The Lincoln Lawyer Collection

by Connelly, Michael

  “And the four-alpha car was involved also in this earlier incident?”

  “Yes, when the suspect was finally captured, he was transported in four-alpha. The same car.”

  “About what time did that occur?”

  “That wasn’t until almost five in the morning. It was a long night.”

  “Did you shoot video of this?”

  “Yes, I did. That footage comes earlier on the same tape.”

  He pointed to the frozen image on the screen.

  “Then, let’s see,” I said.

  I hit the “rewind” button on the remote. Golantz immediately stood, objected and asked for a sidebar. The judge waved us up and I brought along the witness list I had submitted to the court two weeks earlier.

  “Your Honor,” Golantz said angrily. “The defense is once again sandbagging. There has been no indication in discovery or otherwise of Mr. Haller’s intent to explore some other crime with this witness. I object to this being introduced.”

  I calmly slid the witness list in front of the judge. Under the rules of discovery, I had to list each witness I intended to call and give a brief summary of what their testimony was expected to include. Julio Muniz was on my list. The summary was brief but all-inclusive.

  “It clearly says he would testify about video he shot on May second, the day of the murders,” I said. “The video he shot at the park was shot on the day of the murders, May two. It’s been on there for two weeks, Judge. If anybody is sandbagging, then it’s Mr. Golantz sandbagging himself. He could have talked to this witness and checked out his videos. He apparently didn’t.”

  The judge studied the witness list for a moment and nodded.

  “Objection overruled,” he said. “You may proceed, Mr. Haller.”

  I went back and rewound the video and started to play it. The jury continued to pay maximum interest. It was a night shoot and the images were more grainy and the scenes seemed to jump around more than in the first sequence.

  Finally, it came to footage showing a man with his hands cuffed behind his back being placed in a patrol car. A deputy closed the door and slapped the roof twice. The car drove off and came directly by the camera. As it was going by I froze the image.

  The screen showed a grainy shot of the patrol car. The light of the camera illuminated the man sitting in the backseat as well as the roof of the car.

  “Mr. Muniz, what’s the designation on the roof of that car?”

  “Again it’s four-A or four-alpha.”

  “And the man being transported, where is he sitting?”

  “In the rear right passenger seat.”

  “Is he handcuffed?”

  “Well, he was when they put him in the car. I shot it.”

  “His hands were cuffed behind his back, correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “Now, is he in the same position and seat in the patrol car that Mr. Elliot was in when you videotaped him about eight hours later?”

  “Yes, he is. Exact same position.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Muniz. No further questions.”

  Golantz passed on cross-examination. There was nothing about the direct that could be attacked and the video didn’t lie. Muniz stepped down. I told the judge I wanted to leave the video screen in place for my next witness and I called Deputy Todd Stallworth to the stand.

  Stallworth looked angrier as he came into the courtroom. This was good. He also looked beat and his uniform looked like it had wilted on his body. One of the sleeves of his shirt had a black scuff mark on it, presumably from some struggle during the night.

  I quickly established Stallworth’s identity and that he was driving the alpha car in the Malibu district during the first shift on the day of the murders in the Elliot house. Before I could ask another question, Golantz once more objected and asked for another sidebar. When we got there, he raised his hands palms up in a What’s this? gesture. His style was getting old with me.

  “Judge, I object to this witness. The defense hid him on the witness list among the many deputies who were on the scene and have no bearing on the case.”

  Once again I had the witness list ready. This time I slapped it down in front of the judge with frustration, then ran my finger down the column of names until I reached Todd Stallworth. It was there in the middle of a list of five other deputies, all of whom had been on the scene at the Elliot house.

  “Judge, if I was hiding Stallworth, I was hiding him in plain sight. He’s clearly listed there under law enforcement personnel. The explanation is the same as before. It says he’ll testify about his activities on May 2. That’s all I put down because I never talked to him. I’m hearing what he has to say for the first time right now.”

  Golantz shook his head and tried to maintain his composure.

  “Judge, from the start of this trial, the defense has relied on trickery and deception to—”

  “Mr. Golantz,” the judge interrupted, “don’t say something you can’t back up and that will get you in trouble. This witness, just like the first one Mr. Haller called, has been on this list for two weeks. Right there in black-and-white. You had every opportunity to find out what these people were going to say. If you didn’t take that opportunity, then that was your decision. But this is not trickery or deception. You better watch yourself.”

  Golantz stood with his head bowed for a moment before speaking.

  “Your Honor, the state requests a brief recess,” he finally said in a quiet voice.

  “How brief?”

  “Until one o’clock.”

  “I wouldn’t call two hours brief, Mr. Golantz.”

  “Your Honor,” I cut in. “I object to any recess. He just wants to grab my witness and turn his testimony.”

  “Now that I object to,” Golantz said.

  “Look, no recess, no delay and no more bickering,” the judge said. “We’ve already lost most of the morning. Objection overruled. Step back.”

  We returned to our places and I played a thirty-second cut of the video showing the handcuffed man being placed in the back of the 4-alpha car at Malibu Creek State Park. I froze the image in the same spot as before, just as the car was speeding by the camera. I left it on the screen as I continued my direct examination.

  “Deputy Stallworth, is that you driving that car?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Who is the man in the backseat?”

  “His name is Eli Wyms.”

  “I noticed that he was handcuffed before being placed in the car. Is that because he was under arrest?”

  “Yes, he was.”

  “What was he arrested for?”

  “For trying to kill me, for one. He was also charged with unlawful discharge of a weapon.”

  “How many counts of unlawful discharge of a weapon?”

  “I can’t recall the exact number.”

  “How about ninety-four?”

  “That sounds about right. It was a lot. He shot the place up out there.”

  Stallworth was tired and subdued but unhesitant in his answers. He had no idea how they fit into the Elliot case and didn’t seem to care about trying to protect the prosecution with short, nonresponsive answers. He was probably mad at Golantz for not getting him out of testifying.

  “So you arrested him and took him to the nearby Malibu station?”

  “No, I transported him all the way to the county jail in downtown, where he could be placed on the psych level.”

  “How long did that take? The drive, I mean.”

  “About an hour.”

  “And then you drove back to Malibu?”

  “No, first I had four-alpha repaired. Wyms had fired a shot that took out the side lamp. While I was downtown, I went to the motor pool and had it replaced. That took up the rest of my shift.”

  “So when did the car return to Malibu?”

  “At shift change. I turned it over to the day-watch guys.”

  I looked down at my notes.

  “That would have been deputie
s ... Murray and Harber?”

  “That’s right.”

  Stallworth yawned and there was murmured laughter in the courtroom.

  “I know we have you past your bedtime, Deputy. I won’t take too much longer. When you turn the car over from shift to shift, do you clean it out or disinfect the car in any way?”

  “You’re supposed to. Realistically, unless you’ve got puke in the backseat, nobody does that. The cars get taken out of rotation once or twice a week and the motor guys clean them up.”

  “Did Eli Wyms puke in your car?”

  “No, I would’ve known.”

  More murmured laughter. I looked down from the lectern at Golantz and he wasn’t smiling at all.

  “Okay, Deputy Stallworth, let me see if I got this right. Eli Wyms was arrested for shooting at you and firing at least ninety-three other shots that morning. He was arrested, his hands were cuffed behind his back and he was transported by you downtown. Do I have all of that right?”

  “Sounds right to me.”

  “In the video, Mr. Wyms can be seen in the rear passenger side seat. Did he stay there for the whole hour-long ride downtown?”

  “Yes, he did. I had him belted in.”

  “Is it standard procedure to place someone who is in custody on the passenger side?”

  “Yes, it is. You don’t want him behind you when you’re driving.”

  “Deputy, I also noticed on the tape that you did not place Mr. Wyms’s hands in plastic bags or anything of that nature before placing him in your patrol car. Why is that?”

  “Didn’t think it was necessary.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it was not going to be an issue. The evidence was overwhelming that he had fired the weapons in his possession. We weren’t worried about gunshot residue.”

  “Thank you, Deputy Stallworth. I hope you can go get some sleep now.”

  I sat down and left the witness for Golantz. He slowly got up and took the lectern. He knew exactly where I was going now but there was little he was going to be able to do to stop me. But I had to give him credit. He found a small crack in my direct and tried his best to exploit it.

  “Deputy Stallworth, approximately how long did you wait for your car to be repaired at the downtown motor hub?”

  “About two hours. They only have a couple guys work midnight watch and they were juggling jobs down there.”

  “Did you stay with the car for those two hours?”

  “No, I grabbed a desk in the office and wrote up the arrest report on Wyms.”

  “And you testified earlier that no matter what the procedure is supposed to be, you generally rely on the motor pool to keep the fleet cars clean, is that correct?”

  “Yes, correct.”

  “Do you make a formal request or do people working in the motor hub just take it upon themselves to clean and maintain the car?”

  “I’ve never made a formal request. It just gets done, I guess.”

  “Now, during those two hours that you were away from the car and writing the report, do you know if the employees in the motor hub cleaned or disinfected the car?”

  “No, I do not.”

  “They could have and you wouldn’t necessarily know about it, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Thank you, Deputy.”

  I hesitated but got up for redirect.

  “Deputy Stallworth, you said it took them two hours to repair the car because they were short-handed and busy, correct?”

  “Correct.”

  He said it in a boy-am-I-getting-tired-of-this tone.

  “So it is unlikely that these guys would have taken the time to clean your car if you didn’t ask, right?”

  “I don’t know. You’d have to ask them.”

  “Did you specifically ask them to clean the car?”

  “Nope.”

  “Thank you, Deputy.”

  I sat down and Golantz passed on another round.

  It was now almost noon. The judge adjourned for lunch but gave the jury and lawyers only a forty-five-minute break as he sought to make up for time lost during the morning. That was fine with me. My star witness was next and the sooner I got her on the stand, the closer my client was going to be to a verdict of acquittal.

  Forty-nine

  Dr. Shamiram Arslanian was a surprise witness. Not in terms of her presence at the trial—she had been on the witness list longer than I had been on the case. But in terms of her physical appearance and personality. Her name and pedigree in forensics conjured an image of a woman deep, dark and scientific. A white lab coat and hair ironed back in a knot. But she was none of that. She was a vivacious, blue-eyed blonde with a cheerful disposition and easy smile. She wasn’t just photogenic. She was telegenic. She was articulate and confident but never came close to being arrogant. The one-word description for her was the one-word description every lawyer wants for every one of his witnesses: likable. And it was rare to get that in a witness delivering your forensic case.

  I had spent most of the weekend with Shami, as she preferred to be called. We had gone over the gunshot residue evidence in the Elliot case and the testimony she would give for the defense, as well as the cross-examination she could expect to receive from Golantz. This had been delayed until so late in the game to avoid discovery issues. What my expert didn’t know she couldn’t reveal to the prosecutor. So she was kept in the dark about the magic bullet until the last possible moment.

  There was no doubt that she was a celebrity gun for hire. She had once hosted a show about her own exploits on Court TV. She was asked twice for her autograph when I took her to dinner at the Palm and was on a first-name basis with a couple of TV execs who visited the table. She charged a celebrity-level fee as well. For four days in Los Angeles to study, prepare and testify she would receive a flat rate of $10,000 plus expenses. Nice work if you could get it, and she could. She was known to study the many requests for her time and to choose only those in which she steadfastly believed there had been a grievous error committed or a miscarriage of justice. It also didn’t hurt if you had a case that was getting the attention of the national media.

  I knew after spending the first ten minutes with her that she was going to be worth every penny Elliot would pay her. She would be double trouble for the prosecution. Her personality was going to win over the jury, and her facts were going to seal the deal. So much of trial work comes down to who is testifying, not what the testimony actually reveals. It’s about selling your case to the jury, and Shami could sell burnt matches. The state’s forensic witness was a lab geek with the personality of a test tube. My witness had hosted a television show called Chemically Dependent.

  I heard the low hum of recognition in the courtroom as my bighaired witness made her entrance from the back, holding all eyes as she walked up the center aisle, through the gate and across the proving grounds to the witness stand. She wore a navy blue suit that fit her curves snugly and accentuated the cascade of blonde curls over her shoulders. Even Judge Stanton seemed infatuated. He asked the courtroom deputy to get her a glass of water before she had even taken the oath. He hadn’t asked the state’s forensic geek if he had wanted jack shit.

  After she gave her name and spelled it and took the oath to tell nothing but the truth, I got up with my legal pad and went to the lectern.

  “Good afternoon, Dr. Arslanian. How are you?”

  “I’m doin’ just fine. Thanks for asking.”

  There was a slight trace of a southern accent in her voice.

  “Before we go over your curriculum vitae, I want to get something out of the way up front. You are a paid consultant to the defense, is that correct?”

  “Yes, that is correct. I’m paid to be here, not paid to testify to anything other than my own opinion—whether it’s in line with the defense or not. That’s my deal and I never change it.”

  “Okay, tell us where you are from, Doctor.”

  “I live in Ossining, New York, right now. I was born and
raised in Florida and spent a lot of years in the Boston area, going to different schools here and there.”

  “Shamiram Arslanian. That doesn’t sound like a Florida name.”

  She smiled brilliantly.

  “My father is one hundred percent Armenian. So I guess that makes me half Armenian and half Floridian. My father said I was Armageddian when I was a girl.”

  Many in the courtroom chuckled politely.

  “What is your background in forensic sciences?” I asked.

  “Well, I’ve got two related degrees. I got my master’s at MIT—the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—and that is in chemical engineering. I then got a PhD in criminology and that was awarded to me from John Jay College in New York.”

  “When you say ‘awarded,’ does that mean it’s an honorary degree?”

  “Hell, no,” she said forcefully. “I worked my butt off two years to get that sucker.”

  This time laughter broke out across the courtroom and I noticed that even the judge smiled before politely tapping his gavel one time for order.

  “I saw on your résumé that you have two undergraduate degrees as well. Is that true?”

  “I’ve got two of everything, it seems. Two kids. Two cars. I’ve even got two cats at home, named Wilbur and Orville.”

  I glanced over at the prosecution table and saw that Golantz and his second were staring straight forward and had not so much as cracked a smile. I then checked the jury and saw all twenty-four eyes holding on my witness with rapt attention. She had them eating out of her hand and she hadn’t even started yet.

  “What are your undergraduate degrees?”

  “I got one from Harvard in engineering and one from the Berklee College of Music. I went to both schools at the same time.”

  “You have a music degree?” I said with feigned surprise.

  “I like to sing.”

  More laughter. The hits kept coming. One surprise after another. Shami Arslanian was the perfect witness.

  Golantz finally stood and addressed the judge.

  “Your Honor, the state would ask that the witness provide testimony regarding forensics and not music or pet names or things not germane to the serious nature of this trial.”

  The judge grudgingly asked me to keep my examination on point. Golantz sat down. He had won the point but lost the position. Everybody in the room now viewed him as a spoilsport, stealing what little levity there was in such a serious matter.