Steve Martini - The Judge

“Yes.”

“Would it be consistent with a larger assailant attacking a smaller victim?”

“In my opinion, yes.”

There is no disagreement as to how Hall died. Our own reconstruction experts have concurred with Angelo’s scenario. Lab experts have identified brain fluid on the glass tabletop. The fact that Hall was attacked from behind leads to two possibilities: First, that she was taken unawares by a killer she did not expect. The second is, however, more probable; that she may have said something to the murderer that sent him into a rage, perhaps some dismissive comment while her back was turned. A psychologist called earlier in the state’s case has testified that the circumstances surrounding the crime demonstrate considerable rage on the part of the killer. This is of course consistent with their theory that Acosta attacked her when Hall refused to back off the solicitation charge.

They dispose quickly of any question of sexual assault. According to Kline, there was no seminal fluid found in or on the victim or her panties, no evidence of trauma to the genital area. Kline then turns to the last item on the agenda for Angelo.

“Doctor,” he says, “in your examination of the victim did you find any other wounds on her body which in your opinion were unusual or significant?”

“There was one thing,” he says. “A small sliver of glass was removed from the bottom of the victim’s foot.”

“She was barefoot at the time of this injury?” asks Kline.

“It would appear so.”

“Were you able to make any findings regarding this glass?”

“Yes. It was optical glass, from a pair of men’s spectacles found at the scene. The fragment fit perfectly a missing piece from the lens.”

“And do you have an opinion as to how that fragment of glass came to be embedded in the victim’s foot?”

“It would be my opinion that the victim stepped on the spectacles during the struggle with her assailant, breaking the frame and one lens and, as a consequence, the piece of the glass became embedded in her foot.”

“That’s all we have for the witness at this time,” says Kline.

The first thing we squabble over, Angelo and I, are the broken reading glasses from the scene.

Harry and Acosta have engaged in a whispered dialogue. There is concern that we have not been given everything by the prosecution in discovery concerning these spectacles.

I pick up where Kline has left off, pressing Angelo on his choreography of events, the scenario with Kline’s secretary. I ask him how it is possible that the assailant’s glasses could have ended up under Hall’s bare foot if she were attacked from behind and thrown forward.

He has no easy answer for this, and sidesteps it by saying that he has not testified that the glasses belonged to the assailant, though this is clearly the inference Kline would have the jury make. I leave it and move on.

“Dr. Angelo, isn’t it true that not everyone who dies issues a death rattle?”

“That’s true,” says Angelo.

“Is there a test that you can administer on a decedent to determine if at some point they have issued such an involuntary noise from the vocal box following death?”

“No.”

“So you cannot tell us with certainty that in fact Brittany Hall issued a death rattle after seven-thirty P.M. or any other time?”

“Not with certainty,” he says.

“You don’t know, do you?”

A grudging expression from Angelo. “No.”

“Isn’t it possible that the sound the neighbor heard in her apartment that evening, the noise she reported at seven-thirty, was in fact the victim, Brittany Hall, calling out for help as she was attacked?”

“Objection, speculation,” says Kline.

“Sustained.”

“But you cannot say with certainty that it was a death rattle?”

“Not with certainty,” he says.

“Now, you talked about the wounds suffered by the victim, and particularly the first blow to her head, which I believe you stated would have rendered the victim unconscious. Is that correct?”

“That’s right.”

“Is it not possible, Doctor, that if the victim were surprised by the first blow, and rendered unconscious by it, that her attacker might not have been overpowering in terms of strength?”

He gives me a quizzical look, as if perhaps he doesn’t follow this.

“Is it not possible, Doctor, given the element of surprise, that the attacker in this case could have been a woman?” As I say this, I am looking not at the witness, but at Acosta, who suddenly brings his gaze up to meet mine. It is the first time I have ever broached the subject and it seems to catch the Coconut by surprise.

“It’s possible,” says Angelo.

I move on.

“In your opinion, would it have been possible for the victim to have regained consciousness after receiving this initial blow?”

“Not in my view. No.”

“And why is that?”

“The extensive cranial damage, total failure of the frontal bone, and the consequent trauma to the frontal lobe of the brain. This would have resulted in a massive concussion and immediate loss of consciousness.”

I start to break in, but Angelo is not finished. As long as I’ve opened this door, he’s going to put the screws to me.

“Then the loss of brain fluid and bleeding from the head wound would have brought on hydraulic shock, a dramatic loss of blood pressure. No, she could not have regained consciousness, not without dramatic and immediate medical intervention, and even then I’m not certain it would have been possible. There would have been massive and permanent brain damage.”

“Are you finished?”

He smiles at me, unless he can think of something more damaging in the next second or two.

“Then I take it that in your opinion it would not have been possible for the victim to have issued any kind of a voluntary cry after the initial blow to the head?”

“Except for a death rattle,” he says.

“Which you have acknowledged you cannot prove occurred.”

There is a grudging acceptance of this from the doctor.

“Is it not physically possible, Doctor, that the victim might have cried out, briefly, in the instant that she was attacked from behind, just before her head was struck?”

“Objection. Calls for speculation,” says Kline.

“Your Honor, I’m not asking whether the victim did cry out, I’m asking whether in the scientific medical opinion of this witness there was anything that would have prevented her from doing so.”

“Overruled,” says Radovich.

“You can answer the question,” I tell Angelo.

He’d prefer not to.

“The assailant did have his hands around her throat.”

“Did you find that there was damage to the victim’s larynx?” I already know the answer from the autopsy report.

“No.”

“Was there any injury to Ms. Hall’s voice box that would have prevented her from calling out in that instant before the head injury was inflicted?”

“No.”

“So it’s medically possible that the sound that the neighbor heard at approximately seven-thirty that evening was a cry from the victim at the moment she was being assaulted, is it not?”

Angelo looks to Kline for a fleeting instant.

“It’s medically possible,” he says.

That is the problem with circumstantial evidence; it nearly always cuts in more than one direction.

“You testified earlier that there was a good deal of bleeding as a result of the victim’s injuries. Is that correct?”

“Yes.” Angelo is down to one-word replies.

“You saw the victim’s apartment, did you not?”

“Yes.”

“And there was a great deal of blood on the carpet?”

“Yes.”

“As well as on the wall, the blood-spatter evidence you referred to earlier?”