Steve Martini - The Judge

“And after you hear this little girl. .” His voice breaks one more time. He regroups. “And after you hear Kimberly,” he says, “it will be left to you to decide who murdered her mother.” He turns and looks at Acosta as he says this. “And what punishment should be meted out for that terrible crime.”

With this thought Kline leaves the jury, and as he turns for the sanctuary of his counsel table, there is, halfway down his cheek, a lone tear. It is in every way a capital performance.

We are on the noon break, and I am going over notes in the courthouse cafeteria with Harry, prep for our opening, when a bailiff from one of the other departments finds us.

“Mr. Madriani. You got a call,” he says. “On one of the pay phones outside.”

I give Harry a look, like who would call me here?

“Maybe the office,” he says.

I leave him to take it, make my way across the room, shuttling between tables to the bank of pay phones on the wall outside. The receiver for one of these is dangling near the floor by its cord. I pick it up.

“Hello.”

“It’s me.” Lenore’s voice. “I took a chance that you would be lunching in.” She means in the courthouse.

Lenore has been careful not to be seen near the courtroom since her ouster from the case. She has taken up other digs for work, another friend across town, at least until the trial is over, a kind of moving Chinese wall to avoid tainting the partnership with conflict. Despite this, she is still working in the shadows, shamelessly feeding us information.

“How is it going?” she asks.

“My turn in the tumbler this afternoon,” I tell her. “Our opening statement.”

“Any surprises from Kline?”

I tell her about the reading glasses, that the state has promised the jury that they will link these to Acosta.

“Maybe Kline is hoping,” she says. “Throwing up a little dirt in hopes that some will stick.”

At the moment this sounds more like our own case.

“Why did you call?” I can sense in her breathless tones that there is more than curiosity at work here.

“I am hearing rumblings from people downtown that Lano is on the warpath,” she tells me.

“Somebody take his rawhide chew stick away?” I ask.

“It may not be so funny,” she says. “It is your name he is taking in vain. He got service on the subpoenas yesterday afternoon.”

Lenore is talking about the legal process Harry spent a week preparing, subpoenas with enough small print to strain Lano’s eyes. Hinds is rooting around in the association’s private papers, tracking through the organization’s financial dealings like a dog peeing on somebody else’s lawn. He has demanded bank statements and telephone records, with particular emphasis on the private line that rings in Lano’s office. These would be obtained from third parties, so Lano cannot destroy or alter them.

“Word is, he’s storming around his office, demanding your scalp,” she tells me.

“When’s the next performance? Harry would like to buy tickets.”

“Lano may cut a comic figure, but he is not one to take lightly.”

“Is he threatening my life?”

“Lano’s more subtle than that. Besides, I’m not privy to the private conversations of the rabble that hangs in his office.” According to Lenore, there are those among his cadre who are no doubt sticking pins in my effigy as we speak.

“You knew we had to cross over these waters,” I tell her. “It’s been part of our defense from the beginning.”

“True, but I thought I would be standing there with you.”

This is it. A moment of pained silence on the phone, the guilt that is eating at Lenore.

“And I didn’t think you would do it with such enthusiasm,” she says.

“What can I say? Harry gets carried away.”

“Then maybe you should let Harry start your car in the mornings,” she says.

“You make it sound ominous.”

“Just cover your ass,” she tells me. “I wouldn’t want to see anything happen to it.”

This is a conversation we can continue at another time.

“Are we still on for tonight?” I ask her.

“Are you sure you won’t be too tired?”

“I’ll get the wine.”

“What, so we can drown our sorrows?” she asks.

“That and other things.”

She laughs, something just on the edge of seductive. “Your place, eight o’clock.” I hear the click on the line and dead air, and in my mind the resonance; the lyrical qualities of Lenore’s voice.

The presumption of innocence is an intellectual exercise not subscribed to by the common man. For this reason, after Kline’s scorched-earth opening it is an uphill battle to drag the jury back to neutral ground.

I start with something that is not always obvious in such a formal setting: introductions. It is an effort at bonding that every good lawyer learns.

“My name is Madriani,” I tell the jury, “Paul.” I give them a toothy grin, which, pleasantly, most of them return.

“My client”-I gesture toward the table-“Judge Acosta.”

“Objection.” Kline is out of his chair.

“What? You would deny the common decency of an introduction?” In fact I have baited him, knowing that he would object to this.

“I object to the use of the title ‘judge,’” he says. He starts to speak, and Radovich cuts him off in midsyllable.

“Sidebar,” he says.

By the time I get there Kline is already bubbling over with venom.

“The defendant was suspended from the bench,” he tells Radovich. “Order of the supreme court,” he says. “Pending disposition in this trial. He should not be referred to as ‘judge.’”

“Petty point,” I tell him. “There is nothing legal in the title. You show me where it says in the law that someone cannot call themselves a judge.”

“It’s misleading,” he says. “Confusing to the jury.”

“Then we can explain it to them. Tell them that there’s a temporary order that will be expunged when my client is acquitted.”

“Fat chance.” Kline gives me a “screw you” expression.

Radovich coaxes Kline to accept the title, with an explanation to the jury. “I think that would solve any confusion,” he says.

It is more than I had expected.

“Absolutely,” I say. “We can cooperate to work out the language.” We have just started and I am already six yards up Kline’s ass with a hot poker.

“No, Your Honor, that’s not right. The fact is that he’s been removed from the bench,” says Kline. “There is only one judge in this courtroom,” he tells Radovich. Always pander to power.

It is a point that will have an effect on the jury, and Kline wants to settle it early.

Radovich wrinkles the skin at the bridge of his nose.

Kline senses the ground shifting under his feet.

“Perhaps we could refer to the defendant as ‘former judge,’” says Kline. “We can live with former judge.” The master of the fall-back position.

“We would prefer judge, with a fair explanation to the jury,” I say.

“I’ll bet you would,” says Kline.

“I would prefer to get on with the trial,” says Radovich. “Former judge it is,” he says. “Now get to work.”

It is an unsettling label, one that begs more than it answers, like the term ex-husband, with all the negative connotations. From the state’s perspective it is moot. Kline will no doubt refer to him as “the defendant” whenever he cannot call him “killer.”

As I head back toward the jury railing Acosta flags me to the table.

“What happened?” he says.

“For the time being you are mister,” I tell him.

He has a hold on my sleeve, telling me that this is mean-spirited, unfair.