Steve Martini - Shadow of Power

It’s Tuchio doing Elvis on Steriods.

Movement or not, he is slick. He avoids overstating the evidence, though the inference is clear. He would have the jury believe that Carl threatened to kill Scarborough and did so in front of witnesses. It’s a fine point, but from what we know from the state’s witnesses, the only conversation was about kidnapping Scarborough. Nor is it entirely clear who first suggested the idea.

If you aren’t careful, you can fall into this pit and end up jerking the jury around at the worst possible time, in your closing argument. It is a favored game of defense lawyers. What did the state promise, and what did it prove? Like everything else, you have to measure the words. If you aren’t listening or, worse, fail to get the transcript and read it, you end up arguing that the prosecutor promised but failed to prove that your client threatened the victim’s life. Then, while you’re choking on the transcript of Tuchio’s actual words from his opening statement, he will be pointing out to the jury that kidnapping is in fact a crime of violence, which is all he ever said.

By then lawyers’ hour will be over, with the jury in no mood to split more hairs. Kidnapping, killing, it won’t matter. Carl will be kissing his mom good-bye and packing his toothbrush for a trip to the death house.

“Ladies and gentlemen, there may be many reasons a person will kill other human beings. But to do it because of what they think or because of what they write surely must be among the worst.”

“Mr. Tuchio.”

Before I can object, Quinn is on him, looking down from his perch. This is argument, pure and simple. Tuchio knows it.

“The jury will disregard that last statement,” says the judge.

Sure they will.

“We will show,” Tuchio goes on as if nothing has happened, “that it was this book and the thoughts and statements contained in it that are at the heart of this case, the reason Terry Scarborough was murdered.” He hammers the point home.

Tuchio turns and aims the cover of Scarborough’s book toward our table like Moses brandishing the tablets.

I have coached Carl that in moments like this he is not to look down or to allow the prosecutor to force him to avert his eyes.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we will prove beyond any reasonable doubt that that man, the defendant, Carl Everett Arnsberg, murdered Terry Scarborough and that he did so in cold blood and with malice aforethought. Thank you.”

There is a sprinkling of applause from the audience. It is quickly gaveled down by the judge.

If Tuchio is grandstanding, he’s doing a bang-up job. As for the race card, there was never any question. It had to be played. From the beginning the state had a problem. They needed a motive for the crime. Thanks to Scarborough, they picked the only one seemingly available, the one that screamed out at them from everything Scarborough said and wrote, the motive that would fire the fury of any reasonable juror to believe that Terry Scarborough died at the hands of a crazed bigot.

Let them chew on that one for the weekend.

Saturday morning, and the small Craftsman bungalow on Coronado, the place I call home, seems cold and empty. My daughter, Sarah, is gone, off to college in Colorado. It’s been almost two years now. Still I miss her, the quiet talks we once had, the animated chatter of her friends when they came to visit, the late-night runs for pizza, teenagers sprawled on the sofa and chairs of my living room talking and laughing. They would take over the house, and I would head upstairs, listening to the muffled music of their voices down below. I miss it all.

This morning there is no clatter of dishes, no smell of pancakes on the griddle. These days breakfast alone is a little fruit, maybe a piece of toast if I’m in the mood, and call it good. My doctor may be happier. I’m not sure I am. I can’t remember the last time I made a full pot of coffee or cooked anything outside the microwave. Now my coffee comes either from the little single-cup French press on the counter or from one of the kiosks that seem to sprout like poppies all over town.

Once in a while, I will run into one of Sarah’s old high-school friends at the village grocery or window-shopping the boutiques on Orange Avenue. When asked how she’s doing, I will say fine, and she is, blossoming, becoming her own person, spreading her wings, new friends and horizons. I talk with Sarah on the phone every few days, more often if I can get her to answer her cell. She comes home every summer, at least for now. I see her at Christmas and Thanksgiving and whenever I can tear myself away for a weekend in the Rockies. The rest of the time I spend learning the emotional dimensions of the empty-nest syndrome, what it is to be alone. Friends tell me I will get used to this.

This morning I pad around the cold confines of my house in slippers and a robe, carrying the morning paper in one hand, a cup of coffee in the other. I plop down in one of the chairs facing the television and click the set on with the remote. This has become my Saturday-morning ritual, one hour of all the bad news I can handle.

The screen flickers on, goes silent for an instant, and then the sound comes on: “You know, I think Paul Madriani is probably a very good local criminal defense attorney. I certainly have nothing against him.” It’s lawyers’ hour, as if that ever ends on one of the cable news channels. A gal wearing some red lace frock outfit-all that’s missing is a peacock feather in her hair. I’ve seen her before. She’s one of the regular electronic legal mouthpieces. “What this case needs is someone with national credentials, somebody who can put together a kind of racial political dream team.”

“I agree entirely with Gladys.” Some guy claws his way onto the screen, bow tie and preppy sport coat. “Otherwise his client is going to get steamrolled. I can tell you right now that in this case the state is gunning for bear. They know what happened in O.J. It was a career killer for those who prosecuted. They’re not going to make that mistake again.”

I turn to the front page of the newspaper, another bombing in Baghdad, trouble with Iran-who could have guessed? The kicker at the top of the paper tells me the dollar is sliding again. Pretty soon we’ll have to use pesos to stay ahead of inflation.

I open the paper hoping maybe things will get better inside. Page two, there’s a three-column picture of the melee in front of the courthouse yesterday morning. The reporting seems to cover the brawl outside more than the events inside, which for us is just fine. The story spends only four ’graphs recapping Tuchio’s opening statement, though they hit the high points, a summary of all the damaging evidence the state promises to present and of course the erroneous interpretation that the state has witnesses who will testify that Arnsberg threatened Scarborough’s life.

I continue reading. Next page a headline at the top: DEMOCRATS AT WAR WITH THE WHITE HOUSE.

Republicans are accusing Democrats in the Senate of holding up two nominations to the federal circuit court of appeals in Washington, D.C. They claim the Democrats are playing politics with the courts, hoping for better tidings following the next presidential election, now less than nine months away.

Democratic leaders in the Senate vowed to work with the president. But from all appearances, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have their feet planted solidly in cement.

As one Republican critic put it, “Given the Mexican standoff in the Senate, nobody is going on the D.C. circuit unless Democrats are allowed to take the nominee into the Senate cloakroom and perform a lobotomy.”

I read on. The District of Columbia circuit court is seen as the incubator and launching pad for future appointments to the Supreme Court. The story explains that the high court has been evenly split along party lines for more than a decade. It talks about some of the hot-button issues, abortion and the death penalty. Whether the Court should be urged by Congress to more clearly define the war powers of the president. Whether government should be allowed to intercept private e-mails without a warrant. Whether citizens should continue to be allowed to own and possess firearms. The list goes on.