False Witness (21 page)

“These are pretty serious charges,” Jamie said, feeling like a real lawyer. “What happened?”

Hoffman was a good storyteller, and he seemed to relish this tale. He was in the repo business, he explained, and got into some trouble with a car owner about two weeks ago. Seems that Hoffman was preparing to tow away a practically new Buick Lucerne when the owner, a sixty-three-year-old man with a history of two bypass surgeries, spotted Hoffman and came running out of the house, cursing loudly.

Hoffman tried to tell the irate man that he just wanted to peaceably repo the vehicle, but the man danced around, calling Hoffman names and threatening lawsuits. Hoffman admitted that he might have flashed a fake deputy sheriff's ID, but the old man still wouldn't calm down. Eventually, Hoffman got the car hooked up to his wrecker, at which point the man climbed on the hood of his car and refused to get off.

“What did you do?” Jamie asked.

“I drove away.”

“And what happened?”

“The old geezer slid off the front of his car and grabbed his heart after he hit the ground. Last time I saw him he was in the back of an ambulance.”

As always, Jamie had a hard time listening to these types of stories and not judging her clients. Especially cases like this one, where the client really had no legitimate defense.

“Where did you get the fake ID?” Jamie asked.

Hoffman made a face. “Is that really relevant?”

He had a point. “I guess not. But so far, I haven't heard a good defense.”

“I'm repossessing the guy's car under authority from the bank. How can that be a crime?”

“Did he ask you to stop?”

“Yes, but—”

“Under the law, you're only entitled to repossess a car if you can do so without a breach of the peace. If the owner tells you to stop, you have to stop.”

“I didn't breach the peace,” Hoffman protested. “
He
was cursing at
me
. I just did my job and tried to get out of there.”

“Was he sitting on his car when you tried to get out of there?”

“Yes.”

“And did you know that?”

“Yes. Probably.”

“And did you intentionally pull away in an abrupt manner in order to knock him off the car?”

“Whose side are you on, anyway?” Hoffman asked.

It's a fair question,
Jamie thought.

35

Friday, March 28

Jamie shifted in her seat in the packed courtroom at Fulton County Court, Criminal Division. She recrossed her legs—right over left, trying to get comfortable on the hard wooden benches. David Hoffman's preliminary hearing was scheduled toward the end of the day's docket; first, she had been forced to sit through several other routine cases, including the painful exercise of watching Isaiah Haywood defend a man facing his second possession charge.

Haywood, resplendent in a shimmering gray pin-striped suit, cuff-linked shirt, and pink tie, pulled out all the stops in his lengthy cross-examination of the arresting officer. As Isaiah grilled the man on his disciplinary record, the judge stifled a few yawns, looked conspicuously at his watch, and reminded Isaiah that it was a crowded docket.

When it came time for closing arguments, Isaiah alienated the judge again, insisting that he needed more than the three minutes the judge had allotted.
Not a good strategy,
Jamie thought,
in a case where the judge will render a verdict without the jury.

“All right,” a frustrated Judge Chalmers said. “Five minutes. No more.”

“Judge, this man is facing a serious criminal charge. With respect, I think due process requires that I be given more than five minutes. I can understand that, for the court, it might get tedious hearing these same cases day after day. But for my client, this is his life.”

But Judge Chalmers held firm. After arguing with Isaiah for at least five minutes about the length of time for the closing argument, the judge held to his five-minute limitation and “not a second more.”

“Note my objection,” Isaiah fumed.

“So noted.”

David Hoffman, sitting next to Jamie, leaned closer. “If anything happens to you, I want him as my lawyer.”

“No, you don't.”

The next ten minutes proved her point. The prosecutor waived her closing—“We'll rest on our evidence”—while Isaiah launched into a passionate argument attacking the credibility of the undercover police officer. The court ruled immediately.

“Under normal circumstances, I might have considered releasing your client on time served and twelve months probation,” Judge Chalmers said. “But, Mr. Haywood, since you seem so intent on preserving everything for appeal, perhaps I had better stay within the sentencing guidelines and not be quite so lenient. Mr. Radford—” the court turned to the defendant, who rose to his feet at the prompting of Isaiah—“I hereby find you guilty of possession of .5 grams of cocaine, a Class 5 felony, and I hereby sentence you to one year in jail with all but six months suspended under the usual stipulations.”

The judge turned to the clerk, who was busy making a note of the verdict. “The defendant is to begin serving immediately and should be credited for his time already served.”

“Request that the sentence be suspended pending our appeal,” Isaiah said.

“Denied.”

“Request that the defendant be allowed out on bond pending appeal.”

“Denied.”

Isaiah stood there, motionless, probably stunned.
But not half as stunned as his client,
Jamie thought.

“Anything else, Mr. Haywood?”

“Not until the retrial,” Isaiah said.

“Have a nice day, Mr. Haywood.”

The clerk called another case.

“I think we're up after this one,” Jamie said.

But Hoffman wasn't looking at her. He had seen something behind them that had apparently troubled him. He stiffened and turned to Jamie.

“Does everybody have to go through the same metal detector we did?” he asked.

“Yeah. Why?”

“Don't look now,” Hoffman whispered, his eyes straight ahead, “but I'm pretty sure I saw a guy with a gun tucked into his waistband, just under his shirt. He's in the third-to-last row on the other side of the courtroom.”

Jamie tensed, her mind racing to the Fulton Courthouse shootings that had taken place several years earlier. Security had tightened considerably since then, but there were probably still a hundred ways to smuggle weapons into the courtroom.

“Are you sure?”

“Not really. He's sitting on the end, toward the aisle. Asian American guy. Funny right ear. Tattoos on his neck and forearms.”

Jamie started to turn, but Hoffman put a firm hand on her arm. “Don't look,” he said. “I think he noticed me scoping him out. Don't draw any more attention right now.”

Suddenly Jamie's case didn't seem that significant. “Can you just go up and casually mention something to the bailiff?” Hoffman asked. “Maybe he could walk back there and talk to the guy and see.”

Considering the alternatives, it seemed like a reasonable plan to Jamie. Attorneys would occasionally walk past the wooden rail that separated the spectator section from the well of the courtroom and whisper discreet questions to the clerk or bailiff while cases were being heard. If the man in the back of the courtroom was armed, it could be no accident. He might be a jilted husband who had gotten a raw deal in a divorce or a psychotic criminal defendant or who knew what else.
The point is—you don't sneak a gun into court unless you intend to use it.

“Excuse me,” Jamie said as she slipped past Hoffman and a few others in her row. She walked discreetly to the front of the courtroom and past the counsel tables while the other lawyers were settling in for their next case. She approached the bailiff, an older man with a good-size paunch, leaning against a side wall. She glanced back, casually surveying the courtroom, finding the man whom Hoffman had described.

He was staring at her.

She took a step sideways and put her back to the man, explaining to the bailiff what Hoffman claimed he had seen. The bailiff nodded and asked Jamie to return to her seat. As she did, he followed her into the spectator section and walked back to talk with the man Jamie had identified. Before Jamie sat down, Hoffman slid out of the same row.

“I'll be right back,” he whispered as he passed Jamie.

A bathroom call,
she figured.
Or maybe Hoffman wants to “coincidentally” walk by the gentleman as the bailiff discovers the gun.

Jamie climbed into her seat and turned to look. The bailiff was leaning down and talking to the man, who appeared to be protesting his innocence. Hoffman walked by, without even glancing at the man, and left the courtroom. The man eventually lifted his shirt, and the bailiff appeared satisfied.

On the way back to the front of the courtroom, the bailiff stopped at Jamie's row. “He's clean,” the bailiff said. “But thanks for bringing it to my attention.”

“Sorry,” Jamie whispered.

“No problem.”

Satisfied, Jamie busied herself with some schoolwork, half-listening to the case at the front of the courtroom.

She started getting concerned about ten minutes later, when Hoffman had still not returned and the case being tried was wrapping up. Jamie packed her coursework into her soft leather briefcase and flashed a nervous look toward the back door. She noticed that the Asian American man accused by Hoffman was no longer sitting in the courtroom.

“Closing arguments?” Judge Chalmers asked the litigants.

“The prosecution rests on its evidence.”

Jamie felt her muscles tighten. She wasn't the nervous type, but the prospect of standing in front of Chalmers without her client wasn't doing much for her appetite.

“Defense?” Chalmers asked.

“I do think there's an important point of law for the court to consider,” the young female lawyer said drily. She picked up a case from her counsel table and started rambling on about its holding.

Take your time.

“Excuse me,” Jamie said. She slid past the two young men on the outside of her row one more time. She walked out the back door and into the hallway, looking left and right, then walked around the corner to the men's bathroom.

Hoffman had disappeared.

She stopped the first guy who emerged from the bathroom, a wiry middle-aged guy with dark, leathery skin and bulging eyes. “Excuse me,” she said. He stopped and eyed her curiously. “Was there a guy in there in his late thirties, blond hair, medium build, tall—about six-three?”

“No, ma'am.” It felt strange being called
ma'am
by a guy old enough to be her dad. Maybe it was her lawyer uniform.

“Are you sure?”

He smirked. “You mean, did I check in the stalls?”

Jamie shifted her weight. This was ridiculous. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“I don't make it a practice to check out the stalls every time I take a leak,” he said, enjoying himself way too much. “But unless he's standing on the toilet, he ain't in there.”

“Thanks.” She checked her watch. Glanced both ways.
What's wrong with Hoffman?
She was tempted to go in the bathroom and check herself but decided to take the weasel's word for it. Maybe Hoffman had somehow slipped back into the courtroom.

After one more check around the hallways, Jamie reentered the courtroom and stationed herself along the rear wall. Hoffman still had not returned.

Three minutes later, with her client still AWOL, Jamie heard Chalmers call her case. She walked to the front of the courtroom and explained the situation, asking for a brief continuance. “Perhaps you could drop us down one or two cases,” she suggested.

Out of the corner of her eye, Jamie noticed the prosecutor dip her head as if she couldn't bear to watch the court's reaction. The bailiff gave Jamie a look of pity. But Jamie held her chin high. It was, after all, a reasonable request. And it wasn't even remotely her fault.

“Is there anything else you would like the court to do in order to accommodate your schedule?” Chalmers said, deriding her with his eyes. “Perhaps we could provide you with a cup of Starbucks as you wait.”

Jamie felt the anger rising but, like a good trial attorney, beat it back. Why did some judges believe it was their duty to be so condescending? “It's not an unreasonable request, Your Honor. I'm sure there's some sort of emergency or Mr. Hoffman would have returned immediately.”

“No doubt.” Chalmers leaned forward and frowned. “Is this your first time in my court—” he checked his docket sheet—“Ms. Brock?”

“No, Your Honor, I've been here a couple of times before.”

“Then you should know the procedure. If your client doesn't show for a preliminary hearing, you have two choices: stipulate to probable cause and allow the case to be set for trial—which, by the way, I would highly recommend—or insist on the formality of the preliminary hearing, and I'll continue the case but in the meantime issue a bench warrant so we can hold your client in jail until the hearing is held.”

Granted, Jamie was new to defending felons. But this whole proceeding, and especially Chalmer's judgmental attitude, struck her as being disrespectful of the notion of justice. That, more than anything else, offended her.

“Does that mean my request is denied?” Jamie asked.

Chalmers lowered his chin, deepened his frown, and at the same time gave her a bewildered look over the top of his glasses. It was, Jamie thought, the type of look Chalmers probably gave his dog right after he discovered a yellow puddle on the kitchen floor, just before he kicked the poor little mutt.

If the judge even had a dog.

“It means,” Chalmers said slowly, “that you have two choices. Choice A: you waive the preliminary hearing on behalf of your client. We go directly to trial and everybody's happy. Choice B: you play it stubborn. I issue a bench warrant. Your client gets arrested. And Ms. Simms, the prosecuting attorney assigned to handle the case, gives me a date about thirty days out for the preliminary hearing. Nobody's happy, except a few of the boys at jail who are always excited about new company.