The Wrong Man

60

“Okay,” said Bradley John, reading over the last of our responses to the prosecution’s pretrial motions. “I see what I wasn’t giving you the first time around.”

“You did a good job structurally,” I said. “Really. You cited the cases, you gave good legal reasoning. But it didn’t have any heart.”

“Heart?”

“This is a murder trial, Bradley. Somebody died, and a second person’s life is on the line in this trial. The stakes are high. Emotions are high. Judges aren’t immune to that. Look, some of these motions are routine. But the one on the prior military history, that’s the whole ball game for us, right? So right there in our response, we need the judge to read about Tom’s military background. I think he’s going to feel bad excluding it. We start there, with the psychological aspect. Not too heavy or it feels like pandering but enough to gain his sympathy-hopefully.”

“Okay.”

It was an important lesson, one too many lawyers forgot, and too many young lawyers failed to appreciate. Judges are human. The law-statutory language, court decisions-are obviously important, but if the facts make them want to rule your way, their brains will start working in that direction. They’ll want to believe you’re right. They’ll try to find a way to rule in your favor, even if they don’t realize they’re doing it. Now, that won’t win every argument every time. If you’re way off, you’ll still lose. But in a close case, when it could go either way, judges want to feel good about themselves. They’ll want to feel like they’re doing a good thing. Even Judge Nash, I hoped.

And then, once you get them wanting to be on your side, you give them the case law to support your position, so they can feel good about being on your side. You’re telling them, here’s backup for your gut feeling. Here’s legal support for what you really want to do in your heart.

When I was done explaining all of this, Bradley looked up at me. “I see that now. Thanks, Jason. Really, this is helpful.”

I wagged my finger at him. “Don’t ever forget the human side of this, young man.” I looked at my watch. “Now, it’s almost midnight. Probably best we head out. We can finish these up tomorrow. Let me just check a couple of things.”

I glanced again at the newspaper, the story in the Metro section about the deaths of two men in an alley on the southwest side who were reputed figures in the Capparelli crime family. That made three dead Capparellis, counting Lorenzo Fowler, and the paper speculated about a possible war brewing between the Capparellis and the Morettis.

I dialed Lightner on my cell phone. “How we doing?” I asked.

“Good,” he said. “No change.”

“Good. I’m leaving now.”

I hung up and dialed my friend Ross Vander Way.

“Hey, Ross, it’s Jason.”

“Hey, man.”

“Still all good?”

“Sure, yeah.”

“Okay. I’m leaving now,” I said.

I walked down the hall to Shauna’s office. She was typing up a cross-examination on her computer. She was wearing her reading glasses, which I thought was kind of hot. Which I thought was kind of weird, since she was like a sister to me. Which I thought was bizarre, because I used to sleep with her once upon a time. Anyway.

“Ready to go, sweetheart?”

She stretched her arms. “Sure, probably a good idea. This is a marathon, not a sprint, right?”

“Yeah, plus, y’know-we should get going.”

She nodded grimly. The simple task of leaving the office and walking to our car, these days, was a hazardous activity. I had my gun with me just in case, but I wasn’t much of a shot.

Anyway, I was relatively sure we were safe for the time being.

Bradley, Shauna, and I-the lawyers of Tasker amp; Kolarich-headed down the elevator to my car.