J.D. Trafford - Michael Collins 02 - No Time to Die (24 page)

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

The trial continued for three more days. Michael re-called each of the workers that had previously testified, including Miggy. This time, however, they were allowed to tell their full stories. They were comfortable and confident. They talked about Deputy Maus and the brutal and grueling life of the farm workers in Jesser.

Finally, Michael called
Elana Estrada to the stand as the plaintiff’s last witness.

The gallery of seats in the back of the courtroom had mostly returned to its prior status. Occasionally a law clerk or a student would come to watch the trial, but the army of federal agents and law enforcement officials that had greeted Michael on the morning after Jane’s accident were gone. They were all gone, that is, except one. Agent Frank
Vatch sat by himself in the back of the courtroom in his wheelchair.

His lips were tight. His eyes glared at Michael. He had hunted Michael for years, only to see him leave New York and have his supervisors order him to back off the case. It was obvious that it took everything in his power to remain quiet, but he did. And each day, Michael ignored him. Michael continued to find that small reservoir of peace and drew upon it. He walked past Agent
Vatch a dozen times a day. Michael never met Vatch’s eye, and neither man spoke a word.

When Michael finished questioning
Elana Estrada, he allowed her time to wipe away her tears. Then he waited as she slowly walked down off of the witness stand. She came back to the table and sat down.

Michael had been at the podium. He followed behind her, but remained standing. He put his hand on her shoulder. He looked at Harrison Grant. He looked at the jurors, and then Michael looked at Judge Delaney.

“At this time, Your Honor,” he said, “the plaintiff rests.”

Judge Delaney nodded, and then looked at Harrison Grant and Brian
McNaughten. “Counsel?”

Harrison Grant rose. His chin held high, defiant. Even after days of damaging testimony, Grant still managed to exude confidence.

“Your Honor,” he said, and then paused. “The defense also rests.”

Judge Delaney couldn’t hide his surprise. He had heard the same comments that Michael had heard before and during the trial. Grant continually dismissed and minimized Jolly Boy’s conduct. He had alluded to witnesses that would testify and undermine the case against his client. But in the end, Grant had nothing. A case that he had offered to settle for only a few thousand dollars was now going to cost his client far more.

Judge Delaney looked at Michael, and then back at Harrison Grant.

“Very well.”

He nodded and turned to the tired jurors.

“We will take a recess until after lunch so that I may talk with the attorneys. We’ll return, listen to closing arguments, and then you will begin your deliberations.”

Judge Delaney gaveled the proceedings to recess, and everyone in the courtroom stood as the jurors walked out the side door to the jury room in a single file line.

Once the jurors were gone, Judge Delaney gathered up his papers.

“Be here at one so that we can finalize the jury instructions. You can make whatever motions you’d like to make at that time.”

He walked down the steps behind the bench and through the door to his chambers, leaving the attorneys.

Soon after the judge had left, Harrison Grant and Brian McNaughten left as well. Michael stayed seated at the plaintiff’s table with his client.

Michael turned to
Elana Estrada.

“One more step,” he said. “Just one more step.”

Elana nodded. She was reserved, unsure. She looked back at Pace. Pace had been seated in the front row behind them the whole time. He sat in the same seat every day, while his aunt took care of his sisters back in Mexico.

Elana
turned to Michael, seeking another confirmation.

“Then it’s done?”

“Yes.” Michael put his hand on her hand, gave it a gentle squeeze, and then he picked up his worn and battered briefcase. “After closing arguments, it’s done.”

Michael turned, and saw Agent
Vatch waiting for him.

Agent
Vatch had rolled his wheelchair into the center of the aisle. He was one of the few who remained. There was no way Michael could avoid him. There was no way that Vatch would let himself be ignored any longer.

Michael walked toward
Vatch, and Agent Vatch glared at him. Neither said anything until Michael was just a few feet away.

Michael stopped. He looked down at him.

“Francis,” he said, knowing that Agent Frank Vatch hated the name Francis. “It’s been a while.”

Agent
Vatch nodded. His narrow tongue flicked out each side of his mouth.

“It has,”
Vatch said. “You miss me?”

“
Not really,” Michael said. “I did, however, enjoy breaking your nose back in New York. Now, if you’d excuse me, I need to go prepare for my closing argument.”

Michael took a step to the side and started to walk around Agent
Vatch and his wheelchair, but Vatch reached out and grabbed Michael. Vatch’s hand was a vise, pinching Michael’s wrist.

“Hold on,”
Vatch said.

Michael struggled, and then, after a few pulls, he was able to break free.  He put a little distance between himself and
Vatch, and then Michael stopped and straightened his tie.

“Are you placing me under arrest?”

Vatch didn’t answer.

Michael smiled.

“I didn’t think so,” he said. Michael had thought a lot about what had happened on the night of Jane’s accident. She was wearing a wire, but he had never said anything. There was no confession.

“
You’ve got no case,” Michael said. “You forced a good attorney and a friend to turn on me, but it didn’t work and it nearly killed her. You’re an embarrassment.”

Michael turned and began walking toward the door.

“Mr. Collins,” Vatch said. “You know I’m never going to stop.”

Michael opened the door and walked out into the hallway. He pretended that he hadn’t heard a thing.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

Closing arguments were an art form, but they had unwritten rules. Michel had learned them as a young associate at Wabash, Kramer and Moore. His mentor and senior partner, Lowell Moore, may have been a horrible person, but he had been a great attorney.

Three months after starting at the firm, Lowell had taken Michael to watch the closing argument of a civil medical malpractice trial in downtown Manhattan.

They had sat in the back of an otherwise empty gallery and had watched an elderly man with white hair, two hearing aids, and a bow tie stand in front of a jury.

He had been making his closing argument on behalf of a woman who had fallen off an operating table during brain surgery. Her head had been cut open. The doctors had been in the process of removing a small tumor from behind her ear, but the nurse hadn’t properly restrained her on the table. She fell when they had attempted to adjust her position. The patient had hit her head on the floor, landing on the open incision.

She had suffered a permanent brain injury, and the old plaintiff’s attorney had sought punitive damages on behalf of the family.

Lowell Moore had leaned into Michael, just before the argument had been about to start. He whispered, “Listen and learn these rules: Keep it simple, don’t be afraid to show emotion, and always ask for a specific amount of money.”

Michael repeated those rules to himself as he walked toward the podium. He put his papers down, and then he continued to the area directly in front of the jury box. Judge Delaney had just spent the past 15 minutes instructing the jurors and reciting the elements that must be proven in the case. Now it was Michael’s turn.

He kept repeating Lowell Moore’s rules, silently in his head.

He was going to do this. He was going to ask for more money than anyone on that jury had ever earned or had even thought about earning in their lives. He wasn’t going to blink. He wasn’t going to be ashamed. He was going to pretend that he did this every day. He was going to make his case.

Michael made eye contact with the first juror in the front row.

“Cold,” he said, and then he slowly made eye contact with the remaining jurors.

“Callous,” he said, “and calculating.”

Michael took a breath, and then he just let the words come out. He channeled everything he had seen since coming to
Jesser. The harsh working conditions, the trailers, the hot fields under a low chemical haze, and the dead body parts of Tommy Estrada spread out on a metal cart.

“We eat every day,” he said. “Most of our kids think that vegetables are grown in the grocery store. Most of us live in cities. We don’t go out to the farms. We don’t grow our own food. We don’t know and don’t really care where this food comes from. We just look in the newspaper every week. We read the ads, find a coupon, and then go and buy what we need. The grocery business is cutthroat. The profit margins are thin, and we all want the cheapest possible food we can get. … And that’s where Jolly Boy comes in.”

Michael took a step back. He looked over at Harrison Grant and Brian McNaughten sitting at the defense table. Michael shook his head in disgust, and then he looked back at the jury.

“So we have a company that cuts corners. But you heard that they don’t just bend the rules. They don’t just skirt regulations. … No, they have killed people. To Jolly Boy, my client Tommy Estrada wasn’t a person. He was a machine made out of human flesh, designed and built to pick our fruit and vegetables for a few dollars a day. But we’re not here to render a verdict on how we grow and purchase our food. We’re here to decide whether Jolly Boy was so reckless that its actions killed my client. To that end, the evidence is overwhelming.”

Michael recounted the testimony of Miggy and the former Jolly Boy employees, and then he spent 10 minutes reciting the testimony of Dylan McNaughten.

“My client isn’t here. He died and left a family behind. The defendant took a job fa
rther away from his wife and children. Nobody knows what Tommy Estrada’s future would be, but we do know that Jolly Boy profits every day by mistreating and abusing its workers. We know that it has grown into the second largest agribusiness in Florida. It had $750 million in profits last year, after Brian and Dylan McNaughten were paid millions in stock options and performance bonuses.”

Michael paused.

“$750 million,” he repeated. “$750 million a year in profits, which works out to be just over $2 million a day or $14 million per week.”

Michael scanned the jurors again. He wanted to make sure they were listening.

“One week.” He nodded. “One week. That seems about right.” Michael pointed at Brian McNaughten. “One week to force them to give Tommy Estrada and his family some justice.  As punishment for taking Tommy Estrada’s life, as punishment for mistreating its workers, as punishment for being cold, callous, and calculating, I think it’s appropriate to dock Jolly Boy one week’s pay.”

Michael paused. He caught his breath.

“I ask you to award Tommy Estrada and his family one week of Jolly Boy’s profit as punishment for its conduct. When you fill out the verdict form, there is a blank space for you to write the amount of the punitive damages award. I’m asking you to write down $14 million in that space. That’s just one week’s profit.” He paused. “One week.”

Michael turned away from the jury, concluding. He looked at Harrison Grant and Brian
McNaughten. He did not shout. He did not point. He just lowered his voice to an audible whisper, and closed. 

“Show them that, as jurors in this case, you now know where your food comes from. Tell them to respect the people who bring that food to market. The people like Tommy Estrada.”

Michael closed his eyes, nodded, and then slowly walked back to his seat.

His hands were sweaty. His heart pounded, and he sat down in a daze. Michael was sure that he had blown it. He immediately started to second-guess himself. He started to think he had sounded preachy. He had sounded too much like a radical. He should have focused more on Jolly Boy’s conduct.

Michael picked up his pen and started to write on his pad of paper, just to do something. Although he wasn’t taking notes, he wrote nonsense as a way to channel the adrenaline.

Then,
Elana Estrada’s hand reached out and covered his. She calmed him.

Michael’s hand stopped shaking, and he accepted that the decision was now out of his control. All he could do was listen to Harrison Grant, and then wait.

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

Harrison Grant wasn’t going down without a fight. His closing argument focused on the numbers. He didn’t really address the liability, because he didn’t have anything to say. His client hadn’t told him the truth, and so Grant had been blindsided. So he didn’t argue that Jolly Boy had nothing to do with Tommy Estrada’s death, nor did he argue that Jolly Boy treated their workers in accordance with the law. Instead, Grant focused on the money. He wanted to limit damages.

“In polite society,” he said, winding his way to summation, “we don’t talk about money. Discussing the value of a life is crass and inappropriate. I agree, but unfortunately, that is the task that you all have been assigned.”

Harrison Grant turned to Michael, and then back again. “He asked you for over …” Grant pretended he didn’t remember the amount. “What? Fourteen million dollars?” Grant shook his head. “This isn’t a lottery. This is a court of law. And while I grieve for Mrs. Estrada and her loss, we have to be realistic.”

Harrison Grant put his hand on his heart. He played the role of the sage advisor, a sharp contrast to Michael’s passionate closing argument.

“
I do not believe that the plaintiff proved causation. We have the testimony of a man accused of murder, Dylan McNaughten, who is inherently not credible. We also have the stories of men who were flown here from Mexico, put up in a fancy hotel, and allowed to tell their tales.”

Ignoring the recorded jail conversations between Dylan and Brian
McNaughten, Grant then shaded the truth. “None of these stories were corroborated or backed up with hard evidence.”

Harrison Grant stepped closer to the jury box. He lowered his voice.

“But, if you do find liability, let us be reasonable. Tommy Estrada was dying of cancer. The plaintiff’s own doctor testified that he was not going to live more than a year. The plaintiff’s own doctor admitted that he could not conclusively pinpoint how or what caused Mr. Estrada’s cancer. So, how much did Tommy Estrada make per year? The answer is about $10,000 per year, which assumes he continued to work for Jolly Boy. If Tommy Estrada had stayed in Mexico  – and had not come here illegally – then his yearly wage in Mexico would be about $4,000.”

Grant continued with his math lesson.

“That means that Mr. Estrada’s lost wages would be about $10,000 on the high side. And if you ignore the cancer, and think that Mr. Estrada would live a full life, say another 20 years, then, adding up those lost yearly wages, the damages would be $40,000. Such a verdict would still be a windfall for Mrs. Estrada, but we would avoid the unseemly act of transforming our legal system into the Florida State Lottery.”

Michael watched the jurors as Harrison Grant concluded. He noticed a few of the men nod their heads, and it concerned him. Juror Number 5, the engineer, actually looked at Michael and laughed.

“That’s all I ask. Respect the system.” Harrison Grant turned and walked away from the jury box and back to the defense table.

Judge Delaney waited for Grant to sit down, and then Delaney looked at the jurors.

“All right,” he said. “Now that the closing arguments are completed, I will give you some final instructions.”

Judge Delaney continued, reminding the jurors of their obligations and the standards that they should apply in evaluating the evidence and testimony that had been presented. Michael’s mind drifted while the judge spoke, wondering if he had made a mistake by asking for $14 million. He wondered if the jurors now viewed him and his client as too greedy.

Michael looked over at Elana Estrada. Her eyes were squinted as she tried to understand all of the words being spoken, and then Michael looked behind him. The gallery had more people in it, but it wasn’t full. Of course, there was still Agent Vatch sitting in the back, staring at him. There were also a few reporters, and various law clerks, students, and courthouse gadflies who had come to watch the show.

Michael looked at the jurors one last time before they were released to begin deliberations. They were all focused on Judge Delaney, listening attentively. If anybody had won the case, it was Judge Delaney. All of the jurors loved him, and they would do whatever he said. But Judge Delaney kept his remarks level and objective. He had probably given the same speech hundreds of times, but he still managed to make it sound fresh.

“Ladies and gentleman, in considering this case, remember that you are not partisans or advocates, but that you are judges of the facts. The final test of the quality of your service will lie in the verdict that you return to the Court, and not in the opinions any of you may have as you retire from this case. Have it in mind that you will make a definite contribution to efficient judicial administration if you arrive at a just and proper verdict.” Judge Delaney paused, and then finished. “This concludes my final instruction. You are now in deliberations.”

Judge Delaney motioned for the bailiff, and the bailiff led the jurors silently out of the room.

Once the jurors were gone, Judge Delaney looked at Michael and Harrison Grant.

“Anything further that either of you would like to put on the record?”

Harrison Grant stood.

“No, Your Honor.”

Grant sat down, and then Michael stood.

“No, Your Honor.”

“Very well,” Judge Delaney said. “Then this court stands in recess. Please make sure that you are both available via cell phone in case the jury has a question that requires your presence or the jury has reached a final verdict.” Judge Delaney rapped the gavel.

“The court is adjourned.”

After the judge left, Michael and Elana Estrada stood. She gave Michael a hug. “What should I do?” she asked.

“
Go to the hotel,” Michael said. “Order room service – whatever you want. I’m paying for it. And then wait. I’ll call if you need to come back.”

“Thank you,” she nodded.

Michael watched her walk out of the courtroom. Near the door, Pace joined her. Pace put his arm around his mother, and then they both walked the rest of the way down the aisle and into the hallway together.

As they left, Kermit entered the courtroom. He wore Bermuda shorts and a loud Hawaiian-print shirt.

“I got some cold ones waiting for us on the boat,
mi amigo
.” Kermit’s voice filled the room, and Michael saw Agent Vatch’s face turn sour.

Michael picked up his battered briefcase.

“Sounds great. I’m exhausted.”