Robert Tanenbaum - Counterplay

When the other attorney took his seat, Guma remained still with his eyes closed. Karp wondered if he’d fallen asleep and was about to prod him when his friend opened his eyes, took a quick look at the photograph of Teresa and Zachary on his desk, and then stood abruptly to walk to the lectern.

Karp smiled. The bulldog is back, he thought. They’d gone over the strategy the night before and again at lunch, and it could best be summed up with giving Coletta “enough rope to hang himself.”

“So, Mr. Coletta, is it fair to say that you owe Mr. Stavros a lot?” Guma began.

“Yeah,” Coletta said, looking up at the ceiling as if he’d discovered something interesting there. “Mr. Stavros gave me a chance when I got out of prison.”

“For what?” Guma asked.

“Objection!” Anderson said.

“Mr. Anderson, I will allow it on the issue of the witness’s credibility,” said the judge.

“Assault and robbery,” Coletta replied.

Guma checked his notes and looked up. “Anything else?”

“There was a rape charge in there, too,” Coletta muttered.

“Oh, was that a repressed memory?” Guma asked as the courtroom spectators laughed and whispered.

Lussman gave Guma a sharp look. “We get your point, Mr. Guma. Please continue to another area.”

Then, after several questions regarding Coletta’s version of events, Guma acted as though he was winding down but then remembered something else. “Refresh my memory, Mr. Coletta,” he said. “Was Mrs. Stavros standing when Mr. Kaplan shot her?”

Coletta furrowed his brows. The defense attorneys had coached him to think before he answered the prosecution’s questions and answer as generally as possible.

“I think that’s right,” he said.

“Think? Well, let’s see-if you’d turn to page 153 in your Q amp;A given to Clarke Fairbrother on-”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s right,” Coletta said. “She was standing up.”

“And how many times did you say Mr. Kaplan shot her?”

“Uh, once, like I said,” Coletta said. “He grabbed the gun from her and she turned to go call the cops, and he shot her once. Bang. Just once.”

Coletta’s brain was working overtime. There was a lot at stake, including his own future, and he worried that he’d already messed up more than was good for him. But he did remember that the lawyers had told him that there was a single bullet hole in the bitch’s head. Emil Stavros had scratched his head at that but shrugged. I thought I pulled the trigger twice, he had said. But it was dark and my hand was shaking. I could have missed.

“With the court’s permission, Mr. Coletta, I wonder if you’d mind stepping down from the witness box to demonstrate how this shooting occurred,” Guma said, doing his best “slightly addled older attorney” act.

“I object,” Anderson said. “This isn’t a theater.”

“Mr. Guma?” the judge said with his eyebrows raised.

“Mr. Coletta did this once before for my partner, Mr. Karp, which I think helped us understand how this could have happened,” Guma said. “So I’m just trying to paint a clear picture for the jurors. As you know, Mr. Coletta’s, uh, version of these events came in rather…late…in the game. I’d like a refresher myself.”

“I’ll allow it. But keep it short and to the point, Mr. Guma.”

“Of course, Your Honor.” Guma waited for Coletta to climb down from the witness stand. “Now, pretend your fingers are a gun. I’ll turn my back, like so…and if you would, show the jury about how far Mr. Kaplan held the gun from the back of Mrs. Stavros’s head.”

Coletta did as told and stepped back a pace as he pointed his fingers at the back of Guma’s head. “He was about this far away.”

“And then ‘boom,’ right?”

“Yeah, yeah…boom…he shot her, she went down…end of story.”

“End of story,” Guma repeated. “Yes, well, you can retake the stand, Mr. Coletta.”

When Coletta was settled, Guma looked up and stated, “Your Honor, for the record, the witness indicated the shooter was about a foot away from the deceased at the time of the shooting and shot the deceased in the head one time.”

“The record will so reflect,” Judge Lussman said.

Then Guma asked, “Is there anything else you can recall from that night? Some detail?”

Coletta tried to look thoughtful, then shrugged. But before he could answer, Guma slipped in, “Such as…what was she wearing?”

Coletta paused to remember what he’d told the prosecutors back in July. Then his face brightened. “Yeah, I think it was one of those white filmy negligee things. She was a pretty hot looker, if you know what I mean.”

Guma appeared to bite his lip. “Yes,” he said dryly, “I know what you mean. So it was white, sort of see-through?”

“Yeah, that’s what I remember.”

“Not blue?”

“Oh no,” Coletta said. “Definitely not blue.”

“And after Kaplan shot her, you helped with the burial?”

Coletta glanced quickly over at the jury. Anderson had told him this would be the dicey part and that he needed to look like a man consumed by guilt when he answered. “Yeah, like I said, I feel real bad about that,” he said. “But back then I was like, ‘Well, it’s done. Jeff’s my buddy…it’s done…’ and I thought the cops would try to pin the rap on me, too.”

“And what we also have is that you felt like you owed Mr. Stavros because he gave you a job-part of which was to ferry him back and forth to his mistress-after you got out of prison?”

“I-”

“Yes, or no, Mr. Coletta. True or false…if you know the difference.”

“Objection! Your Honor, that comment was entirely beyond the pale!” Anderson was red-faced with anger.

Karp looked at Guma, knowing his friend was walking a fine line and hoped that his personal investment in the case wasn’t going to carry over into the courtroom and destroy their good work. But when their eyes locked, Guma winked.

“Mr. Guma,” the judge lectured. “You know and I know that comment was beyond the scope of cross-examination. I will not tolerate another such breach of good conduct. Am I understood?”

Guma bowed his head and nodded. “Yes, Your Honor. Sorry, Your Honor.” He stood so that only Karp could see that his fingers were crossed.

The judge turned to the jurors. “As you can see, at times even fine attorneys such as our Mr. Guma can get carried away in the emotion of the moment. I’ll remind you that offhand remarks and comments by either side are not to be considered evidence. The evidence is what you see and hear from the witness on the stand and from whatever exhibits may be marked and received in evidence. Please disregard Mr. Guma’s uncalled-for remark. Now, Mr. Guma, do you have any other questions?”

“None, Your Honor. However, we do have a matter to take up with Your Honor out of the presence of the jury.”

“Very well, Mr. Guma,” the judge said. “The witness may step down.”

After Coletta left with considerably less swagger than when he entered, the judge sent the jury out of the room. “All right, now what is this matter you wanted to bring up?”

It was Karp who stood to respond. “My esteemed colleague was referring to our intention to call three witnesses to the stand for impeachment purposes regarding Mr. Coletta’s testimony during the people’s rebuttal case.”

Anderson scowled. “I object strenuously. They don’t get to retry their case just because they messed up and forgot to ask the right questions the first time.”

“There was no ‘mess-up,’ Your Honor,” Karp said. “Again, I’d remind the court that Mr. Coletta was something of a ‘witness out of the blue.’ We simply want to present witnesses who can give the jury something with which to weigh his truthfulness.”