Michael Connelly: The Crossing

“Yes, Your Honor.”

Haller apparently found what he was looking for and was ready to proceed.

“How long did you leave Mr. Hennegan handcuffed on the street, Officer Sanchez?”

“I checked the car and once I was sure there was no one else in it, I went back to Mr. Hennegan, patted him down to check for weapons, then helped him up and placed him in the backseat of the cruiser for his own safety and ours.”

“Why was his safety in question?”

“Like I said, we didn’t know what we had here. One guy runs, the other guy is acting nervous. It was best to secure the individual while we determined what was going on.”

“When did you first notice that Mr. Hennegan was acting nervous, as you say?”

“Right away. When I told him to put his hands out the window.”

“You were pointing a gun at him when you gave that order, weren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, so you have Hennegan in the backseat of your car. Did you ask him if you could search his car?”

“I did and he said no.”

“So what did you do after he said no?”

“I went on the radio and called for a dope dog to come to the scene.”

“And what does a dope dog do?”

“It is trained to alert if it smells drugs.”

“Okay, so how long did that take, to get the dog out to Florence and Normandie?”

“About an hour. It had to come from the academy, where they had a training demonstration.”

“So for an hour my client was locked in the back of your car while you waited.”

“That is correct.”

“For your safety and his.”

“Correct.”

“How many times did you go back to your car, open the door, and ask him again if you could search his car?”

“Two or three times.”

“And what was his response?”

“He kept saying no.”

“Did you or other police officers ever find the passenger who ran from the car?”

“Not as far as I know. But the whole thing was turned over to the South Bureau Narcotics Unit after that day.”

“So when this dog finally arrived, what happened?”

“The K-9 officer walked him around the subject’s vehicle and the dog alerted at the trunk.”

“What was the dog’s name?”

“I think it was Cosmo.”

“What kind of vehicle had Mr. Hennegan been driving?”

“It was an old Toyota Camry.”

“And so Cosmo told you there were drugs in the trunk.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So you opened the trunk.”

“We cited the dog’s alert as probable cause to search the trunk.”

“Did you find drugs, Officer Sanchez?”

“We found a bag of what appeared to be crystal meth and a bag of money.”

“How much crystal meth?”

“Two point four pounds, it turned out to be.”

“And how much money?”

“Eighty-six thousand dollars.”

“Cash?”

“All cash.”

“You then arrested Mr. Hennegan for possession with intent to sell, correct?”

“Yes, that was when we arrested him, read him his rights, and took him to South Bureau for booking.”

Haller nodded. And was looking at his notepad again. Bosch knew he had to have something else. It came out when the judge prompted him once again to proceed.

“Officer, let’s go back to the stop. You testified earlier that Mr. Hennegan turned right on a red light after coming to a complete stop and waiting for the moment that it was clear and safe for him to make that turn. Do I have that right?”

“Yes, correct.”

“And that was correct under the law, yes?”

“Yes.”

“So if he did everything right, why did you light him up and force him to pull over?”

Sanchez made a quick glance toward the prosecutor, who sat at the table opposite Haller. He had so far said nothing but Bosch had watched him taking notes during the police officer’s testimony.

The glance told Bosch that this was where Haller had found the weakness of the case.

“Your Honor, can you ask the witness to answer the question and not look at the prosecutor for the answer?” Haller prompted.

Judge Yerrid leaned forward again and told Sanchez to answer. Sanchez asked for a repeat of the question and Haller complied.

“It was Christmastime,” Sanchez said. “We always give out turkey tickets at that time of year and I was pulling them over to give them turkey tickets.”

“Turkey tickets?” Haller asked. “What is a turkey ticket?”

Bosch was enjoying the Lincoln Lawyer show. Haller had expertly put all the details of the arrest on the record, had circled back to the Achilles heel of the case, and was about to exploit it big time. Bosch now thought he knew why the prosecutor had been silent throughout the procedure. There was nothing he could do about the facts of the case. It was going to come down to how he argued them to the judge later.

“What are turkey tickets, Officer Sanchez?” Haller asked again.

“Well, there is a chain of markets in South L.A. called Little John’s and every year around Thanksgiving and Christmas they give us these gift certificates for turkeys. And we give them out to people.”

“You mean like a gift?” Haller asked.

“Yes, a gift,” Sanchez said.

“How do you choose who gets these turkey tickets?”

“We look for good deeds, people doing what they are supposed to be doing.”

“You mean drivers obeying the traffic laws?”

“That’s right.”

“So in this case you pulled over Mr. Hennegan because he did the right thing on that turn at the red light?”

“Yes.”

“In other words, you stopped Mr. Hennegan for not breaking the law, correct?”

Sanchez looked at the prosecutor again, hoping for some help. None came and he struggled through an answer.

“We did not know he was breaking the law until his partner bolted and we found the drugs and money.”

Even Bosch saw it as a pathetic stance. But Haller wasn’t letting it go by.

“Officer Sanchez,” he said, “I ask you very specifically, at the moment you put your car’s lights on and sounded the siren in order to pull Mr. Hennegan over, Mr. Hennegan had done nothing you saw to be wrong, nothing illegal. Is that correct?”

Sanchez mumbled his answer.

“Correct.”

“Please say your answer clearly for the record,” Haller said.

“Correct,” Sanchez said in a loud, annoyed tone.

“I have no further questions, Your Honor.”

The judge asked the prosecutor, whom he called Mr. Wright, if he wanted to cross-examine the witness, and Wright elected to pass. The facts were the facts and nothing he could ask could change them. The judge dismissed Officer Sanchez and addressed the lawyers.

“This is your motion, Mr. Haller,” he said. “Are you ready for arguments?”

A brief dispute followed as Haller said he was ready to proceed with oral arguments and Wright suggested that written arguments be submitted instead. Judge Yerrid threw it Haller’s way and said he wanted to hear oral arguments and then decide if written arguments were necessary.

Haller stood and moved to the lectern between the prosecution and defense tables.

“I’ll be brief, Your Honor, as I think the facts of the case are pretty clear. By any measure of those facts, not only is the probable cause to make this traffic stop insufficient, it simply doesn’t even exist. Mr. Hennegan was obeying all traffic laws and not acting suspiciously in any way when Officer Sanchez and his partner put on their lights and siren and forced him to pull to the side of the road.”

Haller had carried a legal tome with him to the lectern. He now looked down at a highlighted section of text and continued.

“Your Honor, the Fourth Amendment requires that a search and seizure be pursuant to a warrant supported by probable cause. However, there are exceptions to the warrant requirement under Terry , one of which is that a vehicle may be stopped when there is probable cause to believe that an infraction has been committed or there is reasonable suspicion to believe that the occupants of the vehicle are engaged in a crime. In this instance we have none of the requirements for a Terry stop. The Fourth Amendment places strict limitations on the state in its exercise of power and authority. Handing out turkey tickets is not a valid exercise of constitutional authority. Mr. Hennegan committed no traffic offense and by the arresting officer’s own admission was driving in a perfectly legal and correct way when he was forced to pull over. It does not matter what was found to be in the trunk of his car later. The government trampled on his right to be protected from unlawful search and seizure.”