A Case of Redemption (12 page)

In what she claimed with a straight face to be a nod to free speech, Judge Pielmeier got the chief judge to allow her to use the ceremonial courtroom for all Legally Dead–related matters. This increased the spectators from the fifty or so people who could fit in her courtroom to more than two hundred, nearly all of them members of the press. That still left hundreds more out in the cold, and so to curry favor with them, Judge Pielmeier devised a pool system, not unlike the one used by the White House, in which different reporters were permitted inside the courtroom each day, and then had to brief their colleagues on the day's events.

Judge Pielmeier entered the courtroom fifteen minutes after the hearing was supposed to start, which was more or less on time by judicial standards. Judges, as a group, show little concern for wasting the time of the lawyers appearing before them, even while most of them wouldn't think twice about holding a lawyer in contempt for returning the favor.

She was smaller than I'd expected, especially given her outsize
reputation. Wearing the black robes, she looked something like a child in a witch's costume, a gavel in her hand instead of a wand. She was also older-looking than I'd imagined her, fully gray to the point of almost white, which contrasted sharply with her ebony complexion.

“Please be seated,” she said in a soft voice after she'd sat down behind the bench. “First, allow me to welcome the members of the press. I'm also aware that we have a new counsel present today for the defendant.”

I stood, buttoned my jacket, and said, “Good morning, Your Honor. My name is Daniel Sorensen. My partner, Nina Harrington, and I filed our notice of appearance yesterday.”

“Sit down, Mr. Sorensen,” she snapped. “I'll get to you in a moment. Before anything else is said on the record, however, I need to bring in the defendant. You do want your client to hear what's going on, don't you, sir?”

Perhaps it was out of bitterness over her stalled career, but among Judge Pielmeier's less admirable traits was that she was known for making lawyers feel utterly stupid. In this case, she needed to show me that I was a bit player in her courtroom; she was the one and only star of the show.

Legally Dead entered through the side door. From the moment he was visible, you couldn't help but think he must be guilty of something just by the way he looked. He was wearing an orange jumpsuit (gray must have been the home uniform, with orange worn on the road). His hands were cuffed behind his back, and his legs shackled around the ankles, which made him walk in a duck waddle. On either side of him were court officers, conspicuously displaying firearms.

The guards pulled L.D. toward our table the way you might drag a dog. When he arrived, his handcuffs were unlocked, but the ankle shackles remained.

Judge Pielmeier did not even give me the opportunity to say hello
to my client. While the guards were still unlocking his handcuffs, she said, “Mr. Patterson, the Constitution of this great country guarantees you more than just a right to a lawyer. You are actually entitled to effective legal representation.” She emphasized the word
effective,
using the long
e
sound. “While it is ultimately your decision whether Mr. Sorensen can provide such effective legal representation to you, I have been on this bench for too long not to know that if you are convicted of these charges, the first argument you'll make to the appellate court is that you didn't have adequate counsel before me. Now they tell me, Mr. Patterson, that you're something of a celebrity. I gotta be honest with you, I'd never heard of you before this case, but by the size of the media who want to watch this trial, I'm sure that there are lots of lawyers who would represent you solely to get their name in the newspapers. Let me be as clear as I can on this point: I have absolutely no reason whatsoever to think that's Mr. Sorensen's motivation here. It may well be that Mr. Sorensen is exactly the right lawyer to defend you in this case. But
you
need to be sure of that. Even more importantly,
I
need to be sure that you're sure. So I want you to state on the record that you wish to proceed with Mr. Sorensen as your counsel.”

I placed my hand on L.D.'s arm, gently pulling on him to convey that he should stand. He did as he was told, but then looked at me for advice as to what to say. Given that we were in open court, my ability to communicate with him was limited, so I only nodded.

“Yes, Judge,” he said in a weak voice.

“I'm not sure what you're agreeing to, sir, so I'm going to ask the question again. Do you want Mr. Sorensen to be your lawyer, in place of Marcus Jackson, who was your previous lawyer?”

“Yes,” he said, this time a bit louder than before.

“Okay, then,” Judge Pielmeier said, turning her focus back to me. “Mr. Sorensen, I accept your notice of appearance. I'll tell you this, though, you better have gotten whatever retainer you'll need to see
this through to the end, because under no circumstances will I sign another substitution of counsel. Do you understand that?”

“I do, Your Honor,” I said.

Judge Pielmeier waited for us to sit down before she began again. “You are the new kid on the block here, Mr. Sorensen. Is there anything you'd like to raise at this time?”

I stood again. It was a long shot to get bail, especially on a motion to reconsider, and I wasn't sure L.D. could meet even a minimal amount of bail. But clients who swear poverty when discussing their attorneys' fee have been known to find funds necessary to buy their way out of jail, and so it was worth a try.

Marcus Jackson had initially asked that Legally Dead be released without bail, the same released-on-recognizance request that I'd made for Darrius Macy. He must have figured it was a negotiating tactic—begin by asking for release without bail and meet somewhere at a reasonable number, just as Judge Ringel had done with Macy.

But Judge Pielmeier was very different from Judge Ringel, and she did not react well to Jackson's proposal. She found the request to be so out of bounds that she went 180 degrees the other way, denying bail altogether.

“We ask that the court set bail at an amount that is feasible for Mr. Patterson to meet,” I said, trying to sound as reasonable as possible. “This defendant is not a flight risk because—”

Judge Pielmeier began to talk over me. Looking only at the court stenographer, she said, “No, I see no reason to reconsider my initial order denying bail. Nothing has changed concerning the nature of the crime alleged, or the motivation for this defendant to flee if released on bail. Accordingly, it's the order of this court that the defendant's motion is denied.”

Damn. Even though the result was not that surprising, it still hurt. If L.D. had been out on bail, the entire dynamic of the case would be different. Time would be on our side, and there'd be no reason to
rush to trial. Not to mention that I'd be a hero in my client's eyes. But now everything was going to be that much tougher.

The judge looked back to me and smiled. Then, in a syrupy-sweet voice, she said, “Anything else, Mr. Sorensen?”

“A few housekeeping matters, Your Honor,” I said. “First, we'd like the court to impose a deadline for the people to provide us with discovery.”

“Ms. Kaplan's a professional,” Judge Pielmeier said with a dismissive air. “She doesn't need me telling her how to do her job. She'll get you what you need as soon as it's available. Isn't that right, Ms. Kaplan?”

Kaplan rose. She was actually much younger than I'd previously assumed—mid-thirties, at most. She was also very attractive, something that's never a good thing for a defendant. Her dark blue suit was well tailored, hugging her very trim figure. It looked expensive, the result of either family money or a rich husband, because no one bought designer clothes on an ADA's salary.

“Yes, Your Honor,” Kaplan said, even though I had no doubt that she was going to hold back discovery until the last possible moment.

“But just so we're on the same page here, Ms. Kaplan,” Judge Pielmeier said with a sly smile, “I'm assuming you won't have any difficulty getting Mr. Sorensen what he needs before Christmas, will you?”

Kaplan looked betrayed. “No, Your Honor.”

“Good,” the judge said as if it were a two-syllable word. “We done, Mr. Sorensen?”

“Your Honor, the defense would like to examine the crime scene, but Ms. Kaplan has insisted that both she and the police watch over our shoulder. As you can imagine, we'd rather not have the prosecution seeing what we think is important. Clearly, when the police investigated the crime scene, we were not permitted to be there and take notes.”

“It seems to me that Mr. Sorensen is making a reasonable request,”
Judge Pielmeier said, with more surprise in her voice than I believed to be warranted. “What say you, Ms. Kaplan?”

“We have no objection, so long as it's just a counsel inspection. We would object if the defendant were also on the premises.”

Kaplan had previously taken a hard line with me on the issue. Now, apparently sensing that Judge Pielmeier was going to grant our request, she decided to switch to the winning side, but not without trying to get something to make my life difficult.

“How about that, Mr. Sorensen?” Judge Pielmeier said. “That seems pretty fair to me, too, and I must say I do like it when the lawyers in my courtroom make my life easy. So, you get to go snoop around all by your lonesome, and then you can report back to your client about what you found.”

“Your Honor, that would raise Sixth Amendment issues,” I said.

“Since when?” she said with a mocking laugh.

“For effective representation to truly be effective, Mr. Patterson must be able to participate in all facets of the case. That includes helping us to see what's important at the crime scene and what's not.”

“You see, Mr. Sorensen,” Judge Pielmeier said in the belittling tone she seemed to reserve solely for me, “I throw you a bone and then you ask for the steak. So, here's what I'm going to do. You want to look around, just you and Ms. Harrington, that's fine by me, and I don't see the need for you to have a chaperone because I trust that, as officers of the court, you're not going to remove anything or disturb the scene in any way. But your client is not an officer of this court; he's—as Ms. Kaplan tells me at every opportunity—an accused murderer. So I'm not letting him roam free without a chaperone. The choice is yours.”

“Your Honor, I appreciate the court's concern about maintaining the integrity of the crime scene, but, with all due respect, any such fear is unfounded. For one thing, the prosecution has numerous photographs of the scene, so they'd know if anything were disturbed. Also, Ms. Harrington and I will be with Mr. Patterson at
all times. We're certainly not going to allow any disruption of the premises.”

“Mr. Sorensen, are you having trouble hearing me? I made my ruling. You best move on to another topic, or I'm liable to end today's proceeding right now.”

I was now 0 for 2. I decided to ask for something I was sure to get, if only to experience success for once.

“Last thing, Your Honor,” I said. “I'd like the court's permission to have a few minutes with my client after the hearing. There's an issue that just came up recently that I'd like to discuss with him.”

“Court time is my time, Mr. Sorensen,” Judge Pielmeier said, sounding not unlike a pedantic schoolteacher. “Just like I don't write my decisions or hear other cases on your time, I don't expect you to be visiting with your client on my time.”

This earned Judge Pielmeier some laughs from the gallery. She waited for the laughter to die down before continuing.

“Okay, then, since we have nothing else, I'm going to set our next conference for sometime after the New Year, at which time I'll set a trial date and hear from the parties if there are any discovery-related issues that require my attention.” She turned to her clerk, who was sitting beneath her. “Eleanor, what's the first open day on the calendar in January?”

“The second,” her clerk said without looking up. “At ten.”

Judge Pielmeier stood. “See you all on the second at ten. And happy holidays, everyone.” She then exited the courtroom through the door behind her chair, which led back to her chambers.

“Ain't she s'posed to bang that hammer thing?” L.D. said to me.

“Only on TV,” I said.

By this time the corrections officers who had been standing a few feet from us throughout the hearing were already reapplying the handcuffs behind L.D.'s back. L.D. looked at me with wondering eyes, and it occurred to me he had no idea what had just transpired.

There was no way to raise Marcus Jackson's claim that L.D. had already confessed to the murder, or Matt Brooks's revelation that he wasn't who he claimed to be. Not in a crowded courtroom full of members of the press. That discussion would have to wait until we saw him next.

“L.D.,” I began, talking quickly because I knew the guards would not wait for me to finish before removing him from the courtroom, “we weren't able to convince the judge to release you on bail. I'm sorry about that. We're going to get the prosecution's evidence by Christmas Eve, and we'll come in and see you on Christmas morning, okay?”

He looked at me in a way that caused Alexa to flash into my mind. An expression of such utter dependence that it made me swallow hard.

“Okay,” he said with a forced smile. “But you don't need to ruin your Christmas.”

“No, I want to see you as soon as we have the prosecution's discovery.”

He was already a few feet away from me, with the gap increasing as the guards pulled him away. “Thank you,” he called out before turning his back and leaving the courtroom.

N
ina and I left the courthouse without sharing a word. The quiet didn't last long, however—the moment we stepped outside, the shouting started.