Millwood objects, “Objection, Your Honor. Beyond the scope of direct examination.”
I answer, “Your Honor, the question goes to witness credibility. If the witness has covered up for the defendant in the past, then the jury may infer that he is covering up for the defendant now and thereby disregard the entirety of his testimony.”
“I’ll allow it.”
Millwood appears over all of it. No doubt he specifically asked Barton about other potential grenades out there. No doubt Barton lied to him. Difficult clients keep lawyers up late at night, and Millwood wears the look of a man that can no longer stomach Bernard Barton.
I watch Winston expectantly. He still sits there on mute. I slowly restate the question in a louder voice: “Have some female employees of your law firm accused the defendant of sexual harassment in the past?”
The attention of every spectator in the courtroom oppresses him as his silence grows louder by the second. Finally, he offers, “Pursuant to confidentiality agreements, I’m unable to testify about such matters.”
“Agreements. Plural?”
“I’m not allowed to testify on such things.”
“This is a murder trial, Mr. Winston. It trumps the secrecy of your hush money payoffs. Answer the question.”
Millwood jumps in, “Move to strike, Your Honor!”
“Granted. The jury will disregard counsel’s last remark.”
Millwood continues, “I also object to this whole line of questioning as being unduly prejudicial and lacking relevance to the present charges. Mr. Barton is on trial in connection with his relationship with Sara Barton, not irrelevant relationships with other women.”
I respond, “Your Honor, the questioning still goes to Mr. Winston’s credibility or lack thereof. Also, how the defendant acts towards women who reject him is at the heart of this trial.”
The judge rules, “I’ll allow it. Mr. Winston, you have to answer the questions asked of you.”
Winston slouches in disappointment before resuming the edifice of his erect posture. The cracks are showing. The earlier wariness now reads as a foreboding of impending doom. The king of the boardroom is no match for the courtroom. I relaunch the ambush.
“Have some female employees of your law firm accused the defendant of sexual harassment in the past?”
“Yes.” He doesn’t pause. He has finally let his guard down when it should be at its highest. He made Millwood run around the mulberry bush and back to extract the answer to the simplest questions. Now he figures to give me what I want without much fuss. Cross-examination has that effect on people.
“This harassment consisted of unwanted comments?”
“Yes.”
“Unwanted touching?”
“Yes.”
“Of women who were his subordinates?”
“Yes.”
“Who he had power over?”
“Yes.”
“More than one woman?”
“Yes.”
The problem is what I don’t know. I don’t know how many women Barton harassed, who he harassed, what he said to them, how he touched them, or how many settlements Marsh & McCabe paid out to cover for him. When I later asked Jeff Yarber for these details, he wouldn’t spill them, confidentiality and all. Without the specifics, I’m forced to probe Winston around the edges to see what I can scare up.
“You found these complaints credible?”
That stops him. He can’t very well throw all the women who complained about Barton under the bus on national television. But if the complaints were credible, why is Barton still a partner at the firm? I wait with all the time in the world as he makes up his mind.
“Yes.”
“So credible in fact that your law firm paid out financial settlements to these women?”
“Yes.”
“Sizable settlements?”
“Yes.”
“Hush money, in fact?”
“Absolutely not. They were payouts on disputed legal claims.”
“Did the settlements have provisions that prohibited these women from talking about what the defendant did to them?”
“Yes. Confidentiality clauses are standard contract language in settlement agreements.”
“The firm bought the silence of the defendant’s victims?”
“I wouldn’t characterize it like that.”
But everyone else would. The disgust that the jurors feel toward Winston is evident. The feeling is likely reciprocal. The witness hasn’t once looked in their direction. His focus now on me, I lounge around to let him twist in the wind a little longer. The small specks of sweat evolving at the border of his hairline speak to his distress. I give him a fake, sympathetic smile before resuming.
“Bernard Barton is still a partner with your law firm?”
“He’s currently on leave.”
“Paid leave?”
“Yes.”
“A million dollars a year, right?”
Winston sags. Back at headquarters, I imagine the partners of Marsh & McCabe are scurrying to divorce themselves from Barton as we speak—and maybe Roy Winston, too. Clients are the currency of Big Law, and Corporate America wants no part of the negative press the law firm will soon endure. Marsh & McCabe just became toxic.
“You had multiple complaints of sexual harassment against the defendant that led to sizable settlements, yet you still allowed the defendant to work at the law firm?”
“In hindsight, that was a mistake.”
“The firm covered up for a predator?”
“I reject that characterization. We settled legal claims, and we should’ve severed our relationship with Bernard because of it. Conduct like that is unacceptable.”
“Yet you accepted it, didn’t you?”
Pause. “I’m afraid so.”
***
That night, Ella and I sit on opposite ends of a conference table, married to our yellow legal pads—the lawyer’s perpetual best friend. Scott is off attending a school event for his daughter. The end is close. By this time in every trial, the body runs on fumes, 20-hour days exacting their due. I prepare for Barton’s upcoming cross-examination. Ella toils on jury charges. We end up doing arm stretches at the same time, sending each other awkward glances in the process. Ella breaks the silence.
“Millwood seems to be struggling.”
“It’s not his fault. Barton hasn’t been square with him. Jack had no idea about the sexual harassment settlements. He never would’ve put Winston on the stand if he had known. Barton is directing his own defense and it shows. Jack’s fed up. I don’t blame him.”
“Why would you hire one of the best lawyers in Atlanta to defend you and then not listen to him?”
“Barton probably thinks he’s the best lawyer in Atlanta.”
“How are you going to handle him on cross?”
“Try to get under his skin.”
“That shouldn’t be too hard. He might kill you in open court.”
“That may be his best defense at this point. Mary would have to declare a mistrial.”
We get back to our work. At some point, I close my eyes. When I open them far later into the night, I see Ella asleep with her head cradled in her arms on the table—all peaceful like. I watch her rise and fall in rhythm with her breath. Look at what I threw away. I get up and gently rouse her.
With her head still on the table, she asks, “What time is it?”
“Late.”
She sits up and shakes the sleep out of her eyes. A piercing yawn follows. She says, “I was in the middle of a dream. It was about you.”
“A good dream?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t get to finish it, but I doubt it.”
I offer a sage nod, reckoning she guessed right. We exit the room to go home but with the knowledge that we’ll be right back here again in a few hours. Before we part, Ella stops and looks at me with studied intensity.
She asks, “Why are you the way you are?”
I thoughtfully p
onder the question before answering, “I wish I knew.”
46
“The defense calls Bernard Barton.”
Barton walks to the stand—his legs not quite confident, not quite jelly. Only a sociopath wouldn’t be nervous in his shoes, and Barton is no sociopath. He’s a gambler. The huge debts he ran up in Vegas led him to take the biggest gamble of his life in murdering his wife. He now doubles down on the high-risk strategy of testifying on his own behalf—something murder defendants almost universally avoid. Barton suffers from the gambler’s curse. He wagers that one more gamble can wipe away all the previous losses, that lady luck will be on his side with one more roll. He should know that the house always wins.
Millwood proceeds slowly through the background questions. The goal is both to humanize his client and to chisel off some of Barton’s nerves before getting to the meat of the testimony. Even though the State contends that Barton is a cold-blooded killer, he sits there in the witness box right next to the jurors, well within striking distance before security could ever stop him. Everyone accepts the arrangement as normal. One of the benefits for Barton in testifying is to make himself one with this non-threatening normalcy. The effect would be stronger if Barton’s pot hadn’t been boiling over for most of the trial.
The testimony borders on boring, but that’s a feature not a bug. Boring people seem incapable of murder. I myself wrestle with inattention as the story drags. Trials are exciting on television and in movies, but the reality of listening to witnesses drone on hour after hour after hour day after day after day drains the energy of every viewer. Paying attention to the small details demands a constant refocusing of the mind.
Millwood finally finishes with the fluff. He doesn’t say a word, but the noticeable change in his demeanor perks up the courtroom from its recent lethargy. He stands at the far end of the jury box away from Barton, forcing his client to look into the whites of the jurors’ eyes. I pick up my pen. Now the testimony begins in earnest.
“Mr. Barton, you stand accused of murdering your wife, Sara Barton. I ask you directly: did you kill your wife?”
“Absolutely not.”
The burden of proof in any murder case always rests on the prosecution, but jurors still want to hear a defendant deny under oath the charge against him. Silence in the face of false accusation is unnatural. The thought persists in a juror’s mind—“If I were wrongfully accused of murder, you better believe I would get up there and deny it.” Barton just solved one of his problems. I wonder how many other fires Millwood will risk trying to put out.
“Do you remember the police arriving at your house in response to a 911 call by your wife?”
“Yes.”
“Tell us what you remember about that day.”
“That was the day I learned about the video of Sara and Brice. A colleague showed me the footage. I couldn’t believe it. I texted my wife and called her a not nice name.”
“What did you call your wife in that text?”
“I called her a whore.”
“Why?”
“I was upset. If she wanted to have affairs, that’s fine. I’ve had plenty, and she had her own before Brice, too. I was upset that she got caught on film and that everyone in Atlanta had apparently seen the video. I knew then the marriage was over for good. It was actually a relief. I could leave in good conscience. But I called her a whore anyway because it was the petty thing to do, and I felt like being petty.”
Millwood and Barton spent quality time together choreographing that paragraph. The answer checks off a number of boxes—a backhanded swipe at Sara Barton for an untold number of previous unidentified affairs, a balancing act that acknowledges the video “upset” Barton but not too much, a relatable all-too-human confession for the intemperate “whore” remark, and the placement of responsibility for the end of the marriage on the reckless actions of his wife. Nice story.
Millwood asks, “What happened when you arrived home that night?”
“I intended to pack a suitcase and move out. I went to the bedroom to get my things, and the door was locked. From the other side of the door, Sara told me to go away. I told her I would, but I needed to pack a suitcase first. She still wouldn’t open the door. We started yelling at each other through the door at that point, and that’s when she called 911.”
“Mr. Barton, describe what you were doing during this call.”
“Just trying to get in the bedroom so I could get out of there.”
Millwood then plays a snippet of the 911 recording that focuses on the sound of his client beating on the door. Barton grimaces with each loud boom.
“Describe what we just heard.”
“That’s me banging on the door to get Sara to open it so I could pack a suitcase and leave.”
“Did you at any point strike your wife?”
“Absolutely not.”
“How do you explain the fact that your wife said you hit her on the 911 call?”
“We had been unhappy for a long time and obviously heading for a separation after that video. I think the whole 911 call was a performance for her to gain leverage in the divorce. I never touched her. I’ve never hit a woman in my entire life. My dad hit my mom when I was growing up. I promised never to be like him. I’ve given over $250,000 to domestic violence shelters over the years. I’ve served on the Board of Directors of the Alliance Against Domestic Violence. It is an issue I’m quite passionate about. Sara knew that accusing me of spousal abuse was the cruelest thing she could do to me.”
Barton wrestles with the emotion bubbling up within him. I’m unmoved. I’ve seen psychopaths blubber like babies on the witness stand. Everyone’s emotional about something. I glance at the jurors and discern no visible reaction to Barton’s display of weakness. He is a hard man to humanize. The alleged aversion to domestic violence is a non-starter. Men who batter women often feel terrible after doling out their beatings.
“What happened after your wife got off the 911 call?”
“Sara opened the bedroom door and told me the police were on the way. I was dumbfounded. The whole thing was stupid. She wasn’t even afraid. I mean, why call the police from behind a locked door and then unlock the door before the police arrive. It felt like a set-up.”
I give Barton’s words a good hard think. Officer Hendrix testified that Sara Barton was in the living room when he arrived in response to the 911 call. Why unlock the door? But maybe Sara Barton didn’t unlock the door. Just because Barton said she opened the door doesn’t make it so. Maybe he kicked it down and threatened to kill her if she didn’t behave for the police.
“Mr. Barton, you were in the courtroom when Officer J.D. Hendrix described visiting your house after the 911 call. What is your response to his testimony?”
“Officer Hendrix described everything accurately. Sara and I were together in the living room waiting for him to arrive. She was calm and admitted that she overreacted. Officer Hendrix talked to her for a long time to make sure that she was okay before he decided to leave. He didn’t arrest me. I hadn’t laid a hand on her.”
“What happened after Officer Hendrix left your house?”
“Sara apologized, and we made love for the first time in months. We then went out to a late dinner.”
“Did your wife have a bruise on her back at that time?”
“She did not.”
Millwood then introduces a dinner receipt from that night paid with Barton’s credit card. The dinner shows entrees and drinks for two. Scott interviewed the waitress that waited on Barton’s table. She had no memory of Barton or his dinner companion. The only evidence, therefore, that Sara and Barton ever kissed and made up is Barton’s word and a little piece of paper with numbers on it. I’m skeptical.
Even still, the business about Sara unlocking the locked door bothers me. Judge Woodcomb adjourns the trial for lunch.
***
Millwood heads straight to the night of the murder once the proceedings begin after the lunch recess.
“I arrived home at around 2:30 a.m. to find the police in my house. They told me that Sara was dead. I asked what happened, and they told me she was murdered.”
“What was your reaction?”
“Complete and utter shock. Numbness.”
Energy in the courtroom is at a low ebb. No matter the trial, no matter the courtroom—lethargy invariably pervades the hour after the lunch break. That today is a Friday only adds to the sensation of weariness. Most juror naps happen during this time slot. Starting with the night of the murder might perk up the audience, but Millwood swerves away from that topic after a few more questions.
Instead, the next hour features a defensive Barton explaining away a lot of the evidence against him. He searched high and low for his phone the morning of the murder but could never find it. He bought a gun a few months before the murder because Sara was scared about crime in the neighborhood. He loaded the gun himself, which is why his fingerprints were on the bullets. He went to Monica Haywood’s house after the murder because he often spent the night there and that made the most sense. He rejected Cecil’s characterization that he had been cold and distant when identifying his wife’s dead body, describing the entire experience as emotionally traumatic and the most difficult moment of his life. The gambling debts were nothing to him. He had more than enough money to cover them. He never told Monica Haywood to lie on his behalf. She thought she was helping him because she knew he was innocent.
I don’t object a single time, content with allowing the monotony to proceed without interruption. Half of the jurors are checked out, no need to bring their attention back to the proceedings. Millwood makes the points that he can hammer home in closing argument. But no one is moved. Barton’s success as a lawyer stems from being an attacking bulldog—the unstoppable running back who pounds through tacklers yard after yard. His skills of persuasion evaporate when he is on the defensive. Without the ability to bludgeon, he loses all his fierceness. Millwood continues.
“Mr. Barton, what time did you leave Monica Haywood’s condo on the night of the murder?”
The Murder of Sara Barton (Atlanta Murder Squad Book 1) Page 29
