Brent Marks Legal Thriller Series: Box Set Two

by Kenneth Eade

  “Mr. Marks, you don’t deny that you ran after David Marsen after you saw him in the courtroom, do you?”

  “No, I do not deny that.”

  “And you chased him all the way to Olvera Street, isn’t that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “And when you caught up with him, you tackled him in an alley off Olvera Street, isn’t that also correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mr. Marsen did not provoke you for this attack, did he?”

  “Objection, Your Honor: calls for speculation,” barked out Hannaford.

  “It does call for speculation, Mr. Brednick. Can you rephrase your question?”

  “Certainly, Your Honor. Mr. Marks, you were the one who hit first; isn’t that correct?”

  “Yes, but…”

  “Move to strike after ‘but,’ Your Honor.”

  “Granted.”

  “Now, Mr. Marks, shortly after you attacked Mr. Marsen, he was dead and you were arrested, isn’t that correct?”

  “Objection to the characterization ‘attack,’ Your Honor.”

  “Overruled.”

  “I didn’t attack him. I tackled him so I could speak with him, and he hit me.”

  “Did you speak with him?”

  “No, I didn’t have the chance.”

  “That is when the mysterious masked man arrived and stabbed Mr. Marsen, is that correct?” asked Brednick, looking at the jury with skepticism instead of at Brent

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “And nobody saw this mysterious masked man except for you, isn’t that correct?” he asked, looking from the jury to Brent.

  “Objection, Your Honor: speculation!”

  “Overruled.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “There was a crowd of people there, wasn’t there, Mr. Marks?”

  “Yes, after he left.”

  “You’ve heard all of the witnesses who testified against you in this case, haven’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “But not one of them saw this masked man, did they?”

  “Objection: argumentative!”

  “Sustained. The jury will disregard the question.”

  “Come on, Mr. Marks. You were seen by multiple witnesses, standing over Mr. Marsen’s body, with the knife in your hand…” Brednick paused and looked at the jury, then back at Brent. “…and Marsen’s blood all over your clothes. And you expect us to believe that an unknown, masked man whom nobody had seen but you killed Mr. Marsen?”

  “Objection: argumentative!”

  “Sustained. The jury will disregard the question.”

  Brent, like Richard, knew that the jury could not erase from their minds what they had already heard. Brednick knew it, too. He knew Hannaford would object, but he didn’t care. The most important thing for him was that the jury had heard the question.

  “I have no further questions, Your Honor,” said Brednick.

  Hannaford, on re-cross, couldn’t really do anything to minimize the points that had been made against them on cross-examination, so he chose to have Brent repeat his story, buttressed by his investigation and the recorded testimony of Myron Talbot. He wanted to give them every chance to reinforce any doubt they may have about Brent’s guilt, no matter how much of a stretch it was.

  Hannaford rested his defense, and Brednick called his own crime lab expert to rebut the testimony of Lawler and Orozco about the smudged fingerprints indicating pulling, rather than thrusting, of the knife. However, he didn’t have the benefit of the body scan virtual corpse model or the virtual knife: only photographs, and they were not as demonstrative and impressive as the 3D model. The expert testified that, in his opinion, the smudged fingerprints didn’t indicate any thrust of the knife in any one direction or the other, and that other fingerprints could have been there and been erased by the blood on the knife’s handle.

  At the end of the day the judge adjourned court and indicated that both sides should be prepared to submit their final summations the next morning.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Brent had no more preparations to make for the final phase of the trial. His entire fate now rested in the hands of the jurors and in the hope that Richard Hannaford could convince them that the prosecution had not proven their case beyond a reasonable doubt. Brent’s only job would be to show up and look innocent. Angela came over to Brent’s to give him the last minute TLC he needed to make it over the emotional hurdle.

  With Calico purring on one side and Angela on his other, Brent felt that this was perhaps the happiest moment of his life. No matter how hard he had worked, no matter what he had strived for; nothing made him feel as good as he felt in that moment. Good: yet a melancholic sadness crept in with the realization that, no matter what happened, it could never last forever.

  “Ange, I want to thank you for standing by me,” he said, touching her hand.

  “I always will.”

  “You shouldn’t make that kind of commitment. Fifteen years to life is a long time. You deserve better.”

  “You deserve better, Brent. I have every confidence in that silver-tongued devil that you’ve hired to defend you.”

  “He is good, isn’t he?”

  “If God needed a lawyer, I’m sure He would choose Richard.”

  Brent smiled, put his arm around Angela, and gave her a squeeze.

  ***

  Brent’s sleep was interrupted by dreams fueled by fear and restlessness. He dreaded the next day so much that he couldn’t stop worrying about it, so he succumbed and took the valium that the doctor had given him to calm his nerves. Sleep finally found him and gave him five hours of peace before he had to get up and prepare for his final ordeal.

  CHAPTER FORTY ONE

  The Romans were given a bad rap for their system of justice. It actually had some resemblance to how things were done in modern times. It was the Germans who became famous for trial by battle, which would become the norm for trials until the 14th century replaced it with what we have now: the trial by jury. Still, the lawyers could be compared to the combatants and the side with the best lawyer had a distinct advantage at trial. Jurors are as malleable with some things as they are set in their ways and stuck with certain opinions that no amount of argument could ever change. When court reconvened, Matthew Brednick concentrated on the facts as he saw them to be: the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

  Brednick strode toward the podium that had been placed in front of the jury box and set down his notes.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I think I speak for all of us on both sides when I thank you for your service. A modern society cannot operate and cannot maintain order without this important function. In fact, it was Abraham Lincoln who said that “the highest calling of any citizen is to serve as a juror.”

  Brent did his job: he was looking innocent, although he had the feeling that Brednick had specially prepared this argument because he was going against the able-witted Richard Hannaford as if this were the most important case he has ever tried. Brednick continued his summation.

  “As I told you in the beginning, this is a very simple case. You are charged with deciding this case on the evidence, and to do that, you are drawing on almost a century of common sense among yourselves. The evidence in this case does not lie. With the application of common sense, it is not capable of any varying interpretations. As we lawyers say: the evidence, ladies and gentlemen, speaks for itself.”

  Brent noticed some of the men on the jury inadvertently nodding to this part of the argument, which made it even harder for him to control his nerves. All the jurors were fixed on Brednick. Nobody seemed to be daydreaming, and all seemed to have taken his charge of responsibility seriously.

  “Mr. Hannaford will try to manipulate you into believing that the People have not met their burden of proving every element of this case beyond a reasonable doubt, but if you remember that your evaluation is based on common sense rather than fantasy, I think that you will see
that the evidence in this case points to only one conclusion: that Brent Marks killed David Marsen with a knife – a dangerous instrument; the use and very handling of which, in close proximity to another human being, is dangerous to human life.

  “It is true that there are no eyewitnesses to the actual deed. However, you have listened to the credible testimony of witnesses who saw Mr. Marks pursue Mr. Marsen, and you have heard from the witnesses who saw him holding the bloody knife over Mr. Marsen’s lifeless body. You have even heard from Mr. Marks himself, who admits that he attacked Mr. Marsen. In other words, Mr. Marks was the one who drew first blood.”

  Brednick proceeded to outline every piece of testimony in the case and to reinforce that testimony in the minds of the jurors. They remained awake and alert during his entire argument.

  “From evidence, you are asked to use logic to make certain inferences. For example, Mr. Marks is found standing over the dead body of David Marsen with a knife in his hand. The knife has Mr. Marks’s fingerprints on it and nobody else’s, and his clothes are covered with the victim’s blood. In this case, there is only one reasonable inference you can draw from the evidence, and that is that Mr. Marks stabbed Marsen with the knife that he held in his hand. There is no evidence, other than Mr. Marks’s testimony (given in the effort to exculpate himself), that anything else occurred. And, ladies and gentlemen, it is simply not reasonable to believe the story of a masked man who forced Marks to withdraw the knife at gunpoint, then miraculously disappeared before a handful of witnesses saw Marks standing there with the knife.

  “The People do not have to show the motive for this crime, although with the exercise of logic, you can see that the motive is clear. Mr. Marks was angry with Marsen for the comments he made about him on the Internet. Angry enough to sue. Angry enough to chase him out of the courthouse and across two busy intersections. Angry enough to tackle him and engage him in a physical altercation; the logical and unfortunate conclusion of which was his death. The taped statements made by Myron Talbot do not change the fact that Mr. Marks pursued David Marsen, and the result of that was Marsen’s death.

  “You may have doubts, ladies and gentlemen; but given the clear inferences that can be drawn from the evidence, as opposed to the fantastic inferences that Mr. Marks asks you to believe, any doubts that you have cannot be reasonable ones. The evidence is irrefutable and leads to only one logical conclusion,” said Brednick, pointing his finger at Brent in an accusatory manner. “That Brent Marks caused the death of David Marsen by stabbing him with a knife, and that he intended to kill him or, because he used a knife, was oblivious to the fact that death or great bodily harm was likely to occur. You must find, ladies and gentlemen, that Mr. Marks is guilty of murder in the second degree, and if you do not find intent - and I cannot see how that is possible - you then must find him guilty of manslaughter.”

  Brednick thanked the jury, then sat down at the counsel table. Judge Renfrew adjusted his bow tie and looked at the clock. It was already close to noon. “Court will recess for the lunch break. We will see you back here at 1:30 for Mr. Hannaford’s final argument.”

  CHAPTER FORTY TWO

  The courtroom was full and silent again as the Clerk announced Judge Renfrew and he took his seat on the bench, then turned over the floor to Richard Hannaford.

  Hannaford looked at Judge Renfrew, thanked him, and stood up at the counsel table. His hands empty of notes, he confidently walked to the podium that had been placed in front of the jury box. But instead of standing behind it, he stood to one side and rested his left hand on it and his right hand on his hip.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, looking at every member of the jury individually. “I would like to join my colleague, Mr. Brednick, in thanking each and every one of you for your service today. You are indeed the most important part of this proceeding. Today you sit together united, but after you are released from service you will, most likely, never see each other again. And today you sit in judgment of a stranger whom you will likely never see again, but the decision you make will impact on his life forever.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Brednick has told you that he believes in his case. I will tell you now that I believe in my case. But neither Mr. Brednick’s nor my belief counts. I am not an unprejudiced witness in this case. I am an advocate - and a strong one at that - and I believe in this case and in the innocence of Mr. Brent Marks more than anything I have believed in over eighty years of my young life."

  Richard moved in front of the podium and stood before the jury.

  “There is an old forgotten book called Bulwer’s Drama of Richelieu, written by Edwin Booth in 1878. In it, the King seeks to condemn Cardinal Richelieu’s ward. Richelieu draws a circle around her, and no man dares to cross it. In this case, the State of California has drawn a circle around any person accused of any crime and allows no man or woman on any jury to cross it unless the prosecutor has proven, beyond a reasonable doubt to each one of you, that the accused has committed the crime. Within this circle, the accused (in this case, Brent Marks) is presumed to be innocent; and whether Mr. Brednick, myself or any of you believe him to be innocent or not is irrelevant. You must weigh the evidence you have heard and seen and decide whether, under the law that the judge will give you, the People have proven every element of murder beyond a reasonable doubt.

  “I now have the opportunity to argue the case on behalf of Mr. Marks. But I am not going to argue with you, ladies and gentlemen: oh, no!” said Hannaford as he slapped his hand against the balustrade of the jury box.

  “I am going to discuss with you the reasonable inferences that I think can be drawn from the evidence which has been presented. Now, none of you are lawyers and none of you have been to law school. But you all have something very important that you have developed through the years, and that is your common sense. It is this, more than anything else, that we ask you to use in making your decisions about this case.

  “Mr. Brednick asks you to draw the inference that Brent Marks killed David Marsen from the evidence that he ran after him and that he tackled him and, after Marsen was dead, a group of people saw Mr. Marks standing over Marsen with a knife, with Marsen’s blood all over his clothing. Can you make this inference? Of course you can. But your job is to examine each piece of the evidence under the microscope of reasonable doubt and, if there is another, equally plausible inference that can be reasonably drawn from the evidence that points to the defendant’s innocence, then that is the one you must select.

  “Reasonable doubt may seem like a concept that you have never thought about before, but I can assure you that every one of you is familiar with it in your daily lives. The judge will instruct you that a reasonable doubt is not a possible or imaginary doubt. For example, take the conspiracy theories about the moon landing being a hoax. Your parents, grandparents, and some of you watched the moon landing on TV in 1969. People watched the Apollo rockets take off from Cape Kennedy. There are pictures of the first and many moon landings thereafter. If you have doubts about the moon landing, they are not reasonable.

  “However, I think we all have locked the doors, turned out the lights, and packed up the car to leave on a trip and, as we back out of the driveway, we stop and go back in to check and make sure we turned off the iron or the stove. We know that we did, but we have a doubt and it is a doubt, however small, that is strong enough to make us go back into the house and check. That is a reasonable doubt: a doubt, even a tiny one, that causes you to check and make absolutely sure.

  Richard put on the show for the jury that he promised Brent he would, discussing every piece of evidence and showing how equally plausible inferences could be drawn from them to support Brent’s innocence as much as those which pointed to his guilt.

  Hannaford walked over to the evidence table and picked up the knife, then walked back to the jury box, holding it in the air.

  “The knife! Is there a reasonable doubt that this was the knife that caused the death of David Marsen? No!�
�� he said, and slammed it down on the balustrade.

  “But there is a reasonable doubt that Brent Marks was the person who thrust this knife into Marsen’s body. Why? Because Brent was examined, searched, and went through a metal detector at the federal courthouse, a seven-minute walk from where Marsen was killed. His belongings were X-rayed, and through all that screening, this knife…,” said Hannaford, holding it up and shaking it in front of the jury, “This seven-inch-long knife was not in Brent’s possession. It was not in his possession when he ran out of the courtroom after Mr. Marsen, it was not in his possession as he ran after Marsen in the street, and it was not in his possession when he tackled Marsen in the alley five minutes later. Brent simply could not have picked up the knife along the way because he would have lost sight of Marsen, who was running away from him. From this evidence, you must infer that Brent did not, in fact, have possession of the knife, because that is the inference that points to his innocence."