It’s one of those ironic situations that can crop up in a trial. As a rule you never want a client to say squat to the cops anytime, anyplace, about anything. But in this case I’m not at all certain that Tuchio would introduce this statement, as there is virtually nothing in it that is incriminating, unless they can punch holes in it with their later witnesses. It also provides us with the argument that, armed with advanced knowledge of the defendant’s explanation for his conduct, the state then reverse-engineered the theory of its case to account for every detail of Carl’s story. Detrick’s reconstruction is just a little too neat.
The reason Tuchio brings the statement in is that he knows if he doesn’t, he can be sure that I’ll ask Detrick about it on cross-examination, in which case Carl’s words would take on much more credence, the inference being that the prosecution was trying to hide them.
While neither Tuchio nor I can be certain how this will play out in front of the jury, one thing is sure: The D.A. cannot cross-examine the printed statement as he could with Carl if I were to put him on the stand. All in all, it may not be such a bad way for Carl to get his story in front of the jury.
Tuchio tries to have Detrick testify as to particulars, the actual content of what was said during the interrogation.
In a snap I’m on my feet objecting. “The document speaks for itself, Your Honor.”
“So it does,” says Quinn. “Sustained.”
The state moves it into evidence, and we spend the next twelve and a half minutes listening as Ruiz, Quinn’s clerk, reads the statement aloud to the jury. This avoids all the inflections, comments, and inferences that you can bet would slip in with Detrick’s color commentary.
When R2-D2 finishes reading, Tuchio turns and looks at me. “Your witness.”
THIRTEEN
By the time the prosecutor finishes with Detrick, the morning has already crawled past noon and is edging toward one-thirty. Quinn adjourns for lunch. Harry and I scramble to find quick sandwiches and a quiet place where we can closet ourselves. We compare notes, trying to find loose threads from Detrick’s testimony, anything to tug on in cross.
So intense is our focus that, as it does for a patient under anesthesia, the dimension of time seems to disappear. In what seems like seconds, the lunch break is over and we’re back in court.
“Detective Detrick.” I start my question standing behind the counsel table and slowly move around it toward the witness stand. “Do you recall whether—when you entered the hotel room that morning, the scene where the body was found—whether the television was on or off?”
He gives me a kind of quizzical look, raised eyebrows that the jury can clearly see, as if perhaps next I might ask him if the evidence techs were busy channel surfing, looking for reruns of CSI with the remote as they mulled over the body.
He shakes his head, smiling. “No, I think the set was off,” he says.
“You can see it in several of the photographs.”
“And when your officers arrived on the scene, the first responders, was it on or off then?”
“They’re trained not to touch anything in a situation like that. Unless it’s something that threatens to disturb the scene or destroy evidence, they wouldn’t touch it.”
“So we can be fairly confident, then, that the set was off when they arrived?”
“I’d say so, yes.”
“How big is that set, would you say, Detective? Just the size of the screen?”
“I’m no expert on televisions. I’d have to put a tape on it and measure it,” he says.
“I’m sure you watch television once in a while—football games, baseball?”
“Sure.”
“So you have a television at home?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll bet you have one of those big-screen sets?”
“I guess you could call it that.”
“How big is the screen on your set?”
“I get the feeling I’ve stumbled onto the Home Shopping Network,” he says.
Lots of laughter in the jury box.
“I hate to tell you this,” he goes on, “but I don’t know how big the screen on my set is. My wife bought it.”
The jury laughs again. By now we’re all smiling.
“You’ve got a good wife,” I tell him.
“Yes I do,” he says.
“She probably won’t mind, then, when we all come over on Sunday to watch the game?”
More laughter.
“She might draw the line at that,” says Detrick.
We smile and laugh, jocularity all around. Then I drag him back to the point: the size of the screen on the television in the living area of Scarborough’s hotel room.
He finally concedes that it’s a good-size screen.
“And when it’s turned off, as you testified it was on the morning that you arrived at the scene, the screen surface on that set would appear as a dark, glossy glass. Is that a fair description?”
“Yes. I suppose.” I can tell by the look in his eye he’s starting to see it now, where I’m going.
“If you were to stand or sit in front of that big, dark, glass screen when the set was turned off, as it was when your men arrived, is it possible that you could see your own reflection in that screen?”
“Sure. It’s possible.”
“In fact, when that set is turned off, for all intents and purposes the screen acts like a mirror, doesn’t it?”
He looks at me but doesn’t answer. He wants to think about this.
“Yes or no?”
I turn back to my counsel table and pick up a copy of three of the photographs now in evidence.
“I don’t know if I’d go that far,” says Detrick, “but you could probably pick up reflections.”
“May I approach the witness, Your Honor?”
Quinn waves me on.
“Like the reflection in this photograph?” I hand it to the witness as I identify it so the prosecutor and the court can look at their own copies.
He looks at it quickly. “I suppose. Yes.”
I retrieve it from him and hold it up for the jury to see.
“Am I correct that this is a photograph taken by one of your crime-scene technicians?”
“That’s right.”
“And can you tell the jury what you see on the television screen in that photograph?” I show it to him again.
“I’d say that’s the reflection of the photographer and some flash from the strobe on his camera as he shot the picture.”
“And this one?” I hand him another photograph and identify it. “Tell us what you see on the dark television screen in that photograph.”
He puts on a pair of reading glasses now and holds the photo up to the light. “It looks like the reflection of one of my technicians.”
“And where is that technician standing, in relation to the chair that you marked in the diagram? The chair you believe the victim was sitting in when he was struck from behind?” I point to the chair in the scaled mock-up.
“Looks like he’s behind it,” says Detrick.
“Based on what you can see in that photograph, the reflection captured off the television screen shows one of your technicians standing behind the chair where the victim was murdered, is that right?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Detective Detrick, based on what you’ve seen in these two photographs, if you were sitting in that chair, looking at that dark television screen, and someone approached you from behind, wouldn’t you see his reflection in the screen?”
“I suppose if I was looking directly at the screen at the time.”
“Even if you were doing something else—say, reading, looking at some information on paper while seated in that chair—and someone approached you from behind, isn’t it likely that the reflection of the person’s motion on that screen would draw your attention?”
“I don’t know. Can’t say. Too many variables,” he hedges.
“Like what?”
“Well, like how focused his concentration was on whatever he was doing. Whether he was looking down at the time, maybe reading something in his lap. Maybe the victim’s peripheral vision wasn’t that keen,” he says. “Maybe he was snoozing at the time.” Detrick smiles just a little.
“Let’s suppose that he wasn’t snoozing. Let’s suppose that instead the victim was reading, looking through some papers. By the way, while we’re on the point, besides blood, did you or your officers collect anything else from the area directly around and under the victim’s body?”
“Yes. Some typed pages,” he says.
“Do you remember whether you or your officers examined any of those pages as to their content?”
“We did.”
“And what did you determine with regard to those pages?”
“The victim appeared to be going over notes, apparently in preparation for a television appearance that was scheduled for later that day.”
“Ah, so let’s assume that the victim wasn’t sleeping, that instead he was reading these papers at the time he was killed. Don’t you think if he was doing that and someone approached him from behind, the victim might see that movement in the television screen?”
“As I said earlier, I really can’t say. The answer would depend on too many things that I don’t know.”
“You mean, like the intensity of the victim’s concentration, his peripheral vision…?”
“That and whether he was actually in a position to glimpse the screen at the particular moment, whether the set was on or off…”
“But you said earlier that the set was turned off when you arrived and that it was off when the first officers arrived on the scene, did you not?”
“That’s correct. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that it was off at the time the victim was killed.”
“I see. So you’re assuming that after the murder someone turned the television off?”
“I’m not assuming anything,” he says. “I’m just saying it’s a possibility.”
“Well, let’s see. Who could have turned the set off? Certainly not the victim.”
“No.”
“Perhaps the maid who found the body? Did you or any of your officers ask her if perhaps she tiptoed around all that blood, found the remote, and turned the television off before she reported the body?”
“No.”
“Well, maybe she came back after reporting the body and turned the set off then. Did you ask her that?”
“No.” Eyes that had laugh lines at the outer edges a few seconds ago are now two little slits projecting death rays from the witness stand.
“Ah, I see. You think the murderer, whoever killed Professor Scarborough, beat him to death, spraying blood all over the ceiling and walls, carried a tray with food into the room from out in the hall, laid it all out on a table, and then, before he panicked and ran from the scene, the perpetrator took the time to find the remote and turn off the television set?”
Two of the jurors are now laughing.
“Anything’s possible,” says Detrick. “What I’m saying is that I simply don’t know.”
“Well, maybe we should just stick with what we do know, that the television set was turned off when the first officers arrived at the scene. That much we know, right?”
“Right,” he says.
“By the way, Detective, do you know where the remote device for the television was located that morning as your officers and technicians processed the scene?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t.”
I produce one of the photographs already in evidence. There is a clear shot of the handheld remote on a shelf against the wall, just off to the left side of the television.
“Yes, I see it,” he says.
“So if the set was on at the time of the murder, and for some reason the killer wanted to turn it off, he would have to step over or around the body and either turn it off on the set itself or reach over and get the remote. In either case he’d have to walk through the field of blood on the carpet to do it, is that correct? Or do you see some other way?”
“Not unless he could fly,” says Detrick. “That’s the only way.”
“And in the photograph do you see any indications or signs of bloody footprints directly in front of the television or the shelf where the remote is located?” I show him the photograph again. “Go ahead, take a look.”
He puts his glasses on again and looks closely at the picture. “Not that I can see in the photograph.”
“So do you think it’s possible that we can safely conclude that the television was off at the time of the murder?”
“Yeah. Probably.”
“And if that was the condition of the set at the time of the murder, that it was turned off, a dark screen on that set would have provided anyone sitting in the chair where the victim was seated and who looked at that screen with a pretty good image by way of reflection of anything moving around him or behind him, is that not true?”
“If he was looking at the screen, yes.”
“And if the television was off, it wasn’t making any sound either, was it?”
“I assume not.”
“Well, did you hear any music or television dialogue coming from that television when you arrived at the scene?”
“No.”
“So it wasn’t putting out any sound?”
“No.”
“So in addition to providing a good visual cue, a warning by way of reflection in the screen, the fact that the television was off meant there was no noise to mask the sounds of any entry or footsteps approaching from behind, isn’t that true?”
“That’s true.”
“Detective Detrick, in your capacity as an expert in crime-scene reconstruction, let me pose a hypothetical question. If the victim in this case, Professor Scarborough, was intensely focused, working on something, papers of some kind, and someone came to the door, someone he knew and trusted, is it not possible that he might get up, go to the door, open it, let that person in, and immediately return to the chair where he was working before this other person even entered the room?”
He thinks about this for a moment, all the little facets, and then tries to slip away. “I would expect that someone who opened the door and allowed a guest in would welcome that guest, show them in, and then close the door behind them.”
“Yes, but remember, in my hypothetical the victim was very busy working, studying some papers. Assume he was pressed for time, in a hurry. And the person at the door was someone he was on a casual basis with, someone he trusted….”
“It’s possible, I suppose, although…” He thinks of something else. “In that case the victim would have seen the murder weapon, the hammer,” he says. “I assume it would be in the assailant’s hand when the victim opened the door.”
“Let’s assume that the hammer was concealed under a garment or in a bag or a briefcase. Now, isn’t the situation that I posed a possibility?”
“It’s possible,” he says.
“If that were the situation in this case, that would leave the victim back seated in the chair, hard at work, and the perpetrator behind him, somewhere near the door in the entry hall, is that correct?”
“Um…yes.”
“Now, if we can assume that the television is off, so that there is a reflection in the screen, and further that there’s no sound coming from the set to mask footsteps approaching from behind—and we’ve already established that this was the case, right?”
“Right.” The way he says it, it’s almost a question. Detrick isn’t sure where I’m going.
“But given those assumptions, does it really matter?”
“What do you mean? I don’t understand the question,” he says.
This is the best kind of response, one that allows me to testify.
“I mean if it’s someone the victim knows and he knows they’re already there in the room, why would he bother to pay any attention to reflections of movement on the screen or the sound of f
ootsteps in the entry? He would expect these, wouldn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that would explain it, wouldn’t it? Why the victim, Professor Scarborough, didn’t react to any of the physical cues, the sounds or images, as the killer approached him? If it was someone he knew. He hears him coming from behind, so what? He’s looking down, engrossed in his papers, maybe catches only a fleeting glimpse of motion on the screen. That would be a pretty good explanation, wouldn’t it?”
This is important, because later testimony from the medical examiner will reveal that there were no defensive wounds on the victim’s hand or arms. If he was surprised by a reflection in the screen or heard steps, why didn’t he react, move, perhaps raise an arm to defend himself? But he didn’t.
Detrick goes through a lot of shrugging here. You might think the collar on his shirt or his necktie is too tight. Then he says, “Possible. But the problem is there are other possibilities based on your own hypothetical.”
“Like what, for example?”
“Well, using your own hypothetical,” he says, “with only one simple variation, let’s assume that someone did come to the door, but it was not someone the victim knew. Let’s say it was someone he didn’t know, but who he expected. Say, for example, the victim ordered a meal….” As soon as he says the words, he begins to smile. He’s wondering how I’m going to cut him off in front of the jury without leaving dangerous lingering questions. Something like, I’ll ask the questions, Detective. But instead I let him go. He can’t believe it.
“And the waiter with the tray arrives at the door.” This is a hypothetical much more to Detrick’s liking. I can tell, because if he had a mustache at this moment, he’d be twisting the ends. “The victim might open the door, let the waiter in, return to his chair, and find himself in the same situation as in your hypothetical,” he says.
Shadow of Power Free with Bonus Material Page 19
