Jessie Black Legal Thrillers Box Set 1

by Larry A Winters

  Elliot waited for her to regain some of her composure. Jessie’s eyes moved to Goldhammer, who sat silently, his body as still as a statue.

  “Kristen, what happened next?”

  Assuming that all of his victims had died of their multiple stab wounds, the intruder had walked away from the bed, stretched, and pulled off his ski mask. Then he had left the room. A minute later, Kristen had heard the back door open and close downstairs.

  “When the man removed his ski mask, did you see his face?”

  Kristen nodded. “I saw him.”

  “Is the man who raped you and murdered your family here in this courtroom today?”

  “Yes.” She pointed at the defense table. Although her vantage point in the gallery prevented Jessie from seeing Ramsey’s face, experience told her that the man stared forward, his expression blank. “That’s him. Frank Ramsey.”

  “And you identified him to the police?”

  “I identified him in a lineup at the police station.”

  “Were you confident then that Frank Ramsey was the man who had attacked your family?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you equally confident now?”

  “Yes.”

  Kristen’s trepidation was apparent in her eyes as she watched Goldhammer approach her. Jessie was glad to see that a few of the jurors looked nervous, too—their empathy with the girl was powerful enough to make them fear Goldhammer’s cross-examination as if it were a personal attack. Others on the jury crossed their arms and leaned forward with serious expressions, determined to hear both sides of the case before reaching conclusions.

  At the prosecution table, Jessie could see Elliot’s back and shoulders tense up. She could imagine the cheat sheet on the table in front of him—a list of objections. They were the only weapons available to him, his only means of defending his witness from Goldhammer’s attack. As pissed off at him as she was right now for telling Warren about Jack Ackerman at such a critical moment of the trial, she prayed he would do his job well.

  “Ms. Dillard, you’ve been through a horrific ordeal,” Goldhammer said. “You have my utmost sympathy.”

  Kristen did not shy away from him. She returned his gaze, her eyes clear. “I don’t want your sympathy, or anything else from you.”

  “I understand. I have a few questions. I’ll try to keep them brief.”

  Kristen’s eyes tracked him as he stepped closer to the jury box. It was instantly clear to Jessie that he intended his questions, rather than her answers, to make an impact on the jurors.

  “You testified that the man who attacked you did not remove his mask until after the attack, just before leaving the bedroom. Is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “So it would be accurate to say that you only saw the man’s face for one second, five seconds at most, right?”

  “I don’t know how many seconds it was, but I saw his face clearly.”

  “But you agree that you only saw his face for a matter of seconds, isn’t that true?”

  “Objection.” Elliot stood up. When Spatt glared at him, he said, “Uh, asked and answered, Your Honor.”

  “Overruled. Ms. Dillard, please answer the question.”

  “I didn’t have a stopwatch on me.”

  One of the jurors, a young woman named Joyce Brodie, smiled at the girl’s retort.

  “I understand,” Goldhammer said. “Would you agree that less than ten seconds is a fair estimate?”

  “I guess so.”

  Jessie bit her lip. She knew Goldhammer’s reason for belaboring this point—“exposure duration” was one of the factors that Kate Moscow would later testify affected the identification.

  “And Ramsey was facing away from you, wasn’t he? He was moving toward the door?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you saw the back of his head?”

  “And the side of his face.”

  “You saw both the back of his head and the side of his face?” Goldhammer’s voice rose on the word “and” as if the conjunction of the two visuals was preposterous.

  “Yes.” Kristen’s voice did not waver.

  “Interesting perspective.” He turned to the jury with a doubtful expression, then faced Kristen again. “I only have a few other questions.”

  Kristen’s eyes remained cautious. Jessie had warned her that Goldhammer would continually suggest that he was nearing the end of his cross-examination in an attempt to coax her into letting down her guard. It was an old lawyer trick. Kristen didn’t fall for it.

  “You testified that the murder weapon was a knife. Would you describe the knife for the jury?”

  Kristen shrugged. “It was long and sharp.”

  “Can you be more specific? Can you recall details?”

  Jessie chewed her lip. Again, she knew what Goldhammer was up to. Another of Kate Moscow’s factors was known as “weapons focus.” The more details Kristen provided, the easier it would be for Goldhammer to later argue that Kristen’s attention had been fixed on the weapon instead of on Ramsey’s face.

  “I’m not a knife expert. It hurt when he stabbed me with it. What more do you need to know?”

  “I’d like to know the knife’s approximate length, what its handle looked like, the shape of its serrations, how much blood was on it—”

  “Objection.” This time Elliot rose with more confidence. “Mr. Goldhammer is assuming facts not in evidence.”

  “I agree,” Spatt said. “The witness testified that the knife was long and sharp. Let’s move on.”

  Although Goldhammer might use this exchange to argue that Kristen’s inability to describe the knife in precise details indicated holes in her memory, he would not be able to use it in conjunction with Kate Moscow’s expert testimony. For that reason, Jessie counted it a victory—small, but possibly crucial—for the prosecution. Elliot was doing well.

  “We’re almost done,” Goldhammer assured her. “But first I need to ask you about the first time you identified Mr. Ramsey to the police. You testified that you picked Mr. Ramsey out of a lineup, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Isn’t it true that the day before the lineup, a homicide detective named Mark Leary showed you a photo array?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “There were six photographs in that array, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you were not able to identify your attacker as any of the men in those photographs, correct?”

  Kristen squirmed in her chair. “Correct.”

  Goldhammer lifted a glossy sheet from the defense table and offered it into evidence. “Do you recognize this sheet of paper?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you tell Judge Spatt and the jury what it is?”

  “It’s the photo array that Detective Leary showed me while I was in the hospital after Frank Ramsey attacked me.”

  Goldhammer pointed to one of the photos. “Who is this?”

  Kristen’s jaw flexed. “Frank Ramsey.”

  “But when Detective Leary showed you this photo array, you did not identify that photo as the man who attacked your family, did you?”

  “No.” Kristen’s voice was tight.

  “You did not identify Mr. Ramsey until later, when you saw him in a lineup at the police station, right?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “After you had already seen this photo array.”

  She nodded again. “Yes.”

  Jessie tasted blood and realized she had bitten through the skin of her lower lip. Although Goldhammer did not offer any commentary to the jury—yet—he had just scored a point for the defense. Kate Moscow’s data formed compelling evidence that a lineup identification can be easily compromised when the witness has been exposed to the suspect’s face in a prior photo array. The witness’s memory is, in effect, tricked. The witness, believing her identification is based on her memory of the crime itself, actually bases her identification on her exposure to the suspect’s face in the
photo array.

  “Thank you,” Goldhammer said. “Let me again say that I appreciate how difficult it must be for you to testify before us today. You are a very brave young woman. I admire you.”

  Spatt said, “Let’s take a short recess. It’s been an intense few hours. I think we could all use a breath of fresh air.”

  35

  Jessie hurried to the elevator, then outside into a blast of wind. She had pursued Elliot out of the courthouse, and now—her hair whipping around her head—it took her a moment to spot him. Across the street, he hugged and kissed a woman whose own hair—long and blonde—was also flying in the wind. Under her coat, a tight red sweater stretched across impressively large breasts, and when Elliot detached his lips from hers, Jessie saw that she was young and pretty. Was this the woman he had mentioned the day he’d talked her into showing him the draft of her opening statement?

  The unexpected sight of Elliot publicly enjoying a romantic embrace was disorienting. She had planned to chase him down and use the brief recess to share an idea she’d formed during Goldhammer’s cross-examination of Kristen. But now, standing in the wind, her mind fixated on that moment last week when she had printed the half-finished opening statement for him.

  She regretted that kindness now. She had allowed Elliot to get his foot in the door, and now he’d pried the door wide open, forced his way inside, and shoved her out. Jessie disliked watching other lawyers try cases. It always made her feel frustrated, useless, to watch from the sidelines, unable to participate. But watching Elliot try Frank Ramsey’s case was a whole new kind of torture.

  And now he was out here kissing some woman instead of praising Kristen for her testimony and preparing her for redirect?

  Get yourself under control.

  Elliot’s eyes wandered and he saw her. Hurriedly, he kissed the blonde on the lips, squeezed her hand, and darted across the street to stand with Jessie near the door of the CJC.

  “I don’t know if I should call you Judas or Casanova,” she said.

  “Listen, I’m sorry. I didn’t want to, but I had to tell Warren about you and Ackerman. Ethically, dating a lawyer that—”

  “I didn’t chase you out here for an apology, especially an insincere one.”

  He shrugged. “Payback’s a bitch, right? But you have to admit I did good in there.”

  Payback? So that was why he went to Warren? As revenge for her taking over the PCRA hearing? “Where’s Kristen?” she said, feeling her patience slipping.

  “Kristen?” He shrugged. “I think she’s with a psychiatrist from the institution, the guy who brought her here this morning.”

  “Did you tell her she did a good job?”

  His grin collapsed and he looked away, squinting against the wind. “This isn’t kindergarten. You want me to give her a sticker, a gold star or a Care Bear?”

  “Rookie to know-it-all in one day. That must be a new record.”

  “I’m not a know-it-all.” He frowned. “Why don’t you relax? We both want the same thing.”

  “No, I want Ramsey to pay for his crimes. You want to further your career and impress a girl. And apparently you’re not above backstabbing your own colleagues to do it.”

  “I thought you didn’t want an apology. So what do you want?”

  She watched her breaths plume in the air for a moment, then said, “You’re planning to close the prosecution’s case after Kristen’s redirect, right?”

  He nodded.

  “I have a better idea. The Dillard home is still vacant. No one’s lining up to live in a murder house. Ask Judge Spatt to organize a jury visit to the crime scene.”

  “Are you kidding? On what grounds? A trip like that would be way too prejudicial. Spatt would never go for it.”

  He really had become a know-it-all. “Wrong. During his opening statement and his cross-examination of Kristen, Goldhammer made an issue of the fact that Ramsey’s back was turned for most of the time that his mask was removed. If he’s going to argue that the position of Ramsey’s head affected Kristen’s ability to identify him, then the jury is entitled to see the layout of the crime scene.”

  Elliot stood in silence, absorbing her argument. “And then the jury will see the house.” He nodded his head as the idea began to appeal to him. “A typical suburban house any one of them might live in.”

  “Exactly.”

  Before the jurors were brought back to the courtroom, Elliot requested a few moments to make a request outside their hearing. Spatt’s eyes narrowed as Elliot explained the prosecution’s intention of taking the jury to visit the crime scene.

  Goldhammer jumped from his chair. “You can’t be serious. Your Honor, the only reason that Mr. Williams wants to expose the jury to the crime scene is to prejudice them against my client. This is outrageous. I would expect more from the District Attorney’s office of Philadelphia.”

  Spatt rolled his eyes. “My advice is to lower your expectations.”

  “Under the rules of evidence,” Goldhammer went on, “if the relevance of evidence is outweighed by its tendency to unfairly prejudice the jury, the evidence must be precluded.”

  “You might want to start arguing now,” Spatt prompted Elliot.

  “Your Honor, uh, Mr. Goldhammer has raised the issue of whether Kristen Dillard and Mr. Ramsey were positioned in a way that made her identification possible.” He glanced back into the gallery, where Jessie willed him to continue. Watching him struggle, her frustration mounted. “Mr. Goldhammer suggested to the jury that Kristen Dillard could not have seen both the back and the side of the defendant’s head, as she testified she did. So it’s only, um, fair that the jury have the chance to evaluate for themselves the likelihood of such a line of sight.”

  Goldhammer shook his head. “They can study a diagram of the crime scene. They can look at a blueprint. Photos.”

  The judge ran a weary hand down his face, from his white eyebrows to his creased chin. “It’s been almost two years since the murders. I assume the place is cleaned up?”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” Elliot said. “The house has been on the market. But the layout of the master bedroom is the same. The carpet was cleaned and the bloody mattress, sheets, and bedspread were replaced, but the bed is the same and the rest of the furniture is the same.”

  Goldhammer continued to shake his head. “Cleanliness is not the issue. The jury doesn’t need to see the place strewn with blood and guts to imagine it.”

  “You want me to instruct the jury not to imagine?” Spatt said. “Young Mr. Williams is correct that you made a stink about the back of the head and the side of the face. You made some people—including me—curious about where Mr. Ramsey was standing and where Ms. Dillard was seeing him from.”

  When Goldhammer, sullen and glowering, made no further argument, Jessie knew that they had won.

  “I am inclined to schedule a visit to the crime scene,” Spatt said. “You will show the jury the bedroom, let them see the layout. Then, back in the courtroom, you can redirect Ms. Dillard about the specific locations of the people involved.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor.”

  “No need to thank me. I love field trips.”

  36

  The Dillard house was located in Andorra, a section of the Philadelphia neighborhood of Roxborough in the northwest part of the city. Although only eight miles from Center City, Andorra was suburban, a bedroom community nestled near the border of Montgomery County. Riding through it in the back seat of a limousine, Elliot felt a strange pang of envy. The houses, with their driveway basketball hoops and personalized mailboxes, suddenly seemed infinitely more appealing than the posh interior of the limo. He caught himself entertaining absurd domestic fantasies as he watched the houses through tinted glass—he and Amber owning one of these homes, their son and daughter building a snow man together in the front yard. A minivan in the garage.

  “I grew up in a town like this,” Goldhammer said. Nostalgia had diminished the defense lawyer’s characteristic
swagger. For a moment, sitting beside Elliot on the long leather seat, he seemed like a normal guy. That moment ended when he puffed out his chest and said, “I’ve come a long way since then.”

  The judge said, “I grew up in a town like this, too.” When Goldhammer looked surprised, Spatt’s eyes narrowed. “You expected me to come from the ghetto?”

  “No, I— I’m from Illinois,” he said. “How about you?”

  Spatt fiddled with the knot of his tie. He wore a nondescript suit, and Elliot could see scuffs on his shoes. Without his black robe, the judge looked more human, but no less mean. He scrutinized Goldhammer for a few seconds before answering. “Washington State.”

  “I grew up in South Jersey,” Elliot said.

  The conversation died. Through the limo’s tinted windows, Elliot could see the bus leading this parade. Inside it, the jury rode like a group of schoolchildren. Meanwhile, in an unmarked police car behind the limo, Frank Ramsey sat handcuffed and flanked by sheriff’s deputies.

  For Elliot, this experience was surreal, like something out of a dream. Spatt and Goldhammer, on the other hand, seemed bored, as if they did this sort of thing all the time.

  “One of my ex-wives was from New Jersey,” Goldhammer said. His attempt to resurrect the conversation hung in the air. No one responded.

  A few minutes later, the bus in front of them pulled to the curb. Situated on a short lane, the Dillard house was practically indistinguishable from its neighbors except for the For Sale sign jutting from the crust of snow covering the front yard. The limo passed the bus and turned into the narrow driveway. The car holding Ramsey followed and parked behind it.

  “Looks like we’re here,” Elliot said. He patted his hair and checked his reflection in the window.

  A line of jurors disembarked from the bus, chatting with each other, looking excited. “Where do they think they are,” Spatt said, “Disney World?”

  “I guess it’s a nice change of pace from the courtroom.” Goldhammer shrugged.

  Spatt continued to stare. “Idiots.”