the beginning the jury will have a one-sided view of things,” I tell her. “That’s why it’s important that we don’t play into their hands, become emotional.”

She asks me a few questions about expression, how she should look.

“Concerned,” I tell her. “Like a woman on trial for her life, for a crime she didn’t commit.”

She looks away, blowing smoke rings, an assortment of expressions, faces of concern, in the dark glass windows that surround us.

“Don’t act,” I tell her. “A jury can smell it. You won’t have to, believe me.” My guess is that Talia will be scared witless when she first hears Nelson unload.

I walk her through more of what she can expect. I explain that the DA will parade an army of witnesses to the stand before we have a chance to put up our own.

“Most of this testimony you’ve seen in the preliminary hearing,” I say. “But this is the big time, they’ll gloss it, pull out all the stops. There will be some surprises,” I tell her.

“Tony?” she asks.

I nod.

“What will he say?”

“You’ve seen the deposition.” I’ve shown Talia a transcript of Skarpellos’s statement, his words before I stuck my pike in him and drew blood off the record. This was a little insurance against surprise, an awestruck face sitting next to me for the jury to see.

“I’ll handle Tony,” I tell her. “You worry about the jury and what they’ll see when they look at our table. Like that,” I tell her. I’m pointing to her cigarette.

“I know you can’t do it in the courtroom, but even outside during a break, jurors have eyes. It makes you appear hard,” I tell her. “It is easier for a jury to convict and condemn someone who looks hard.”

Her eyes follow me, the expression of a frightened bird. Then she crushes the cigarette on the concrete.

“This, ladies and gentlemen, was a violent, calculated, premeditated murder.” His voice is booming, the crest of a verbal wave breaking over the jury box. Nelson stands stark still before the railing, centered like some dark exclamation point punctuating this charge for the jury.

Minds that have begun to wander, with the collective stomach full from lunch, are jolted to consciousness. Seconds pass in silence as Nelson allows the jury to assimilate the full measure of this thought.

“Ben Potter was a brilliant lawyer, a star on the ascent. A man with everything to live for, a thriving law practice, friends who loved and admired him. You will hear testimony in this court, ladies and gentlemen, that Benjamin Potter was highly regarded, not only here in this community among lifelong friends, but on a broader plain, at the very core of our national government. At the time he was cut down, he was among a handful of select candidates under consideration for appointment to the highest court in this land, the United States Supreme Court.”

Nelson labors only a little under the impediment that the nomination was never formally announced. He cuts through this difficulty as if it is trivial. He offers Ben’s status like a statement of damages to the jury, an immense social loss to the community. Studies show that a victim well liked, highly regarded in the community is more likely to bring a conviction from a jury, that the killer is more likely to suffer death.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the state will produce evidence, testimony by expert witnesses, that the victim, Ben Potter, was brutally murdered at another location, shot in the back of the head, execution style, that his body was then transported to his law office in this city. Expert witnesses will tell you that a twelve-gauge shotgun was then used, inserted into the victim’s mouth and discharged in an effort to deform the body, to conceal the earlier bullet wound, to make it appear as if the victim had taken his own life.”

Some of the jurors are recoiling at this mental image.

“Evidence will show, ladies and gentlemen, that hair found in the locking mechanism of this shotgun is consistent in all respects with samples taken from the head of the defendant, Talia Potter.” With this he points an extended arm, a single finger of one hand, like a cocked pistol at Talia.

Jurors are looking at her now, wondering how it is possible that this woman could perpetrate such a vile act. Her eyes are cast down at the tabletop. I lean over toward her, an indifferent smile on my face, like Nelson has just offered us tea and toast.

Between clenched teeth I whisper: “Look at them, in the eye. Each one of them.”

She lifts her gaze, a defiant expression, not good, but better than a whipped dog, I think.

Nelson moves on to other evidence from which inferences can be drawn linking Talia with this horror. He tells the jury that a witness, a neighbor, will testify that the victim’s vehicle was seen at the residence he shared with the defendant at or near the time of death.

“While Talia Potter claims to have been out of town at this time, ladies and gentlemen, police over months of intensive investigation have been unable to verify this story,” he says.

Nelson leaves Talia’s lame alibi at the jury railing like some spoiled morsel of meat, already beginning to send up rancid odors.

His sense of timing is meticulous, pauses in all the right places for effect. His speech borders on closing argument, but not close enough for me to disrupt it with objections, well prepared, rehearsed, like some out-of-town play finally arriving on Broadway.

He talks about the prenuptial agreement, the fact that Talia stood to lose everything from her liaison with Ben unless she was married to the victim at the time of his death. He discusses this document in hushed tones, as if it were holy writ.

He takes more time talking about the marriage, the undeniable difference in their ages. He trips deftly through the tulips of Talia’s reputation, mostly inferences, innuendo, but all supported by witnesses, he says, nothing with which he might draw a colorable objection. There is the leopard-skin jock strap found by the maid in Talia’s bed, clothing which the maid will testify did not belong to the victim. This is enough to raise a few eyebrows, titillate a few libidos. He finesses this, then becomes more overt.

“A witness that we will produce, ladies and gentlemen, will tell you that the defendant was seen on numerous occasions in the company of other men, not her husband, registering, taking a room at a local motel, with these men.” He plays upon this effect, letting the full force seep in for the jury.

It is becoming clear that it is not Talia on trial here, but her passions.

He has yet to explain in clear terms how Talia murdered Ben, and then by herself moved the body and dealt with the grisly task of the shotgun in the mouth. But it is now no quantum leap for this jury to close the loop of inference, to find that she had help from a lover for these chores.

Nelson steals a glance at his watch, moving sideways, out of the jurors’ sight. Everything well staged. Forty minutes he has been at this, the optimum time for a jury to retain the critical elements.

“Finally, ladies and gentlemen, the state will produce a witness, an intimate friend and business associate of the victim, who will tell you that at the time of his death, Ben Potter, for reasons which will become obvious to you all, was seriously contemplating a divorce from the defendant, Talia Potter, and that he was in the process of searching for a good divorce lawyer for that very purpose when he was murdered. A divorce, ladies and gentlemen, which when coupled with the prenuptial agreement, would have left the defendant, Talia Potter, in financial ruin.

“The evidence will show,” he says, “that to avoid this divorce, to avoid the prospect of losing everything that mattered to Talia Potter-wealth, social status, a marital relationship which she treated as casual and convenient-that Talia Potter engaged in an intricate and diabolical plot, and that with careful premeditation, she murdered Ben Potter.”

He stands for a moment, again at center stage, by the railing, engaging their eyes, the collective soul of this jury, then moves to the counsel table and takes his seat.

The jurors, at least half of them, are taking a more studied and cautious look at Talia, weighing these words against the figure they see at our table. I can feel her shaking in the chair next to me. Carefully I take my hand and put it over hers on the arm of the chair, out of their view. It is as if I have somehow grounded her, and the trembling passes.

“Mr. Madriani, your opening argument?” Acosta’s looking at me.

“The defense will reserve its opening, Your Honor, until close of the state’s case.”

It is a calculated risk, to wait, one theory being to dispel any forceful impressions left by Nelson before these thoughts can find a home among the jury.

I believe that I can be more deliberate, more damaging to the state’s case after it has closed, presented all of its evidence. I am lying in wait, to pummel the prosecution with the Greek. Nelson may have theories, educated hunches as to where I am headed. For the moment I choose to leave him only with these.

Acosta looks at his watch. It is after three o’clock.

“Unless there are objections we will adjourn, to reconvene at nine o’clock tomorrow morning. The state will be prepared to present its first witness at that time.”