Joseph Teller - Overkill

JEREMY: Sandro and them.

Jaywalker established that Jeremy had spent seven months in Puerto Rico and could have stayed there indefinitely, but instead had returned to New York in late April.

JAYWALKER: What did you do when you got back?

JEREMY: I told my mother I was going to go to the police and give myself up.

JAYWALKER: And did you in fact do that?

JEREMY: Yes, I did.

Jaywalker asked him when he had last seen Miranda. He replied that it had been half a year ago, when she’d come out to Rikers Island to visit him one time. Since that day, he hadn’t seen her or heard from her. Nor did he know where she was now.

And finally…

JAYWALKER: Jeremy, you say you killed Victor Quinones.

JEREMY: Yes, I did.

JAYWALKER: Can you tell us why you killed him?

JEREMY: I can only tell you what was in my mind at the time.

JAYWALKER: And what was that?

JEREMY: In my mind, I was trying to save my life.

It had been a long and emotional direct examination, and Judge Wexler granted Katherine Darcy a recess before requiring her to begin her cross.

To Jaywalker’s way of thinking, Jeremy had come through with flying colors, far exceeding expectations. And it had been powerful stuff, which had to have moved the jurors. But direct examination often turns out to be the easy part, where sufficient preparation is almost guaranteed to pay dividends. Even Jeremy’s final series of responses had been all but rehearsed, right down to the “in my mind,” a phrase that, come summation time, Jaywalker would argue were the three most important words of the entire trial.

Cross-examination was different. On cross, instead of being a friendly teammate, the examiner was suddenly a hostile opponent. And the questions, far from being softballs lobbed over the middle of the plate, are fastballs, curves and nasty sliders aimed at the corners. But Jaywalker knew that, and he’d literally spent dozens of hours playing the role of prosecutor, trying to anticipate every conceivable pitch Darcy might try to throw at Jeremy. So the problem wouldn’t be the unexpected question; Jaywalker had seen to that. The problem would be that there simply was no best answer to Dr. Seymour Kaplan’s conclusion that the fatal shot between the eyes had been fired from a distance of no more than five inches, or to Detective Regina Fortune’s assertion that Jeremy must have chased Victor Quinones some forty-five feet before delivering that shot. Those were facts that weren’t going to go away, no matter how thorough Jaywalker’s preparation had been, or how well Jeremy were to testify.

After the recess, Katherine Darcy showed just how smart she was. Instead of working chronologically, as Jaywalker had on direct, beginning with school and jobs and first meeting Miranda, Darcy moved right in for the kill.

DARCY: Mr. Estrada, did I hear you say you killed Victor Quinones in order to save your life?

JEREMY: That’s how it felt to me at the time.

DARCY: How many guns did Victor have?

JEREMY: One.

DARCY: When you shot him between the eyes, who had the gun?

JEREMY: I did.

DARCY: What was Victor doing at that point?

JEREMY: I’m not sure. Falling, I think.

DARCY: Falling on you, or falling away from you?

JEREMY: Falling down. Sort of away from me, I guess.

DARCY: You hadn’t been shot, had you?

JEREMY: I thought I had.

DARCY: But the truth is, you hadn’t been. Isn’t that right?

JEREMY: Yes.

Not the best answer.

And whenever that happened, Jaywalker blamed himself for having failed to anticipate the question. Better by far would have been, “The truth is, I thought I had been shot. Today, a year and half later, I know I wasn’t.” And then let Darcy wrestle with that one. But it was too late now. Not that Jaywalker wouldn’t lose an hour of sleep over it that night, kicking himself for having let Jeremy-and himself-down.

Darcy backed up and spent a few minutes questioning Jeremy about his shoddy school attendance even before he’d met Miranda. She asked him about his marijuana conviction, which he readily admitted. Taking Harold Wexler’s cue, she next tried to get Jeremy to admit that the taunts of Sandro and his friends had made him angry. But Jeremy refused to take the bait. He’d been scared, humiliated, even felt paranoid at times. But he didn’t remember feeling anger.

DARCY: How about when Victor sucker punched you in the face? That made you angry, didn’t it?

JEREMY: Yes, that did.

DARCY: So you chased him, right?

JEREMY: After I got up, yes.

DARCY: Weren’t you afraid he might have some kind of a weapon? A knife, a razor or something like that?

JEREMY: I don’t remember thinking about that.

DARCY: You weren’t afraid?

JEREMY: I don’t remember being afraid at that time.

DARCY: In fact, you had a very good reason not to be afraid. Didn’t you?

JEREMY: [No response.]

DARCY: And that good reason was that you had your gun. You had a loaded gun, didn’t you?

JEREMY: No, not at that point.

DARCY: Oh, right. You say Victor had it first. So when was the first time you saw it?

JEREMY: After the fight, right after somebody screamed. I looked up and I saw it in Victor’s hand.

DARCY: Did you run away?

JEREMY: No.

DARCY: Why not?

JEREMY: I’m not sure. I guess ’cause I was too close to him to run. If I’d turned and tried to run, he would have shot me in the back. Or maybe shot Miranda. I don’t know.

Darcy tried to pin Jeremy down about the number of times he’d fired, but he said he was unsure. He didn’t know if he’d emptied the gun or not, or how many rounds it held. And he claimed to have absolutely no recollection of having chased Victor some forty-five feet while holding the gun in his hand.

Jaywalker bit his lip, knowing the worst was about to come. But knowing also that there was nothing he could do about it.

DARCY: Did you hear Detective Fortune say it was forty-five feet from where the fight was to where Victor was found?

JEREMY: Yes.

DARCY: And did you hear Dr. Kaplan say there’s no way Victor could have walked or run those forty-five feet after being shot in the head?

JEREMY: Yes.

DARCY: So how do you explain how Victor got there, unless the true answer is that you chased him and shot him there?

JEREMY: I–I can’t explain it.

DARCY: Do you think Detective Fortune was lying about the forty-five feet, or Dr. Kaplan was lying about Victor’s not having been able to run after he’d been shot in the head?

Jaywalker could have objected, not only because it was two questions in one, but because it called for an opinion as to other witnesses’ testimony. But he decided to let it go. They’d been over this part a lot, the two of them, and he was pretty sure Jeremy could handle it.

JEREMY: I’m not saying they’re lying. I’m just saying I honestly don’t remember chasing him once I had the gun. I only remember getting it away from him and shooting at him until he was on the ground.

DARCY: How about holding the gun no more than four or five inches from him while you shot him between the eyes? Are you telling us you don’t remember that, either?

JEREMY: I know we were close. I don’t know exactly how close.

DARCY: How about Victor’s begging for his life right before you shot him between the eyes? Remember that?

JEREMY: No. No, I don’t.

DARCY: Or picking him up a little bit off the ground before shooting him between the eyes and letting him fall back down on the pavement? Remember that?

JEREMY: No.

DARCY: Could those things have happened?

JEREMY: I guess they could have. They must have. But I honestly don’t remember them.

DARCY: How about your being the one who had the gun in the first place? Could that have happened, too?