Джон Гришэм - Rogue Lawyer

I nod, take a sip, say, “That’s good.”

“Yes it is. And Roy Kemp wants you to know that he and his family are very grateful to you for getting the girl back and making all this happen.”

“He kidnapped my child.”

“Come on, Rudd.”

“His daughter was kidnapped, so he must know how it feels. I don’t care how grateful he is. He’s lucky I called off the FBI or he might be sitting in jail.”

“Come on, Rudd. Let it go. There’s a happy ending here, thanks to you.”

“I deserve nothing and I want no part of it. Tell Mr. Kemp to kiss my ass.”

“Will do. They got a lead on Swanger. Last night, a tip from a bartender in Racine, Wisconsin.”

“Great. Can we meet in a week or so and have a beer? I’m rather preoccupied right now.”

“Sure.”

25.

I huddle with Partner and Cliff in the hallway before the trial resumes Friday morning. At this point Cliff’s job is to sit in various places among the spectators and watch the jurors. His reaction to yesterday is not surprising: The jurors have no sympathy for Tadeo and they’ve made up their minds. Grab the plea deal if it’s still on the table, he keeps saying. I tell him about my conversation with Miguel the day before. Cliff’s response: “Well, if you can bribe one you’d better do it quick.”

As the jury files in, I steal a look at Esteban Suarez. I planned to just glance at him quickly, as I normally do during trials. However, he’s gawking at me as if he expects me to hand over an envelope. What a goofball. There is little doubt, though, that someone has made contact with him. There’s also little doubt that he can’t be trusted. Is he already counting his money?

Judge Fabineau says good morning and welcomes everyone back to her courtroom. She goes through the standard routine of quizzing the jurors about any unauthorized contact with sinister people hoping to sway them. I glance back at Suarez. He’s staring at me. I’m sure others are noticing this.

Mr. Mancini stands and announces, “Your Honor, the State rests. We may have additional witnesses for rebuttal, but for now we’ll rest.”

This is not surprising because Max gave me a heads-up. He’s called only two witnesses because that’s all he needs. Again, the video says it all, and Max is wise to let it speak for itself. He’s clearly established the cause of death and he’s certainly nailed the perpetrator.

I walk to the jury box, look at everyone but Suarez, and begin by stating the obvious. My client killed Sean King. There was no premeditation, no planning. He hit him twenty-two times. And Tadeo doesn’t remember it. In the fifteen or so minutes before he attacked Sean King, Tadeo Zapate was struck in the face and head a total of thirty-seven times by Crush, also known as Bo Fraley. Thirty-seven times. He wasn’t knocked out, but he was mentally impaired. He remembers little past the second round, when Crush landed a knee to his jaw. We will show you, the jury, the entire fight, count the thirty-seven blows to the head, and prove to you that Tadeo did not know what he was doing when he attacked the referee.

I am brief because there’s just not much I can say. I thank them and leave the podium.

My first witness is Oscar Moreno, Tadeo’s trainer and the man who first saw his potential as a sixteen-year-old boxer. Oscar is about my age, older than Tadeo’s gang, and he’s been around the block. He hangs out in a gym for Hispanic kids and offers to train the more talented ones. He also happens to have a clean record, a real asset when calling witnesses to the stand. Past criminal convictions always come back to bite you. Juries are tough on felons under oath.

With Oscar, I lay the groundwork for the events leading up to the fight. It’s an effort to appeal to the jury’s sense of compassion. Tadeo is a poor kid from a poor family whose only real chance in life so far has been inside the cage. We finally get around to the fight and the courtroom lights go down. The first time through, we watch the fight without interruption. In the semidarkness, I watch the jurors. The women are turned off by the sport’s brutality. The men are thoroughly engrossed. During the rerun, I stop the tape each time Tadeo takes a shot in the face. The truth is that most of these were not that damaging and Crush scored only minor points with them. But to jurors who don’t know any better, a punch to the face, especially one blown out of proportion by Oscar and me, becomes a near-lethal blow. Slowly, methodically, I count them. When they are displayed in such exaggerated manner, one can easily ask how in the world Tadeo stayed on his feet. With 1:20 to go in the second round, Crush is able to yank Tadeo’s head down and bang it into his right knee. It’s a nasty shot all right, but one that hardly fazed Tadeo. Now, though, Oscar and I make it look like the cause of permanent brain damage.

I stop the video after the end of the second round, and through carefully rehearsed questions and answers I elicit from Oscar his impressions of his fighter between rounds. The kid’s eyes were glazed over. He could only grunt, not speak. He was unresponsive to questions fired at him by Norberto and Oscar. He, Oscar, thought about waving the ref over and stopping the fight.

I would put Norberto on the stand to verify these lies, but he has two felony convictions and would be humiliated by Mancini.

Left unsaid in this testimony is the fact that I was also in the corner. I was wearing my bright yellow “Tadeo Zapate” jacket and trying to act as though I was somehow needed. I have explained this to Max and Go Slow and assured them that I saw and heard nothing crucial. I was just a spectator; thus I cannot be considered a witness. Max and Go Slow know I’m here out of love and not money.

We watch the third round and count more blows to Tadeo’s head. Oscar testifies that when the fight was over Tadeo thought he had one more round. He was out of it, barely conscious but still on his feet. After he attacked Sean King and was pulled off by Norberto and others, he was like an enraged animal, unsure of where he was or why he was being restrained. Thirty minutes later, as he was changing in the dressing room while the police watched and waited, he began to come around. He wanted to know what the cops were doing there. He asked who won the fight.

All in all, not a bad job of creating some doubt. However, even a casual viewing of all three rounds clearly shows a fight that was fairly even. Tadeo dished out as much damage as he absorbed.

Mancini gets nowhere on cross. Oscar sticks to the facts he has created. He was there, in the corner, talking to his fighter, and if he says the kid took too many shots to the head, so be it. Max can’t prove otherwise.

Next I call our expert, Dr. Taslman, the retired psychiatrist who now works as a professional witness. He wears a black suit, crisp white shirt, tiny red bow tie, and with his horn-rimmed glasses and long, flowing gray hair he looks incredibly smart. I slowly walk him through his qualifications and tender him as an expert in the field of forensic psychiatry. Max has no objections.

I then ask Dr. Taslman to explain, in layman’s terms, the legal concept of volitional insanity, the standard adopted by our state a decade ago. He smiles at me, then looks at the jurors in much the same way an old professor would enjoy chatting with his adoring students. He says, “Volitional insanity means simply that a person who is mentally healthy does something wrong, and at the time he knows it’s wrong, but at that moment he is so mentally unbalanced, or deranged, he cannot prevent himself from doing it anyway. He knows it’s wrong, but he cannot control himself and thereby commits the crime.”

He has watched the fight many times, and the video of its aftermath. He has spent a few hours with Tadeo. During their first meeting, Tadeo told him he did not remember the attack on Sean King. Indeed, he remembered virtually nothing after the second round. However, during a later session, Tadeo seemed to recollect certain things that happened. For example, he said he remembered the smug look on Crush’s face as his arm was raised in victory. He remembered the crowd screaming its disapproval of the decision. He remembered his brother Miguel yelling something. But he remembered nothing to do with the assault on the referee. Regardless, though, of what he remembered, he was blinded by emotion and had no choice but to attack. He had been robbed and the nearest official was Sean King.