Andrew Price - Without A Hitch

“Right.”

“We’ve also established he was barring the door with his left shoulder and looking through the crack, correct?”

“Right.”

“And that means he couldn’t have worked the doorknob with his left hand, correct?”

“Right.”

“Which again means he had to be holding the gun in his left hand?”

Russell nodded. “Just like it says in my report.”

“And like you said before when I asked you which hand he used to hold the gun?”

“Right.”

“Then I’m confused, Sergeant. You remember explaining to me how you saw him hold the gun behind his back with his arm running the length of his body, correct?”

“Yeah,” Russell said cautiously.

“And you said Beaumont was standing behind the door like this, with the crack of the door being here to his front right,” Beckett said, demonstrating how Beaumont supposedly blocked the door while using his right hand to show where the door opening would have been. “Webb would have been standing over here to the left behind the door, and you would have been standing behind Officer Webb,” Beckett continued, pointing to where Webb and Russell would have stood. “Do you see the problem yet?”

Russell shrugged his shoulders.

“Look where the gun is, Sergeant. It’s behind Beaumont. . behind the door , completely hidden from your view and you never could have seen him hold it behind his body. Can you explain that?”

Russell looked at Beckett and then Pierce.

“The District Attorney can’t help you, Sergeant,” Beckett said to emphasize Russell’s inability to answer the question. “We’re waiting, Sergeant. How could you see the gun when it was hidden by the door?”

“I could’a made a mistake. He might’a been holding it in his right hand.” Russell’s eyes darted back and forth between Beckett and Pierce.

“Sergeant, you and I just established a moment ago that there was no way Beaumont could have held the gun in his right hand and still turned the doorknob, didn’t we?”

“I could’a been wrong about that.”

Beckett looked at the jury. “That’s interesting.” He turned back to Russell. “Sergeant, if he was standing with his left shoulder barring the door, where would hisright shoulder be?”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s a simple question. Wouldn’t his right shoulder be back behind the door as well?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“That would have been hidden from your view too, wouldn’t it?”

Russell’s mouth went dry. “I guess.”

“So whether he held the gun behind him on his left side or his right side, you couldn’t have seen it either way could you? The door blocked your view.”

Russell looked at Pierce again, but Pierce was looking at his notes. “I might’a been mistaken. He might’a flashed the gun at us through the door crack. These things are really stressful and it’s been a long time, so I might’a misremembered.”

“You were very certain a few minutes ago when you said, ‘He was holding it down behind him with his arm running down the length of his body slightly behind him, with the barrel of the firearm pointed down behind him,’” Beckett read from his notes. “I believe you added that the barrel was pointed behind his right leg. You were very sure of that point.”

“Yeah, but I think I just misremembered that. It’s been a long time and I’ve had a lot of arrests since then.”

“Then why did you specifically mention on the arrest report that Beaumont held the gun ‘in his left hand, with his arm hanging down his side, slightly behind him’?” This time Beckett read from the police report.

Russell didn’t answer.

“Sergeant, I have here the police report. You signed this, correct?” Beckett handed a copy of the report to Russell.

“Yeah.”

“Did you or did you not state in your official report that Beaumont held the gun in his left hand, behind him?” Beckett asked harshly.

“I was mistaken.”

“You were mistaken?!” Beckett mocked him.

“Yeah, it happens.”

“A moment ago, you blamed the passage of time for your supposed mistake from when you testified earlier. But now it turns out you made the same mistake on the initial arrest report? When did you write this report?” Beckett held up the report for the jury to see.

“The day of the arrest.”

“ The same day , yet you completely mis-described how he was standing when you first saw him?!”

“Like I said, it happens,” Russell said cynically. “I’m not perfect.”

“Did Officer Webb also sign this report?”

“Yeah.”

“In fact, he made his own statement, right?”

Russell mumbled an agreement.

“Why don’t you read his statement to the jury? Start with ‘suspect was standing.’”

Russell scanned the report before reading it aloud. “‘Suspect was standing with a firearm in his left hand, with his hand down behind his rear, with the barrel pointed away from his body behind him.’”

“Somehow Webb made the same mistake you did, didn’t he?”

“I guess so.”

“Neither of you was able to recall accurately what happened when you wrote your separate statements on the same day you arrested him?”

Russell didn’t answer.

“Do you know that you and Officer Webb both misspelled the same words in your statements?”

Russell looked away from the jury and didn’t speak.

“Did Officer Webb write this report or did you, sir?”

“He wrote it.”

“Is Officer Webb going to agree with that?”

“Objection, he can’t testify to what Officer Webb will say,” Pierce interjected.

“It’s funny, Your Honor,” Beckett said, turning his back on Pierce and speaking directly to the jury, “I wouldn’t have thought there would be an issue. . maybe Officer Webb’s testimony will be more revealing than we expected.”

Several members of the jury smirked at this.

“Counsel, approach the bench,” ordered a very-annoyed Judge Sutherlin. “I warned both of you that I will not tolerate talking objections. There will be no grandstanding in my courtroom,” he growled.

Both attorneys acknowledged their reprimands and returned to their places.

“Sergeant, it seems the gun couldn’t have been in either his left hand or his right hand?”

Russell remained silent, but the jury took his silence as an admission. Normally, Beckett would have forced answers to preserve the testimony for appeal, but since an appeal was out of the question, he instead went for the dramatic attack which would stick in the jurors’ minds.

“And you certainly couldn’t have seen it hanging down behind him as you describe in the police report, could you?”

Russell still didn’t answer.

“Do you agree with me that you couldn’t have seen the gun, Sergeant?”

Russell again didn’t answer.

“I can wait all day, Officer.”

By this time, several members of the jury were visibly hostile toward Sgt. Russell, frowning at him and shaking their heads. The longer he took to answer the questions, the more their stares became glares and the greater the angry curl in their lips.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Russell finally agreed.

“So you lied on the report?” Beckett pressed him.

“Objection,” Pierce barked.

“I withdraw the question, Your Honor,” Beckett said, cutting off any need for a ruling from Sutherlin on the objection. “Let me rephrase that, Sergeant. Your report is wrong when it says you saw Mr. Beaumont holding a gun, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“And you were wrong today when you said you saw him hold the gun in his left hand?”

“Yeah.”

“And you were wrong today when you said you saw him hold the gun in his right hand?”