Майкл Коннелли - The Law of Innocence

“I have no idea what he’s talking about, Judge,” Berg said. “The People still object based on lack of foundation. If he wants to play it during the defense phase, he can bring in his tech guy and try to establish foundation. But this is the state’s case right now and he should not be allowed to hijack it.”

“Your Honor,” Maggie said. “The prosecution has already laid the foundation by playing the videos to the jury. To allow the prosecution to play what it wants to show to the jury but prevent the defense from doing so would be a wholly unacceptable injury to the defense.”

There was a pause while the judge considered the intensity of Maggie’s unexpected argument. It gave me pause as well.

“We’re going to take the afternoon break early and I’ll come back with my ruling,” Warfield said. “Get your equipment set up, Mr. Haller, in case I allow it. Now step back.”

I returned to the defense table, pleased with our arguments, especially the strong hint from Maggie that preventing the defense from playing its video might be a reversible error.

The judge adjourned court for a fifteen-minute break. Maggie and I never left the defense table. I stayed because my only choice would be to go back into the courtside lockup. She did because she was connecting her laptop to the courtroom’s audio-visual system. If we got the judge’s okay, we would put the simultaneous videos on the big screen mounted on the wall over the clerk’s station and across from the jury box.

While Maggie worked, I checked the courtroom and saw Hayley and Maddie Bosch holding fast, still in the same seats. I nodded and smiled and they did the same.

When the judge retook the bench, she immediately ruled that I could play the simultaneous videos. While Dana Berg offered another objection, I turned to Maggie.

“We all set?” I asked.

“Good to go,” she said.

“Okay, and where are the time codes?”

“Hold on.”

She opened her briefcase and looked through a stack of documents before pulling out a page that had the video time codes I needed in order to cross-examine Milton. I stood up and went to the lectern with the document and a remote control for the playback. The judge overruled Berg’s objection and I began.

I explained to Milton that I would show him videos from both his car and his body cam running side by side in synchronized time. I began the playback at a point before Milton followed me and while I was still in the Redwood. The view from the patrol car’s camera was through the windshield, looking west down Second Street to the intersection of Broadway and two blocks beyond to the tunnel. On the south side of Second the red neon sign that said redwood was visible half a block up. The view from Milton’s body cam was low because he was apparently sitting slumped in his car. The screen showed his car’s steering wheel and dashboard. His left arm and hand were visible, the arm propped on the sill of the open driver’s-side window and his hand draped over the top of the steering wheel.

I asked Milton to describe for the jury what he was seeing on the screen and he grudgingly obliged.

“Not much, if you ask me,” he said. “On the left is the car cam and that is looking west down Second Street. Then on the right is my body cam and I’m just sitting in the car.”

The body cam was picking up the intermittent sound of the police radio in the patrol car. I let it play and checked my list of time codes. I then looked back up at the screen.

“Now, do you see the entrance of the Redwood up on the left side of Second Street?” I asked.

“Yes, I see it,” Milton said.

The door to the bar opened and out stepped two figures. It was too dark to identify them in the red glow of the neon. They spoke on the sidewalk for a few seconds and then one walked west in the direction of the tunnel, and the other went east, moving toward the camera.

This was followed by a low-level buzzing sound that clearly came from a cell phone. I used the remote to stop the playback.

“Officer Milton, was that you getting an email or a text on your cell phone?” I asked.

“Sounded like it,” Milton said matter-of-factly.

“Do you recall what the message was?”

“No, I don’t. In the course of a night I could get fifty messages. I don’t remember them all the next day, let alone three months later.”

I pushed the play button and the videos continued. Soon the figure walking east on Second Street stepped into the illumination from a streetlight. It was clearly me.

As I became recognizable in the light, the angle on the body cam changed as Milton apparently straightened up in his seat.

“Officer Milton, you seem to have gone on alert here,” I said. “Can you tell the jury what you’re doing?”

“Not really doing anything,” Milton said. “I saw somebody on the street and was eyeballing him. It turned out to be you. You can read into that whatever you want but it didn’t mean anything to me.”

“Your car is running at this point, correct?”

“Yes, that’s standard.”

“Was that message on your phone an alert that I was leaving the Redwood?”

Milton scoffed.

“No, it wasn’t,” he said. “I had no idea who you were, what you were doing, or where you were going.”

“Really?” I said. “Then maybe you can explain this next sequence.”

I hit the play button and we watched. I checked the jury and saw all eyes on the screen. One witness into the trial and I had them riding with me. I could feel it.

On the screen I had turned the corner and then disappeared off camera as I headed to the parking lot to get into my Lincoln. Seconds ticked by with nothing happening but I didn’t want to fast-forward. I wanted the jurors to know exactly what was going on here.

Then the Lincoln appeared in the patrol car cam as I drove into the left-turn lane on Broadway at Second. The car held there as I waited for the traffic signal to change.

On the body-cam video, Milton’s right arm came up and pulled the transmission lever from park to drive. The move registered on the digital dashboard as a D appeared on the screen. I froze it there and looked at Milton. He still didn’t look concerned.

“Officer Milton,” I said. “On direct examination you told the jury that you did not decide to pursue my car until you saw that it was missing the rear plate. Can you see the rear bumper from this angle?”

Milton looked up at the big screen and acted like he was bored.

“No, you can’t.”

“But it is clear from your own body cam that you just put your patrol car into drive. Why did you do that if you had not seen the rear bumper of my car?”

Milton was silent for a long moment as he contemplated an answer.

“I, uh, guess it was just cop instincts,” he finally said. “So that I would be ready to move if I needed to move.”

“Officer Milton,” I said. “Do you want to change any of your earlier testimony to better reflect the facts as they are seen and heard on the video?”

Berg sprang up from her spot to object to my badgering the witness. The judge overruled her, saying, “I want to hear his answer for myself.”

Milton declined the opportunity to change his testimony.

“So, then,” I said. “It is your sworn testimony that you were not there specifically to wait and target me. Do I have that correct?”

“That’s right,” Milton said.

Now there was a defiant tone in his voice. That was what I wanted the jury to hear. The how-dare-you-question-me tone of the police state that at least some of them knew so well. A tone that I believed would trigger their suspicions that something here was not right.

“And you do not wish to change or correct your earlier testimony?” I asked.