by John Grisham
While this was going on, Judge Schofield met with the lawyers in chambers to iron out their current difficulties. Max Mancini was demanding another continuance. More time was needed to find Keith Knoxel. The search was only a month old, and until there was a body, dead or alive, it simply wasn’t fair to proceed without the State’s star witness. The FBI was involved. There may have been a sighting in Canada. His wife was clinging to hope.
Nonsense, argued Sebastian Rudd. He’s dead and they’ll never find his body. There’s not one speck of evidence indicating Knoxel ran away; therefore, he got snatched by some nasty types while poking around Little Angola, no doubt looking for his dear Jane Doe, and they probably slit his throat and tossed him in the river. With concrete boots.
The ace was up Sebastian’s sleeve, not Mancini’s. The defendant was entitled to a speedy trial, so speedy that if he so chose he could force the State to pick a jury 120 days after indictment. That was twelve months ago, and Sebastian had agreed to a few continuances because he needed the extra time. Now, though, he was ready and he wanted a trial.
For a while Sebastian had toyed with the idea of agreeing with Mancini. There was a strategic reason for wanting Knoxel on the stand. If Sebastian could humiliate him, expose his lies and infidelities, he could crush the State’s case. Ripping Knoxel in front of the jury, and for the benefit of the front page, would be an intense, dramatic moment, and Sebastian hated to miss it. In the end, though, he convinced himself that his client’s defense was far better off with Knoxel out of the picture.
Sebastian suspected there was yet another factor in play, though it was not mentioned. When he read the affidavits of John and Jane Doe, Judge Schofield was skeptical of Knoxel’s version of events. It seemed unlikely that the two witnesses, one a hooker and one a crackhead, could tell the same basic story. In his thirty years on the bench, Schofield had heard plenty of false testimony by the police and was wary of them on the witness stand. He found Knoxel’s narrative a bit too convenient, too pat. Buck Lester fired four shots, then somehow dropped his gun, giving a wounded Thomas Cardell a split second to shoot him in the head.
Schofield’s doubts led to his ruling that Jane and John could testify.
The lawyers argued and the judge listened but did not change his plans. No more continuances.
18.
Jury selection took seven days, and when number twelve was finally sworn in, the box was filled with eight whites, three blacks, and one Hispanic; six men, six women; average age was forty-eight.
Tee Ray whispered to his lawyer, “We got ’em, boss.”
Sebastian said nothing but felt the same way.
As Max Mancini strutted to the podium for his opening statement, Sebastian studied the faces of the jurors. He knew their kids’ names, where they went to church, if at all, which ones had been through a divorce, where they lived and worked, the makes and models of all their vehicles, who had sued or been sued, who had been fired, who had been arrested, and so on. And after memorizing their faces and their backgrounds, and studying them for seven days, he felt like he’d known them forever.
And the trial was just starting.
Tee Ray knew them too. He had copies of everything his lawyers had. He’d kept his sanity for eleven months in solitary confinement by reading case law, code sections, heavy books on trial strategies, anything and everything Sebastian could haul in. And now that he was finally in court, he was determined to miss nothing. During the tedium of jury selection, he had filled dozens of legal pads with his copious note taking. He owned one suit, dark gray, one white shirt, and two striped ties, and with his new horn-rimmed glasses—fake but effective—he could easily pass for another lawyer. Sebastian had lectured him on how to act during all aspects of the trial: no emotions, no reactions, no head shaking at bogus testimony, no eye contact with jurors, no frustration with the judge, no animosity toward Mancini. Sit erect, proper, concerned, respectful, and hear every word. Write down as much as humanly possible.
To his left was Sebastian. To his right, in the “second chair,” was a young lawyer named Will Kendall, a rookie from the public defender’s office who’d volunteered just for the experience. The rules of procedure required two lawyers for the defense in a capital murder trial. Kendall was excited to be included but knew his duties were quite limited.
Sebastian had realized that the smartest guy at the table might well be the defendant himself. Tee Ray had said more than once that he’d fallen in love with the law. If he managed to dodge death row, he might dream of law school.
Let’s take it one step at a time, Sebastian said.
In the biggest trial of his career as the city’s chief prosecutor, Max was well prepared. Not a gifted courtroom orator, he nonetheless kept the jury’s attention. He stayed behind the podium, close to the notes on his legal pad.
Max played his best hand—outrage at the death of such a brave young policeman. He told the jury wonderful things about Buck Lester, then awful things about the dangers of his job. Aren’t we lucky as a city to have officers willing to go undercover and go into the darkest and most dangerous streets?
Predictably, he beat that drum a bit too long and a couple of jurors began looking around. If Knoxel were upstairs in the witness room waiting to testify, Max would have the luxury of narrating a gripping account of the killing. Buck on his knees, grabbing for his gun as the killer approached, with bullets flying, and so on. But Knoxel had vanished, and Max had no other eyewitnesses. Therefore, in his opening statement, he was handcuffed by what he could actually prove. Thomas Ray Cardell fired the shot that killed Buck Lester; he had admitted as much. The defendant will claim it was in self-defense, but please, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, be wary of such testimony. The defendant is on trial for his life.
When Max finally sat down, the jurors and spectators were more than ready for him to do so. Sebastian stood and informed the court that he was opting to deliver his opening statement at the beginning of the defense’s portion of the trial. It was an unusual move but not unheard of. If the prosecution had an airtight case, Sebastian would attack early, in his opening, and warn the jurors about what was coming. But the prosecution’s case was not that strong. He decided to hear it first and ridicule it later.
As Sebastian sat down, he glanced at the crowded courtroom. Jameel and Miss Luella were in the first row directly behind him. Across the aisle, in the front row behind the prosecution, the city’s police chief and half a dozen of his finest were packed shoulder to shoulder, in full uniform, watching the jurors and frowning gravely. It was a part of their playbook when a cop was involved, and it was nothing but intimidation. Judge Schofield knew it too, but there was a dead officer. If his comrades wanted to sit through the trial, they had that right.
The first witness was Melody Lester, Buck’s widow. When he died, they had been married for twenty months and had no children. With Max lobbing up easy questions, she began crying almost immediately as she described what a wonderful person her husband had been. Schofield allowed them to go all the way back to Buck’s high school days, to his glorious athletic career, then the Marines and the wars, his medals and heroics.
Max worked deliberately, trying to build as much sympathy as possible. Sebastian offered nothing on cross-examination. Melody was still in tears when she left the box. Next was Buck’s mother, and another round of crying.
Almost all of this nonsense was irrelevant and inadmissible. Buck’s glorious past had nothing to do with his tragic death. Nevertheless, one or two grieving relatives were always admitted to open a trial and warm up the jury.
19.
During the lunch break, Mancini asked Sebastian to step aside for a word. He whispered, “I don’t like this jury. We’ll offer a deal.”
“I’m listening,” Sebastian said.
“Plea to first degree, we’ll drop the death penalty.”
“Great. So my guy will spend the next forty years in prison.”
“Does he want the death
penalty?”
“No, but he’d rather get the needle than forty years.”
“Are you saying no?”
“I can’t do that. I’ll run it by him, but I’m sure he’ll say no.”
Tee Ray said no quickly. They were eating sandwiches at the defense table, along with Will Kendall, and prepping for the afternoon. The courtroom was empty except for two armed deputies lounging in the back row. Their job was to keep an eye on the defendant, but after hauling him back and forth between the jail and the courthouse for days now, they knew they had little to worry about.
20.
The medical examiner, Dr. Glover, took the stand and swore to tell the truth. Sebastian conceded that he was an expert in forensic pathology. Glover had been doing this for years and had a solid reputation. He and Max wasted no time getting to the gore. As Max handed the jurors enlarged color photos of Buck’s head, Glover talked about the autopsy. A single bullet entered through the right eye socket, fatally damaging the brain, lodging there and making no exit. They had a large photo of the bullet and one of Buck on the sidewalk. Buck on the slab. Buck’s cranium cut open. The female jurors turned away. The men couldn’t get enough. It was like watching a car wreck: awful, but compelling.
Glover was a seasoned expert, and Sebastian knew he had little to work with on cross. He asked the doctor if it was possible to determine the angle at which the bullet entered Buck’s right eye socket. The answer was no, because he, Glover, did not know if Buck had been standing, kneeling, falling, sitting, or lying down when he got hit. Nor was there any evidence as to the position of Mr. Cardell when he fired the shot.
Perfect. Sebastian was trying to put to rest the original lie that Buck Lester had been executed as he begged for his life. This had been leaked by the police right after the shooting and became another front-page story. Not even Keith Knoxel, in his fabricated version, had included the bit about Buck on his knees, pleading.
Sebastian asked Dr. Glover if it was possible to determine the distance between the .38-caliber pistol when it fired the fatal shot and the bullet’s point of impact. The answer was no; not without additional facts. Any guess would only be speculation.
Thank you, Dr. Glover.
The first officer on the scene—actually the second after Keith Knoxel—was Nat Rooker. He and his partner had been in their car near the Flea Market when they heard the frantic call from Keith Knoxel. Rooker described the scene for the jury: the body of Buck Lester lying on the sidewalk, the blood, his fading pulse, the defendant also on the ground, bleeding from an arm wound. A large screen was set up in the courtroom, in front of the jury, and Max walked Rooker through every inch of the crime scene.
Interesting but also tedious. Sebastian watched the jurors. They were fascinated at first, but Max and Rooker soon bored them. No detail was too small for the prosecutor to hammer on. Nothing was in dispute here. It had been a gunfight; both men had been hit.
After Buck and the defendant were taken away, Rooker and his partner helped the crime scene technicians scour the area. They found two spent casings from the .38. They found four from Buck’s Beretta.
By 5:30 everyone was exhausted, and Schofield adjourned until nine the following morning, a Thursday. They had spent seven days picking the jury and now one day of testimony. When the jurors were gone and the crowd was filing out, the deputies handcuffed Tee Ray and led him away. Sebastian spent a few minutes with Jameel and Miss Luella, seated as always in the front row, as close to the defense table as possible.
He assured them that it had been a good day. No surprises, yet.
21.
The detective assigned to the case was Landy Reardon, from Homicide. A veteran with a fine reputation, Reardon had spent years on the streets and many hours on the witness stand. He was sworn in Thursday morning, and he and Max began slowly plowing through the exhibits. The Beretta owned by Buck was shown to the jury and admitted into evidence, followed by the .38 used by Tee Ray. The six shell casings were next, one at a time. Photos of each were introduced. Only three of the four bullets from the Beretta were recovered by the technicians, and these were methodically produced, discussed, shown to the jury, and admitted. The first shot fired from Tee Ray’s .38 was never found. The second, the one extracted from Buck’s brain during the autopsy, was mounted in a plastic case and handed to the jurors. They gawked at it as they quickly passed it along.
Max was in no hurry. He slowly took each exhibit, discussed it with Reardon, offered it as evidence, got it admitted, then made a production of showing it to the jury.
Without the statement Tee Ray gave the police, crime scene ballistics would have taken two days, as experts would have tried to prove who shot what and where the bullets landed. Detective Reardon explained to the jury that late on the afternoon after the killing, Mr. Cardell was brought from the hospital to the Central Police Station. He agreed to answer some questions. He waived his Miranda rights and said he knew what he was doing. The screen appeared again and the courtroom lights were dimmed.
The video began. Tee Ray was sitting at a table, his left elbow covered with gauze and tape. There was a small bandage on his chin, another on his forehead. He was alert, coherent, and said he was not under the influence of medication.
Reardon, off camera but loud and clear, went through the preliminaries. Date, time, place, full agreement to make a statement, waiver of the right to remain silent.
Reardon said, “Tell me what happened last night.”
Tee Ray shifted his weight, grimaced as he touched his left elbow, then shrugged and began. He told his story without interruption. While he was on his knees, in full compliance, the officer began firing. The first shot hit the sidewalk in front of Tee Ray. He touched both bandages on his face where the flecks of concrete struck him. The second shot grazed the shoulder of his coat. The third hit his elbow. He kept screaming for the cop not to shoot. When he got hit, he fell, scrambled, and tried to get under a parked car. The fourth shot hit the car. To save his life, he managed to yank out his gun and fire two shots. There was no other cop around during the shooting, but one appeared just afterward.
Reardon: So you admit shooting the officer?
Cardell: In self-defense. He shot at me four times while I was on my knees with my hands up. It was pretty obvious he was going to kill me.
Reardon: What were you doing on that street at that time of the night?
Cardell: I live there. I can walk down any street anytime I want.
Reardon: Were you moving drugs into the Flea Market?
Cardell: I’m not answering that. At this point, I ain’t talking no more and I want a lawyer.
Reardon: Just a couple more questions.
Cardell: No, sir. I’m done. Nothing else. I want a lawyer.
Reardon: Where did you get the gun?
Cardell: I have the right to remain silent.
Reardon: Do you know a crack dealer by the street name of Tox?
Cardell: I have the right to remain silent. A lawyer, please.
The screen went black. The video was over.
The lights came on and the screen was removed. Judge Schofield said it was time for lunch.
22.
Sebastian began the afternoon session by asking Reardon if he had a copy of the defendant’s hospital records. He did not, so Sebastian produced the records and asked Reardon to quickly scan them. He pointed out certain sections, then forced Reardon to admit that the tests performed on Mr. Cardell’s blood revealed no trace of alcohol or narcotics, prescription or otherwise, when he was rushed into the ER with a gunshot wound.
Sebastian asked what kind of rap sheet the police had on Mr. Cardell.
Nothing. No convictions. No arrests.
“Not even a speeding ticket?” Sebastian asked, astonished.
Reardon shook his head. No.
23.
By 3:00 p.m. Thursday, the second day of testimony, the State had offered virtually all the proof it had. Buck Lester had been shot and k
illed by a single bullet, one fired by the defendant, Thomas Ray Cardell. It was still unclear who shot first, last, and for what reason or reasons. Indeed, the only clue as to what happened during the encounter was provided by the defendant himself in his brief video statement.
The only way to prove Cardell was guilty of murder was through the testimony of the missing witness, Officer Keith Knoxel. During his investigation, Detective Reardon had interrogated Knoxel at length and, as was his practice, had recorded Knoxel’s version in an affidavit—a sworn statement. It had been typed by a police stenographer and notarized by a police administrator.
The affidavit was not admissible in a court of law because (1)
