David Ellis - Jury of One

“Fine, Counsel. That will be overruled. Mr. Morphew?”

“What was the problem, Mr. Todavia?” Morphew asked.

“He says he’s got a cop on his tail,” said the witness. “Says this cop is tryin’ to put a hole in the Cans.”

“The Cans. The Columbus Street Cannibals?”

“Right.”

“That’s a street gang.”

“Right.”

“Are you a member?”

“Yeah, I’m C-Street.”

“So go on, Mr. Todavia.”

“Man, he says he’s got this cop lookin’ to be a hero, y’know? Says this cop is puttin’ a pinch on him.”

“Explain that to the jury, Mr. Todavia. A ‘pinch,’ if you would.”

Shelly looked at the jury. She hadn’t been watching them, entranced as she was by the witness’s testimony. That had been a mistake. Always watch the jury with one eye. Theirs was the only opinion that counted.

Hard to read them, as always. Other than the high points, it was hard to know what was going through someone’s head. She could say this much-they did not appear to be on the verge of inviting this kid over for tea. They saw him for what he was. Part of the problem. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t believable.

“He says to me, this cop has busted him. I say, okay, then take the hit and keep your mouth shut. But Alex, he says no, no. ‘This guy wants me to help him,’ he says.”

“He’s lying,” Alex said to her, his volume somewhat above a whisper. She saw two of the jurors turn toward him.

“He says this cop is looking to take down the Cannibals. Y’know, make a name for hisself. He says this cop wants him to be, like, an informant or some such.”

Morphew put out his hands as if framing the perfect summation. In doing so, he was highlighting the importance of the question. “The defendant told you that a certain police officer was trying to get his help to make a drug bust against the Cannibals?”

“That’s what I’m sayin’. He was all upset and shit. He kept sayin’, ‘What am I gonna do? The guy’s got me pinched.’”

“What did you say to him?”

“Told him to keep his mouth shut. Don’t do it. Take the hit.”

“And can you tell the jury what the defendant said to that, Mr. Todavia?”

Shelly steeled herself. Morphew had told Todavia to “tell the jury” for a reason. It was a device to get the jury’s attention; this was something he wanted to be sure they heard. She could guess what was coming at this point, more or less.

Todavia wet his lips and looked at the jury. “This boy Alex, he says to me, ‘I gotta get rid of this cop.’”

The gallery reacted to that. The jury did, too, scribbling in their notebooks.

“‘I gotta get rid of this cop.’ That’s what the defendant said?” Morphew asked.

Shelly didn’t write the words down, because she didn’t want the jury to see her giving them any credence whatsoever. She rolled her eyes, in fact, but she knew the jury wasn’t watching her. She noticed Alex was sweating.

“It’s okay,” she whispered to him, and nodded for emphasis. She was hoping to convince herself as much as him.

“Objection, Your Honor,” Shelly managed, but there was enough noise in the courtroom that the judge didn’t even hear her. So she stood. This was the last thing she wanted to do. Eddie Todavia had dropped a bombshell, and now she was highlighting that fact. The judge finally brought the courtroom back to order and nodded at Shelly.

“Unfair surprise,” she said. “We were never given any notice of anything remotely like this-this so-called statement. The fact that we were never told about this statement is a disgrace. We have been ambushed.”

“It’s all there, your Honor.” Morphew was referring to the witness disclosure. He was probably right. There was nothing specifically listed about this particular comment, but he was on good paper. There had been much talk around the state of changing the law and requiring every alleged admission by a defendant to be specifically listed before trial by the prosecution, but the legislation had stalled in the state’s House of Representatives. So Morphew was under no requirement to list the words, “I gotta get rid of this cop” to Shelly.

They went back and forth with the judge. Shelly hoped, somehow, that she could distract the jury, but they weren’t really listening. After a few exchanges, the judge called for a sidebar-a conversation outside the jury’s presence but on the record. The court reporter picked up her transcription machine and met the judge and lawyers in the far corner of the courtroom behind the judge’s bench, the corner opposite the jury. In hushed tones, the lawyers barked back and forth about the adequacy of the disclosure. The judge was not unsympathetic to Shelly. The disclosure had not been particularly forthcoming. But she had had the opportunity to talk to Todavia, even if he had refused to talk. She had talked to him prior to that, in fact.

“I’ll be willing to give you a short recess before you cross, Counsel,” the judge said. “Which is more than fair. But I’m not striking the testimony. Let’s go back on.”

All things considered, it had been about ten minutes since Todavia had testified to Alex’s statement. She hoped in vain that the jury had focused their attention elsewhere during that time. She would have done a circus trick right there in the courtroom, if she could, to distract them. Juggling. Cartwheels. But the fact was, the jury had probably taken those ten minutes to let that testimony sink in nice and good.

I gotta get rid of this cop. If those words were spoken, they were not spoken by the boy that Shelly had come to know. Maybe he’d lied to her a time or two, but she couldn’t fathom that Alex could speak so casually about committing homicide.

“All right, Mr. Todavia.” Morphew resumed his position at the podium. He seemed energized now, and small wonder. “Before this break, you said that the defendant told you he needed to get rid of this cop.”

“Yeah.”

“Did he elaborate on that? Explain that at all?”

“Naw, man. I knew what he meant.”

“Move to strike,” Shelly said from her chair.

“That comment will be stricken,” the judge said. He then asked the jury to disregard the statement, which was like telling someone to disregard that they had just been punched in the stomach.

Morphew walked over to a tripod and placed the photograph of Officer Raymond Miroballi on it. “Do you know this person?”

“Nope.”

“Ever seen him?”

“Nope.”

“Did the defendant mention the name Raymond Miroballi?”

“Nope.”

“Have you ever heard that name?”

“Just when that chick axed me,” he said, motioning toward Shelly. Actually, it had been Joel Lightner who had “axed” the question.

“Right before she kicked me in the stomach,” he added.

The judge looked at Shelly. So did the jury. She felt all of the eyes in the courtroom on her, the lawyer who apparently had physically battered a witness.

She got to her feet. “Your Honor, to be fair,” she said, “I was aiming for his crotch.”

Two of the jurors snickered, then some people behind her, and in that small space of time within which such things happen, the courtroom had erupted in laughter. Even the judge smiled. Courtrooms were often the place for some of the greatest releases of tension, because they were also the sources of the greatest tension. Jurors loved to laugh during a trial. It was such an odd scene, an utterly incriminating bit of testimony placed next to a moment of high comedy. It was a dumb thing to say, her comment, but it was better than cartwheels or juggling and it might buy her something with the jury.