Every Reasonable Doubt

by Pamela Samuels Young

  “Exactly. And now they’ll get to hear from another African-American woman who’s going to bat for her client. It might seem weird if David did the closing, but not you. I think some jurors root for attorneys who look like you and me because they don’t see us in the courtroom all that often. We’re the underdog. People like rooting for the underdog.”

  “What’s that got to do with me giving the closing? You got quite a bit of melanin in your skin, too, you know.”

  Neddy laughed. “Yes, I know that. But I think the jury resonates with you. I noticed that whenever you questioned a witness. And it’s not like you don’t know the case. You’ve practically memorized my closing already. All you need to do is add a few of your own touches and you’re done.”

  A wave of excitement washed over me. Part of me would kill to do the closing argument in a case of this magnitude. But another part didn’t want my summation to be linked to the verdict in a case I felt so conflicted about—guilty, innocent, or hung.

  “And besides,” Neddy continued, “being able to say you delivered the closing argument in a case this big won’t exactly look bad on your resumé. After we recess tomorrow, your closing argument will be replayed on every TV station in town. Everybody knows you’re already a shoo-in for partnership. This’ll cinch it.”

  I thought about everything Neddy was saying. I also thought about the fact that she was giving me an incredible opportunity. “Thank you,” I said softly.

  She winked. “Not at all.”

  “No, really. I know you’re tired. But you’re not that tired. I really appreciate what you’re doing.” I reached out and hugged her.

  “Okay, okay,” she said, hugging me back. “You don’t have to get all mushy on me.” We both sat down at a table across from her desk.

  “Let me ask you something,” I said, taking the index card she was handing to me. “Why’d you decide to get off partnership track?”

  “I like practicing law, but I hate the business side of it. All the administrative and political bull that comes along with being a partner would drive me nuts. First, you only get to eat what you kill. If you don’t have enough of your own clients, you’ll eventually be asked to leave the firm. Then, no matter how many clients you have, there’s still tremendous pressure to bring in more. So if you’re not a rainmaker, you won’t last long. Then there’s the competitiveness. You think you and David don’t get along? That’s nothing compared to the jealousy between some of our esteemed partners. You’ll never see Joseph Porter at one of O’Reilly’s little dinner parties because they despise each other.”

  I had already heard that rumor.

  “And no matter how well the firm does, it’s never enough. The higher they climb, the higher they want to climb. Last year, the firm had a record year financially. This year’s goal is to beat that number by ten percent. Next year’ll be the same thing. Which means you have to bill more hours or find bigger and richer clients. It never ends. You better be damn sure you really want to join that dysfunctional little cult.”

  I hadn’t thought about any of the things Neddy was telling me. I’d only focused on the achievement of making partner. If it happened, I would be the first black woman to be anointed with that title in the firm’s history.

  “Thanks for the advice,” I said. “You’ve really been a good friend, Neddy. Win or lose, I’m glad O’Reilly assigned us to this case.”

  “Win or lose?” Neddy exclaimed. “Girl, we’re not losing! I can’t wait until you stand up to deliver your closing tomorrow morning. Julie’ll be so surprised she’ll probably gag.”

  I grinned. “Now, that I’d like to see.”

  CHAPTER 63

  When I walked into the crowded courtroom the next day, I felt nervous, but not in an anxious or tense way. Unlike my experience the first day of the prelim, I didn’t want to throw up. I wanted to dance a jig around the courtroom.

  Neddy and I had stayed at the office until almost one. I’d always had a knack for quickly memorizing things, so committing the closing to memory went pretty fast. We then spent the rest of the night working on technique. Our styles were quite different so we traded pointers. Neddy gave me feedback on my pacing, eye contact, physical stance, and facial expressions. Even though I’d only had four hours of sleep, I felt energized.

  Tina seemed fine with the idea of my delivering the closing, but only after Neddy lobbied for the switch. David, surprisingly, didn’t seem put out about it either.

  Julie was already seated in the courtroom when we arrived. For the past couple of days, she had been playing hide-n-seek with the media. The courtroom was the one place where they couldn’t hurl questions at her. She was no longer the smug face of contentment. She looked sleep-deprived and she wasn’t dressed in one of her snappiest outfits. The dark brown suit she wore seemed too big around the shoulders. Her light blue blouse, like her face, had little of its original color left. Her chipped nail polish told me she was up too late rehearsing her closing to deal with minor cosmetic matters.

  Neddy walked over to Julie before she could sit down. “My client isn’t interested in your offer.”

  “Fine,” Julie barked back.

  Judge Graciano climbed onto the bench and wasted no time getting things rolling. “Ms. Killabrew, you may proceed with your closing,” she said, almost the minute she took the bench.

  Julie rose tentatively and walked about five feet from the jury box and faced the panel. “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” she began. “I’ll be the first to admit that there’ve been quite a few surprises in this trial. But I don’t want you to be swayed by surprises or by clever trial tactics or by the kind of emotional stuff you see on those legal dramas on TV. This isn’t Law & Order or The Practice. In real life, you must look at the facts. If you do that in this case, the only option you have is to return a guilty verdict.”

  Julie quickly reviewed the “facts,” a word she hammered away at repeatedly as she went through the testimony of each of the prosecution’s witnesses. “It’s a fact that Tina Montgomery was married to a man who, for twenty-seven years, did nothing but betray her. That’s a fact the defense didn’t even bother to dispute,” Julie said, turning to look Neddy’s way for effect.

  “It’s also a fact that Mrs. Montgomery wanted her husband dead. She’d said as much to her lover, Garrett Bryson, on more than one occasion. I suspect the defense will ask you to disregard his testimony. They want you to believe he wanted revenge because Mrs. Montgomery supposedly refused to loan him money. But those aren’t the facts, ladies and gentlemen. As he testified, Mr. Bryson didn’t come forward willingly to give his testimony. If he’d had an ax to grind, he would’ve run to the police with his story. But he didn’t do that. He still considered the defendant his friend. He didn’t want to testify, but the law compelled him to. There is no valid reason for you not to believe Mr. Bryson’s testimony that the defendant wanted her husband dead.

  Julie walked over to the prosecution table and picked up an enlarged photograph of the lobby of the Ritz with people milling about in evening wear. She held it out in front of her for the jury to see. “It’s also a fact that Mrs. Montgomery was at the Ritz Carlton hosting some fancy fundraiser on the night her husband was killed. And we know that Mr. Oscar Lopez, a room service waiter, saw her headed toward her husband’s hotel room.” She put down the photograph and picked up the murder weapon. “Just like they’re going to try to discredit Mr. Bryson’s testimony, the defense also wants you to believe that Mr. Lopez didn’t really see what, in fact, he saw—the defendant, steak knife in hand, marching down that hallway. Don’t fall for the defense’s attempt at deception.”

  She placed the knife on the prosecution table and walked over to the jury box. “Try as they might, there’s a lot of testimony in this case, testimony that the defense did not, and could not, refute. Testimony that they would like you to ignore.” Julie took her time, staring earnestly at each member of the panel, taking them step by step through the evidence.
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  “A member of Mrs. Montgomery’s fundraising committee testified that during the middle of the event, the defendant disappeared for upwards of an hour at about the same time Mr. Lopez saw her in that hallway. What was Mrs. Montgomery doing all that time? Based on the evidence, she was maliciously stabbing her husband to death because she was finally fed up with his constant betrayal. Ladies and gentlemen, the facts of this case make it clear that Mrs. Montgomery had motive, as well as opportunity, to commit this heinous crime.”

  It was another ten minutes before Julie moved on to attack the testimony of the two doctors. “The defense is quite aware of the damaging evidence introduced by the prosecution,” she continued. “That’s why they came up with their last-minute theory about an aneurysm. How convenient. ‘Mr. Montgomery was already dead, so let my client walk,’ is basically what they’re saying to you. Don’t buy it. Why? Because their defense is nothing but a sham. Dr. Riddick is a paid medical expert and for that reason, his testimony is suspect. As for Dr. Davis, I can’t dispute Mr. Montgomery’s medical history, but what the defense is trying to sell you is just too convenient, too coincidental. Don’t you think it’s a little strange that Dr. Davis would diagnose Mr. Montgomery with something as serious as an aneurysm, then do nothing when he refused to have life-saving surgery? Didn’t he have an obligation to at least alert the man’s wife?”

  Julie pursed her lips and feigned indignation. “Since the defense couldn’t refute the facts of this case, what did they do?” She paused, then snapped her fingers. “They dream up some ruse to draw your attention away from the facts, away from the evidence. I wonder what TV show they got their aneurysm theory from. ER?CSI, perhaps?”

  I saw Juror No. 7 roll her eyes. She didn’t appreciate the personal dig at us.

  “Don’t let the defense get away with this sham,” Julie said, lowering her voice almost to a whisper. “And don’t let Tina Montgomery get away with murder.”

  Nobody moved, including me, as Julie made her way back to her seat. With the exception of Juror No. 7, I couldn’t tell one way or the other how well Julie’s closing had resonated with the panel.

  The judge called a fifteen-minute recess.

  “You ready?” Neddy asked, after the judge left the bench.

  I inhaled. “Yep. What did you think of Julie’s closing?”

  “Decent,” Neddy said. “But she was bouncing all over the place. She didn’t have a clear theme. And it was a mistake to attack our aneurysm theory the way she did. The standard of proof is reasonable doubt. And the medical evidence we produced presents a whole lot of it.”

  “I think I’m going to stray a bit from the closing we rehearsed,” I told Neddy.

  “What? Why?” She looked worried.

  “I want to play off Julie’s closing,” I said.

  Neddy paused. “Are you sure? You memorized your closing perfectly last night.”

  “I think I am,” I said, feeling a burst of confidence.

  Neddy gave me a warm smile. “Okay, girl, do your thing.”

  The fifteen-minute recess felt more like fifteen seconds to me.

  “Is the defense ready?” the judge asked, directing her question to Neddy. “Yes,” I said standing. There was a silent rumbling in the courtroom as I took the floor. Julie leaned over and whispered something to Sandy.

  As I approached the jury box, I reminded myself to speak slowly and deliberately as Neddy had advised, and to make eye contact with each individual member of the jury at some point during my closing.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” I began, “Ms. Killabrew was right. This case has been full of surprises. And I have to say, no one was more surprised than me to find evidence that an aneurysm, and not stab wounds, had killed Mr. Montgomery.”

  “Objection, Your Honor!” Julie shot up so far out of her seat, she almost hit the ceiling. “Counsel is not permitted to make unsupported personal statements. Her closing must stick to the evidence.”

  My ad-lib wasn’t starting out too well. I couldn’t even remember what I’d just said. I could see alarm in Neddy’s face. I refused to even look at Tina. For a second, I thought I saw O’Reilly sitting in the back row. When I looked again, he wasn’t there. Was I so nervous now that I was hallucinating?

  It was somewhat taboo to make an objection during a closing argument and anyway, I was sure I’d heard her mention her own opinion during her closing. She had taken me out of my groove. I had to relax and get back on track. I cracked my knuckles and turned to Judge Graciano before she could rule on Julie’s objection.

  “I’m sorry, Your Honor, Ms. Killabrew is correct. My opinion doesn’t count. It’s the evidence that matters. It won’t happen again.” I said a quick prayer and returned to my closing. “Ms. Killabrew wants you to look at the facts,” I said.” “Well, so do I. But I want you to focus on the undisputed facts.”

  “Undisputed fact number one,” I said, holding up my index finger, “there’s no evidence linking Mrs. Montgomery to the scene of the crime. No blood, no hair, no fibers…nothing. Based on that alone, there’s reasonable doubt.”

  I held up two fingers now. “Undisputed fact number two, the prosecution’s so-called eyewitness, Oscar Lopez—to put it simply—is not credible. He testified that he saw Tina Montgomery carrying a knife, then admitted to two of his coworkers that he really wasn’t sure he saw her with a knife after all. And considering how dim the lighting was in that hotel hallway, it’s understandable that he was confused about what he saw. Mr. Lopez told you himself that he didn’t remember whether the woman he saw was wearing earrings or not, how her hair was styled, or whether her dress was long or short. That’s not surprising when you consider that Mr. Lopez hasn’t had his eyes examined in over ten years. Again, there’s reasonable doubt.”

  I felt light on my feet as I walked from one end of the jury box to the other. I looked at Juror No. 7. Her eyes told me she was definitely rooting for me. I was straying quite a bit from the closing argument I’d rehearsed with Neddy, but Juror No. 7 let me know that my ad-lib was going over big, at least with her.

  “Undisputed fact number three.” I held up three fingers now. “Garrett Bryson, who claimed Mrs. Montgomery wanted her husband dead, was nothing more than a spurned gigolo. And for that reason, he’s not credible either. My client refused to loan him fifty thousand dollars. Simply put, revenge fueled his testimony.”

  I continued in the same vein, reinforcing each and every fact in our favor and attacking the facts against us, methodically taking each one and logically explaining why it provided a basis for reasonable doubt.

  “Finally,” I said, “there’s the cause of death. I marched over to the defense table and picked up the autopsy report. I was hitting my stride now. I felt like I was in total control of the courtroom. I’d had great closing arguments before, but this one felt very different. I had just stepped up to the plate, gripped the bat, and was about to whack a homerun straight across centerfield.

  “There’s no dispute that Mr. Montgomery had an excessive amount of blood in his cranium. It’s right here in the autopsy report,” I said, holding the document in one hand, pointing to it with the other. “We didn’t make that up. The prosecution could’ve brought the coroner back to explain to you why he missed this. But she didn’t. Why? Maybe it would be too embarrassing for him to have to admit his big mistake.

  “You also heard two doctors, Dr. Riddick and Dr. Davis, tell you that intracranial bleeding was evidence of a ruptured aneurysm. And just weeks before his death, Dr. Davis had advised Mr. Montgomery that he had a brain aneurysm that could kill him instantly if he did not have surgery. But, as you heard Dr. Davis testify, Mr. Montgomery ignored that advice.

  “Both Dr. Riddick and Dr. Davis testified that, in their trained medical opinions, it was highly unlikely that Mr. Montgomery suffered an aneurysm after he was stabbed. If he’d been stabbed to death, there wouldn’t have been enough pressure in the brain to cause Mr. Montgomery’s aneurysm to rupture. The
re’s nothing ‘convenient’ or ‘coincidental’ about their testimony. Mr. Montgomery was already dead when he was stabbed in that bathtub. The aneurysm killed him. Not the stab wounds and not his loving wife, who stayed by his side for nearly three decades despite some very trying circumstances.”

  I looked over at Neddy, who smiled at me. “Those are the undisputed facts, ladies and gentlemen.” I turned and nodded in Julie’s direction. “The prosecution and the defense are in complete agreement on one thing. When you retire to the jury room to begin your deliberations, we both want you to look solely at the facts. If you do that, you can only come to one conclusion…that Tina Montgomery is innocent of the charge of murder.”

  I walked back to the defense table and took my seat. Everybody’s eyes were on me. The jury, the judge, the spectators, and even the prosecution seemed to be frozen in place. I’d definitely given it my best shot. I wasn’t really sure how well my closing had gone until Tina, who’d barely said two words to me since the trial began, gently squeezed my forearm and whispered, “Thank you. You were incredible!”

  CHAPTER 64

  Neddy, Detective Smith, and I escaped to a tiny Chinese restaurant not far from the courthouse. The court clerk had given us a pager that would buzz when the jury had reached a verdict, had a question, or needed some testimony read back. David stayed at the courthouse with Tina, who was convinced that it would be a short deliberation and didn’t want to leave. I wasn’t so sure.

  We were shown to a small table covered in a worn, checkered tablecloth. Detective Smith pulled out Neddy’s chair and waited for her to sit, then realized he had neglected to extend the same courtesy to me. He belatedly reached over to do so, but I was already seated.

  “So if it’s a hung jury, which jurors do we have to thank?” Detective Smith asked, as he poured tea into a tiny cup for Neddy, then for me.

  “Juror No. 7, for sure,” Neddy and I said in unison, with tired chuckles.