Blind Justice

by Nathan Burrows

  “The second line is the angle that Jeremy is showing us now. As you can see, it’s quite different to the actual angle of the bat as it struck the victim.” Most of the jurors were leaning forward and staring at the screen. Several of them were looking at the screen, down at Daniel on the floor, and then back at the screen again. “Jeremy, is it possible for you to adjust your position so you are striking Daniel at the actual angle the victim was struck?” Jeremy pantomimed moving around Daniel with the bat, trying to match up the angles, but the judge’s bench stopped him getting anywhere close.

  “Now, could you swap the bat to your left hand please, and repeat the same motion?” Dr Klein asked. When Jeremy changed the bat to his left hand, the angle matched the line on the screen perfectly.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Dr Klein said. “This rather simple demonstration proves only one thing.” Paul looked at her, his eyebrows raised in a question. Dr Klein said nothing for a few seconds, building the dramatic tension in the courtroom by a notch.

  “And what is that Dr Klein?” Paul asked.

  “The blows which killed the victim were delivered by someone holding the baseball bat in their left hand. Of that, there is no doubt.”

  The silence in the courtroom was deafening. I could see several of the jurors exchanging glances as they connected Paul’s earlier question in my testimony about which hand I had used to pull the bat out of my jacket. Paul looked up at the clock. It was almost ten o’clock.

  “Your Honour,” Paul said, and I knew what he about to say. “The next part of my case is a change in direction. May I suggest we break for lunch at this point?”

  I was led back to the holding cells by Mr Jackson, and true to form, his colleague buggered off for a smoke. As I sat in the cell waiting for a cup of tea, I shifted on the bed to take the pressure off the stitches in my backside. I’d ended up with fourteen, the nurse had told me, and would have them in for the next week. I hoped that they wouldn’t hurt as much coming out as they had done going in. Budget cuts in the prison system seemed to apply to anaesthetic as well as everything else.

  The door to the main holding area flew open, and Paul walked through accompanied by Laura. I looked at her, hoping to see a Sainsbury’s carrier bag with a prawn sandwich, but she was empty handed. Something lukewarm out of a microwave it would be then.

  “Good, good, good. That’s a wicket taken right there, my boy,” Paul said as he walked toward my cell, grabbing a couple of plastic chairs as he did so. “What do you think of the lovely Dr Klein, Gareth?”

  “She’s good, isn’t she,” I replied.

  “Oh yes, very good indeed,” Paul said. “And she’s only just getting started.”

  Mr Jackson walked over and handed me a cup of builders’ tea. He knew I took two sugars, so there wouldn’t be any in there.

  “Now that looks like a most excellent cup of tea, young man,” Paul said, examining the polystyrene cup. “I don’t suppose we could get one as well, could we?” Mr Jackson looked at Paul with his trademark hard stare, and I was sure the answer would be no when I saw his face soften. Glancing over at Laura, I could see she was beaming at the prison officer. Dimples and all. Mr Jackson shuffled back and flicked the kettle back on. Paul and Laura sat on their chairs, both leaning in toward me. As I did the same, I caught my stitches on my trousers and winced. “Are you okay?” Paul asked.

  “Yeah, I got stabbed last night.”

  “What?” Laura’s loud exclamation caused Mr Jackson to look across at us. She repeated the word, quieter but just as insistent. “What?”

  “Well, more slashed than stabbed. With a razor, the nurse thought.” I explained. “But I got stitched up at the hospital wing, so it wasn’t too bad.” Laura put her hand to her chest.

  “My God,” she said. “That’s awful. Where?”

  “In the queue for supper.”

  “No, where did you get stabbed?”

  I paused before replying. “Across the backside,” I said. Paul started smiling, and then laughing. Laura shot him a fierce look.

  “Paul, what’s bloody funny about that?” she barked. Paul’s laughter died away, and he managed to look apologetic. “What’s going on, Gareth?” She stared at me with her arms wrapped around her chest, unblinking.

  “Nothing, it’s just life inside.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Well, what can I say?”

  “First you get battered and end up with black eyes and a broken nose.” I remained silent. Technically, my nose hadn’t been broken, but Laura didn’t look in the mood to argue. “Then, you end up being stabbed. What’s going to happen next?”

  Laura was right to ask that. It was a question I’d asked myself several times. What was going to happen next?

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Paul said to the jury. His voice was bright, enthusiastic. “I do hope that you all had a good lunch. Now, no doubt you’ll be pleased to hear I am approaching the final part of my defence.” Most of the members of the jury smiled as he said this. “I would like to call Dr Klein back to the witness stand.” The now familiar figure of Dr Klein made her way to the witness stand. I looked up at the public gallery as she settled herself into her seat, and I could see Andy and Jacob sitting next to each other. Tommy and David to their left, but I couldn’t see Big Joe or Robert’s parents. I scanned across the faces of the other people in the public gallery, wondering who they were, when I saw a familiar face. Mr McLoughlin, the prison guard. As I caught his eye, he half raised a hand. Laura had instructed me several times not to engage with anyone in the public gallery, but I risked a nod to acknowledge his greeting, anyway.

  “Now, Dr Klein, you are still under oath, so we won’t need to swear you in again,” Paul said for the benefit of the jury.

  “Thank you,” Dr Klein replied, her trademark smile still present. Just as when she had first sat down in the courtroom, I expected her to pull out some knitting needles.

  “I want to talk this afternoon about the mechanics of Mr Wainwright’s injuries,” Paul said. “Now I know that you weren’t present at the post-mortem, but can you confirm that you are up to speed on this issue?”

  “Absolutely. The pathologist’s notes and slides were extremely well done. I was able to get all the information that I needed from them.”

  “Could you describe Mr Wainwright’s injuries, in general terms?” Dr Klein checked her notes before replying to Paul’s question.

  “Yes, of course. According to the post-mortem report, there were two areas of injury to Mr Wainwright. The most obvious of these areas was obviously to Mr Wainwright’s head, but the pathologist also noted some old bruising to his ribcage.”

  “Old bruising?” Paul asked. “How old exactly?”

  “Yes, now it’s always difficult to be too accurate with the time of partially healed bruises, but as a rough estimate the pathologist suggested two to three weeks.”

  “Which would mean that those injuries were inflicted at some point in the weeks before he was killed?”

  “Yes, that would be correct. But it’s not possible to be more specific than that.” Robert’s old injuries had been brought up in the original trial, but Miss Revell had argued that it was impossible to ascertain how Robert had sustained them. I looked across at her, wondering if she would raise the same objection again, but she remained silent.

  “Did Mr Wainwright have any other injuries at all, other than the bruising to his chest and the head injuries that we are going to explore in a moment?”

  “No, he didn’t,” Dr Klein replied.

  “Did he have any defensive injuries to his hands?”

  “No, it was just the bruising to his chest and the head injuries.”

  “Thank you, Dr Klein,” Paul said. “But before we get to those particular parts of the jigsaw puzzle, could I ask you first to tell the jury a little bit about what happens when somebody is hit around the head with a blunt object? Such as a baseball bat?”

  Dr Klein turned to face th
e jury, smoothing out a wrinkle on her tweed skirt with the palms of her hands.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I will try my best to explain this in straightforward language. You see, the head can be thought of in the same way as an egg. If you consider an egg, it has a hard outer layer or shell. The head has a skull. Inside the egg is the important part, the yolk. Or the brain. Finally, surrounding the yolk is a protective fluid, or egg white, which is very similar to the liquid the brain floats in. It’s called cerebrospinal fluid.” Dr Klein paused and looked at each of the jurors in turn. I figured that she was making sure they were all keeping up. From where I was sitting it looked as if they were. “Now imagine that you tap the side of an egg. Quite hard, but not hard enough to break the shell. The yolk is protected by the egg white, and while it may wobble around inside the shell, there is enough fluid to protect it from too much damage. If you hit the side of a human head with a blunt object such as a baseball bat, it has exactly the same effect.” I saw several of the jurors nodding at Dr Klein’s explanation. “The brain is protected to an extent by the cerebral spinal fluid it floats in, as the yolk is by the egg white.

  The effects of this wobbling, for want of a better word, will vary according to several factors. The force of the blow is probably the most important factor, but others are the direction of the impact and where the impact hits. For example, a blow to the side of the head can cause various internal injuries without the skull itself being broken.” Dr Klein paused, again surveying the jurors. Although a few of them were frowning, they all seemed to be following along. I half expected one of them to put their hand up at some point as if they didn’t understand, like children with a teacher.

  “Because the brain is mostly fluid, any force travels through and around the brain tissue, often in small swirling currents or eddies. When the skull remains intact, this force is reflected within the cranium as it has nowhere else to go. This bounces around inside the skull which can set in motion a sequence of events inside the brain tissue. Perhaps the most dramatic of these events is immediate unconsciousness.”

  “So, it is quite possible to hit somebody with a baseball bat, without breaking the skull, and for them to be rendered unconscious immediately?” Paul asked.

  “Yes, indeed,” Dr Klein replied. I thought back to the night I attacked Robert. That was is exactly what had happened. He had gone down like a sack of potatoes when I’d hit him.

  “If an individual is struck as described, and is lying unconscious, what then is happening inside their brain?” Paul asked.

  “Well, a lot of that depends on the factors I have previously mentioned, I would expect that there might be a degree of bleeding within the brain. This might be quite obvious bleeding, such as a subdural haematoma or a bleed in between the layers of tissue which surround the brain. Or it could be microscopic in nature.”

  Miss Revell got to her feet as Dr Klein finished speaking.

  “Your Honour,” the prosecutor said, “the witness is quite clearly speculating.”

  “Your Honour,” Paul barked. “I fail to see how an expert witness in blunt cranial trauma who is describing the pathological and physiological responses from a blow to the head can be said to be speculating.”

  “I agree. Thank you, Miss Revell,” Judge Watling said. Miss Revell sat back down in her chair, looking defeated. One of her colleagues put a hand on her shoulder and leaned forward to say something in her ear. Whatever he said, Miss Revell didn’t agree with it and her face turned even sourer.

  “Dr Klein, thank you. Would you now explain to the jury what happens when blows which are hard enough to break the skull are delivered?” Paul asked.

  “Yes, certainly. The egg analogy is another useful one in this case. If you imagine hitting an egg hard enough to break the shell, the egg white then stops protecting the yoke, or the brain. Once the protective layer of the skull is breached, the brain can be disrupted much in the same way that an egg yolk can break, spilling its contents. If the area of disruption includes an area of the brain which is crucial to life itself, then this can have fatal results.”

  On the jury bench, Ella was holding a tissue to her mouth, and Minnie had gone a deathly pale colour. As I watched, the juror next to her leaned across to comfort her. I wondered if I should say something to Laura, or get her attention somehow. The poor woman on the jury bench didn’t look well at all.

  “The hypothalamus is one such area,” Dr Klein continued, oblivious to the plight of the Gloria and Minnie, which surprised me. “It controls the heart rate and respiratory rate. If the damage to this area is severe enough, then the heart stops beating and respiration ceases. Life itself ceases.” As Dr Klein spoke these words, there was a genuine look of sadness on her face. I glanced back across the jury to see many of them frowning, one or two wearing the same expression as Dr Klein’s. Ella let out a loud sob, and the juror next to her put her arm around her shoulder.

  “Your Honour,” Paul said in a soft voice. “Perhaps now would be a good time to take a break?”

  When we all re-entered the courtroom about half an hour later, both Gloria and Minnie were looking a bit better, but still pretty ropey. A few of the other jurors glanced in my direction as they filed back into their seats, but it was impossible for me to read their expressions. One of them, Mark, who I’d pitched to in my testimony, looked almost sympathetic. Dr Klein took her seat and looked at Paul, her eyebrows raised.

  “Now Dr Klein, as you know, there were some anomalies in the timelines of the night in question,” Paul said. “My client has put forward one version of these timelines, while my learned colleagues and the police have put forward another. I’m keen to see what the forensic evidence says.” Paul paused, and looked at the jury before returning to Dr Klein. “Could you tell us what you found when you reviewed the results of the post-mortem?” During the break, the television and laptop had been put back into position. Dr Klein raised the remote control in the direction of the screen, but paused before pressing the button.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, some of these images are, I’m afraid, rather graphic,” Dr Klein said in a quiet voice. “I apologise in advance for having to show them, but I can’t explain things to you properly unless I do.” Some of the jurors nodded as she looked at them, and I saw Ella close her eyes for a brief second before opening them again and taking a deep breath. She looked directly at me, her eyes wide and unblinking. I held her gaze for a second before looking down as Laura had told me to do if any of the jurors stared at me. ‘Try to look penitent and repentant,’ Laura had said before having to explain what those words meant.

  Dr Klein pressed the button on the remote control, and there was an audible gasp from the jury bench. On the screen, in glorious high definition Technicolour, was a close-up image of Robert’s head, much closer than the earlier images which had shown the whole scene. The damage that had been inflicted on his skull was plain to see. Jagged fragments of white bone could be seen poking through bloodstained tissue and hair. Off-white flecks of what could only be brain matter were spattered around the wounds. Whoever had done this hadn’t been messing about at all. I was quite aware that the jury might well still think it had been me, so I looked from the screen straight back down to my lap.

  “As you can see here, the skull is severely damaged and the brain itself is disrupted,” Dr Klein said in a matter of fact voice, as if she was describing a damaged plant in her greenhouse. She pressed the button again and the gruesome image was replaced by an x-ray image of what must be Robert’s head. “This is an x-ray image that shows the bony damage underneath all the soft tissue.” As if the previous image hadn’t been dramatic enough, she pressed another button on the remote control and a small red dot from a laser pointer built into the remote danced on the screen. She steadied her hand and located the red dot onto an area at the base of Robert’s skull, using it to draw a rough circle around a shard of bone.

  “This area just here is the hypothalamus, the area I was talking about just before o
ur little break. It controls the body’s most basic functions necessary for life, such as heartbeat and respiration.” She paused and looked at the jury before continuing. “As you can see, there is a sharp piece of bone which has gone straight through it. In the post-mortem report, the pathologist highlights this fragment as having completely transected the hypothalamic area.”

  “So in other words, that piece of bone killed Mr Wainwright?” Paul asked. I guessed he was trying to make things simple for the jury.

  “Well, some of the other injuries are very severe, but yes. That would be a fair statement.”

  “And when that piece of bone, what was the phrase you used, transected the hypothalamus?” Dr Klein nodded in response to Paul's question. “That would stop Mr Wainwright’s heartbeat?”

  “Yes. That’s correct.”

  “So up to that point, the point at which that particular blow was struck, Mr Wainwright’s heart was still beating? Do I understand that correctly?” Paul asked. Even though I knew that this was a well choreographed exchange, that made it no less riveting. As I looked over at the jury, I could tell that they were as fascinated as I was.

  “Probably,” Dr Klein replied.

  “Probably?”

  “Yes, probably. It’s impossible to say for certain. He could have received a blow before the one that caused the hypothalamus to be transected which was in itself fatal.”

  “But if there had been a blow prior to this one which was not fatal, would it be possible to identify that?”

  “Yes, I believe it would.”

  There was a palpable tension in the courtroom as Dr Klein gave the answer to this question, and I knew instinctively that the next few minutes of her testimony were crucial.

  “Could you explain that in a little more detail please, Dr Klein?” Paul said in a low voice. Dr Klein didn’t reply at first, but just pressed a button on the remote control. The picture on the screen changed back to the close-up of Robert’s shattered skull.