After the jurors were seated and comfortable, Judge Stanton went on the record and began the proceedings by asking if any jurors had seen the story in the morning’s Times. None raised their hands and Stanton responded with another reminder about not reading or watching reports on the trial in the media.
He then told jurors that the trial would begin with opening statements from the opposing attorneys.
“Ladies and gentlemen, remember,” he said, “these are statements. They are not evidence. It’s up to each side to present the evidence that backs the statements up. And you will be the ones at the end of the trial who decide if they have done that.”
With that, he gestured to Golantz and said the prosecution would go first. As outlined in a pretrial conference, each side would have an hour for its opening statement. I didn’t know about Golantz but I wouldn’t take close to that.
Handsome and impressive-looking in a black suit, white shirt and maroon tie, Golantz stood up and addressed the jury from the prosecution table. For the trial he had a second chair, an attractive young lawyer named Denise Dabney. She sat next to him and kept her eyes on the jury the whole time he spoke. It was a way of double-teaming, two pairs of eyes constantly sweeping across the faces of the jurors, doubly conveying the seriousness and gravity of the task at hand.
After introducing himself and his second, Golantz got down to it.
“Ladies and gentleman of the jury, we are here today because of unchecked greed and anger. Plain and simple. The defendant, Walter Elliot, is a man of great power, money, and standing in our community. But that was not enough for him. He did not want to divide his money and power. He did not want to turn the cheek on betrayal. Instead, he lashed out in the most extreme way possible. He took not just one life, but two. In a moment of high anger and humiliation, he raised a gun and killed both his wife, Mitzi Elliot, and Johan Rilz. He believed his money and power would place him above the law and save him from punishment for these heinous crimes. But that will not be the case. The state will prove to you beyond any reasonable doubt that Walter Elliot pulled the trigger and is responsible for the deaths of two innocent human beings.”
I was turned in my seat, half to obscure the jury’s view of my client and half to keep a view of Golantz and the gallery rows behind him. Before his first paragraph was completed, the tears were flowing from Mitzi Elliot’s mother, and that was something I would need to bring up with the judge out of earshot of the jury. The theatrics were prejudicial and I would ask the judge to move the victim’s mother to a seat that was less of a focal point for the jury.
I looked past the crying woman and saw hard grimaces on the faces of the men from Germany. I was very interested in them and how they would appear to the jury. I wanted to see how they handled emotion and the surroundings of an American courtroom. I wanted to see how threatening they could be made to look. The grimmer and more menacing they looked, the better the defense strategy would work when I focused on Johan Rilz. Looking at them now, I knew I was off to a good start. They looked angry and mean.
Golantz laid his case out to the jurors, telling them what he would be presenting in testimony and evidence and what he believed it meant. There were no surprises. At one point I got a one-line text from Favreau, which I read below the table.
Favreau: They are eating this up. You better be good.
Right, I thought. Tell me something I don’t know.
There was an unfair advantage to the prosecution built into every trial. The state has the power and the might on its side. It comes with an assumption of honesty and integrity and fairness. An assumption in every juror’s and onlooker’s mind that we wouldn’t be here if smoke didn’t lead to a fire.
It is that assumption that every defense has to overcome. The person on trial is supposed to be presumed innocent. But anybody who has ever stepped foot into a courtroom as a lawyer or defendant knows that presumed innocence is just one of the idealistic notions they teach in law school. There was no doubt in my mind or anybody else’s that I started this trial with a defendant who was presumed guilty. I had to find a way to either prove him innocent or prove the state guilty of malfeasance, ineptitude, or corruption in its preparation of the case.
Golantz lasted his entire allotted hour, seemingly leaving no secrets about his case hidden. He showed typical prosecutorial arrogance; put it all out there and dare the defense to try to contradict it. The prosecution was always the six-hundred-pound gorilla, so big and strong it didn’t have to worry about finesse. When it painted its picture, it used a six-inch brush and hung it on the wall with a sledgehammer and spike.
The judge had told us in the pretrial session that we would be required to remain at our tables or to use the lectern placed between them while addressing witnesses during testimony. But opening statements and closing arguments were an exception to this rule. During these bookend moments of the trial, we would be free to use the space in front of the jury box—a spot the veterans of the defense bar called the “proving grounds” because it was the only time during a trial when the lawyers spoke directly to the jury and either made their case or didn’t.
Golantz finally moved from the prosecution table to the proving grounds when it was time for his big finish. He stood directly in front of the midpoint of the box and held his hands wide, like a preacher in front of his flock.
“I’m out of time here, folks,” he said. “So in closing, I urge you to take great care as you listen to the evidence and the testimony. Common sense will lead you. I urge you not to get confused or sidetracked by the roadblocks to justice the defense will put before you. Keep your eyes on the prize. Remember, two people had their lives stolen from them. Their future was ripped away. That is why we are here today. For them. Thank you very much.”
The old keep-your-eyes-on-the-prize opener. That one had been kicking around the courthouse since I was a public defender. Nevertheless, it was a solid beginning from Golantz. He wouldn’t win any orator-of-the-year trophies but he had made his points. He’d also addressed the jurors as “folks” at least four times by my count, and that was a word I would never use with a jury.
Favreau had texted me twice more during the last half hour of his delivery with reports of declining jury interest. They might have been eating it up at the start but now they were apparently full. Sometimes you can go on too long. Golantz had trudged through a full fifteen rounds like a heavyweight boxer. I was going to be a welterweight. I was interested in quick jabs. I was going to get in and get out, make a few points, plant a few seeds, and raise a few questions. I was going to make them like me. That was the main thing. If they liked me, they would like my case.
Once the judge gave me the nod, I stood up and immediately moved into the proving grounds. I wanted nothing between me and the jury. I was also aware that this put me right in front and in focus of the Court TV camera mounted on the wall above the jury box.
I faced the jury without physical gesture except for a slight nod of my head.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I know the judge already introduced me but I would like to introduce myself and my client. I am Michael Haller, the attorney representing Walter Elliot, whom you see here sitting at the table by himself.”
I pointed to Elliot and by prior design he nodded somberly, not offering any form of a smile that would appear as falsely ingratiating as calling the jurors folks.
“Now, I am not going to take a lot of time here, because I want to get to the testimony and the evidence—what little there is of it—and get this show on the road. Enough talk. It’s time to put up or shut up. Mr. Golantz wove a big and complicated picture for you. It took him a whole hour just to get it out. But I am here to tell you that this case is not that complicated. What the prosecution’s case amounts to is a labyrinth of smoke and mirrors. And when we blow away the smoke and get through the labyrinth, you will understand that. You will find that there is no fire, that there is no case against Walter Elliot. That there is more than reasonable doubt her
e, that there is outrage that this case was ever brought against Walter Elliot in the first place.”
Again I turned and pointed to my client. He sat with his eyes cast downward on the pad of paper he was now writing notes on—again, by prior design, depicting my client as busy, actively involved in his own defense, chin up, and not worried about the terrible things the prosecutor had just said about him. He had right on his side, and right was might.
I turned back to the jury and continued.
“I counted six times that Mr. Golantz mentioned the word ‘gun’ in his speech. Six times he said Walter took a gun and blew away the woman he loved and a second, innocent bystander. Six times. But what he didn’t tell you six times is that there is no gun. He has no gun. The Sheriff’s Department has no gun. They have no gun and have no link between Walter and a gun because he has never owned or had such a weapon.
“Mr. Golantz told you that he will introduce indisputable evidence that Walter fired a gun, but let me tell you to hold on to your hats. Keep that promise in your back pocket and let’s see at the end of this trial whether that so-called evidence is indisputable. Let’s just see if it is even left standing.”
As I spoke, my eyes washed back and forth across the jurors like the spotlights sweeping the sky over Hollywood at night. I remained in constant but calm motion. I felt a certain rhythm in my thoughts and cadence, and I instinctively knew I was holding the jury. Each one of them was riding with me.
“I know that in our society we want our law enforcement officers to be professional and thorough and the best they can possibly be. We see crime on the news and in the streets and we know that these men and women are the thin line between order and disorder. I mean, I want that as much as you do. I’ve been the victim of a violent crime myself. I know what that is like. And we want our cops to step in and save the day. After all, that’s what they are there for.”
I stopped and swept the whole jury box, holding every set of eyes for a brief moment before continuing.
“But that’s not what happened here. The evidence—and I’m talking about the state’s own evidence and testimony—will show that from the start the investigators focused on one suspect, Walter Elliot. The evidence will show that once Walter became that focus, then all other bets were off. All other avenues of investigation were halted or never even pursued. They had a suspect and what they believed was a motive, and they never looked back. They never looked anywhere else either.”
For the first time I moved from my position. I stepped forward to the railing in front of juror number one. I slowly walked along the front of the box, hand sliding along the railing.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this case is about tunnel vision. The focus on one suspect and the complete lack of focus on anything else. And I will promise you that when you come out of the prosecution’s tunnel, you’re going to be looking at one another and squinting your eyes against the bright light. And you’re going to be wondering where the hell their case is. Thank you very much.”
My hand trailed off the railing and I headed back to my seat. Before I sat down, the judge recessed court for lunch.
Thirty-seven
Once more my client eschewed lunch with me so he could get back to the studio and make his business-as-usual appearance in the executive offices. I was beginning to think he viewed the trial as an annoying inconvenience in his schedule. He was either more confident than I was in the defense’s case, or the trial simply wasn’t a priority.
Whatever the reason, that left me with my entourage from the first row. We went over to Traxx in Union Station because I felt it was far enough away from the courthouse to avoid our ending up in the same place as one of the jurors. Patrick drove and I had him valet the Lincoln and join us so that he would feel like part of the team.
They gave us a table in a quiet enclosure next to a window that looked out on the train station’s huge and wonderful waiting room. Lorna had made the seating arrangements and I ended up next to Julie Favreau. Ever since Lorna had hooked up with Cisco, she had decided that I needed to be with someone and had endeavored to be something of a matchmaker. This effort coming from an ex-wife—an ex-wife I still cared for on many levels—was decidedly uncomfortable and it felt clumsy when Lorna overtly pointed me to the chair next to my jury consultant. I was in the middle of day one of a trial and the possibility of romance was the last thing I was thinking about. Besides that, I was incapable of a relationship. My addiction had left me with an emotional distance from people and things that I was only now beginning to close. As such, I had made it my priority to reconnect with my daughter. After that, I would worry about finding a woman to spend time with.
Romance aside, Julie Favreau was wonderful to work with. She was an attractive, diminutive woman with delicate facial features and raven hair that fell around her face in curls. A spray of youthful freckles across her nose made her look younger than she was. I knew she was thirty-three years old. She had once told me her story. She’d come to Los Angeles by way of London to act in film and had studied with a teacher who believed that internal thoughts of character could be shown externally through facial tells, tics, and body movements. It was her job as an actor to bring these giveaways to the surface without making them obvious. Her student exercises became observation, identification, and interpretation of these tells in others. Her assignments took her anywhere from the poker rooms in the south county, where she learned to read the faces of people trying not to give anything away, to the courtrooms of the CCB, where there were always lots of faces and giveaways to read.
After seeing her in the gallery for three days straight of a trial in which I was defending an accused serial rapist, I approached her and asked who she was. Expecting to find out she was a previously unknown victim of the man at the defense table, I was surprised to hear her story and to learn she was simply there to practice reading faces. I took her to lunch, got her number, and the next time I picked a jury, I hired her to help me. She had been dead-on in her observations and I had used her several times since.
“So,” I said as I spread a black napkin on my lap. “How is my jury doing?”
I thought it was obvious that the question was directed at Julie but Patrick spoke up first.
“I think they want to throw the book at your guy,” he said. “I think they think he’s a stuck-up rich guy who thinks he can get away with murder.”
I nodded. His take probably wasn’t too far off.
“Well, thanks for the encouraging word,” I said. “I’ll make sure I tell Walter to not be so stuck-up and rich from now on.”
Patrick looked down at the table and seemed embarrassed.
“I was just saying, is all.”
“No, Patrick, I appreciate it. Any and all opinions are welcome and they all matter. But some things you can’t change. My client is rich beyond anything any of us can imagine and that gives him a certain style and image. An off-putting countenance that I’m not sure I can do anything about. Julie, what do you think of the jury so far?”
Before she could answer, the waiter came and took our drink orders. I stuck with water and lime, while the others ordered iced tea and Lorna asked for a glass of Mad Housewife Chardonnay. I gave her a look and she immediately protested.
“What? I’m not working. I’m just watching. Plus, I’m celebrating. You’re in trial again and we’re back in business.”
I grudgingly nodded.
“Speaking of which, I need you to go to the bank.”
I pulled an envelope out of my jacket pocket and handed it across the table to her. She smiled because she knew what was in it: a check from Elliot for $150,000, the remainder of the agreed-upon fee for my services.
Lorna put the envelope away and I turned my attention back to Julie.
“So what are you seeing?”
“I think it’s a good jury,” she said. “Overall, I see a lot of open faces. They are willing to listen to your case. At least right now. We all know they are predisposed to believe
the prosecution, but they haven’t shut the door on anything.”
“You see any change from what we talked about Friday? I still present to number three?”
“Who is number three?” Lorna asked before Julie could answer.
“Golantz’s slip-up. Three’s a lawyer, and the prosecution should’ve never left him in the box.”
“I still think he’s a good one to present to,” Julie said. “But there are others. I like eleven and twelve, too. Both retirees and sitting right next to each other. I have a feeling that they’re going to bond and almost work as a team when it gets to deliberations. You win one over and you win them both.”
I loved her English accent. It wasn’t upper-crust at all. It had a street-smarts tone to it that gave what she said validity. She had not been very successful as an actress so far, and she had once told me that she got a lot of audition calls for period pieces requiring a dainty English accent that she hadn’t quite mastered. Her income was primarily earned in the poker rooms, where she now played for keeps, and from jury reading for me and the small group of lawyers I had introduced her to.
“What about juror seven?” I asked. “During selection he was all eyes. Now he won’t look at me.”
Julie nodded.
“You noticed that. Eye contact has completely dropped off the chart. Like something changed between Friday and today. I would have to say at this point that that’s a sign he’s in the prosecution’s camp. While you’re presenting to number three, you can bet Mr. Undefeated’s going to number seven.”
“So much for listening to my client,” I said under my breath.
We ordered lunch and told the waiter to hurry the order because we needed to get back to court. While we waited I checked with Cisco on our witnesses and he said we were good to go in that department. I then asked him to hang around after court and see if he could follow the Germans out of the courthouse and stay with them until they reached their hotel. I wanted to know where they were staying. It was just a precaution. Before the trial was over, they were not going to be very happy with me. It was good strategy to know where your enemies were.