Майкл Коннелли - The Law of Innocence

21 drives a Prius. Extinction Rebellion sticker on rear window.

I didn’t know what an Extinction Rebellion sign was but I thought I understood the sticker’s message. Both pieces of information were almost useless. Both could be indicators of a judgmental personality, particularly when it came to the environment and crime. I drove a gas-eating Lincoln and that would certainly come out in trial. And I was charged with a very violent crime while being a person who associated professionally with others charged with violent acts.

I kept an ear on the proceedings as Berg questioned the new candidates but I also huddled with Maggie as she pulled out the questionnaires the three had filled out when reporting for jury service.

Immediately I changed my mind about 21. I liked what I read. She was thirty-six years old, unmarried, lived in Studio City, and had a job as a prep chef at one of the upscale restaurants at the Hollywood Bowl. This told me she liked music and culture and chose to work in a place that had both. She also listed reading first among her hobbies. I didn’t think anyone who was a reader could avoid coming across stories — nonfiction or fiction — that underscored the frailties of the American justice system, chief among them that the police don’t always get it right and that innocent people are sometimes accused and convicted of crimes they didn’t commit. I believed that would give 21 an open mind. She would listen closely to my case.

“I want her,” I whispered.

“Yeah, she looks good,” Maggie whispered back.

I moved on to the other two questionnaires. I saw that 68, the other female, was my age and had gotten married the same year she graduated from Pepperdine, a conservative Christian school in Malibu. Add all of that to the Trump bumper sticker, and I was convinced. She had to go.

Maggie agreed.

“You want to use the last challenge?” she asked.

“No, I’m going to question her,” I said. “Try to get her bumped for cause.”

“What about the guy? There’s nothing here.”

She was referring to 17. I scanned his questionnaire and had to agree with Maggie. Nothing on the single page drew a flag. He was forty-six years old and married, an assistant principal at a private school in Encino. I was familiar with it because Maggie and I had flirted with the idea of sending Hayley there for elementary school many years before. We took the tour and went to a parents’ presentation but ultimately got a bad vibe. Most of the students came from well-to-do families. We weren’t destitute by any means but Maggie was a civil servant and I was always chasing money cases. Some years were fat, some were thin. We thought the peer pressure on our daughter would be unhealthy. We enrolled her somewhere else.

“You remember this guy?” I asked. “He would have been there when we looked at the place.”

“I don’t recognize him,” Maggie said.

“I’ll see what I can get on Q and A. You okay with my taking all three?”

“Of course. It’s your case. I don’t want you deferring to me.”

While Berg finished her canvassing of the jurors, I wrote notes on all three on Post-its and attached them to the corresponding squares on my ice-cube tray chart. I wrote in green for 21 and red for 68. For 17, I wrote a yellow question mark. Then I folded the file closed.

When it was my turn to question the people who might decide my future, the judge verbally cut me off at the knees before I even got to the lectern.

“You have fifteen minutes, Mr. Haller,” she said.

“Your Honor, we technically have three open seats and then the alternates to fill,” I protested. “The prosecution just took way more than fifteen minutes to question these three.”

“No, you’re wrong. I timed it. Fourteen minutes. I’m giving you fifteen. Starting now. You can use the time to argue with me or to question the jurors.”

“Thank you, Your Honor.”

I went to the lectern and started with number 68.

“Juror sixty-eight, I was looking at your questionnaire and didn’t see what your husband does for a living.”

“My husband was killed in Iraq seventeen years ago.”

That brought a moment of silence — a collective holding of breath — as I retooled my approach. I could not let the jurors who were already seated see me treat the woman with anything but kid gloves.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said. “And that I even brought the memory up.”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “The memory never goes away.”

I nodded. Though I had stumbled into this, I had to find a way to finesse my way out.

“Uh, on the questionnaire, you didn’t check that you had been a victim of a crime. Don’t you consider the loss of your husband to be in a way a crime?”

“That was war. That was different. He gave his life for his country.”

God and country — a defense lawyer’s nightmare on a jury.

“Then he was a hero,” I offered.

“And still is,” she said.

“Right. He still is.”

“Thank you.”

“Have you been on a jury before, ma’am?”

“It was one of the questions on the form. No, I have not. And please don’t call me ma’am. Makes me feel like my mother.”

There was a slight tickle of laughter in the courtroom. I smiled and pressed on.

“I will refrain from doing that. Let me ask you a question: If a police officer testifies to one thing and then a regular citizen testifies and says the opposite, whom do you believe?”

“Well, I guess you just have to weigh what each one says and try to figure out who’s telling the truth. It could be the officer. But it might not be.”

“But do you give the police officer the benefit of the doubt?”

“Not necessarily. I would have to hear more about the officer. You know, who he is, how he comes across. Like that.”

I nodded. It was becoming clear that she was a Jury Judy — someone who wants to be on the jury and gives the right answer to every question whether or not it reflects her true sentiments. I am always suspicious of people who want to be on a jury, who want to judge others.

“Okay, and as the judge explained yesterday, you know that I am both the defendant and defense attorney in this case. If at the end of this trial you think that I probably committed the crime of murder, how do you vote in the jury room?”

“I would have to trust my instincts after weighing the evidence.”

“Which means what? How would you vote?”

“If I’m convinced beyond a reasonable doubt, I vote guilty.”

“Is thinking I probably did it convincing? Is that what you mean?”

“No, like I said, I would have to feel you are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.”

“What does reasonable doubt mean to you, ma’am?”

Before 68 could answer, the judge cut in.

“Mr. Haller, are you trying to bait the juror?” Warfield said. “She asked you not to call her that.”

“No, Judge,” I said. “I just forgot. My Southern manners. I apologize.”

“That’s all well and good, but I know you were born right here in Los Angeles, because I knew your father.”

“Just a figure of speech, Your Honor. I won’t say the offending word again.”

“Very well, continue. You’re using up all your time on this one juror. I’m not giving you an extension.”

Fifteen minutes to interview the people who might decide your fate. I thought I had my first point of appeal should the trial not go the way I wanted it to. I turned my attention back to the woman in the jury box.

“If you could, can you tell us what you believe reasonable doubt to mean?”

“Just that there’s no other possible explanation. Based on the evidence and your evaluation of it, it couldn’t have been anybody else.”