Steve Martini - Prime Witness

“That’s true,” I say.

“So you’re asking me to mask from the defendant the very existence of this potential witness?”

“We are, your honor.”

He’s shaking his head. “No,” he says. “That goes too far.”

I argue with him, tell him there are real risks here.

“There are circumstances surrounding the location of the witness, what he was doing at the scene, that will not only imperil the investigation,” I say, “but perhaps put the life of this witness in jeopardy.”

Fisher looks at me.

“How could it endanger the witness?” he says.

“We have no idea who the killer or killers are,” I tell him. “They therefore know considerably more than we do. How much they know, the motives for these murders, we have no idea.”

“And?” he says.

“By disclosing the specifics-the circumstances surrounding this potential witness in open court, what we believe was happening up in that blind-with these details the killer may be able to find our witness before we can.”

I watch as the consequences of this argument settle on Fisher. He is no longer shaking his head. Then he comes back.

“But the defendant here.” He’s talking about Iganovich. “He has a right to any evidence that could be viewed as exculpatory, anything that might be useful in proving his innocence. The law demands that he be given this. How can I withhold it?” he says.

“Iganovich is not charged with the Scofield murders,” says Lenore. “So where is the relevance?” she says. Lenore cannot resist.

“Give me a break, counselor.” Fisher fixes her with a stare. “It’s not a quantum leap to argue that this other killer, whoever murdered the Scofields, is the Putah Creek killer, that the police have the wrong man in Mr. Iganovich.” He flexes an eyebrow. “If that’s your pitch to the jury, a witness who may have seen this other killer becomes rather pivotal to your case. Don’t you think?” he says.

It is the thing I like best about Lenore. She does not cow easily.

She looks him in the eye. “No, I don’t,” she says. “Until Mr. Chambers can prove that the witness saw something,” she says, “that he actually has evidence relevant even to those killings, until then,” she tells him, “the identity of the party or parties in the trees, and all of the circumstances surrounding them, are irrelevant.”

This stops Fisher in his tracks. He makes a face like maybe she’s right, a hook on which to hang some qualified order.

“Still, how can he prove the relevance of what this witness may or may not have seen, if you have a monopoly on all of the information?”

I sense that we have hit a high point in our argument, as much of a concession as we are going to get from Fisher. It is time to play Solomon, if necessary, to offer up the division of the infant.

“We are searching for the witness. Every resource we have,” I tell him, “is on this case. I would propose a compromise,” I say. “A qualified order, limiting what we are compelled to turn over to the defense on this one issue. Allow us to mask the information on the witness, the blind in the trees, until we have identified and sequestered this person, taken him into custody, and discovered what it is he has to say.”

Fisher makes a face, like close, but no cigar.

“We have to make some disclosure to the defense,” he says.

“Fine, we tell them there is a potential witness, but no details, none of the circumstances surrounding the witness, nothing that might be used to ferret out his identity.”

Fisher is silent, sitting, musing in his chair. Then slow nods, like maybe this is not a perfect solution, just the best we may be able to do for now. For the moment I think we have dodged a bullet.

Ihave spent the better part of a week on the phone, eating so much crow that I now spit feathers when I talk. These calls were placed to Herb Jacoby, the Crown Counsel in Canada. I have pleaded with him for cooperation, his help in producing one of the two security guards who arrested Iganovich.

Jacoby is not exactly the soul of benevolence these days, still nursing his anger over the abduction of the Russian. I have been applying apologies like a shaman’s balm to his sovereign pride, assuring him repeatedly that my office, our government, had nothing to do with this escapade, that it was a private self-help venture of Kim Park.

In the scheme of things, Iganovich’s statements regarding the abandoned van at the time of his arrest in Canada could be important to my case. I want this evidence available for trial. Chambers has thrown a net over it in one of his myriad motions to suppress.

This morning Judge Fisher looks down at the defense table and Adrian Chambers.

“A lot of paper,” he says. He’s talking about the small mountain of defense motions.

“I hope they’re all necessary,” he tells Chambers.

“Every one of them, your honor.” This from Adrian.

“Emm.” Fisher is not convinced.

“Are we ready to proceed?” he says.

Nodding heads from both tables.

“Fine,” says Fisher. “Let’s get to it.”

Chambers’s motions contain more redundancies than the failsafe systems on the space shuttle, a lawyer’s grab bag of backup arguments: There was no probable cause for the arrest; his client was not Mirandized or given the Canadian equivalent before he opened his mouth; the statements were coerced in violation of due process.

While a warrant for murder was issued for the Russian’s arrest, he was originally detained in Canada on charges of shoplifting. For this reason, the fact that the warrant did not match the charges of arrest, it is deemed to be a warrantless arrest. This means I have the burden of going forward, presenting my case first.

I outline the issues for the court. We will now argue on turf that I have created. I call my first witness.

Reginald Beckworth is the picture of a proper British constable, even though he is only private security. Precisely trimmed mustache and dark sideburns, a tweed wool suit and vest, he is better dressed than most lawyers and half of the judges in this courthouse. Eight years in corporate security, he is part of mid management with the Hudson Bay Company, heading security for one of their larger stores.

The witness identifies Iganovich as the man he and his partner stopped on suspicions the day of the arrest.

“He made a good number of furtive gestures with his hands to the inside linings of his clothing,” says Beckworth.

“So you thought he might be concealing merchandise?”

“Objection, leading.” Chambers is on his feet.

“Let me rephrase,” I say. “What did you conclude by these moves on the part of the defendant?”

“That he might be concealing merchandise,” says Beckworth.

“Thank you. Now tell me, during the time of these observations, who employed you? Who was paying your salary?”

“The Hudson Bay Company.”

“Have you ever been in the employ of any official police agency?”

“Twelve years with the Vancouver Police Department, but I retired,” he says, “eight years ago.”

I want to get this out early, his prior police employment, so that it is not later exploited by Chambers. I open the issue like a book to the court so that it does not appear that we have anything to hide.

“So at the time of this detention, when you stopped Mr. Iganovich, you were solely in the employ of the Hudson Bay Company?”

“Correct.”

“I take it that this was true of your partner as well, that he was employed exclusively by the Hudson Bay Company?”

“That’s correct. The company has its own in-house security, with its own training program.”