Double Tap

CHAPTER NINETEEN

This morning when I arrive, the hallway outside the courtroom is jammed, standing room only. I’m pushing my way through when I run face-to-face into Nathan.

“What are you doing here?”

He’s drinking a Diet Coke from a can and laughing at me. “You got more press here than the White House,” he says. “I figure I’m resigning from the state senate next week, so I may as well be where the action is. I got nothing to do up in Capital City.”

This is Nathan, the ultimate groupie. By next week he’ll be trading secrets in Washington, the inside dirt on the trial, what it really means for IFS.

“I thought I’d come and see how you do. Besides, I haven’t been in a courtroom in years. Thank God,” he says, and takes another swig from the can of Coke.

Several reporters, notepads in hand, cruise in my direction through the crowd.

“We’ll have to continue this later,” I tell him.

Inside, the courtroom is already filling up. By the time we convene, every seat will be taken. There is a line downstairs in front of the main door to the courthouse. I would estimate more than two hundred people are waiting to get in, hoping someone will leave and offer up their seat. Two bailiffs, one upstairs and one down, communicate by walkie-talkie, allowing one person into the courthouse at a time as seats are surrendered. It is a test for concrete kidneys and iron bowels. Get up to go to the john and you lose your seat.

The crowd is here to listen to Larry Templeton deliver his opening statement in the trial of People v. Ruiz.

For nearly two weeks now the cable news stations have been playing this up, leading hourly with speculation and hype as to the way the prosecutor will build his case. So many lawyers have now offered their televised guesses as to precisely how Templeton will play it and what kind of magic will be necessary for the defense to counter the state’s evidence that it hardly seems necessary to try the case before the jury. Vicarious courtroom thrills have replaced the soap opera on daytime television. Without scripts or actors, production costs are cheap, since every lawyer in America for an hour of face time in the form of free advertising will offer their guesses and commentary for nothing, which is generally what they are worth.

I have heard my last name mispronounced at least five times on three different stations in the last two days. As I head down the aisle toward the swinging gate in the railing, I hear it whispered in a few places floating on the ether in the courtroom, and notice fingers pointing and a few heads turning. The Middle Ages may have been dark, but if having your every word explored and your image and each gesture exploited on the nightly news is the ultimate reward for life in the age of celebrity, society might do well if we were to regress to more primitive forms of communication. One wonders if the media cynics aren’t right, whether the term free society has become nothing but an excuse for profiteers to transform life into a dissolute electronic flshbowl.

Halfway toward the front of the courtroom I see a head of gray hair as she turns. I am surprised to see Jean Kaprosky seated on the aisle about six rows back. I tap her on the shoulder from behind. She looks up and sees me. “Oh, hi,” Jean says. She grabs my hand and smiles. “I was hoping I might have a chance to talk to you. At least say hello.”

“Where is Jim?” I ask.

“He’s not feeling well. He’s been in and out of the hospital the last several weeks,” she explains.

“I didn’t know.”

“He doesn’t want anybody to know. His health has been slipping lately.” The tone of her voice has a certain finality to it. “He has a hard time getting out and about. I take him to the doctor and that’s pretty much it. My sister is staying with us for a while, so she’s at home with him right now. He wanted me to come and see what was happening here and report back. I told him that I was sure that your case had nothing to do with what happened to us,” she says. “But in Jim’s mind, it’s all connected. You understand.” She gives me an expression as if to say the mind is slipping along with the body. “I don’t know what to say to him anymore, so here I am.”

“Tell him. . well, tell him for me that I hope he’s feeling better soon.”

“I’ll tell him, but I know what he’d like more than that: he’d love to see you, talk to you one more time. Here. Let me give you our address.” Before I can shake loose, she takes a scrap of paper and a pen from her purse and starts to scribble as she talks.

I have known for months that I could not use James Kaprosky as my computer software expert at trial. He was both conflicted in terms of his interests in the case and too ill. If we come to that-if Harry and I are able to get to the evidence surrounding Satz and Chapman, what was going on with the Primis software and whether it could have been a motive for murder-I have already retained another expert.

“Jim told me that he enjoyed the meeting at your office so much,” she says. “He’s mentioned it several times. He said that you and Mr. Hinds were the first two people in years to take him seriously, to listen to the details of what happened. I hope you can read this.” She is scribbling her address, her hands a little palsied. “Jim has lived with all of the misery regarding the litigation for so long it seems the only thing he can still relate to. He still gets phone calls from one of his lawyers every once in a while, but they all sort of drifted away. I think they felt so bad because of the result. And I suppose because we had such hope. The meeting in your office, while it dredged up a lot of bad stuff, was in its own way therapy for him. I suppose you could call it closure,” she adds.

“I wish there was something more I could do. It’s an awful situation. The loss of your business, his health.”

“No. No. Don’t feel bad. Come and see him.” She presses the note with their home address into my hand. “I’ll tell him that we talked, that I saw you.”

I wish her well. “Say hello to him for me.” Then I head toward the counsel table.

Harry is already there waiting for me. At the table next to him is a young intern we have hired to operate the laptop, the computer that will be connected to the overhead visualizer aimed at a large projection screen for presentation of evidence to the jury as the case progresses. Jamie Carson is a UC law graduate waiting for his bar results, and is a possible addition to the firm. Harry has been working with him for months to gin up the computer, scanning in copies of police reports, crime-scene photographs, all of the documentary details that are likely to come in by way of evidence.

As I swing through the gate, past the railing, I notice that Harry’s earlier fears have been realized. Two custom-made boxes, the one at this end with a step leading up to it, are spanned by wooden planks, each twelve feet long and two inches thick, arranged on top of them. In the center there is a third box to keep the spans from bouncing like a diving board. This entire affair has been set out in front of the jury box in preparation for Templeton’s opening statement.

The prosecutors are not yet here. My guess is they are huddled backstage somewhere, probably in a room near the holding cells, putting the final touches on their opening and coordinating the visuals that have already been approved by the court for presentation at this point. Most of these are neutral, arrived at by stipulation: photographs of the outside of Chapman’s house on the beach and of the rocky outcrop overlooking the ocean behind it, and a large aerial of the house taken from a police helicopter. There is a close-up of the murder weapon, a.45-caliber automatic, just as the cops found it in the flower bed near the seawall at the back of the yard, and another shot of the screen that was pried off the window and left propped against the side of the house where the killer gained entry. None of these present much controversy. All of them would no doubt be admitted into evidence even if we were to object. To save time and avoid the appearance of foolish disputes in front of the jury, we have stipulated to their use.

In the front row, just beyond the rail behind the prosecution table, is an elderly woman. It is Madelyn Chapman’s mother. Sitting next to her is the victim’s younger sister. They put the visual hex on me as I assemble the documents from my briefcase on the table.

Two rows behind them, Nathan sidles toward one of the center seats as some young kid gets up to give him his chair. The kid heads for the door. Nathan is using a legislative intern to hold his seat. Knowing Nathan, he’ll probably have one sleeping outside on the sidewalk tonight, holding his place in line for tomorrow.

I take my seat and open the folder with a fresh notepad inside. Trying a case can be an exercise in writer’s cramp as you catch all the details so that you don’t miss anything on cross-examination.

Harry leans away from Jamie and the computer and across the open chair that has been left vacant between us for Emiliano.

“As you can see, they’ve already started constructing the gallows,” says Harry. He nods toward the planks spanning the space in front of the jury box.

I give him a resigned look. “It’s what we expected.”

“Yeah, but it’s not nearly as menacing when it’s just a mental image in your mind.”

A second later the door leading to the holding cells opens and the prosecution team enters the courtroom. They are led by Mike Argust, the lead homicide detective in Chapman’s case. Argust is a twenty-eight-year veteran assigned to the case the night of the murder. Unless Ruiz testifies, Argust, who is the state’s representative in the case, is the only other witness allowed inside the courtroom during the trial unless they are on the stand. Witnesses on both the prosecution and defense lists have been excluded by the judge following a stipulation by Templeton and myself. Potential witnesses have been instructed not to discuss their testimony with anyone except the lawyers and representatives for the prosecution and defense, and then only if the witnesses choose to talk with them. We are still awaiting a decision from the court on Sims’s appeal concerning Gilcrest’s ruling on evidence from Isotenics. No doubt, whatever happens, if Sims loses he will take the appeal to the state supreme court, if for no other reason than to stall for more time.

I tried to coax an affidavit out of Nathan Kwan regarding the telephone conversation between Klepp and whoever was on the other end of the line during Nathan’s meeting out at Isotenics. A declaration under penalty of perjury might be enough to convince the judge to allow me to question Klepp more thoroughly. But Nathan declined. He said he couldn’t get publicly involved, especially now, being new to Congress. It could blow up in his face. I understood. Bringing information and delivering it to me was one thing. Getting his name in the press and involved in the case on the wrong side was another.

Argust takes the seat in the middle at the prosecution table, counterpart to Ruiz. The computer tech, an expert who performs visualization duties in most of their heavier cases, is at the far end. Templeton takes the chair nearest me and climbs onto the box that is already assembled on top of the seat waiting for him.

A few moments later a burly guard from the sheriff’s jail unit opens the holding cell door once more. He is followed by a second guard. They take their time, checking the courtroom, making eye contact with each of the guards stationed at the back of the courtroom and along the side aisles. When they are satisfied, one of them turns and offers the come-hither sign, the signal for the guards inside to bring him out. Emiliano walks through the open door followed by two more guards. Harry and I both stand as they usher him toward our table. The choreography here is like a polka. Ruiz could turn in any direction and instantly be dancing with a uniformed guard. They surround him. I have demanded on several occasions that none of this be played out in front of the jury and that the guards melt into the walls before they bring the jury panel in. If they fail in any way, I will document each instance on the record as grounds for appeal. A show of law enforcement on this order can pollute a jury faster than anything said at trial. It sends a less-than-subtle signal that, not only does the state view the defendant as a stone-cold killer, but that an overwhelming show of force is needed to prevent him from escaping and killing again, and to protect the jury itself. If jurors begin to fear for their own safety, your case is over.

Ruiz is clean shaven; his hair, a little longer than when we first met, is neatly combed. He is dressed in a blue suit, white shirt, and solid burgundy tie. The suit is a bit baggy on his body since he could not be fitted for it. Janice, my secretary, selected Emiliano’s attire off the rack from a men’s shop a few blocks from the office. The shoes, buffed-up cordovans, are stiff as boards, right out of the box, making Ruiz’s stride as he enters the courtroom a little stilted. They have to steady him to keep him from stepping on the feet of the guards.

Ruiz seems surprised, somewhat taken back by the size of the crowd in the courtroom, even though Harry and I have told him to expect this. He is looking out at them over the railing with an expression approaching mystification as they lead him toward the table. The guards wait until he finds his seat and takes it, hovering over him for a few seconds, checking things out before they back off. They finally leave us and take up positions at the sides and back of the courtroom. Two of the guards station themselves down the darkened corridor along the side of the raised bench leading to the judge’s chambers in the back.

None of the guards or bailiffs carry firearms, only pepper spray and collapsible metal batons that, if used with enough force, can shatter a clavicle or fracture a skull. Whether the judge will be packing when he takes the bench, no one knows. In this state there have been enough violent confrontations in courtrooms-including a judge in Marin County who was taken hostage, then shot and killed outside the courthouse-that some judges have been known to carry loaded, concealed handguns under their robes.

Ruiz leans toward me and speaks almost without moving his lips: “Quite a crowd.” He is breathing heavily. I suspect it is the largest group of people he has ever seen assembled in one place for any event in which he was the center of attention. Fighting a battle and staying alive is one thing; dealing with a crowd where everyone in the courtroom is looking at him as if he is some caged beast is another.

A few seconds later I hear Gilcrest whisper “Excuse me” down the darkened corridor. The judge is telling the guards to get out of his way so he can clear the hallway and mount the bench.

“Excuse me, Your Honor.”

“All rise,” says the bailiff in a booming voice, and instantly everyone in the courtroom is on their feet. The judge quickly climbs the three steps and takes his seat. He opens the file in front of him on the bench. “You may be seated,” he says. It takes a couple of seconds for the noise of shuffling feet and cushioned behinds to die down. “The clerk will call the case.”

“People of the State of California versus Emiliano Ruiz. Case number. .”

We have already waived a reading of the charges, so, with the preliminaries done, Gilcrest cuts to the chase. He looks out at the audience, a squinting stare that could freeze ice. “Before we get started, I’m going to lay down some ground rules for the people in the audience,” he says. “I don’t want to hear any talking, shouting, hooting, clapping, or laughing from anybody out there. I don’t want to see anybody reading newspapers or books in my courtroom. You want to do that, you go to the library. I don’t want to hear any comments or see any signs being held up for the jury or anybody else to read. If I see any of this, you will be removed from the courtroom. No if’s, and’s, or but’s.

“I don’t want to hear any cell phones going off,” he goes on. “I don’t want to see anybody talking on a cell phone. In fact, I don’t want to see any cell phones at all. All electronic devices should have been checked at the door. They are not allowed in the courtroom. If anybody has an electronic device, including any camera, recorder, or cell phone, now is the time to hold it up and announce it.” He waits for a moment and scans the courtroom with his eyes to see if any hands go up. “Because if one of the guards or one of my bailiffs sees you with any kind of electronic device from this point on, they will seize it, and you with it. You will be detained,” he says. “And trust me, you will not enjoy the reception or the accommodations in the county jail.

“I don’t want to hear any audio recordings of the proceedings in my courtroom being played on the six o’clock news or any other news, and if I do, there will be a very select audience admitted to this courtroom for the next day’s proceedings and from that point on.” This last is aimed at the first three rows of reporters seated directly behind us. “I hope I make myself clear.”

You can almost hear the nodding of heads and bobbing of Adam’s apples in the chairs behind us.

“If anybody gets up and leaves, they lose their seat. That goes for reporters as well as the public. There are no favorites in my courtroom,” he says. “Now, if there are any questions, this is all posted on the board outside the courtroom as well as online, so that you can read it on your computers at home at night if you want.

“Mr. Templeton, are you ready to proceed?”

“I am, Your Honor.”

“Mr. Madriani?”

“We are, Your Honor.”

“Then we’ll bring in the jury,” says Gilcrest.

A minute later, with one of the bailiffs leading the way, they file in, five men and seven women: a schoolteacher; an architect; two college students; an employee of one of the local telephone companies; a store clerk at Robinson’s; a retired college history professor, one of our two picks who survived only because Templeton ran out of peremptory challenges; a bus driver for the local transit district; a housewife; a guy who installs fire suppression systems for a construction company; a waitress at one of the local Coco’s; and a short-order cook who looks as if he’s been eating too much of his own food. A cross section of modern America.

In addition there are six alternates seated in chairs just outside the jury box at the judge’s end of the courtroom.

Fortunately for us, Templeton had to steer away from retired military personnel. With a naval base, Miramar, and Camp Pendleton all within a stone’s throw, retired military make up a sizable chunk of the local population and are usually well represented on local juries. Ordinarily they are a good bet for a foundation around which a prosecutor can build a hanging jury, especially retired military officers. But with Ruiz-himself a retired career soldier-in the dock, Templeton can’t be sure exactly how we will play this card. It could backfire on him. He has been cautious. One wrong pick-if the person has the sand to stand up against the mob and you have a hung jury-no verdict. If one is to listen to Harry, this is the best we can hope for.

My partner is laying most of his wagers on our history professor. According to Harry, the man is no doubt a liberal. He would have to be to have kept his job at a state university. He would be used to lecturing others and not likely to be cowed when people disagree with him. Harry is hoping that with any luck, if we can shape the evidence to conform to what we suspect may have happened, his history professor will vote to cut Ruiz free or, if not, that he will at least vote against death. It is the latter that is Harry’s principal burden as counsel to Ruiz in the penalty phase, should we arrive at that point.

The jurors settle into their chairs. The judge welcomes them. He has already laid down the ground rules for the operations of the jury: what is to be considered evidence and what is not. Templeton’s opening statement is not evidence; it is supposed to be an oral outline of what the state intends to prove by way of evidence. The evidence itself will come later, introduced during the course of the trial.

During Templeton’s opening, jurors who are smart will take detailed notes of his promises so that they can determine later in the jury room when the trial is over whether he has delivered. For those who fail to take notes, it is my job to remind them of promises and failures. For this I will save two shots, deferring my opening statement until after the prosecution rests its case. At the end of the trial I will have one final opportunity, my closing argument, to reinforce this.

“Mr. Templeton, are you ready to present your opening statement?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“You may proceed.”

Templeton comes down off his perch and walks in short, quick steps to the box at this end of the jury railing, then climbs the two steps and gets on top of the scaffold.

“Good morning.” He smiles at them. Most of the jurors respond to the greeting, smiling warmly back at him. Templeton engages them with his eyes as he walks slowly from one end of the scaffold toward the other, stopping between the boxes, lifting his weight on his toes and dropping it on his heels as if to test out the planks at their weakest point. Some of the jurors smile as he does this. He straightens his bow tie and puts his hands in his pockets, then walks on to the other end as if he were a hobo on the tracks, smiling all the while.

When he gets to the far end, he turns toward them, looks down at his feet for a moment, his hands still in his pockets, then lifts his eyes. In a booming voice that you would not expect from such a small body, he begins: “We are here today to examine the cold and calculated murder of another human being. The intentional taking of a human life in such a callous and cruel manner that the state permits you”-he takes one hand from the pocket of his pants and points at them, peering over his finger down the length of the jury box-“each one of you, to decide whether the defendant committed that crime, and if so, whether to exact the ultimate penalty: the imposition of a death sentence.” He pauses for effect, looking at them. “Make no mistake about it,” he says, “this is an awesome responsibility, one which in ancient times was reserved for emperors and kings and in some places the envoys of gods. It is unlikely that any of you during the course of your lifetime will ever again face such a formidable duty as this. To decide the fate of another human being is not something that any one of us can ever take lightly. It is the most serious business we are ever likely to attend to. You will sit here for many days listening to witnesses, observing physical evidence.”

Templeton is being optimistic. Given the evidence-or, from our perspective, the lack of it-the case against Ruiz is straightforward. It will take the state no more than a week, possibly ten days, to make their case, and-unless I can come up with something solid from Isotenics-another two days for me to fall on my sword. Ruiz may get his death wish.

“In the end,” says Templeton, “you will be instructed on the applicable law by the judge and then you will be sent to that room”-he points across the courtroom to another door opposite the one leading to the holding cells-“to make the most momentous decision of your lives: to decide whether the defendant, Emiliano Ruiz”-he turns halfway and points toward our table-“murdered Madelyn Chapman, and whether he did so with premeditation and malice aforethought after lying in wait for her to return home from her job, her office at Isotenics, Incorporated, Software City. We are here for the purpose of deciding the fate of Emiliano Ruiz.”

He falls silent for a moment, then plunges his hand back into his pocket, turns, and takes a few steps, this time away from the bench toward the audience while he allows the jury to consider this.

Twelve sets of eyes now focus on Ruiz, studying his face, his response to the charge, whether his expression at this moment is that of a cold-blooded killer.

Templeton may have just answered one of the more nettle-some questions that has plagued us for months. “Lying in wait” is the single special circumstance charged by the state in their criminal complaint that allows them to seek the death penalty against Ruiz. They are apparently prepared to argue that he entered Chapman’s house and either stalked her from room to room, seeking to kill her, or waited for her to come home from work and simply shot her as she came into the entry hall.

Harry and I have wondered for weeks whether Templeton would try to amend the state’s complaint to add the charges of murder for financial gain or murder during the course of robbery or burglary, either of which would carry additional special circumstances to justify the death penalty. The key in all of this, of course, is the Orb at the Edge, the half-million-dollar piece of art glass that went missing from Chapman’s house after the murder. It would appear that Templeton and the cops have no more idea what has happened to this piece of art than we do. If they had the Orb or knew where it was, and if they could connect it to Ruiz, there is now no question but that they would have brought the additional charges.

I glance over at Harry, who is making a note. This fact has not gone unnoticed by my partner.

“Yes, it is an awesome responsibility,” says Templeton, “and one that an ordered and just society must place upon the shoulders of ordinary citizens, because an ordered and just society has no emperors, it has no kings, it has no spokesmen who speak to the gods. It has only ordinary citizens, whose judgment and reason it respects and whose decisions by long history and proud tradition are the legal fabric holding that society together.”

He veers into the evidence, nibbling first at the edges. He may not know what happened to the glass artwork, but for every deficiency Templeton highlights five or six points so that his case overflows like a horn of plenty. Most prosecutors might shy away from issues involving Chapman’s wealth for fear that we would seize it and turn it against them in an orgy of class warfare. But not Templeton. The state’s computer technician flashes images on the large screen on the wall of the courtroom across from the jury box, pictures of Chapman’s home on the beach, her corporate jets, and the expensive Ferrari parked in her garage.

Templeton turns and walks slowly toward the other end of the scaffold once again, all the while talking as if he’s conversing casually in a room filled with friends. At one point he nods toward the computer tech at his table, and suddenly a full head-and-shoulder shot of Madelyn Chapman, her face beaming with a smile, flashes up on the large screen. In the photograph Chapman appears youthful, vital, full of life, a measure of what was taken from her when she was killed.

He talks about Ruiz and his time in the military, the fact that he is a divorced father of two who took a job working for a security firm, and that the Fates placed the defendant, a retired Army sergeant with nothing more than a high school education and a few units of community college, in close contact with one of the wealthiest women in the world.

Templeton starts to catch a rhythm, stopping at places along the top of the boards to face the jury straight on, bending at the waist using his tiny hands, fingers extended, palms out, to emphasize important elements. At one point he strikes a pose like a magician about to throw flash powder into a fire.

“You will hear testimony that, during his employment providing security for Madelyn Chapman, Mr. Ruiz was able to indulge in travel in the form of luxurious international flights on board corporate jets to exotic locations. There he was able to observe at first hand and up close the good life which he had never experienced before, certainly not in the military and certainly not before that time.”

He has taken the sword of Chapman’s wealth from our hands and blunted it, and now proceeds to club us about the head and shoulders with it. He goes on.

For a moment Templeton dabbles at the edge of the ice. He would like to argue overtly that Ruiz could not bear to pass up this opportunity of a lifetime to gold-dig his way to wealth and comfort. This is the state’s theory of the motive for murder. But Templeton saves himself, avoiding an objection to a conclusion that his evidence would never be able to prove. Almost leaning off the edge of the boards into the jury box, he pulls himself back and instead stays with the facts.

“You will hear testimony from witnesses,” he says, “that there was a sexual relationship between the defendant and Madelyn Chapman and that, following her decision to end the security detail, Mr. Ruiz was removed from the assignment and instructed by his employer to have no further contact with the victim. You will also hear testimony that he failed to comply with those instructions and that Emiliano Ruiz proceeded to stalk the victim and was observed on more than one occasion following Madelyn Chapman as she was engaged in private activities.”

Damaging evidence of this has been withheld from us until the last possible moment under the rubric of confidential personnel matters. It was the excuse Max Rufus used the day I spoke to him in his office.

Templeton looks to our table and smiles as he realizes the impact that all of this is having on the jury.

It is deadly. I can read it in their eyes, and Templeton hasn’t even arrived at the meat of his case: the weapon and the wounds.

“Finally you will see documents and hear evidence from medical and ballistics experts and qualified crime-scene technicians that the two shots that killed Madelyn Chapman, the bullets that fractured her skull and destroyed her brain”-Templeton motions toward the smiling photograph on the screen behind him-“were fired from a pistol that had once been in the possession of the defendant, issued to Emiliano Ruiz while he was in the military and which the defendant failed to surrender to military officials as was the proper procedure when he left the Army. We will prove not only that this handgun was used to murder Madelyn Chapman but that the two shots that killed her required expert marksmanship, and that the defendant Emiliano Ruiz was once considered one of the top pistol marksmen in the United States Army.”

The links may all be circumstantial, but as Templeton lays them out for the jury, each one snaps in place with the sound of case-hardened steel. I can feel Emiliano flinch in the chair next to mine, overwhelmed by the desire to stand and tell the court everything, to vomit what he knows over the courtroom floor, to burst the bubble of inferences linking him to the murder, to place it all in the light of truth: that the gun was there because she had asked him to bring it, that she had fired it herself, that the only reason he was following her was because Chapman had asked him to, because she was scared, frightened of someone else. I can see his fists as they clench on the counsel table, and I place a hand on his forearm. He looks at me with a stark expression.

“Relax. It’s their opening shot.”

Templeton is now on a roll, hitting his pitch. While I try to quell the rising panic in Ruiz, in my own mind I can feel and fully understand the reason for it.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the state will prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Emiliano Ruiz murdered Madelyn Chapman: that he did so in cold blood with malice aforethought and clear premeditation. We will prove that Emiliano Ruiz lay in wait for Madelyn Chapman inside her home, and that when she arrived he executed her with two closely grouped shots to the head fired from a distance of nearly thirty feet. We will prove that the shots that killed Madelyn Chapman required expertise in marksmanship of a kind possessed by very few people, a small and select number of shooters, and that Emiliano Ruiz was one of them. We will show by proof beyond a reasonable doubt that the application of the two closely grouped shots that killed Madelyn Chapman was a well-practiced routine in select circles of military marksmanship-a practiced routine that had only one purpose: to terminate a target with lethal and certain force; to put an enemy down and to make sure that they were dead. We will prove that Emiliano Ruiz was one of the foremost experts in the world in the use of this technique: a targeting routine known as the double tap.”