Shadow of Power (16 page)

M
onday morning, and Quinn’s courtroom is like a pool filled with gasoline. Now that there is no longer any doubt that the state’s case will be racially charged, we’re all swimming in it, and the air is electric.

First up into the witness box are two patrol officers, the first to arrive on the scene immediately after the crime was called in. They each testify that they took one look and concluded that the victim was dead. They did a quick search of the entire suite to determine there was no one else inside and then sealed the area, making sure that no one else entered. One of them took a statement from the hotel maid who’d opened the door and found the body slumped on the floor in front of a chair in the living room.

This is all preliminary and sets the stage for Brant Detrick, the lead homicide detective. If you’re looking to settle a jury down and get them into the rhythm of your case, Detrick is a good opening witness.

According to his testimony and based on notes he made at the time, Detrick was on the scene within forty minutes of the initial call to 911.

The D.A. then takes a few minutes to qualify the witness not only as an experienced homicide detective but as an expert in crime-scene reconstruction, for which Detrick has taken courses both locally and with the FBI.

Tuchio then has him lead us on a verbal and visual tour of what the
cops found at the scene. He has Detrick stand in front of an easel with a mockup of the floor plan of Scarborough’s hotel room. This shows furniture drawn to scale and situated where it was on that day.

In the process, the detective offers testimony, a partial re-creation of the events at the scene and how according to the police they unfolded. He identifies the chair, the one the cops believe Scarborough was seated in when he was murdered.

“There was a considerable amount of blood on the headrest at the upper back of this chair, leading us to conclude that the victim was seated in this chair when he was struck from behind,” says Detrick.

He moves on to the area where the body came to rest, on the floor, in front of the chair, and off to the right as you look into the room.

“We believe that the victim either toppled or slid from the chair, as a result of one or more of the impacts from the murder weapon as it struck him or because lividity caused the body to slide out of the chair and onto the floor at some point after he died.”

Tuchio and the witness get into a discussion explaining to the jury the hydraulics of lividity, the movement of blood in the body after death by the force of gravity, and that this can sometimes move a body, especially if it’s propped in a chair or leaning toward the edge of a bed.

“When you arrived that morning, what else did you see?” asks Tuchio.

“There was a lot of blood and spatter evidence,” says Detrick. “The floor around the chair in the living room near where the body was found was pretty much covered in blood, as was the tile floor in the entry.”

“What do you mean by ‘spatter evidence’?” asks Tuchio.

“I’m talking about droplets and spray that are usually flung out in an arc of some kind when a weapon, a blunt instrument, or a knife has become covered with blood and is repeatedly swung. This tends to throw out a spray of blood, sometimes tissue, that ends up on other surfaces—a wall or the ceiling, for example.”

“And you saw evidence of such blood spatter in this case in the victim’s hotel room?”

“I did.”

“Where?”

“There were patterns on the ceiling, directly above and to the front, and behind the chair near where the body was found.”

Tuchio has him draw a dotted line on the room diagram in the direction and location where the spatter evidence was found. “There was also some evidence of spatter on the television screen, here.” He marks the location of the television directly in front and several feet away from the chair. “And on a small table, here, and a light briefcase, a leather portfolio that was on that table. And farther off to the right, we found some traces on the surface of a small table, underneath a tablecloth and tray with food on it.”

“But not on top of the tablecloth or tray?” Tuchio makes this very clear.

“No.”

Harry and I have been wondering how they’re going to deal with this. Blood under the cloth and tray but not on top means Arnsberg would have had to kill Scarborough while juggling a tray full of food and a tablecloth in one hand while he hit him with the hammer in the other.

“Did you find anything else?”

“We found a carpenter’s framing hammer.”

“When you say framing hammer, can you describe the hammer for the jury?”

“It was a typical hammer, the kind you might find in any hardware store. A metal hammer with claws for pulling nails or prying wood apart.”

“Was there anything peculiar about this hammer that brought it to your attention?”

“Yes. It had a considerable amount of blood on it, along with traces of tissue and hair stuck to the hammer in the area of the claws.”

“Okay. In relation to the other items in the room—the area where the victim lay, the chair, the television—where did you find this hammer?”

“It was on the tile floor a few feet off the carpet in the entry.”

Tuchio has him mark the diagram with the location where the hammer was found.

“When you saw this hammer, did you form any conclusions based on its location and the fact that it bore signs of blood and tissue?”

“The obvious one,” says Detrick.

“And what was that?”

“That there was a good chance that this was the murder weapon.”

Tuchio then walks over to the metal evidence cart that has been rolled out in front of the clerk’s desk. He picks through several paper bags, each of them sealed closed with a labeled tape from the police crime lab. He checks the tag on each bag until he finds the one he wants. Without opening it he carries the bag to Detrick, who is now back in the witness chair, and hands it to him.

“Would you open it, please, and remove the item inside?”

Everybody in the courtroom already knows what’s there, but the little drama keeps us all looking.

Detrick, who is wearing a pair of white cotton gloves, tears open the top of the bag, reaches inside, and removes the hammer. He holds it gently in both his gloved hands so the jury can see it. What appears to be rust but in fact is dried blood can be seen on the claws and head of the hammer.

“Detective Detrick, do you recognize that hammer?”

There is an evidence tag hanging from a string tied around the handle near the head. Detrick looks at the tag. “I do. It’s the hammer that was found on the floor in the entry hall not far from the body of the victim, Terry Scarborough.”

“Can you tell us anything else about that particular hammer? Its size, shape…?”

“According to our investigation, it’s a thirteen-ounce, smooth, octagon-face, straight-claw fiberglass hammer with a rubber grip and a twelve-and-a-half-inch-long handle.”

“When you say fiberglass, what part of it is fiberglass?”

“The handle, which is covered by rubber at the grip.”

He has Detrick point to the hammer’s claws. “And straight claw,” says Tuchio. “As opposed to what?”

“Rounded or curved claw,” says Detrick.

“It sounds like you’ve become an expert on hammers,” says Tuchio.

“No, we made inquiries, mostly telephone calls, based on the manufacturer’s information stamped into the metal regarding model numbers, and that’s the information we got back.”

“Can you tell us who owns that particular hammer?”

“Based on a mark painted on the handle and a number stamped on the head of the hammer, it’s part of the tool inventory belonging to the Presidential Regis Hotel in San Diego.”

“Is that the hotel where the victim, Terry Scarborough, was staying on the morning he was killed?”

“It is.”

Tuchio has the witness put the hammer back in the bag, then has it marked for identification and returns it to the evidence cart. He won’t move it into evidence, not yet, not until other witnesses from the crime lab and the coroner’s office identify trace evidence that was found on it, hair and tissue along with blood, tying it directly to the victim. Instead he reaches underneath to the second shelf on the cart and finds the next item. This is in a manila file.

“Before we move on, let me ask you,” says Tuchio. “Besides the hammer you’ve just identified and the blood and spatter evidence that you’ve testified to earlier, did you find anything else unusual in the immediate area around the victim?”

There is some confusion here. Detrick is not precisely sure where Tuchio is trying to take him.

“In the tiled area of the entry hall,” prompts the prosecutor.

“You’re talking about the shoe impressions?”

Tuchio doesn’t say it but nods.

“Yes. We found shoe prints, impressions from the soles of two shoes, as well as what appeared to be a partial human palm print and three separate fingerprints.”

“Where did you find these?”

“They were quite obvious. They were on the surface of the tile floor in the entry. They were imposed in the partially dried blood on the tile.”

Detrick comes off the stand long enough to locate on the room diagram the general area where these were found. He has trouble marking the area of finger-and palm prints, as it is almost on top of where he placed the hammer.

Detrick is back on the stand.

“Let me ask you, Detective, as the lead investigator on the scene, did you have occasion to have photographs taken of the crime scene and the area around it that morning?”

“I did.”

Tuchio now hands him the file from the evidence cart that he has been holding and asks him to look at the photographs inside. “We have provided copies of all these items to the court and to the defense,” says Tuchio.

The judge nods and opens a file in front of him on the bench.

Tuchio and I argued over these for the better part of two days in front of the judge in chambers, during and just after jury selection. There were nearly two hundred photographs of the scene taken that day by police from various angles and distances. We have culled them down to twenty-eight photographs, close-ups and distance shots showing the layout of the room, the scene from different angles. There are close-ups of the television set and a leather briefcase, a kind of thin zippered portfolio on a table next to it, both showing signs of a light film, which we know to be the fine spray of blood flung out by the centrifugal force of the hammer as it was swung to strike Scarborough’s head. There are a few distance shots showing the body on the floor, a few papers scattered under and around him, shots of the hammer and the location where it lay on the floor in the entry, pictures of the shoe impressions with rulers for scale and two of the palm and fingerprints, again with a ruler for scale. There is one showing what we believe to be the elongated skid mark in the blood, the comma that comes to an end at the wall.

There are only four shots that show close-ups of the victim, close enough to see the gaping wounds with clotted blood and brain tissue at the back of his head. One of these, a shot from above showing not only the wounds but Scarborough’s left eye wide open, pupil dilated like a fired camera lens, is the most startling. Tuchio fought for this photograph to come in as if it were the Holy Grail. I argued that the graphic nature was so shocking as to be prejudicial in the extreme. It was the end of a long day, and the prosecutor’s tactic of holding this for last worked. Quinn was tired, worn down by too many arguments. He swept mine away with the comment that “after all, there
was
a murder.”

Detrick looks at the photos, identifies each of them as having been taken at the scene. Under questioning he identifies photographs of the hammer, the shoe prints, and the single palm print and fingerprints.

Tuchio has each of the photographs marked for identification and immediately moves them into evidence.

“Any objection?” says Quinn.

We both know he will swat down anything I say, since we have argued this already, but for the record, possible appeal, it is necessary. “As to People’s Thirteen, the one photograph we object to based on Evidence Code section 352. That the prejudicial content so clearly outweighs any probative value.”

“Overruled,” says Quinn. “The items are admitted into evidence.”

Tuchio immediately moves that the jury be allowed to see them.

“So ordered,” says the judge.

The photos begin to circulate through the box. While this is happening, Tuchio poses a number of bland questions to Detrick—whether he or any of his officers searched other rooms in the suite, whether they found anything in those rooms, if he or any of his officers collected witness statements from any of the hotel employees—this without getting into any real details, nothing that might cause any juror to listen or take notes. He would read the phone book to them if he could. Tuchio wants nothing here that might distract from the photographs circulating through the jury box at this moment. Some of the jurors are looking at them wide-eyed and slack-jawed, the thought never having entered their minds that a hammer, a tool so common that most of them have at least one in their own homes, could do this to a human head. They will be looking at their toolboxes in the future with the same cautious glance they now aim over the top of the eight-by-ten glossies toward Carl, sitting next to me.

Finally, when he can’t dawdle any longer, Tuchio starts another line of questioning.

“Detective Detrick, have you ever had occasion to meet or personally talk to the defendant, Carl Arnsberg?”

“I have.”

“When was the first time you met him, if you can remember?”

“It was the day after the murder. The following morning, I believe.”

“Can you tell the jury why you met with the defendant?”

“In order to interview him.”

“Why?”

“We were in the process of questioning all the employees who were on duty at the Presidential Regis Hotel on the day of the murder, and information came to us that the defendant, Mr. Arnsberg—”

“Objection, Your Honor. Hearsay.”

Quinn looks up.