Michael Connelly: The Lincoln Lawyer

My request set off a brutal clash with Minton about authenticity and proper foundation. Ultimately, the judge ruled in my favor. She was showing some of the same outrage I was manufacturing, and Minton didn’t stand much of a chance.

The bailiff took the computer printout to Corliss, and the judge instructed him to read it.

“I’m not too good at reading, Judge,” he said.

“Try, Mr. Corliss.”

Corliss held the paper up and leaned his face into it as he read.

“Out loud, please,” Fullbright barked.

Corliss cleared his throat and read in a halting voice.

“‘A man wrongly convicted of rape was released Saturday from the Arizona Correctional Institution and vowed to seek justice for other inmates falsely accused. Frederic Bentley, thirty-four, served almost eight years in prison for attacking a sixteen-year-old Tempe girl. The victim of the assault identified Bentley, a neighbor, and blood tests matched his type to semen recovered from the victim after the attack. The case was bolstered at trial by testimony from an informant who said Bentley had confessed the crime to him while they were housed together in a holding cell. Bentley always maintained his innocence during the trial and even after his conviction. Once DNA testing was accepted as valid evidence by courts in the state, Bentley hired attorneys to fight for such testing of semen collected from the victim of the attack. A judge ordered the testing earlier this year, and the resulting analysis proved Bentley was not the attacker.

“‘At a press conference yesterday at the Arizona Biltmore the newly freed Bentley railed against jailhouse informants and called for a state law that would put strict guidelines on police and prosecutors who wish to use them.

“‘The informant who claimed in sworn testimony that Bentley admitted the rape was identified as D.J. Corliss, a Mesa man who had been arrested on drug charges. When told of Bentley’s exoneration and asked whether he fabricated his testimony against Bentley, Corliss declined comment Saturday. At his press conference, Bentley charged that Corliss was well known to the police as a snitch and was used in several cases to get close to suspects. Bentley claimed that Corliss’s practice was to make up confessions if he could not draw them out of the suspects. The case against Bentley -’”

“Okay, Mr. Corliss,” I said. “I think that is enough.”

Corliss put the printout down and looked at me like a child who has opened the door of a crowded closet and sees everything about to fall out on top of him.

“Were you ever charged with perjury in the Bentley case?” I asked him.

“No, I wasn’t,” he said forcefully, as if that fact exonerated him of wrongdoing.

“Was that because the police were complicit with you in setting up Mr. Bentley?”

Minton objected, saying, “I am sure Mr. Corliss would have no idea what went into the decision of whether or not to charge him with perjury.”

Fullbright sustained it but I didn’t care. I was so far ahead on this witness that there was no catching up. I just moved on to the next question.

“Did any prosecutor or police officer ask you to get close to Mr. Roulet and get him to confide in you?”

“No, it was just luck of the draw, I guess.”

“You were not told to get a confession from Mr. Roulet?”

“No, I was not.”

I stared at him for a long moment with disgust in my eyes.

“I have nothing further.”

I carried the pose of anger with me to my seat and dropped the tape box angrily down in front of me before sitting down.

“Mr. Minton?” the judge asked.

“I have nothing further,” he responded in a weak voice.

“Okay,” Fullbright said quickly. “I am going to excuse the jury for an early lunch. I would like you all back here at one o’clock sharp.”

She put on a strained smile and directed it at the jurors and kept it there until they had filed out of the courtroom. It dropped off her face the moment the door was closed.

“I want to see counsel in my chambers,” she said. “Immediately.”

She didn’t wait for any response. She left the bench so fast that her robe flowed up behind her like the black gown of the grim reaper.

Judge Fullbright had already lit a cigarette by the time Minton and I got back to her chambers. After one long drag she put it out against a glass paperweight and then put the butt into a Ziploc bag she had taken out of her purse. She closed the bag, folded it and replaced it in the purse. She would leave no evidence of her transgression for the night cleaners or anyone else. She exhaled the smoke toward a ceiling intake vent and then brought her eyes down to Minton’s. Judging by the look in them I was glad I wasn’t him.

“Mr. Minton, what the fuck have you done to my trial?”

“Your -”

“Shut up and sit down. Both of you.”

We did as we were told. The judge composed herself and leaned forward across her desk. She was still looking at Minton.

“Who did the due diligence on this witness of yours?” she asked calmly. “Who did the background?”

“Uh, that would have-actually, we only did a background on him in L.A. County. There were no cautions, no flags. I checked his name on the computer but I didn’t use the initials.”

“How many times had he been used in this county before today?”

“Only one previous time in court. But he had given information on three other cases I could find. Nothing about Arizona came up.”

“Nobody thought to check to see if this guy had been anywhere else or used variations of his name?”

“I guess not. He was passed on to me by the original prosecutor on the case. I just assumed she had checked him out.”

“Bullshit,” I said.

The judge turned her eyes to me. I could have sat back and watched Minton go down but I wasn’t going to let him try to take Maggie McPherson with him.

“The original prosecutor was Maggie McPherson,” I said. “She had the case all of about three hours. She’s my ex-wife and she knew as soon as she saw me at first apps that she was gone. And you got the case that same day, Minton. Where in there was she supposed to background your witnesses, especially this guy who didn’t come out from under his rock until after first appearance? She passed him on and that was it.”

Minton opened his mouth to say something but the judge cut him off.

“It doesn’t matter who should have done it. It wasn’t done properly and, either way, putting that man on the stand in my opinion was gross prosecutorial misconduct.”

“Your Honor,” Minton barked. “I did -”

“Save it for your boss. He’s the one you’ll need to convince. What was the last offer the state made to Mr. Roulet?”

Minton seemed frozen and unable to respond. I answered for him.

“Simple assault, six months in county.”

The judge raised her eyebrows and looked at me.

“And you didn’t take it?”

I shook my head.

“My client won’t take a conviction. It will ruin him. He’ll gamble on a verdict.”

“You want a mistrial?” she asked.

I laughed and shook my head.

“No, I don’t want a mistrial. All that will do is give the prosecution time to clean up its mess, get it all right and then come back at us.”

“Then what do you want?” she asked.

“What do I want? A directed verdict would be nice. Something with no comebacks from the state. Other than that, we’ll ride it out.”

The judge nodded and clasped her hands together on the desk.

“A directed verdict would be ridiculous, Your Honor,” Minton said, finally finding his voice. “We’re at the end of trial, anyway. We might as well take it to a verdict. The jury deserves it. Just because one mistake was made by the state, there is no reason to subvert the whole process.”