Steve Martini - Undue Influence

‘Officer, did you have to make any efforts to restrain the defendant as a result of what we have just observed on the videotape?’

‘No. You were doing a pretty good job of that as I recall,’ he says.

‘So the defendant did not persist in her attempts to reach Melanie Vega?’

‘I don’t know that I would go that far.’

Ranklin insists that he heard a death threat, so my job is to live with the words but to diminish their import. I try another tack.

‘Would you characterize the event as a quick flash of anger that seemed to pass in a couple of seconds?’

He mulls this over, makes a face. ‘I guess you could call it that,’ he says. Finally a concession.

‘And you didn’t actually have to step in between the two women to break it up, did you?’

‘No.’

‘In your capacity performing court duties, have you ever had to physically restrain parties or members of the public during a trial or other proceedings?’

‘Several times,’ he says.

‘And have you ever heard threats being uttered by people during such heated moments?’

‘It’s not uncommon,’ he says.

‘Death threats,’ I say.

‘Yes.’

‘And isn’t it your experience that in most cases those threats are in fact idle? That they are not carried out? Isn’t that what occurs in most cases, people making foolish statements they don’t mean in the heat of an argument?’

This is something readily in the experience of every juror. There is only one credible answer and Ranklin knows it.

‘That’s true,’ he says.

‘And at the time that you say you heard the defendant make such a threat against Melanie Vega, was there anything peculiar about it that would cause you to think the words were anything other than idle words of anger?’

Ranklin is in a box on this. If he says there was, it begs the question, ‘Then why, officer, did you not take her into custody?’

‘No,’ he says.

‘So you believed it was an idle threat?’

‘Yes.’

‘And in fact, as you sit here today, knowing all the things that you know about this case, based solely on your personal knowledge of the facts as you know them, you cannot tell the jury that the words uttered that day by Laurel Vega were in fact anything but an idle threat, isn’t that true, officer?’

‘I suppose,’ he says. Ranklin is more grudging on this, not sure exactly what he is giving up.

‘You don’t have any personal knowledge that Laurel Vega actually killed Melanie Vega, do you?’ I clarify it for him.

‘Oh. No,’ he says, happier with the inference this conveys.

‘And you didn’t bring any charges against either woman as a result of the events you witnessed in the corridor, did you, officer?’

‘Well… no.’

‘Why not?’

‘It was a judgment call,’ he says.

‘It was over as quickly as it started? Nobody was hurt?’ I say.

‘That’s right.’

I leave it alone. Push some more and he may tell me that in fact it was a mistake in judgment, that on reflection he should have taken Laurel into custody. The subtle suggestion will not be lost on the jury — that if he had, a murder might have been prevented.

‘Fine. Let’s talk about what happened after this altercation was over. Do you remember what you said to me at the scene?’

Ranklin makes a face. Looks at me. ‘Can’t say that I do.’

‘Do you remember suggesting something to me?’

He thinks for a moment. Draws a blank. ‘No.’

On cross I can lead. I make the most of it and end up testifying.

‘Don’t you remember telling me that I might want to take my client to the lawyers’ conference area so that she could compose herself?’

Cassidy’s about to rise and object.

‘Oh, yeah. I remember that.’

‘Before we left, before I took the defendant and left the corridor, do you recall what happened?’

‘It’s been a long time,’ he says.

Not so long, however, that he doesn’t remember a death threat that never took place.

‘Do you remember picking up a woman’s purse from the floor? People helping to gather the items that had fallen and been kicked around on the floor?’

‘Oh, that,’ he says. ‘I remember a handkerchief. I tried to give it to one of them, but she said it didn’t belong to her.’

‘That’s right,’ I say. ‘Maybe we could take a second look at the tape, officer.’

I ask Woodruff’s bailiff to roll out the monitor and hit the lights. Ranklin comes off the stand so he can see better. The judge comes down from the bench. The bailiff starts to rewind the tape, and I stop him.

‘Pick it up from right there,’ I tell him.

‘But the altercation’s back further,’ he says.

‘That’s all right. Run it from there.’

Woodruff’s bailiff makes a face, like it’s your show. When the picture comes up, we are all gathered in a tight cluster in the center of the courthouse corridor, Laurel and Melanie, Jack between them, and myself tugging on Laurel’s arm. Ranklin is holding the hanky that Melanie has just rejected. Somebody hands him the purse with the broken strap, and he puts the handkerchief in it.

‘There’s the handkerchief,’ he says.

‘I see it.’

People are passing items to Ranklin. He’s not looking, but taking them in his hands, talking to me, eyeing Laurel and dropping the items into the purse. A couple of seconds later he hands this to Laurel and we turn and walk away.

‘Could you rewind it and then play it back in slow motion?’

‘Whatever.’ The bailiff punches buttons on the remote. He starts to play forward. Melanie brushing the handkerchief off Jack’s pants. Ranklin picking it up. Somebody handing him the purse.

‘Go slow.’

‘There — I think she just called her a bitch.’ Ranklin’s trying to read lips. ‘Can’t make out the rest,’ he says.

‘Stop. Right there. Back it up a few frames,’ I tell the bailiff.

He plays it back and puts it in freeze-frame.

‘Officer Ranklin — what is that in your right hand?’

He strains to look. ‘Something somebody handed me off the floor,’ he says. ‘From one of the purses.’

‘Can you tell me what it is?’ I ask.

Only Ranklin would not comprehend the significance of this, because he’s been sequestered outside of the courtroom, as a witness, told not to read any accounts of the trial.

‘It looks like a woman’s gold compact,’ he says.

The expression on Jimmy Lama’s face is worth a year’s income. It is the sick image of defeat pumped from the stomach of victory. Lama’s eyes are wide with denial, his palms upturned, offering gestures of bewilderment to Cassidy.

On the screen is an image worth a thousand explanations and lame accountings — the bailiff handing Laurel her purse, and in it, Melanie Vega’s gold compact.

This afternoon it is nearly five when I get back to the office. There are messages, a pile of pink slips littering my desk.

I do telephone triage, and a phone message from Clem Olsen comes up on top. I dial and I get the Wolfman. He has some information, the print from Kathy Merlow’s tube of paint which I gave him at the reunion. But as usual Clem doesn’t want to talk on the phone.

The Brass Ring is one of those haunts of cops and lawyers, a block from the courthouse. It is to the legal profession what Geneva is to the U.N. — a place where warring sides can sit and talk. When I arrive there are maybe a dozen people inside, a few cops, a small cluster of deputy D.A.s at the bar, with a couple of public defenders exchanging stories of courthouse comedy and lore, slamming a dice cup for drinks.

Little snippets of the points I scored this afternoon in Laurel’s case have filtered here among those who follow such things. One of the P.D.s reaches out and slaps my back as I walk by, offers a good word, and encouragement to stick my pike further into the belly of the beast tomorrow.