Jury of One

70

The redirect of Officer Sanchez went well into the afternoon. Morphew did well with the cop, but it was nothing new. It was just nice to restate the favorable points. Morphew made the point that “the boy” was wearing a coat he had seen on Alex Baniewicz at the park, and that the height and build of “the boy” matched that of Alex.

Ronnie could have worn the coat, obviously. Yes, Ronnie was about two inches taller and thicker in the chest and shoulders than Alex, but how well would any of that come out when he was wearing winter clothing, a long wool coat and cap?

In her lengthy preparation of the cross of Officer Sanchez, Shelly had obviously considered the idea that she could get Sanchez to admit that he didn’t see Alex. She knew he wanted to distance himself from what happened-put it all on his partner-and she thought, in his effort to do so, she could trap him.

Now, she wasn’t sure that she could chalk up his admission to her courtroom skills. She believed that Sanchez was telling the truth. There were a million reasons for him to believe it was Alex without seeing him. Sanchez thought “the snitch” referred to Alex. Alex was arrested that night with Miroballi’s blood on his clothes. And Shelly, almost right out of the gate, had pleaded self-defense, which meant that Alex was the shooter. Maybe he had unconsciously revised his memory and assumed that he saw Alex, until pressed on the point.

The judge adjourned the proceedings at three-thirty. He told Shelly, out of the presence of the jury-and for the sake of a higher court that might review this case-that he wanted to give her some extra time to prepare for the testimony of Ronnie Masters tomorrow. If she did not feel prepared to go tomorrow, he advised her, he would grant her additional time.

“Very good,” she told him. She was not going to thank him. He had screwed her today. He was wrong in allowing all that testimony about what Miroballi said to Sanchez about Alex. She felt sure of it. But she realized that a higher court would need more than that to overturn a conviction. Appellate courts in this state liberally applied the “harmless error” rule, under which a court found that the trial judge made an error but that the error was not enough to warrant a new trial. A fair trial did not mean a perfect trial.

She spoke with Alex at length after the adjournment. He was pleased that Ronnie now had immunity. It meant that his daughter, Angela, would have someone to take care of her. Technically, Ronnie had only been given immunity for obstruction of justice, because that was the only crime to which he had admitted-withholding information from the cops and lying to them. But short of a confession by Ronnie, he would never be prosecuted for anything related to the Miroballi shooting.

After speaking with Alex, she went immediately to Ronnie. Ronnie was being held, pending his testimony, at county lockup, in segregation, but when she arrived there, she was told that the detainee did not wish to speak with her. She demanded to hear this from Ronnie’s mouth. Eventually, the deputy warden was called down. Detainees had the right to refuse a visitor, he told her, but she jumped up and down and threatened enough that he finally agreed to a face-to-face. Shelly wondered if the fact that her father could have this guy fired had anything to do with the change of heart.

She was shown to a small room not unlike the one Alex had been in. Ronnie stood at the doorway of the detainee’s entrance and shook his head. “I don’t want to talk to her,” he told the deputy warden. “I don’t have to talk to her.”

She stared into his eyes, but he looked away. “You sure about that, Ronnie?” she called out.

“I’m sure,” he said to the deputy warden.

Shelly watched him walk out. The door closed. She was out of luck. She looked at her watch as she left the building. It was six-thirty. She had a long night ahead of her. On her way to her office, her cell phone rang. It was, as always, Joel Lightner.

“I’m over at the City Athletic Club,” he said. “I got three guys who said they’ve played hoops with Ronnie Masters at this open gym.”

“Okay.” She was not the least bit surprised. “You have your trial subpoenas?”

“Yeah.”

“Serve them,” she said. “We’ll need those guys in a few days.”