Scott Pratt - An Innocent Client

“I wish I had a videotape to show you, or an eyewitness, but unfortunately, I don’t. What I do have is a web of circumstantial evidence so tightly woven that the defendant cannot possibly escape. Everything points to her. She was at the club. She spoke to Mr. Tester. She served him drinks. She flirted with him. She invited him to leave with her. She followed him to his room, and then she drugged him, murdered him, and robbed him.”

Martin turned and pointed at Angel.

“Don’t let yourselves be fooled by that young woman’s beauty or her youth. Don’t let yourselves be taken in by her attorney’s tricks or the smoke and mirrors that will no doubt be used to confuse you during the course of this trial. That young woman sitting over there committed a vicious murder, and we have the evidence to prove it. It will be your duty to render a verdict of guilty in this case, and to impose on her the only sentence that will give justice to John Paul Tester and his family, a sentence of death. This woman committed first-degree murder. My job is to prove it. Yours is to make her pay the price. I fully intend to hold up my end, and I hope that once you’ve heard all the evidence, you’ll do the same. Thank you.”

Martin sat down at the prosecutor’s table, and I stood. Martin’s argument had been passionate and persuasive, but parts of it were dishonest, and I intended to point that out immediately. I walked to the wooden lectern, picked it up, and set it down three feet to my right. I didn’t want any barriers between the jurors and me. I glanced at the jurors and then out over the courtroom. Junior Tester had come in and was sitting on the front row, directly to my left. I noticed that he’d put on at least twenty pounds since I’d visited him a couple of months ago. He hadn’t shaved in days and looked tired and haggard. He was also staring directly at me. It unnerved me, but only for a few seconds.

“Not much point in having a trial,” I said, “if you believe everything Mr. Martin just said.” I smiled at the jury. “If everything he said were true, I suppose we could just go ahead and ship Miss Christian off to death row right now and save everybody all of this trouble.”

I sought out eyes, looking for signs that Martin’s argument had closed their minds. They weren’t avoiding me. They were still receptive to what I had to say.

“But what Mr. Martin just told you isn’t the truth. It was his interpretation of the evidence, and as every one of you knows, there are two sides to every story. Now, first things first. This young lady’s name is not ‘the defendant.’”

I walked over to the defense table and stood directly behind Angel. I put my hands on her shoulders.

“Her name is Angel Christian, and she’s going to testify in this case. What she will tell you is this:

“On the night of April the eleventh of this year, Reverend John Paul Tester came into the club where she’d been a waitress for only a month. It’s a strip club, a gentleman’s club, whatever you want to call it. It’s a place where men go to watch young ladies dance and take their clothes off. It’s not the kind of place where you’d expect to find a man of God, especially if he’s paying for his night out with money given to him by worshippers at the Church of the Light of Jesus, where he’d preached a sermon on the evils of fornication less than an hour before he arrived at the club.”

Diane Frye had managed to get hold of a tape recording of the sermon Tester gave that night. I’d tried to get it introduced as evidence, but the judge shot me down. I wasn’t even supposed to mention it, but if Frankie didn’t object, I knew the judge wouldn’t say a word. If he did object, he’d simply be calling more attention to it. Mentioning the tape probably bordered on being unethical, but Angel was on trial for her life. Frankie kept his mouth shut.

“Miss Christian wasn’t a dancer, not a stripper, and she certainly wasn’t a prostitute. She was a waitress. She arrived here in February after leaving a viciously abusive situation back home in Oklahoma. She originally intended to go to Florida, but she met a young lady on a bus in Dallas who told her she’d help Miss Christian find work here.

“Miss Christian will tell you that on the night of April the eleventh, she served Reverend Tester the drinks he ordered — six doubles, straight scotch, the equivalent of twelve drinks, in two hours. She’ll tell you Reverend Tester became intoxicated and that he was aggressive, even a little abusive, toward her. She’ll tell you Reverend Tester used inappropriate language and that Reverend Tester touched her inappropriately. She reported Reverend Tester’s behavior to her employer, Ms. Erlene Barlowe, who will also testify in this case.

“Ms. Barlowe spoke to Reverend Tester, and eventually asked the reverend to leave. Miss Christian had never seen or heard of Reverend Tester prior to his coming to the club that night, and she never saw him again after he walked out the door.”

I moved back to the jury box and stood directly in front of them.

“Now, despite what Mr. Martin said earlier, you won’t hear a single witness tell you they saw Miss Christian anywhere near Reverend Tester’s room that night. You won’t hear a single witness tell you they saw Miss Christian leave the club at the same time Reverend Tester left. As a matter of fact, Miss Christian’s employer, Erlene Barlowe, will testify that Miss Christian finished out her shift and Ms. Barlowe drove her home.

“You’ll hear evidence that two hairs found on the victim’s body contained DNA that matches Miss Christian’s DNA. That is, by far, the most compelling piece of evidence the state will present in this case. I believe it’s safe to say that were it not for those two hairs, we wouldn’t be here today. But what I’ll be asking you to pay particular attention to is where those hairs were found. Both of them were lifted off of Reverend Tester’s shirt. Since there will be testimony that Miss Christian had contact with Mr. Tester at the club, that she leaned over and served him drinks and that he deliberately and obnoxiously rubbed himself against her, it’s not only possible but probable that the hairs were transferred from Miss Christian to Reverend Tester at the club.

“That, ladies and gentlemen, is all they have, with the exception of a last-minute statement from a drug addict and thief they recruited at the jail. She’s my sister, yes, and she’s furious with me because I had her arrested when she stole from my family. It wasn’t the first time she’d done it.”

Martin stood to object. Judge Green waved him back down.

“Tone it down, Mr. Dillard,” the judge said.

“They have no murder weapon. They have no eyewitnesses. They have no fingerprints, no blood evidence, and no way to place Miss Christian at the scene of the crime. They say the motive is robbery, but they didn’t find any of Reverend Tester’s money on Miss Christian. They have no evidence to prove it.

“In this case, the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Miss Christian, acting with premeditation, stabbed the victim to death and then mutilated his body. In order for you to convict Miss Christian, you must have virtually no doubt that she committed this terrible crime. And beyond that, the judge will instruct you that in a case based on circumstantial evidence such as this one, you can only find Miss Christian guilty if there is no other reasonable theory of guilt. There are dozens of other reasonable theories as to how Reverend Tester was killed.

“When all the evidence is in, you folks will have more than a reasonable doubt. As a matter of fact, you’ll probably be wondering why this young lady was arrested in the first place. Angel Christian has been living a nightmare since the day the state wrongfully accused her of murder. It’s a nightmare only you can end. She is not guilty. She did not do this terrible thing.”