14th Deadly Sin

CHAPTER 58

PARISI GOT HEAVILY to his feet and, ignoring the lectern, walked directly to the jury box. He smiled, greeted the jurors, and said a few words about how important jury duty was, adding that as the district attorney for the City of San Francisco, he could not do his job without good people deciding verdicts in trials like this one. He noted how important it was to make sure that justice was always done.

Yuki watched him perform, her mind splitting between her good feelings toward Len Parisi—based on five years of working with him, learning from him, and supporting him in her capacity as an assistant DA—and the other side of her brain, which was not yet accustomed to thinking of Len as her enemy, which he surely was.

Furthermore, Len’s calm and personable demeanor made her feel that her own presentation had been borderline hysterical.

Even Natalie seemed transfixed by Red Dog.

Len put his hand on the railing and walked along it, making eye contact with the jurors as he said, “I have to commend opposing counsel for presenting such a pretty picture of Aaron-Rey Kordell, but I’m very sorry to say, that’s not who he was.

“Aaron-Rey was hanging around at a crack house for the same reason anyone goes to a crack house. He used drugs. He didn’t just go there after school. He went there instead of going to school. At least, he did most days.

“And I have to say, Ms. Castellano has no idea whether Aaron-Rey picked up the murder weapon on the stairs as he was leaving the crack house, or whether he picked up the gun inside the crack house, or whether someone gave him a few bucks and told him, ‘Here’s a gun, Aaron-Rey. Shoot those dudes,’ so that’s what he did. I think the crack house closed-circuit TV cameras were down that day.”

The jurors laughed. Yes, he was winning them over.

Len continued, “No one has come forward to say that they saw what went down inside that crack house, and no one ever will. I will agree with Ms. Castellano that a gunshot residue test was not performed on Aaron-Rey. That was a mistake. But what Ms. Castellano didn’t tell you is that the bullets that killed those three men came from the gun in Aaron-Rey’s pants.

“We will put the gun into Mr. Kordell’s hand, and there will be no question at all, no dispute, that he had the gun in his possession. He had the murder weapon on his person. He ran. And he told the officers who pulled him in that he had not killed three people in the drug house, and then he named them.

“The police officers asked him where he got the gun, and he said he found it. And they found three dead men and they arrested Aaron-Rey Kordell—of course they did. That was their job.

“So, you might ask, how did Aaron-Rey get that gun? Well, he’s not around to tell us now, and it doesn’t matter how he got it. It was the murder weapon, and when he had the chance to tell us what happened in that crack house, he told the narcotics investigators that he killed A. Biggy and Duane and Dubble D.

“But this trial is not about where the gun came from or who shot those drug dealers. It is also not about who killed Aaron-Rey Kordell.

“As Ms. Castellano said, this trial is only about one thing: Did Inspectors Stanley Whitney and William Brand from Narcotics coerce Aaron-Rey into making a false confession?

“We say they did not.

“Did they use legitimate interview techniques? Yes, they did. Did they lie? Very likely. An interview in a police station is like a lying competition where both parties lie and bluff and do whatever they can to get the other party to believe them.

“It’s legal for police to lie.

“And when we show you clips from the interview, you are going to see that this young man was cool, calm, and collected and that he confessed to murdering three men.

“So when he confessed, Inspectors Brand and Whitney put him in jail, where he belonged, because killers shouldn’t be loose on the street.

“Aaron-Rey was in jail awaiting his speedy trial, as was his right as an American, when an incredibly unfortunate incident happened.

“And we’re sorry for the pain of Aaron-Rey’s family.

“But Aaron-Rey’s death was not the fault of the San Francisco Police Department.”