THE LINCOLN LAWYER (2005)

by Michael Connelly

  "You testified at his trial that he confessed the crime to you while you were both together in a police station holding cell. Isn't that correct?"

  "Like I said, it's hard for me to remember back then."

  "The police put you in that holding cell because they knew you were willing to snitch, even if you had to make it up, didn't they?"

  My voice was rising with each question.

  "I don't remember that," Corliss responded. "But I don't make things up."

  "Then, eight years later, the man who you testified had told you he did it was exonerated when a DNA test determined that the semen from the girl's attacker came from another man. Isn't that correct, sir?"

  "I don't . . . I mean . . . that was a long time ago."

  "Do you remember being questioned by a reporter for theArizona Star newspaper following the release of Frederic Bentley?"

  "Vaguely. I remember somebody calling but I didn't say anything."

  "He told you that DNA tests exonerated Bentley and asked you whether you fabricated Bentley's confession, didn't he?"

  "I don't know."

  I held the paper I was clutching up toward the bench.

  "Your Honor, I have an archival story from theArizona Star newspaper here. It is dated February ninth, nineteen ninety-seven. A member of my staff came across it when she Googled the name D.J. Corliss on her office computer. I ask that it be marked as a defense exhibit and admitted into evidence as a historical document detailing an admission by silence."

  My request set off a brutal clash with Minton about authenticity and proper foundation. Ultimately, the judge ruled in my favor. She was showing some of the same outrage I was manufacturing, and Minton didn't stand much of a chance.

  The bailiff took the computer printout to Corliss, and the judge instructed him to read it.

  "I'm not too good at reading, Judge," he said.

  "Try, Mr. Corliss."

  Corliss held the paper up and leaned his face into it as he read.

  "Out loud, please," Fullbright barked.

  Corliss cleared his throat and read in a halting voice.

  "'A man wrongly convicted of rape was released Saturday from the Arizona Correctional Institution and vowed to seek justice for other inmates falsely accused. Frederic Bentley, thirty-four, served almost eight years in prison for attacking a sixteen-year-old Tempe girl. The victim of the assault identified Bentley, a neighbor, and blood tests matched his type to semen recovered from the victim after the attack. The case was bolstered at trial by testimony from an informant who said Bentley had confessed the crime to him while they were housed together in a holding cell. Bentley always maintained his innocence during the trial and even after his conviction. Once DNA testing was accepted as valid evidence by courts in the state, Bentley hired attorneys to fight for such testing of semen collected from the victim of the attack. A judge ordered the testing earlier this year, and the resulting analysis proved Bentley was not the attacker.

  "'At a press conference yesterday at the Arizona Biltmore the newly freed Bentley railed against jailhouse informants and called for a state law that would put strict guidelines on police and prosecutors who wish to use them.

  "'The informant who claimed in sworn testimony that Bentley admitted the rape was identified as D.J. Corliss, a Mesa man who had been arrested on drug charges. When told of Bentley's exoneration and asked whether he fabricated his testimony against Bentley, Corliss declined comment Saturday. At his press conference, Bentley charged that Corliss was well known to the police as a snitch and was used in several cases to get close to suspects. Bentley claimed that Corliss's practice was to make up confessions if he could not draw them out of the suspects. The case against Bentley -'"

  "Okay, Mr. Corliss," I said. "I think that is enough."

  Corliss put the printout down and looked at me like a child who has opened the door of a crowded closet and sees everything about to fall out on top of him.

  "Were you ever charged with perjury in the Bentley case?" I asked him.

  "No, I wasn't," he said forcefully, as if that fact exonerated him of wrongdoing.

  "Was that because the police were complicit with you in setting up Mr. Bentley?"

  Minton objected, saying, "I am sure Mr. Corliss would have no idea what went into the decision of whether or not to charge him with perjury."

  Fullbright sustained it but I didn't care. I was so far ahead on this witness that there was no catching up. I just moved on to the next question.

  "Did any prosecutor or police officer ask you to get close to Mr. Roulet and get him to confide in you?"

  "No, it was just luck of the draw, I guess."

  "You were not told to get a confession from Mr. Roulet?"

  "No, I was not."

  I stared at him for a long moment with disgust in my eyes.

  "I have nothing further."

  I carried the pose of anger with me to my seat and dropped the tape box angrily down in front of me before sitting down.

  "Mr. Minton?" the judge asked.

  "I have nothing further," he responded in a weak voice.

  "Okay," Fullbright said quickly. "I am going to excuse the jury for an early lunch. I would like you all back here at one o'clock sharp."

  She put on a strained smile and directed it at the jurors and kept it there until they had filed out of the courtroom. It dropped off her face the moment the door was closed.

  "I want to see counsel in my chambers," she said. "Immediately."

  She didn't wait for any response. She left the bench so fast that her robe flowed up behind her like the black gown of the grim reaper.

  FORTY-ONE

  Judge Fullbright had already lit a cigarette by the time Minton and I got back to her chambers. After one long drag she put it out against a glass paperweight and then put the butt into a Ziploc bag she had taken out of her purse. She closed the bag, folded it and replaced it in the purse. She would leave no evidence of her transgression for the night cleaners or anyone else. She exhaled the smoke toward a ceiling intake vent and then brought her eyes down to Minton's. Judging by the look in them I was glad I wasn't him.

  "Mr. Minton, what the fuck have you done to my trial?"

  "Your -"

  "Shut up and sit down. Both of you."

  We did as we were told. The judge composed herself and leaned forward across her desk. She was still looking at Minton.

  "Who did the due diligence on this witness of yours?" she asked calmly. "Who did the background?"

  "Uh, that would have-actually, we only did a background on him in L.A. County. There were no cautions, no flags. I checked his name on the computer but I didn't use the initials."

  "How many times had he been used in this county before today?"

  "Only one previous time in court. But he had given information on three other cases I could find. Nothing about Arizona came up."

  "Nobody thought to check to see if this guy had been anywhere else or used variations of his name?"

  "I guess not. He was passed on to me by the original prosecutor on the case. I just assumed she had checked him out."

  "Bullshit," I said.

  The judge turned her eyes to me. I could have sat back and watched Minton go down but I wasn't going to let him try to take Maggie McPherson with him.

  "The original prosecutor was Maggie McPherson," I said. "She had the case all of about three hours. She's my ex-wife and she knew as soon as she saw me at first apps that she was gone. And you got the case that same day, Minton. Where in there was she supposed to background your witnesses, especially this guy who didn't come out from under his rock until after first appearance? She passed him on and that was it."

  Minton opened his mouth to say something but the judge cut him off.

  "It doesn't matter who should have done it. It wasn't done properly and, either way, putting that man on the stand in my opinion was gross prosecutorial misconduct."

  "Your Honor," Minton barked. "I did -"

/>   "Save it for your boss. He's the one you'll need to convince. What was the last offer the state made to Mr. Roulet?"

  Minton seemed frozen and unable to respond. I answered for him.

  "Simple assault, six months in county."

  The judge raised her eyebrows and looked at me.

  "And you didn't take it?"

  I shook my head.

  "My client won't take a conviction. It will ruin him. He'll gamble on a verdict."

  "You want a mistrial?" she asked.

  I laughed and shook my head.

  "No, I don't want a mistrial. All that will do is give the prosecution time to clean up its mess, get it all right and then come back at us."

  "Then what do you want?" she asked.

  "What do I want? A directed verdict would be nice. Something with no comebacks from the state. Other than that, we'll ride it out."

  The judge nodded and clasped her hands together on the desk.

  "A directed verdict would be ridiculous, Your Honor," Minton said, finally finding his voice. "We're at the end of trial, anyway. We might as well take it to a verdict. The jury deserves it. Just because one mistake was made by the state, there is no reason to subvert the whole process."

  "Don't be stupid, Mr. Minton," the judge said dismissively. "It's not about what the jury deserves. And as far as I am concerned, one mistake like you have made is enough. I don't want this kicked back at me by the Second and that is surely what they will do. Then I am holding the bag for your miscon -"

  "I didn't know Corliss's background!" Minton said forcefully. "I swear to God I didn't know."

  The intensity of his words brought a momentary silence to the chambers. But soon I slipped into the void.

  "Just like you didn't know about the knife, Ted?"

  Fullbright looked from Minton to me and then back at Minton.

  "What knife?" she asked.

  Minton said nothing.

  "Tell her," I said.

  Minton shook his head.

  "I don't know what he's talking about," he said.

  "Then you tell me," the judge said to me.

  "Judge, if you wait on discovery from the DA, you might as well hang it up at the start," I said. "Witnesses disappear, stories change, you can lose a case just sitting around waiting."

  "All right, so what about the knife?"

  "I needed to move on this case. So I had my investigator go through the back door and get reports. It's fair game. But they were waiting for him and they phonied up a report on the knife so I wouldn't know about the initials. I didn't know until I got the formal discovery packet."

  The judge formed a hard line with her lips.

  "That was the police, not the DA's office," Minton said quickly.

  "Thirty seconds ago you said you didn't know what he was talking about," Fullbright said. "Now suddenly you do. I don't care who did it. Are you telling me that this did in fact occur?"

  Minton reluctantly nodded.

  "Yes, Your Honor. But I swear, I didn't -"

  "You know what this tells me?" the judge said, cutting him off. "It tells me that from start to finish the state has not played fair in this case. It doesn't matter who did what or that Mr. Haller's investigator may have been acting improperly. The state must be above that. And as evidenced today in my courtroom it has been anything but that."

  "Your Honor, that's not -"

  "No more, Mr. Minton. I think I've heard enough. I want you both to leave now. In half an hour I'll take the bench and announce what we'll do about this. I am not sure yet what that will be but no matter what I do, you aren't going to like what I have to say, Mr. Minton. And I am directing you to have your boss, Mr. Smithson, in the courtroom with you to hear it."

  I stood up. Minton didn't move. He still seemed frozen to the seat.

  "I said you can go!" the judge barked.

  FORTY-TWO

  Ifollowed Minton through the court clerk's station and into the courtroom. It was empty except for Meehan, who sat at the bailiff's desk. I took my briefcase off the defense table and headed toward the gate.

  "Hey, Haller, wait a second," Minton said, as he gathered files from the prosecution table.

  I stopped at the gate and looked back.

  "What?"

  Minton came to the gate and pointed to the rear door of the courtroom.

  "Let's go out here."

  "My client is going to be waiting out there for me."

  "Just come here."

  He headed to the door and I followed. In the vestibule where I had confronted Roulet two days earlier Minton stopped to confront me. But he didn't say anything. He was putting words together. I decided to push him even further.

  "While you go get Smithson I think I'll stop by theTimes office on two and make sure the reporter down there knows there'll be some fireworks up here in a half hour."

  "Look," Minton sputtered. "We have to work this out."

  "We?"

  "Just hold off on theTimes, okay? Give me your cell number and give me ten minutes."

  "For what?"

  "Let me go down to my office and see what I can do."

  "I don't trust you, Minton."

  "Well, if you want what's best for your client instead of a cheap headline, you're going to have to trust me for ten minutes."

  I looked away from his face and acted like I was considering the offer. Finally, I looked back at him. Our faces were only two feet apart.

  "You know, Minton, I could've put up with all your bullshit. The knife and the arrogance and everything else. I'm a pro and I have to live with that shit from prosecutors every day of my life. But when you tried to put Corliss on Maggie McPherson in there, that's when I decided not to show you any mercy."

  "Look, I did nothing to intentionally -"

  "Minton, look around. There's nobody here but us. No cameras, no tape, no witnesses. Are you going to stand there and tell me you never heard of Corliss until a staff meeting yesterday?"

  He responded by pointing an angry finger in my face.

  "And you're going to stand there and tell me you never heard of him until this morning?"

  We stared at each other for a long moment.

  "I may be green but I'm not stupid," he said. "The strategy of your whole case was to push me toward using Corliss. You knew all along what you could do with him. And you probably got it from your ex."

  "If you can prove that, then prove it," I said.

  "Oh, don't worry, I could . . . if I had the time. But all I've got is a half hour."

  I slowly raised my arm and checked my watch.

  "More like twenty-six minutes."

  "Give me your cell number."

  I did and then he was gone. I waited in the vestibule for fifteen seconds before stepping through the door. Roulet was standing close to the glass wall that looked down at the plaza below. His mother and C. C. Dobbs were sitting on a bench against the opposite wall. Further down the hallway I saw Detective Sobel lingering in the hallway.

  Roulet noticed me and started walking quickly toward me. Soon his mother and Dobbs followed.

  "What's going on?" Roulet asked first.

  I waited until they were all gathered close to me before answering.

  "I think it's all about to blow up."

  "What do you mean?" Dobbs asked.

  "The judge is considering a directed verdict. We'll know pretty soon."

  "What is a directed verdict?" Mary Windsor asked.

  "It's when the judge takes it out of the jury's hands and issues a verdict of acquittal. She's hot because she says Minton engaged in misconduct with Corliss and some other things."

  "Can she do that? Just acquit him."

  "She's the judge. She can do what she wants."

  "Oh my God!"

  Windsor brought one hand to her mouth and looked like she might burst into tears.

  "I said she is considering it," I cautioned. "It doesn't mean it will happen. But she did offer me a mistrial already and I turned
that down flat."

  "You turned it down?" Dobbs yelped. "Why on earth did you do that?"

  "Because it's meaningless. The state could come right back and try Louis again-this time with a better case because they'll know our moves. Forget the mistrial. We're not going to educate the prosecution. We want something with no comebacks or we ride with this jury to a verdict today. Even if it goes against us we have solid grounds for appeal."