Higher Law Boxset, Volume 3

by Sheldon Siegel

  “Did you pronounce the victim?”

  “No, he was pronounced at the hospital. Time of death was officially set at one-forty a.m. on December twenty-fourth. However, based upon the condition of the body and evidence at the scene, I believe that it is likely that Mr. King died at his house.”

  “Cause of death?”

  “Heroin overdose.”

  “Administered by injection?”

  “Yes.” Siu pretended to leaf through the document, which she could have recited by heart. “On page three, I describe a fresh needle mark on the victim’s right arm. I found traces of heroin around it.”

  “Enough to analyze its quality?”

  “Yes. Ninety-seven-percent pure. We also found traces of heroin in a baggie and two syringes in the defendant’s purse. It was unquestionably toxic.” She explained in clinical and layman’s terms that a small amount of the super-powered heroin would have been enough to kill a man of King’s size. “In my best medical judgment, Mr. King died of a heroin overdose.”

  “No further questions.”

  Judge McDaniel looked my way. “Your witness, Mr. Daley.”

  “Ms. Nikonova will be handling cross.”

  I had promised Nady a featured role. I wanted to get her in front of the jury right away.

  She stood and buttoned her navy jacket. “May we approach the witness, Your Honor?”

  “You may.”

  I looked on with pride as my latest protégé walked across the courtroom. Nady and Siu had different areas of expertise, but they were, in many respects, mirror images. Outstanding academic credentials. Always prepared. Comported themselves with professionalism and dignity. Never showboated.

  Nady stopped a respectful distance from the stand. “Nice to see you again, Dr. Siu.”

  “Nice to see you, too, Ms. Nikonova.”

  “How much heroin does it take to kill someone?”

  “Depends upon its potency and the decedent’s height, weight, and overall health.”

  “Could it be a very small amount?”

  “Yes.”

  “Could you tell how much heroin the decedent took?”

  “It was impossible to determine precisely from the toxicology and my examination of the body. However, based upon video evidence of the defendant preparing two syringes, I believe that Mr. King was injected with approximately two hundred milligrams.”

  “Did you find evidence of other toxins in his system?”

  “No.”

  Nady spent fifteen minutes chipping away at Siu’s report: the state of the body; the collection of the samples; the procedures at the lab. She scored a few minor points, but we were still a long way from reasonable doubt.

  “Dr. Siu, your report states that the decedent died because his heart was unable to pump sufficient blood to his body.”

  “Correct. Heroin slows your heartbeat and lowers your blood pressure, which can cause a pulmonary edema. In layman’s terms, it means the heart is no longer capable of pumping enough blood through the body to sustain life.”

  “You said that an individual’s reaction to heroin would depend upon his overall health?”

  “Correct.”

  “Did you review the decedent’s medical history?”

  “Yes. He was in generally good health.”

  “Except for the fact that he was a heroin user, right?”

  “Objection,” Harper said. “Foundation.”

  “Sustained.”

  Nady didn’t fluster. “The medical history indicated that he was a heroin user, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “It also revealed that he had an arrhythmia, or irregular heartbeat, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s serious, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but it can be controlled with medication.”

  “I trust that you wouldn’t recommend using heroin to control it?”

  Harper started to stand, then reconsidered.

  “I wouldn’t,” Siu said.

  “It isn’t uncommon for people with arrhythmias to suffer heart attacks, is it?”

  “It doesn’t happen frequently, but it’s certainly possible.”

  “And such heart attacks can occur without warning or symptoms, right?”

  “Occasionally.”

  “And the chances increase if you are a heroin user, right?”

  “I would think so, but I am not aware of any clinical studies showing any such link.”

  “It is possible that the decedent—a drug user with a heart condition—died of a heart attack unrelated to the injection of heroin, right?”

  “Objection. Calls for speculation.”

  “Overruled.”

  Siu didn’t fluster, either. “Anybody in this courtroom could have a heart attack at any moment. However, in my best medical judgment, Mr. King died of a pulmonary edema brought on by the injection of a massive dose of almost-pure heroin.”

  Our medical expert will express a different view.

  Nady wasn’t giving up. “A combination of a heart condition and any drug could reasonably result in a heart attack, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you therefore cannot rule out the medical possibility that such a combination caused Mr. King’s death, right?”

  “Right.”

  Nady returned to the lectern. “Do you know who provided the heroin?”

  “No.”

  “It’s possible that the decedent provided it himself, isn’t it?”

  “Objection. Calls for speculation.”

  “Sustained.”

  “And it is possible that somebody other than Ms. Low provided it, isn’t it?”

  “Objection. More speculation.”

  “Also sustained.”

  Nady glanced my way. She had planted a few seeds with the jury that we would harvest later. I closed my eyes—the signal to wrap up.

  “No further questions.”

  Harper declined redirect.

  “Please call your next witness, Mr. Harper.”

  “The People call Officer David Dito.”

  51

  “I SOLD HIGH-END PRODUCT”

  Officer Dito dutifully followed Harper’s lead and reiterated his testimony from the prelim. “I was on patrol near the Sixteenth Street BART Station on the evening of December twenty-third. The defendant, Ms. Low, purchased heroin from a known dealer named Khalil Jones at approximately ten-thirty p.m. My partner and I placed Mr. Jones under arrest. We were unable to apprehend Ms. Low.”

  “That was about a half-hour before Ms. Low arrived at Mr. King’s house?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you capture video of this encounter?”

  “I recorded the transaction on my body cam.”

  Harper introduced the video into evidence and ran it for the jury while Dito provided commentary. The deftly choreographed testimony took less than thirty seconds.

  Harper moved a little closer to Dito. “If you didn’t arrest Ms. Low, how do you know that the baggie contained heroin?”

  “Mr. Jones had two identical baggies in his possession. Each contained heroin.”

  “No further questions.”

  “Your witness, Mr. Daley.”

  I addressed Dito from my chair. “Did you confiscate the baggie from Ms. Low?”

  “No.”

  “Did you handle it?”

  “No.”

  “So you have no personal knowledge as to its contents, do you?”

  “As I told Mr. Harper, Mr. Jones had two identical baggies containing heroin.”

  “How do you know that Mr. Jones didn’t scam Ms. Low by giving her an empty baggie or one filled with another substance?”

  “That’s unlikely.”

  “But you can’t rule out the possibility, can you?”

  “That’s unlikely.”

  That’s unresponsive. “Just so we’re clear, you have no hands-on evidence that Mr. Jones gave Ms. Low a baggie filled with heroin, right?”

  �
�Right.”

  “And you have no hands-on evidence that Ms. Low had the same baggie in her possession when she entered Mr. King’s house later that night, right?”

  “Right.”

  “When you approached Mr. Jones and informed him that he was under arrest, he attempted to flee, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you pursued him on foot to Mission Street?”

  “Yes. That’s where we placed him under arrest.”

  “As he was running down Mission, he emptied the two baggies in his possession into a puddle on the street, didn’t he?”

  “Yes. He was attempting to destroy evidence, but we were able to retrieve the baggies.”

  “Which were empty, right?”

  “Our lab found traces of heroin.”

  “Which was contaminated by water and other elements, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “So there was no way that the lab could have determined its purity or whether it contained any foreign substances, right?”

  “Right.”

  “As a result, there was no way that the lab could have compared the heroin found in those baggies to the heroin found in Ms. Low’s purse at Mr. King’s house, right?”

  He nodded. “Correct.”

  “So you have no proof that the heroin that Ms. Low allegedly purchased from Mr. Jones was the same heroin found in her purse, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And it is also entirely possible that the heroin found in Ms. Low’s purse was provided by the decedent, isn’t it?”

  “Objection. Speculation.”

  “Sustained.”

  “No further questions.”

  * * *

  A short time later, a nervous Khalil Jones was sitting in the box, sporting an ill-fitting suit provided by Sandy Tran, who was in the front row of the gallery. The heroin dealer was gulping his third cup of water as Harper ran video from Officer Dito’s body cam.

  Harper pointed at the TV. “That’s you and Ms. Low, right, Mr. Jones?”

  “Right.”

  “What’s happening here?”

  “I sold her a bag of heroin.”

  “How much did she buy?”

  “Fifty dollars’ worth.”

  “Had you sold heroin to Ms. Low on other occasions?”

  “A few times.”

  “Good quality?”

  “Yes. Very pure. I sold high-end product.”

  “No further questions.”

  I glanced at Sandy. Then I walked to the front of the box. “Mr. Jones, you were arrested for selling heroin to Ms. Low, weren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you were also charged for other sales of heroin, right?”

  “Right.”

  “You’ve entered into a plea bargain agreement with the District Attorney?”

  “Yes.”

  “On what terms?”

  “Objection,” Harper said. “Relevance.”

  “Overruled.”

  Jones took another sip of water. “One count of sale of a controlled substance.”

  “That’s a felony, right?”

  “Right.”

  “How many counts were you originally charged with?”

  “Ten.”

  “So your lawyer negotiated a deal for you to plead guilty to only one charge, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And you got a reduced sentence, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long?”

  “Three years.”

  Sandy cut him a good deal. It could have been up to nine. “You could have gotten nine years for each count, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And you may get out earlier with good behavior, correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “And you agreed to cooperate with Mr. Harper on this and other matters, right?”

  “Right.”

  “So you agreed to say whatever he wants you to say, didn’t you?”

  “No.”

  “If you don’t, you may lose your deal, right?”

  “Yes. I mean no. I promised to tell the truth.”

  “You’re lying now, aren’t you, Mr. Jones?”

  “No.”

  “You testified that you sold only what you described as ‘high-end product,’ right?”

  “Yes. Very pure.”

  “Did it contain any substances other than heroin?”

  “No.”

  “Are you a chemist?”

  “No.”

  “Did you do any chemical tests on the heroin?”

  “No.”

  “Then you can’t possibly know that it was pure, can you?”

  “I sampled it. In fact, I’ve sampled a lot of heroin.”

  “Let’s be honest, Mr. Jones. You were selling cheap smack to tweakers on Mission Street, weren’t you?”

  “No.”

  “That’s why you pleaded guilty, isn’t it?”

  “No.” He looked at Sandy. “I mean yes. I mean that I was selling good stuff.”

  “You told your customers that it was pure, right?”

  “It was.”

  “But you didn’t really know, did you?”

  “I’m not a scientist, Mr. Daley.”

  That much is true. “What did Ms. Low do with the heroin that you sold her?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you have any evidence that she took it up to Jeff King’s house?”

  “No.”

  “Did you ever sell smack to Mr. King?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Or anybody from a company called Y5K Technologies?”

  “I don’t know. I sold to a lot of people.”

  “No further questions.”

  “Redirect, Mr. Harper?”

  “No, Your Honor. The People call Inspector Kenneth Lee.”

  52

  “YOU CAN SEE IT ON THE VIDEO”

  All eyes in the silent courtroom were fixed on Inspector Lee, who was standing next to the flat-screen TV which Harper had positioned for easy viewing by the judge, jury, and gallery. Rosie was sitting in the back row with Roosevelt Johnson, who was making an unannounced appearance. Perhaps my dad’s old partner wanted to see how his one-time protégé fared in court. Or maybe he was checking on me.

  Lee had already completed an hour of carefully rehearsed testimony to establish the timeline of the events at King’s house. He and Harper were seasoned pros who had put on a textbook direct exam where I had little opportunity to interrupt or object.

  Harper introduced the security video from the upstairs hallway. The HD color picture was much sharper than the grainy footage we used to see in videos from convenience stores.

  Harper pointed at the screen. “When was this taken?”

  “Eleven p.m.”

  “Who is in the video?”

  “The defendant. She had just arrived at Mr. King’s house. This shows her coming up the stairs.”

  Harper advanced the video and stopped it again. “Where did she go?”

  “Into the master bath, which has a separate door leading into the master bedroom.”

  “What’s in the defendant’s hand?”

  “A black purse.”

  Harper walked over to the evidence cart and picked up an item wrapped in a plastic evidence bag and tagged. “Is this the same purse?”

  “Yes. I logged it in as evidence after we detained the defendant.”

  “Did you find anything inside?”

  “In addition to various personal items, we found an envelope with five thousand dollars in cash, two syringes, a lighter, a spoon, some surgical hosing, and a baggie with traces of almost-pure heroin.”

  Harper introduced the items into evidence. I had no basis to object.

  Lee remained next to the TV as Harper fast-forwarded the video. At twelve-fourteen a.m., King came upstairs and walked into the master bath.

  “Who was in the house at this time?” Harper asked.

  “The defe
ndant, the victim, and Mr. Ben-Shalom.”

  Harper started another video and stopped it almost immediately. “Where was this taken?”

  “Mr. King’s bedroom.”

  “Could you please describe what’s going on as I run the video?”

  “At twelve-eighteen, the defendant entered the bedroom from the master bath. She’s carrying a baggie of heroin along with a spoon, two syringes, surgical hosing, and a lighter.”

  “Did you find any identifiable fingerprints on the baggie?”

  “Just the defendant’s.” Lee continued to narrate as Harper ran the video. “The defendant used the lighter to cook the heroin. She prepared two syringes. She accepted an envelope containing five thousand dollars from the victim and put it inside the purse.”

  “Move to strike,” I said. “You can’t see what’s inside the envelope.”

  Harper kept his tone even. “Your Honor, we have already introduced the envelope and its contents into evidence.”

  “Overruled, Mr. Daley.”

  I was just trying to break up their flow.

  Harper rolled the video and Lee kept talking. “The defendant and the victim began to disrobe. They embraced. The defendant injected the victim. You can see it on the video.”

  At first, King grinned. Then his smile disappeared. His face went blank. He began to have convulsions. Finally, he leaned forward and collapsed onto the floor.

  Harper prompted Lee again. “Could you please describe what happened next?”

  “Of course.” Lee sounded like a sportscaster narrating football highlights.

  Twelve-thirty. Lexy collected the drug paraphernalia and her belongings and headed into the hallway.

  Twelve-thirty-five. She re-entered the bedroom followed by Ben-Shalom, who called nine-one-one and administered CPR. King was unresponsive.

  Twelve-forty-one. Two cops arrived.

  Twelve-forty-two. The EMTs arrived and used paddles in a futile attempt to restart King’s heart. One of the cops assisted them. The other stood next to Lexy, who was frozen in her chair.

  Twelve-forty-eight. The EMTs and one cop hauled a lifeless King out of the room.

  Twelve-fifty-five. The second cop escorted Lexy out of the room.

  Harper stopped the video. “Could you please summarize what we just saw?”

  Lee spoke with calm authority. “We know from Mr. Jones’s testimony that the defendant purchased some pure heroin shortly before she went up to Mr. King’s house. We believe that she brought it to Mr. King’s house. She cooked the heroin, prepared two syringes, and injected Mr. King. When he experienced distress, she emptied the second syringe. Then she gathered her belongings, along with five thousand dollars in cash provided by the victim, the empty baggie, syringes, lighter, hosing, and spoon. She made no attempt to administer first aid or CPR, and she did not call nine-one-one. She attempted to flee, but Mr. Ben-Shalom stopped her.”