Steve Martini - Undue Influence

Harry’s in my ear. ‘He’s right,’ he says. ‘If she goes down, there’s no room to wiggle.’

I look at him. ‘If the pictures come in, she goes down,’ I say. ‘And then we have to look at them again in the penalty phase. What do we do then?’ I ask him.

This, the limited options open to us, saps the wind from Harry’s sails.

The only one who seems to take much joy in all of this is Morgan. This is classic Cassidy: confront the court with the repelling images of unborn death, work the judge on all the angles political and legal, and then watch us scramble to make concessions.

‘The pictures,’ I tell Harry, ‘are all poison. If we have to swallow-’

I look at Woodruff. He gives me a judicial shrug, like fairness compels him to give her one of the photos.

‘Then the only question,’ I tell Harry, ‘is whether we swallow it now or later.’

‘We need to confer, your honor.’ The fight has gone out of Harry, but he’s still trying to get me out of the room to talk.

‘Either a stipulation or one of the photographs,’ says Cassidy. ‘One or the other. Make up your mind.’

‘Do you want to talk to your client?’ says Woodruff. ‘It’s a big point. I think maybe you should talk to her.’

Cassidy makes a face of exasperation.

From the glazed look in Laurel’s eyes when confronted with the cold evidence of the dead child, questions of a stipulation on points of law at this moment would be the most obtuse of abstractions. I am not likely to penetrate her shell of pain.

‘A lawyer’s call,’ I say. ‘A question of strategy,’ I tell Woodruff.

He makes a face, conceding the point. ‘Then what will it be?’

‘The stipulation,’ I tell him. ‘What else?’

‘You got it. The pictures are excluded,’ he says. ‘And I don’t want to hear anything more about the unborn fetus until closing argument. Is that understood?’ He’s looking at Cassidy. Woodruff knows what we have given up. He is going to make sure that we get every inch in return.

‘We should have the right on redirect with this witness, Dr. Angelo,’ she says. ‘To the extent the defense raises the issue on cross.’

‘For what purpose? You’ve got your evidence. The elements are proven by the stipulation,’ says Woodruff.

‘If the defense opens the issue-’

‘Read my lips, counsel. Not a single w-o-r-d or I will declare a mistrial. Do I make myself clear?’

Cassidy gives him a sick grin. ‘You won’t hear it from me,’ she says.

‘Just so we’re clear.’ At this moment Cassidy is staring into the bushy eyebrows of death. There is not a doubt in my mind that if she crosses him on this point, Austin Woodruff will draw and quarter her.

We huddle over the table to craft the language of a penned stipulation, something that Woodruff can read from the bench into the record.

Harry doesn’t have the heart for this. He wanders off, out of chambers, to talk to Laurel.

I’ve got Angelo on the stand, staring at his beady little eyes in the box.

I have told Laurel what I have done, the stipulation. She seems to accept this with equanimity.

Woodruff has read the stipulation to the jury, a lot of bobbing heads and wondrous looks like they don’t know exactly what to make of all this lawyer talk. But the consensus, if I am at all literate in idioms of body language, is that it was not good for the defense.

Angelo has done our case immense damage and he knows it. At this moment he is wary, though he has no reason. It is the first rule of cross-examination: if you can’t score, don’t wade in.

‘I have only a few questions,’ I tell him. ‘Points of clarification. ‘Doctor, you testified at length regarding powder residue, the lack of tattooing on the body.’

He nods at me.

‘Did you bag the hands of the victim at the scene before moving the body?’

‘I did.’

‘Can you explain to the jury why this is done?’

‘It’s a usual procedure,’ he says. ‘Paper bags are placed over the hands and tied or taped at the wrists to ensure than any microscopic evidence under the nails is not lost. It also protects the hands from becoming contaminated by fibers or other trace evidence during transportation.’

‘Did you check the victim’s hands for such evidence during the course of your examination of the body?’

‘I did.’

‘And did you find anything?’

‘Nothing of any consequence. The undersides of the fingernails were clean. No fibers or tissue. No hair samples. Nothing that might have indicated a scuffle or struggle by the victim prior to death.’

‘Did you examine the hands for gunpowder residue?’

He gives me a considered look. ‘No.’

“Why not?’

‘There didn’t seem to be any point. We determined the range of fire to be too far away to have deposited any substantial amounts of residue. And what was the point? She hadn’t shot herself. The gun wasn’t in her hand.’

‘You didn’t think it was important to determine if she had grabbed the gun, struggled with her assailant?’

‘No. I’ve already testified that wasn’t possible.’

‘You’re sure about that?’

‘Absolutely,’ he says.

I nod and leave it.

‘Let me ask you, did you ever resolve in your own mind the caliber of the bullet?’

‘It’s difficult,’ he says. ‘Some calibers are very close. Looking at the bullet alone, you can’t always be sure.’

‘I understand. But have you resolved the question as you sit here now?’

‘I think ballistics has clearly indicated,’ he says. He looks in his notes. ‘Nine-millimeter,’ he says.

‘And you concur with that?’

‘I would defer to them on such questions,’ he says.

‘Have you dealt with such bullet wounds before? Nine-millimeter?’

‘Many times. It’s a common caliber in street crimes.’

‘Then you’re familiar with the type of wound a nine-millimeter bullet can make?’

‘Yes.’

‘The kind of damage it can inflict?’

‘At close range it can be very destructive, quite deadly.’

‘Would you say that the normal nine-millimeter round has good penetrating power? Have you ever seen a nine-millimeter wound that has passed completely through a body?’

‘I have seen such wounds.’

‘Even when the round strikes bone?’

‘On occasion, depending on the size of the bone, the girth of the body, it could pass through.’

‘You say that the shot that killed Melanie Vega was fired a distance of only four to six feet before it struck the victim, and yet it lodged in the midpoint of her brain. Can you explain that?’

‘Very few people can explain the course of a bullet. There are too many variables. The powder charge, the weight and substance of the bullet, the density of objects it strikes on its path. Any one of these can account for variations in the depth of penetration.’

‘So if a bullet passed through an object, it might slow it down?’

‘Depending on the object. Of course.’

‘Let’s talk a little about the unexplained fragments of metal in the wound. You testified that you found small specks of metal — steel, I think you said?’

‘Low-quality, low-carbon steel. Yes. There were I believe four or five of these.’

‘Did you conduct any kind of microscopic examination of these before submitting them to metallurgy for testing?’

‘Yes.’

‘What did they look like?’

‘Shavings. Like little twisted metal threads.’

‘And you have no idea what they are?’

‘As I said at first, I thought they were shavings of lead, from the bullet. Apparently that was not the case.’

‘Would you defer to ballistics on this?’

‘Sure. If they know what they are.’