Kenneth Schneyer - The Whole Truth Witness

Rackham looked startled, the jury puzzled, Ferimond aghast. “Mr. Suarez,” said Rackham, “you’re not going to present any evidence at all?”

“No, judge. Since plaintiff has the burden of proof, his failure to present sufficient evidence is grounds for the jury to find in our favor. As I do not believe plaintiff has proved his case, I see no reason to bother refuting it.”

“Are you moving for a directed verdict, then?”

“No, judge, but thank you for asking. I just want to talk to the jury.”

Rackham tapped her fingernails on the bench. “I’m not going to indulge you if you change your mind later, Mr. Suarez.”

“Understood, Your Honor.”

“I expect that you’ll want a continuance to prepare your closing argument?” She glanced over at her clerk, who was already checking the calendar.

Manny said, “No ma’am. We have half the day left, and I’m ready now.”

Rackham consulted the file summary in front of her. “Um, I don’t think we’ve settled the jury instructions yet, have we?”

“Actually, Your Honor, we’ve read Plaintiff’s proposed jury instructions and we’re content to let those stand. They’re fine. But I’m ready for my closing.”

The judge nodded. Manny thought she might be thinking about her docket.

Ferimond sputtered, “Your Honor, this is ridiculous! We’re hardly ready for closing. We expected defendant to present a case!”

“That’s up to him, counsel.”

“But our own closing isn’t ready.”

“Then you can have a continuance after Mister Suarez has finished.” Ferimond’s mouth worked, but nothing came out. Rackham sighed. “Please be seated, Mr. Ferimond. Mister Suarez, you may proceed.”

“Permission to approach the jury?”

“Granted.”

Manny wandered over to the jury box, shaking his head. “For a thousand years, juries have had the role of deciding the credibility of witnesses. Everyone knows there are excellent liars in the world, and that no one is a perfect judge of character. We have faith that twelve citizens, using their own wits and working together, can tell the liars from the truth-tellers.

“But now a few clever engineers invent a nanobot that, they say, takes that job away from you. They say that a witness who’s had the Whole Truth process cannot forget, cannot lie, that anything he says must be true. They would have this machine tell you what to believe.

“But that is not the way our system works. It is still you, the jury, who determine whether a witness is telling the truth. Neither I, nor Mr. Ferimond, nor the judge herself can tell you what to believe, and neither can a collection of nanomachines. Even those who say they believe in the Whole Truth process admit that it can commit an error. I say that your own common sense tells you when an ‘error’ is present.

“It is possible that I have green skin and wiggling red antennae, or at least that I had them in January. It is possible that Ms. Morales, a married woman with two children, walked into a Mr. Althoren’s house, bared her chest to him and flapped a set of white angel’s wings. If you believe those things, then you should also believe Mr. Althoren’s other testimony, and hold that Tina Beltran engaged in the conspiracy of which she is accused. Otherwise, you should find that Mr. Ferimond and WorldWide Holdings have failed to prove their case.”

Manny sat down. It was the shortest closing argument he’d ever made.

The next morning, Ferimond delivered a closing that was, in Manny’s opinion, a tactical blunder. He focused entirely on Althoren’s testimony in direct examination, the details of the conversation with Tina Beltran, and how those facts proved the illegal conspiracy prohibited by PIPRA. He did not address the peculiarities of Althoren’s cross-examination testimony at all; indeed, he behaved as if the cross-examination had never occurred.

The judge’s jury instructions were tilted towards WorldWide, of course, since Manny had not bothered arguing them. If he lost, Beltran might sue him for malpractice.

But the jury was out for less than a half hour before they returned a verdict in favor of the defendant. Manny rose to ask for statutory attorney’s fees.

After accepting Tina Beltran’s excited hug, as he and Elsa walked back to the office, this time in giddy sunshine, Manny pulled a personal check out of his jacket pocket. “Three months’ bonus,” he said.

Elsa glanced down at the check without touching it. “Four,” she said.

“What?”

“Four. You owe me more.”

“I thought you only wanted two.”

“That was before I saw the scars.”

“What?”

“Scars. On my back. Zucker promised there wouldn’t be any, but there they are, one on each side.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You should be; the whole thing is practically sexual harassment. But just pay for the cosmetic surgery and we’ll call it even. I’m thinking of suing him for malpractice myself. Goddamn pin feathers.”