Fire Lover (42 page)

She testified that John was there when she'd gotten home, and that they'd ordered a pizza, but he got paged before the pizza arrived, and had to go to Warner Brothers Studios.

Sandra Flannery later maintained that she and Mike Cabral had had no game plan for her to deal with Chris in a way that might inflame married female jurors, yet the first words out of the prosecutor's mouth were, "Good morning. When did you begin your relationship with John Orr?"

"Objection, irrelevant," said Peter Giannini.

The judge overruled Giannini, and Chris said, "I met John sometime during 1989."

Sandra Flannery then said, "And at some point in time during your relationship>, did you become aware of the fact that he was writing a novel?"

"He had mentioned it, yes," Chris said.

"In fact, were you aware of a character in the novel named Chris?"

"Yes."

"And you understood Chris to be, in essence, you. Is that correct?"

"He had told me later on that it was lightly based on his knowledge of me, yes."

"And on the relationship you had with him?"

Sandra Flannery emphasized the word relationship so much that she got the witness doing it. "I had not read the novel, and we did not get into the extent of the relationship with the character in the book."

"And during this time, how often would you say you saw John Orr?"

"Regularly."

"How many times a week?"

"It would depend on both of our schedules, but I would say on an average of at least twice a week."

"Three or four times a week, would that sound right?"

"Could be, yes."

"Are you presently John Orr's girlfriend?"

"I am a friend," the witness replied. "Prior to his arrest. And I've remained a friend."

"Prior to his arrest you were his girlfriend?"

"Yes," Chris admitted.

"And you are presently working on the defense team?"

"Yes, I mean ... I have volunteered my time to help."

"And you've been here every day during the trial?"

"Almost every day."

"And you've sat through the testimony every day that you've . . ."

"Yes yes yes," said the witness, cutting off the prosecutor.

"At some point in time did you help John Orr in giving an arson investigator's conference or instruction class of some type?"

"He asked me to assist as a role player."

"And did you play the role of an arsonist's wife?"

"Yes."

"And is it correct that the week before John Orr got arrested, he was planning to leave his wife for you?"

"I don't have knowledge of that."

"Did you ever make that statement to an investigator who worked for ATF?"

"I might have. I don't remember it, though."

After the witness was excused, a teacher from the Stevenson school testified that John Orr had come to the parent-teacher meeting at around 3:30 to 3:40 p. M. for a half-hour conference on the day in question, looking well dressed, composed, professional, and, in answer to a question from Giannini, "not smelling of smoke."

Sandra Flannery's cross-examination of Chris about the "relationship" was effective lawyering because it insinuated that John Orr was a serial philanderer in addition to being a serial arsonist, and to some jurors, that might be nearly as bad. And as to Sandra Flannery's disingenuous claim that the prosecution would never resort to exposing the defendant's womanizing, or to insinuate that Chris was a little home wrecker who'd inspired the hot scenes in John Orr's novel, one might respond to Sandra Flannery as Verdugo Dispatch had done when the lead-footed arson sleuth had tried to assure them he wasn't engaging in high-speed pursuits, but was only following fast: "Yeah. Riiiiiiiight!"

That afternoon the defense rested. Rebuttal was to begin the next day.

Chapter
19

The people's rebuttal case began on Wednesday, June 3, four weeks after the trial had begun. Sandra Flannery called employees of Warner Brothers to testify that the trees around the Waltons set were not dry and deciduous, but evergreen for shooting purposes, and that the set was muddy, not parched. And she brought in the electrical foreman for lots of testimony about sparking, arcing, voltage dips, AC cable, DC cable, and amp loads, as if the jury hadn't had enough of that in this trial. None of the testimony sparked, not even a little bit.

And then a witness was called who hurt the defense's attic-fire hypothesis at Ole's Home Center. His name was Patrick Snyder and he had done work for the electrical contractor when Ole's Home Center was remodeled in 1981 and 1982. He'd personally inspected all of the electrical conduit in the attic, and he said that the attic was so well vented that the vents let in enough natural light that workers could see up there. And most important, he said there was no electrical material where Ed Rucker had suggested an electrical fire had erupted.

When it was Ed Rucker's turn at cross
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examination, his first question was, "Mr. Snyder, you were an apprentice electrician at that time?"

"Yes, sir," the witness said.

But this witness was somebody who'd actually done the physical work in that attic, and on cross-examination he even remembered the plan for smoke detectors, and that everything in the attic was up to code and protected inside of conduit, with no high-voltage wires whatsoever outside of that protective conduit, and nothing where Ed Rucker had suggested it was.

Rucker later said that in every trial there seems to be one witness who unexpectedly inflicts more harm on a lawyer's case than all the others that the lawyer prepares for so diligently. And this was the one, an apprentice electrician who knew from firsthand experience how well vented the attic was, which suggested that an attic fire would have billowed smoke and heat out from the roof.

"One little working guy really hurt us,"

Ed Rucker later said.

The people finally rested their case, and the judge gave the jury a thirty-minute break, asking that they return in a half hour for jury instructions.

After the jury had filed out, Peter Giannini said to the judge, "Mr. Orr says he doesn't want to be here for the jury instructions and he'd just as soon go back, if that's okay with the court."

The judge said he'd have to take a waiver on that, and he informed the defendant of his right to remain and hear arguments about jury instructions, but John Orr said to the judge, whom he distrusted for being a former prosecutor, "It's getting old here. I'd like to use the time to relax."

So even the defendant, on trial for his very life, couldn't bear any more of the wandering convoluted verbosity that passes for discourse in the courtrooms of the most litigious nation on the planet. It seemed that the law and everybody in it needed several semesters of Remedial English 101, but you'd still have to hold the lawyers' family members hostage to make them stop beginning questions with, "At some point in time . . ."

Since the case of the People v. John Orr was based entirely on circumstantial evidence, the boilerplate jury instruction on that issue might seem important. The judge read the following to jurors: "Circumstantial evidence is evidence that, if found to be true, proves a fact from which an inference of the existence of another fact may be drawn. An inference is a deduction of fact that may logically and reasonably be drawn from another fact or group of facts, established by the evidence."

Probably about 5 percent of nonlawyers and 10 percent of lawyers actually understand that instruction, which is recited daily in the courtrooms of our land. So that makes it just about perfect for all of the strange fish that lazily glide, blowing gas bubbles that pop ineffectually on the surface of the litigation tanks in which they live and breed.

The next instruction, concerning felony murder by arson, was a repeat from eons earlier in the trial. This one was exceedingly understandable and exceedingly preposterous: "In considering count one through four, evidence has been introduced for the purpose of showing that the defendant committed crimes other than those for which he is on trial. This evidence, if believed, may not be considered by you to prove that the defendant is a person of bad character, or that he has a disposition to commit crimes."

To which a juror could only say, "Am I a silly goose! How could I ever think that a person is bad when all he's done, according to you, is try to burn down California from Fresno to Los Angeles?"

The judge explained that there would first be a closing argument by the people, followed by one from the defense, and a rebuttal by the people because they have the burden of proof. And then, at long last, Mike Cabral stood up.

After greeting and thanking the jury for enduring testimony from a hundred witnesses, he set out to explain just what it had all been about. And this was the kind of arena where a bulldog can enter a ring and out-point Pomeranians and poodles. The downtown jury was looking at someone like them. He'd never tried to be a wordsmith. In fact, he'd sometimes tangle tenses and scramble syntax and drop pronouns like George Bush the elder and the younger, but unlike the other fellows from Yale, Cabral was clearly a blue
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collar guy who couldn't look preppy if you dressed him in the cap and gown of Jesus College, Oxford.

He'd never talked down to the jury because he seemed to be down there with them. Like maybe a car mechanic who'd toughed it out at night school. Not for him, soaring oratory. He did it by doing what bulldogs do: plodding forward relentlessly. Everybody who'd watched him work offered similar descriptive language: he was a relentless, dogged lawyer.

John Orr, not an admirer of lawyers in general, had one observation to make about this prosecutor's work ethic that he hadn't made about any other attorney: "Cabral never made a mistake."

"Now, all the experts that you heard," Cabral began, "and there was a handful of them, agree that fire generally burns up and out. The fire triangle requires three sides: oxygen, heat, and you still don't get a fire without fuel on the third side. If you take out one of the sides, your fire goes out. It's actually very simple to understand."

That was his message, and he kept going back to it throughout his argument. Then he talked about experts agreeing that a fire will take the path of least resistance, burning up, mushrooming along a ceiling, seeking air. He talked about the various uncharged crimes, all of those where incendiary devices were used.

And after bombarding them with so many of those M. O. crimes, he might've been in danger of losing them to crossword puzzles, but he changed the pace and spoke of a witness who'd described the arson suspect as "kind of chubby."

"Now you know," Cabral said, "when people use words such as chubby and average build, it's obviously subjective. One man's chubby is another man's slim. There's no way of quantifying those types of terms. Some people might even say I'm chubby, but I don't happen to think so."

And of course, those jurors from the inner city
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folks who'd never heard of arugula with tomato aspic, or chicory and beet root salad, and didn't know that from West Hollywood to Malibu it was a misdemeanor to eat a French fry, folks who porked out on chimichangas, burritos, and Fat Burgers
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had to love it. He was one of them, saying that all the confusing technical crap they'd been listening to for weeks was really simple after all!

Cabral discussed Marv Casey's fire and the Bakersfield witness Laverne Andress, who'd discovered the incendiary device, and that allowed Cabral to loop back to the Ole's fire by way of making a comparison: "Now, remember what Chief Eisele said. When he got to the fire, what did he see coming out the southwest door, but a blue flame. Well, Laverne Andress tells us what that blue flame was. It was the polyfoam burning.

"And there was one other thing that Chief Eisele said: he said that the fire was hissing. And what did Laverne Andress hear? She heard a hissing sound. And that erupted into blue flame clear up into the ceiling. A hissing sound. Both fires. Blue flame. The people submit: polyfoam. Both fires."

The jury could not fail to make his connection. Bakersfield. Fingerprint. Polyfoam. Hissing. CraftMart. Ole's. Attic irrelevant.

He discussed the fire that had occurred months after the Ole's calamity, at Ole's sister store. He talked about the manuscript and how it depicted an actual event like that, implying that the novel was a diary.

He went through all of it: the tracking device, and how, when John Orr had found it, he didn't confront anyone about it. Once again, he tied the defendant into the Los Angeles fire series by reminding the jury that John Orr had pled guilty to that Builder's Emporium fire.

Then Mike Cabral picked up Points of Origin and said, "I want to read one chapter of the book."

He began: " 'The hardware business prospered in the small community of South Pasadena. . . . Madeline Paulson went there at least twice a week to shop. . . . Tonight she was baby-sitting with her three-year-old grandson, Matthew. He wasn't sleepy so she took him to the Baskin-Robbins ice cream store next to Cal's. While standing in the parking lot sharing a chocolate mint cone, she decided to entertain Matthew by walking through Cal's. ... In less than six minutes, both Madeline and Matthew would be dead.' "