Alan Jacobson - False accusations

“That hasn’t been started yet?”

“I do what I’m told. Except when you tell me to do something.”

“Hang on a minute,” Chandler said, trying to contain his anger. “I’m here for only one reason: to get to the bottom of this crime. My client’s innocent. He didn’t kill those people. So in my short time here, I have to find out who did. Isn’t that what we’re all after? Finding the real guilty person and punishing him?”

Gray did not answer. Instead, he turned to walk away.

Chandler grabbed his arm and gently pulled him back.

“Let go of me,” Gray said calmly.

When Chandler released his grip, Gray brushed his hair back and returned to the stool in front of his microscope.

“How hard will it be to run the lip print for me?” Chandler asked, his tone softer. “Tell you what. If the lip print doesn’t produce a reasonable and probable match with the beer can, then I give up, okay? You won’t see me again.” He paused to let this sink in. “But if there is a reasonable match, you’ll run those DNA samples.” If he refused, Chandler could still take the cigarette back with him to New York and run the test himself-but it would add a few variables that he wished to avoid: a different lab, accusations of bias, chain of custody issues, and the danger of contaminating the sample during the trip.

And even then, once he had his DNA results, trying to get a copy of the beer can’s DNA pattern from Gray would be like asking your worst enemy for a loan. It just was not going to happen. He would have to have Hellman handle it through the court. Time consuming. Messy.

Gray stood there, appearing to chew on the offer for a moment. Chandler knew what he was thinking: it would rid him of Chandler’s presence-which was threatening to become as annoying as his dandruff itch. And he would not have to face Palucci’s wrath when he returned.

Gray took the plastic bag without saying so much as a word and headed out of the room.

“Do we have a deal?” Chandler yelled after him.

“Yeah,” Gray shouted back as he turned the comer and walked into the hallway.

The sun had set half an hour ago and the wind had whipped up a bit, bringing a cool chill to the air. It was 45 and headed down to the low 30s.

When Chandler arrived at the Madison home, Hellman was getting out of his car with a small bouquet of flowers. They walked up the front steps together and chatted for a moment before Leeza answered the door.

“Jeffrey, these are beautiful,” she said, taking the flowers from him and bringing them up to her nose. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure,” Hellman said.

“So what was the purpose of the motion you filed?” Chandler asked as he walked into the living room.

“The whole idea was to keep this thing from degenerating into a three-ring circus. I wanted the cameras out of the courtroom during the entire proceedings.”

“And?” Madison asked, entering the room. He leaned over and planted a kiss on the back of Leeza’s neck as she placed the cut flowers in a vase.

“And the judge agreed and granted the motion. You should’ve seen Denton’s face.”

“Must’ve been ten shades of red,” Chandler said, taking a seat at the kitchen table. “I’m sure he wasn’t happy about giving up the spotlight.”

Hellman bobbed his head. “It’s still an important case for him, he just loses some of the fanfare that goes along with it. But I had an idea. I think we should offer to do an interview with that reporter from KMRA. It’d give the media some things to chomp on, divert their focus away from Phil.”

“It seems like everyone assumes I’m guilty before I even go to trial. I can’t even go to the zoo with my family without being harassed by nuts who’ve seen the news painting me as a dreg of society.”

Chandler rubbed his forehead, contorted his face. “A TV interview.”

“I know you didn’t want to think about peripheral matters,” Hellman said, “but a strategic, exclusive interview could neutralize the negative PR and actually work to our benefit.”

“Isn’t this precisely what you argued against in front of the judge today?” Madison asked.

“This is different. It gives us a chance to have equal time after that bogus report Mather did on his interview with John Stevens. We do this one spot and that’s it. Then we stay away from the media. But I really think it could have a positive effect.”

“How do you figure?” Madison asked.

“We tell the press we believe we’ve found the real killer and are in the process of building enough evidence that will not only exonerate you, but will implicate someone else. And of course once we have all the evidence in order, we’ll cooperate fully with the police and turn it all over to them.”

“The police,” Chandler said, “are going to be pissed as hell. You’re showing them up. They accused the wrong guy, so you are going to show them the right way to conduct an investigation. You’re such a damned good attorney that you’re not only going to get the charges against your client dismissed, but you’re also going to hand them the real killer. After all, they’re just a bunch of screw-ups.” He raised his eyebrows and shook his head. “Don’t expect them to be your buddies.”

Madison took a seat beside Chandler at the table. “Why don’t we give Denton what we have now and see if they’ll cooperate with us?”

“By cooperate you mean drop the charges,” Chandler said.

Hellman shook his head. “Forget it. They’re already deeply committed to your prosecution. Doing a one-eighty at this point would invite criticism from everyone and their uncle.” He shook his head, as if he were convincing himself of something. “In fact, I spoke with Denton yesterday. Their witness, that homeless guy, remembers that the driver was wearing a Chicago Cubs baseball hat-”

“Harding grew up in Chicago,” Madison said.

“I know. I pointed that out to him. He wanted no part of it. He said, quote, ‘we have our man. ’”

“I don’t think we have enough of anything to give them now anyway,” Chandler said. “Let’s wait until we get the DNA results back. Then we’ll hopefully have more than enough to make this thing go away.”

Hellman pulled out a chair and settled into it. “Used to be you wouldn’t tell the prosecution anything about what you expected to bring out during trial…because if you gave them the key evidence that you had, they’d have time to investigate it and find a way of refuting it. So you tried to spring it on them in the middle of the trial. If they don’t know what’s coming, they can’t prepare for it. It was a big tactical advantage. Some defense counselors would never give anything to the prosecution; others would feed the prosecution bad info to make them waste time on a wild goose chase. Problem with that method is that once you got a rep for doing that, they’d never again believe anything you told them-and then when you really needed them to look into something legit, they’d tell you to go to hell.”

“So then maybe we shouldn’t tell them anything,” Leeza said.

“Can’t do that. About twenty years ago, Prop 115 made it so that the prosecution got reciprocal discovery. That means,” Hellman explained, noticing Leeza’s twisted face of confusion, “that if the defense gets hold of something pertinent to the case, they have to turn it over to the prosecution. The reverse is also true-if they come across something that might be of assistance to us, they have to give it to us.”

“And if you withhold something,” Chandler said, “the judge could exclude that witness, or fact, or document, from the trial.”

“So,” Hellman said, “bottom line is that we don’t have a choice. If we’ve got something, we have to turn it over, regardless of the tactical advantage we may be losing.”