The Lawyer's Lawyer

by James Sheehan

Tom did not sit down. “Your Honor, I have to make my record for an appellate court, if necessary. This is a very important point and I need to be heard.”

  The judge glared at him. “Your objection is noted.”

  “A general objection does not preserve the record, Your Honor.”

  The judge knew Tom was right. “Approach.”

  He laid into Tom when they reached sidebar. “Counselor, when I have ruled, I don’t want any further discussion.”

  “With all due respect, Your Honor, I represent a man who is on trial for his life. I need to make my record, and the court has an obligation to allow me to do so.”

  “Don’t tell me about my obligations, Counselor.”

  Tom didn’t answer. He’d made his point and the judge knew it. There were a few moments of silence before Holbrook spoke again.

  “Go ahead, make your record.”

  “Your Honor, we can’t rehear the appeal of Thomas Felton. The Florida Supreme Court ruled on that case. The question Mr. Merton asked and the ensuing questions that I anticipate he will ask are an attempt to tell this jury that what the supreme court ruled concerning the evidence in that case wasn’t true. This court cannot allow that to happen.”

  The judge looked at Robert Merton. “Mr. Merton?”

  “We’re not trying to overturn anything, Your Honor. You will not hear me mention the supreme court. I’m just asking this witness about what he did and what he observed. Mr. Wylie is free to cross-examine him as he sees fit. The testimony is relevant because it goes to Mr. Tobin’s motive.”

  Tom interjected without being asked. “He’s about to contradict the findings of the Florida Supreme Court. He can’t do that.”

  “I’m going to allow it,” Judge Holbrook said. “But only to a limited extent. Mr. Merton, I don’t want you spending all day on this stuff and I don’t want to hear anything about the supreme court’s decision.”

  “You won’t, Your Honor. I have only a few questions.”

  “And Mr. Wylie, I’m giving you a continuing objection as to this subject matter so you don’t have to object to every question. You have made your record as to this issue, Counselor. Have I made myself clear?”

  “Yes, Your Honor.” Tom almost spit out the words.

  Back at the table, Jack was more than curious. “What did he say?”

  “He’s going to let him go into it. This judge is killing us.”

  “Actually, he’s only killing one of us,” Jack replied.

  Tom looked at him.

  “It’s a joke,” Jack said. “A little maudlin, maybe, but I’ve got to keep you loose somehow, Tom.”

  Tom didn’t look at Jack. He just smiled. What client on trial for murder worries about keeping his lawyer loose? he thought.

  Merton continued his questioning of Sam Jeffries.

  “I ask you again, Chief Jeffries, was there anything wrong in the task force’s investigation of the serial killings?”

  “No.”

  “What was the supposed problem that got Mr. Felton released?”

  Tom couldn’t help himself. Merton was doing exactly what he had said he wasn’t going to do. He was asking Jeffries why the supreme court released Felton and in the next question, he would ask Jeffries, without specifically asking, why the supreme court was wrong. “Objection, Your Honor. This is a specific, blatant collateral attack on the ruling of the Florida Supreme Court.”

  “Sit down, Counselor,” Judge Holbrook shouted. There was no problem hearing him above the din of the ceiling fans, the air conditioners, and the rain. “One more speaking objection and I will hold you in contempt of court! Your objection is overruled. Continue, Mr. Merton, but make it quick with this line of questioning. I’m giving you a short leash.”

  “Yes, Your Honor.” To the witness: “Do you remember the question, Chief?”

  “I do. The murder weapon in the Brock/Diaz murders was a bowie knife. I testified to that and the coroner testified. The coroner’s report was never introduced into evidence. Ten years later, the coroner was dead and his report was used to show that there was somehow a discrepancy in the size of the entry wounds that were recorded on the document. It was nothing more than a typing error.”

  Tom was on his feet.

  “Sit down, Mr. Wylie!” the judge shouted before Tom could say anything. “And don’t say a word or, so help me, I will hold you in contempt of court!”

  Tom sat down, livid. Merton and the judge were pushing his buttons now, a fact that did not go unnoticed by Jack.

  “Stay calm. Stay focused,” Jack whispered to his lawyer.

  “So the basis of Mr. Tobin’s legal appeal on behalf of Mr. Felton was what?”

  “He argued that the evidence, the bowie knife, was not the real murder weapon. It was planted.”

  “And who found the bowie knife?”

  “I did.”

  “So who was the finger pointed at?”

  “Me.”

  “And at the time this man”—Merton took the opportunity to point his finger directly at Jack—“At the time this man was pointing the finger at you, you had already lost your wife at the hands of this serial killer, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “And when he was eventually released, what happened?”

  Sam could not speak. It took minutes for him to compose himself so he could mouth the words. Everybody saw the struggle. Everybody felt the struggle. The eyes turned red and glassy. The massive chest heaved up and down. Sam tried to form the words but they just wouldn’t come out. Everybody watched this giant of a man fall apart right in front of their eyes and they couldn’t help but react.

  When Sam finally weakly blurted out the words “I lost my daughter,” there wasn’t a dry eye in the courtroom, except for Tom, who was still livid, and the judge.

  Jack Tobin was a pro. He’d represented men accused of murder. He’d represented men on death row, and he had tried hundreds of cases. He knew more than anybody that the demeanor of the people on trial was so important. Yet with all his knowledge and experience, Jack could not control his own emotions. He was almost as upset as Sam, knowing his part in this heartbreaking tragedy. His demeanor did not go unnoticed by the jurors, some of whom were looking directly at him.

  Merton had now gotten to Tom Wylie and his client. And he wasn’t through.

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Sam Jeffries took the jurors with him on his imaginary tale about finding the body of the killer of his wife and daughter. He left out the fact that he had bashed the man’s head in and taken his gun. Nobody needed to know those facts. Not when they were considering the fate of the lawyer who had set his wife’s killer free, the lawyer who gave his daughter a death sentence. No, they didn’t need those facts. Jack Tobin was finally going to get what he deserved.

  “What specifically did you do when you came upon the body, Mr. Jeffries?” Merton asked.

  “I didn’t know whether he was alive or not, although there was blood everywhere. I checked his pulse.”

  “And?”

  “And he was dead. I then looked around for the shooter. This was in the woods right behind Danni Jansen’s house, so I thought it might have been Danni. She would never have left the body though. Nobody would have left the body unless there was foul play.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You shoot somebody, whether in self-defense or because they are fleeing a crime, you go to them immediately to see what their condition is. You don’t run in the opposite direction unless you want to hide something.”

  “What did Mr. Tobin want to hide?”

  Tom was on his feet. “Objection, Your Honor. Speculation.”

  “Overruled.”

  “What did Mr. Tobin want to hide?” Merton repeated the question.

  “He wanted to hide the fact that he had murdered Mr. Felton in cold blood.”

  Merton knew that he had gotten ahead of himself so he backtracked.

  “What happened after you checked the pulse, dete
rmined that Felton was dead, and looked around for the shooter?”

  “I called the station and ordered a forensics team and homicide detectives to come to the scene. I then pulled out my binoculars and looked toward Danni Jansen’s house. I saw a man knocking on her door and then I saw Danni come out and greet him.”

  “Anything else that you did?”

  “I saw a backpack on Felton so I put on some rubber gloves, turned the body over, and opened the backpack. There were some clothes, a toothbrush, and some papers.”

  “Did you look at the papers?”

  “I did. One was a document called a claims bill and the other was a contingency fee agreement.”

  “Are you familiar with what a claims bill is?”

  “Yes. As chief of police I have attended many seminars where claims bills have been discussed. A claims bill in Mr. Felton’s circumstance is a request for the legislature to pay him for all the years he lost when he was wrongfully incarcerated.”

  “And the contingency fee agreement?”

  “That was an agreement between Felton and the defendant whereby Felton was going to pay the defendant one-third of what he got.”

  “And how much were they requesting in the claims bill?”

  “Twenty million dollars.”

  Somebody in the audience let out a loud gasp, which opened the door for the rest of the gallery to start whispering among themselves, causing Judge Holbrook to bang his gavel several times.

  “Order in the court! Order in the court! I will have this courtroom cleared if there is not immediate silence.”

  The gallery stopped murmuring almost immediately.

  “If that happens again,” the judge said, “I will have you all removed.” He then directed his attention to Robert Merton. “You may proceed, Counselor.”

  “So the claims bill requested twenty million dollars. What was Mr. Tobin’s take?”

  “Approximately six million six hundred and sixty-six thousand dollars.”

  The murmuring started again but stopped when Judge Holbrook picked up the gavel and looked out into the gallery.

  “And what happened to Mr. Tobin’s take when Thomas Felton killed your daughter?”

  Tom could have objected. Nobody had ever determined that Thomas Felton had killed Kathleen Jeffries, but everybody assumed it, including Jack. An objection now would only make him look like an idiot when Jack later testified that he thought Felton was the killer.

  “It was gone. The legislature was never going to give Thomas Felton any money. All he was going to get was a one-way ticket to hell.”

  “Now I want to go back to something you said earlier in your testimony: You said that Jack Tobin, the defendant, wanted to hide the fact that he killed Thomas Felton in cold blood. Why did you assume he had killed Thomas Felton in cold blood?”

  “Because Felton had caused him to lose his payday by killing my daughter.”

  “And in your opinion, that was his motivation to kill Felton?”

  “Objection, Your Honor. Opinion testimony.”

  “Overruled. Proceed.”

  “Jesus,” Tom said to Jack. “You’d think the judge would at least want to make it look like a fair fight.”

  “You’d think,” Jack said.

  “Yes,” Sam Jeffries answered. “That’s my opinion.”

  “How do you know it was Jack Tobin who killed Felton?”

  “He told me—right at the scene. He and Danni Jansen showed up minutes after I arrived on the scene. Tobin told me he had killed Felton.”

  “And what facts do you have that the defendant lured Felton into the woods?”

  “One of the things we recovered was Felton’s cell phone. Two nights before the shooting, Jack Tobin had called Felton and he called him again moments before Felton was shot.”

  The crowd started buzzing again. Judge Holbrook didn’t say a word. He simply smacked down the gavel and everything was quiet again.

  “How did those facts add to your investigation?”

  “Well, once we saw the claims bill and the contingency fee agreement, we knew Tobin had the motive to kill Felton. The telephone told us how. The first call two days before was probably to set up the meeting in the woods. The call moments before the shooting was to make sure Felton was there and to pinpoint his location.”

  “But why the woods?” Merton was eliciting the testimony piece by piece as if he were solving a mystery right in front of his audience. It was working. The jurors and the gallery were on the edge of their seats.

  “It set up a perfect alibi for Tobin. He was in the woods to protect Danni Jansen. Felton came by and he shot him—of course, after Felton supposedly pulled a gun.”

  “But there was no gun?”

  “No. We searched every inch of those woods within a thousand feet of where the body lay and found nothing.”

  “I’m going to test you a little bit here, Chief Jeffries,” Merton, the quizmaster said. “If the scenario you laid out for the jury is true, and the defendant set Felton up for murder, why didn’t he plant a gun on Felton after he shot him? Wouldn’t that have cemented his story?”

  “Yes, it would have. I think Tobin was planning on doing exactly that. Unfortunately, I showed up before he could plant the gun. So he went to Danni’s house instead, making up the story that he was concerned about her safety.”

  “Objection, Your Honor. Speculation.”

  “Overruled. You may proceed, Mr. Merton.”

  “Why didn’t he just leave the scene?”

  “He couldn’t. He had set up a camp there in the woods. We found his credit card and clothes. There was too much evidence that he was there for him to flee the scene. Besides, we could trace the bullet to his gun. It was quick thinking on his part to do what he did.”

  “What about the gun you said he was going to plant—did you ever find that?”

  “No.”

  “Did you take him into custody that day?”

  “Yes, we took him to the station for questioning.”

  “Did you search him?”

  “At the station, yes.”

  “So, where did the gun go?”

  “We believe he threw it away, sometime after he shot Felton and before we took him into custody—before he met up with Danni. Danni Jansen is an experienced police officer. He wouldn’t have been able to dispose of the gun in her presence.”

  “Did you look for that gun?”

  “We did but I have to explain the timing. We initially were searching for a gun that Felton supposedly had on his person, so we were searching in the neighborhood of the body. We only kept Tobin in custody a couple of hours. By the time we put all the pieces together and even considered the possibility of a planted gun, Tobin was free and had the opportunity to go back and retrieve the gun himself. So we never had any realistic expectation of finding it.”

  At this point in the questioning, Merton walked to the far wall next to the prosecution table and picked up a large rectangular object that looked like, and in fact was, a piece of foam board. There was an easel leaning against the wall as well, and his assistant, the pretty brunette female lawyer who had been doing nothing up to this point, grabbed the easel and walked with Merton. At his direction, she set up the easel and he placed the foam board on it. There was an elaborate diagram on the foam board and it was now facing the jury so they could see it clearly. There was a house and a yard and woods and they were all in color. Tom had been at the scene several times so he recognized the diagram right away.

  “Do you recognize this diagram that I have set up in front of the jury?” Merton asked Sam Jeffries.

  “Yes. It shows Danni Jansen’s house, her backyard, and the woods surrounding her backyard.”

  “Your Honor, I have marked a smaller version of this diagram as State’s Exhibit number ten. I’d like to introduce it into evidence at this point.”

  The judge looked at Tom. “Do you have any objection, Counselor?”

  “No, Your Honor.”


  “State’s Exhibit number ten is admitted. Proceed, Counselor.”

  “Now, Chief Jeffries, I have a pointer here and I would like you to come down and take this pointer and show the jury approximately where you found the body, where you first saw Mr. Tobin, and where you looked for this gun you believe Mr. Tobin threw away.”

  Sam Jeffries got up from the witness stand, lumbered down to the easel, took the pointer from Robert Merton, and proceeded to show the jury all of the important locations specified by Merton in his question. It was a very effective presentation.

  “Once again, can you show the jury where you looked for the gun Mr. Tobin threw away?”

  Again using the pointer, Jeffries showed the jury the specific area. “We looked here in the area of woods and backyard to the left of Danni Jansen’s house.”

  “Why did you look there?”

  “Jack Tobin is right-handed. If he is running toward Danni’s house and he needs to get rid of the gun, that is the most logical place that he would have thrown it.”

  “I have no further questions, Your Honor.”

  “Cross-examination, Counselor?” the judge asked Tom.

  “Yes, Your Honor.” Tom stood and walked to the podium.

  Tom had no intention of cross-examining Jeffries on most of the issues that he had raised. There was no need. Jack was going to testify and Jack would address just about everything. Tom had a few points he wanted to make and that was it. As an experienced trial lawyer, he knew less was sometimes more. Make it simple. Keep the jury focused.

  “Chief Jeffries, why were you out there in the woods on a Sunday morning?”

  “Why?”

  “Yes, that’s the question. Why?”

  “I anticipated Felton might come after Danni. Danni was on the task force. Felton had threatened her in the past. He killed my daughter to get back at me. It was logical that he would come after Danni, and it was logical that he would come through the woods where he could not be seen.”

  “But why you?”

  “Why me what?”

  “Why were you out there on Sunday morning? You have a whole police force under you. You could have had two or four or six officers out in those woods or, even better, a SWAT team, couldn’t you?”