Steve Martini - Prime Witness

“With a reach like that you should be the heavyweight champ,” says Chambers. He means that I am stretching my case. He is right, but it is all that I have left for the moment.

“The pieces of cord in all four murders are of the same manufacture, as are the metal stakes,” I tell Ingel, this latter to add a little gloss.

“And could have been bought in ten thousand places by a million people,” says Adrian.

“A question of fact for the jury,” I tell Ingel.

The judge makes a face like maybe. I have him thinking at least in the right direction.

Adrian is jumping all over his desk, pointing out that the Scofield murders also have a common MO, but that these have not been charged against his client. Instead, he says, the police have tacitly admitted that these crimes were committed by another perpetrator. “It’s the only thing so far that they got right,” he says.

He will be singing a different tune when I dump Tolar’s medical evidence on him, the autopsy results showing the knife wounds and the fact that the Scofields were killed someplace else. Let him try to massage that and make it fit.

“Two days ago you were ready to cop a plea in Scofield,” I tell him.

“That was tactical,” he says. He knows I cannot make this argument or reveal any of the matters pertaining to settlement negotiations to the jury. Mention of such failed deals is taboo at trial, a policy rooted in the ancient maxim that the law favors settlement. If defendants knew their openers to cop a plea would be revealed to the jury, the time-honored practice of bargaining would die a quick natural death.

Ingel finally looks up. He’s had enough.

“We’ll take this out on the record,” he says. If he gives me a break it is against his better judgment, but, one thing is clear, he will not spare me a good thrashing in the press. The papers and TV will have a field day, headlines and ten o’clock teasers about how the DA lost critical evidence.

With all of my problems, Adrian still has a single overweening difficulty with his case. He must explain how the coiled cord, the one now tied to the second two murders, and the metal stakes came to be found in his client’s vehicle. It is on this pivot point that his entire defense now turns.

For the moment Ingel has rejected his motion to dismiss the Park and Snider murders. This was done out of the presence of the jury, to avoid tainting them with thoughts of evidence, the missing cord, which may or may not later be produced.

I can no longer look Kim Park square in the face as he sits in the audience and glares. I know that on the first break he will accost me in the hall, ask me how justice is possible in the face of such negligence.

To avoid Ingel’s mounting hostility I have clung to the inner limits of restraint in my opening statement to the jury, a straight recitation of the evidence, the van, its registration, the incriminating items found in it.

“We will demonstrate, ladies and gentlemen, by expert testimony, the sociopathic links among these four murders, the common methods employed, and the inner workings of a sick and dangerous mind that will demonstrate beyond a shadow of doubt that the defendant, Andre Iganovich, committed all four murders and did so in a cold and calculating manner.”

I lay out the bloody rag found in the van which DNA testing now shows to have traces of blood not inconsistent with that of Sharon Collins and Rodney Slate. A few round eyes in the jury box.

I talk about the common manufacture of the cord, the fact that some pieces found at the second murder scene have been scientifically linked, a conclusive match, with the coiled length found in the Russian’s vehicle. The measure of my loss, the missing piece of cord, is now underscored by the snapping of necks in the jury box with mention of this forensic connection. It is the touchstone of my case.

Here I concede the broken window of the vehicle, touch on this briefly so that it does not look as if I am running from this circumstance of fact.

I talk about the stun gun taken from Iganovich at his arrest, and the burn marks found on Julie Park and Rodney Snider, evidence that the medical examiner will talk about.

Ingel shows appearances of growing restive as I hit the final issue, the uncharged Scofield murders.

“The defense will no doubt,” I say, “try to confuse you with a third and final set of murders, the deaths of Abbott and Karen Scofield, which at this time, and based on the evidence in our possession, we believe are copycat crimes.”

I take the middle ground here, not entirely absolving Iganovich, but leaving a little wiggle room if evidence later develops, which might allow me at the last moment, before the close of my case, to amend and charge the Russian. Lenore is feeling particularly nervous on this. She wants to talk about something involving Scofield when we break for lunch today.

“The evidence,” I tell the jury, “will demonstrate marked differences in the manner in which these crimes were carried out, which at this time, and given the evidence available, lead us to believe that Andre Iganovich did not commit them.”

I use this to foster a picture of evenhanded justice, the avoidance of overzealous prosecution. But the fact is that I must touch on it to avoid giving the appearance that we are hiding from these unresolved questions, unsolved murders with a seemingly common perpetrator.

With this I turn and take my place at the counsel table.

Chambers does not reserve his opening to the commencement of his case. Instead he is on his feet, almost before the invitation from Ingel. He wants to neutralize early any major points I may have scored, and he wastes no time.

He hits on Scofield, the theme that the true murderer is out there, stalking, still at large, that his client is a defendant of convenience, an immigrant with limited language abilities, someone obvious to dislike, easy to convict.

Ingel stops him. “You’re making argument, Mr. Chambers. Stick to the evidence of your case,” he says.

“Yes sir,” he says. Adrian regroups.

“The evidence of this case,” he says, “is entirely circumstantial. The fact is that my client would not be here today but for three pieces of evidence, a coil of cord, some metal tent stakes, and a piece of cloth with human blood on it.

“This and the inference,” he says, “that found in his car they must therefore belong to Mr. Iganovich. That in a nutshell is the state’s case.

“On first blush,” he says, “this may seem damning. But consider for a moment the rest of the evidence, the part that Mr. Madriani did not emphasize, the part that he does not know.”

With this he turns and looks at me sitting at the table.

“The evidence will show,” he says, “that indeed a window of this vehicle was broken as the prosecutor willingly admits. What he does not tell you,” he says, “what he fails to disclose is the fact that this window was smashed completely out, leaving the vehicle open to anyone who chanced by. The van sat there in a public garage, open to any passerby for a substantial period, for a number of days, before police came upon it, opened it, and found the seemingly incriminating evidence. This is the state of the evidence.

“The fact is anyone could have deposited the evidence in that vehicle after it was parked.”

“You’re arguing again,” says Ingel. “Keep to the evidence, I don’t want to tell you again,” he says.

“I was just getting to it, your honor, a critical piece of evidence.”

Ingel looks at him and nods as if to say, “then do it.”

“For some time police operated on the theory,” he says, “that this window was broken by a vandal, a possible witness who may have looked inside, who may have noticed the presence,” he lingers for a moment, mental italic for the words that follow, “or the absence of this critical evidence inside.