Steve Martini - Shadow of Power

“Let me ask you about the hypothetical situation that Mr. Madriani raised, the handwritten letter in the room and the defendant’s ability to distinguish it from other correspondence. Let me give you a little variation on the theme. If there was a handwritten letter in that room and the letter in question was written in a unique color of ink, say, a tobacco color, brown as opposed to blue or black. If I told Carl to go and get the letter written in the brown ink and there was no other letter written in that color ink, would he be able to distinguish that letter from other letters?”

“Dyslexia generally doesn’t affect the ability to distinguish colors.”

“So he would be able to distinguish in that case?”

“In the circumstances that you outlined, yes.”

“I have no further questions, Your Honor.”

Tuchio has taken half of the loaf away from me. He will argue that it didn’t matter that Carl couldn’t read Scarborough’s book, because what fired him up and sent him over the edge were the television interviews with the victim. And as for the letter, if he knew the color of the ink, he would be able to find the Jefferson Letter. Of course, this begs the question: Why would someone suffering from severe dyslexia want a handwritten letter, especially if it had no intrinsic value because it was a copy, not the original?

The end of the day, and we do battle in chambers over Quinn’s desk. There are two issues, the restaurant videotape showing Ginnis and Scarborough quibbling over the letter spread out on the middle of the table and the Jefferson Letter itself.

To be honest, it’s a hard call. The video, if Quinn would let me have it, shows the victim with Ginnis across the table, as well as the letter in the middle between them. With a little maneuvering room, Teddy Nons’s transcript, and a few carefully timed winks and twitches as the jury watches the video, it wouldn’t be difficult to get them leaning in the right direction, into Ginnis’s lap over dinner.

The only problem is, I promised them a shocker in my opening statement, and moving pictures of Ginnis, even with a scowl, isn’t going to cut it. And there’s no group on earth less forgiving than twelve angry people sleeping in hotel rooms who have been promised a punch line that isn’t delivered.

Right out of the box, Quinn is worried that disclosure regarding the contents of the letter is the equivalent of tossing jet fuel on a fire.

“Can you guarantee that there won’t be violence if that letter is read?” Quinn is looking at me.

But Tuchio pipes up first. “Besides, there is no way to know whether the letter is authentic.”

“Let me suggest that we put the letter aside for the moment and take up the question of the video,” I tell them.

“Well, there’s no basis for that to come in at all,” says Tuchio. “It’s hearsay, and there’s still no foundation. Good luck,” he says.

I go back to my original argument that it’s all one big package; pictures of the letter in the video serve to verify that the two documents, the one in the video and the item taken from the murder scene, are the same thing. Since the video shows the interested players huddled over the item, why not let the jury in on the secret so that everybody knows?

There’s not the slightest chance in the world that Quinn is going to go for this, and before I can lean back in my chair, he says so. “The video’s off the table. It’s not coming in.”

Precisely, and since every judge wants to play Solomon, we’re down to the basic questions: What part of the baby is he willing to give me, and how do we sever it?

“We could stay here and argue all night,” I say. “But Mr. Tuchio made a point, and I think it’s a good one.”

“You agree with something Tuchio said?” Quinn stares at me.

“At this particular moment, I’m tired, Your Honor. Forgive me.”

“No, that’s all right. What were these words of wisdom?”

“The question of authenticity. We will stipulate to the fact that there’s no way we can prove that the letter is authentic, but that’s not really at issue here.”

“It sure is,” says Tuchio.

“No, the letter is physical evidence taken from the scene of a murder. The presumption, and it’s a reasonable one, is that the killer took it. The unanswered question is why. Now, if the pages on that paper were blank, there wouldn’t be an issue. We would have to tell the jury that the idiot took blank paper. Except they aren’t blank. There are words on them. But here’s the kicker. We’re not offering those words to prove the truth of what is stated in the letter, so there’s no issue of hearsay. The question goes to motive. Why did the killer take the letter in the first place, and that’s a question of fact for the jury.”

Quinn is following all this. “He’s right.”

“No,” says Tuchio. “He’s not. There’s still a question of authenticity. Is the letter real?”

“No,” I say. “In this setting, as a matter of law, it doesn’t matter whether it’s real. The killer took it because he had a reason to take it. That reason is an issue for the jury.”

“Well, why do you think he took it?” says Tuchio.

“That’s for me to know and you to find out. There is a question of authenticity, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the law,” I say. “Or this case. It has to do with public safety.”

And here comes the hook for Quinn. “There are probably a few thousand people out there who’d like to set fire to this building right now, and God knows how many other buildings around the county. And when they find out what’s in that letter, they’re going to want to redouble their efforts. Those are the people who should be concerned about the authenticity of the letter.

“So let me make a suggestion. Tomorrow you turn off the lights in the courtroom and we go dark. The eyes of the world are on this place right now. The federal government is threatening to come and take the letter away. The court sends out a press release tonight, to every media outlet it can find. In the press release, you tell the world that there is a letter. It purports to be in the hand of Jefferson, but the court cannot verify whether the letter is real or not. Furthermore we may never be able to answer the question of whether it’s real, because we don’t have the original; we don’t know where it is or whether it even exists. That should pour cold water on hot heads. When they realize that the party favor may not pop, that there’s no there there, we can hope their feet will get sore from standing around and they’ll go home. If we’re lucky.”

“Or,” says Tuchio, “the court could order that the letter not be read in court. Much simpler,” he says.

“But to draw the jury right to the edge of the railing,” I tell Quinn, “to produce evidence of blood-spattered paper and to argue in closing that this paper is the reason the victim was murdered without telling them what was written on it is to invite them to take out their disappointment on the defendant.”

“No, I like Mr. Madriani’s idea,” says Quinn. “Besides, his analysis on the law is right. There’s no legal basis to keep the letter out. If I let you convince me to do that, and you convict his client, it’s just going to get overturned on appeal. Waste of time and money. On top of that, whether the letter gets read here or someplace else, the problem is the same-fires all over. So as long as I still have the letter, why don’t we do something judicious with it?”

There’s a knock on the door. It opens, and the bailiff sticks his head in. “Your Honor, the governor’s on the phone.”

“The governor?”

“Yeah, they got a big problem up in South Central L.A. He wants to talk to you.”