“Oh yeah,” said Poole, smiling. “Less than one in ten.”
Jason ended with his payoff question. “Do you have an opinion, to a reasonable degree of certainty, as to whether Larry Jamison could have obtained a gun from the black market even if every gun store in America had refused to sell him one?”
Poole laughed. “Surveys show that nearly 60 percent of high school boys say they can obtain access to a gun if they need to. That’s high school, Mr. Noble. For an adult like Jamison, give him a few hundred bucks and a few hours on the streets of downtown Norfolk, and you can take your pick.”
Jason didn’t return the witness’s self-satisfied smile. “Thank you, Chief Poole. Please answer any questions that Ms. Starling might have.”
Kelly stood quickly, anxious to attack. She was wearing a blue pin-striped matching jacket and skirt, navy blue heels, and a white blouse. She looked even leaner than normal, professional and sophisticated. Unlike Jason, she looked well rested.
How did she sleep at all last night? Jason wondered. In the mirror that morning, his own bloodshot eyes had reflected another sleepless night. He had thrown on a suit that he had worn three times in two weeks without taking it to the dry cleaner and barely made it to the courthouse on time.
“Are your answers, given under oath and under penalty of perjury, all truthful and correct?” Kelly asked.
Poole leaned back a little and grunted, as if Kelly didn’t know whom she was accusing. “Of course.”
“Have you ever lied under oath?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Are you presently in the midst of divorce proceedings?”
Jason stood and objected. But it was merely a formality; he knew Garrison would overrule him.
“I’ll link it up,” Kelly promised. “It goes directly to his credibility.”
“You’re on a short leash, but go ahead,” Garrison said.
Poole sighed heavily and shot daggers at Kelly. “Yes. Though I consider it none of your business, my wife and I are getting divorced.”
“Did you have to file an accounting in your divorce case, under oath, that detailed all your assets?”
Poole started to turn a little red around the ears. “Yes… and I did.”
“ All of your assets?”
“Of course.”
“You didn’t hide any secret accounts that you had used, let’s say… to pay a mistress?”
The courtroom buzzed, and Poole’s brow furrowed-indignation giving way to concern.
“Objection!” Jason said.
“Overruled.”
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” Poole said. “Or what it has to do with this case.”
Kelly smiled. She walked over to Jason’s chair and handed him a copy of the bank documents he had seen the week before. She asked the court reporter to mark for identification a copy of a bank statement as Plaintiff’s Exhibit 33 and a cell phone bill as Plaintiff’s Exhibit 34. “May I approach the witness?” she asked Judge Garrison.
“Yes.”
She handed the documents to a stricken Poole. “Can you identify what’s been marked as Plaintiff’s Exhibit 33 and Plaintiff’s Exhibit 34?”
Poole took his time looking at both documents. Kelly stood in front of him, unmoving, like an avenging angel. “Well?” Kelly asked.
Poole looked at the judge and then back at Kelly. “I’m invoking my Fifth Amendment privilege against self- incrimination,” he said. “I refuse to answer the question.”
There was an audible gasp in the courtroom, followed by murmuring and the banging of Judge Garrison’s gavel. “Order! Let’s have it quiet in here.” Juror 7 had her arms crossed and her lips pursed in disgust. Jason could feel the stares of the courtroom audience. It was painful watching your case go down in flames.
“Plaintiff’s Exhibit 33,” Kelly said. “Isn’t that a statement from a bank account you own that was not declared in your divorce case?”
“I’m invoking the Fifth.”
“Where did the deposits come from? Isn’t this more money than you were making from your consulting work?”
“I’m invoking the Fifth.”
“And what about Plaintiff’s 34? Does that show cell phone calls to the same woman who was receiving payouts from this account?”
Poole’s face was crimson now, as if he might explode at any moment. His lips barely moved when he talked. “I’m invoking the Fifth, Counselor.”
“Let me ask you one more time,” Kelly said, “because you forgot to invoke the Fifth Amendment for this one earlier. Have you ever lied under oath?”
“I plead the Fifth Amendment,” Poole said.
83
Ed Poole was off the stand by 10:30. He left the courtroom with his tail between his legs. He would fly back to Atlanta and probably face perjury charges or at least an irate divorce-court judge.
Though Kelly had gone after him hard, she actually felt a little sorry for the man. With everything going on in her personal life, Kelly found no pleasure in watching somebody else’s past catch up with him.
Jason stood and announced that the defense rested. Kelly told the judge that she had no rebuttal witnesses. Everybody could sense that the jury was anxious to begin their deliberations.
Judge Garrison announced that his jury instructions and closing arguments would begin after a fifteen-minute break. The tension in the courtroom increased exponentially.
Fifteen minutes later, after Judge Garrison read the jury instructions, Kelly walked to the front of the jury box and surveyed the panel. She caught the steely-eyed gaze of Marcia Franks, Juror 7, and the attentive look of Rodney Peterson, Juror 3. All of the jurors had benign looks of encouragement, as far as Kelly could tell. She sensed that the case was hers to lose.
“We’re not here to raise Rachel Crawford from the dead. I wish somehow we could, but her warm and cheerful light has been extinguished forever-at least this side of heaven.
“We are here to correct a grave injustice. As my client so eloquently reminded us, quoting the words of Dr. King: ‘An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’
“Mr. Noble doesn’t want to talk about justice. He wants us to focus on the left brain. Remember what he said during opening statements? Use logic, not emotions. So let’s humor Mr. Noble for a minute. Let’s talk left brain.
“What could be more left brain than statistics?” Kelly hit a button on her remote, and numbers flashed up on the screen. “One percent of gun stores sell 57 percent of the weapons ultimately traced to crimes. I know, Chief Poole testified that most guns used in crimes came from street sales. But if you trace them back far enough, how did they get on the streets in the first place? Through a few renegade gun dealers who specialize in illegal sales.
“According to MD Firearms’s own study, four renegade dealers accounted for approximately 50 percent of the MD Firearms guns linked to crimes. One of those dealers was Peninsula Arms. That gun store accounted for 251 guns linked to murders or aggravated woundings in Washington, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New York during 2006 alone.”
She took a few steps, and the screen flashed one more time, displaying another number: $2,763,960.00. “This is the reason why MD Firearms keeps selling guns to dealers like Peninsula Arms. Two million, seven hundred sixty-three thousand, nine hundred sixty dollars. That’s the amount of revenue that MD Firearms made from Peninsula Arms in the last three years.”
She turned to squarely face the jury again. “You want left brain? Let’s talk legal definitions. A few minutes ago, Judge Garrison read a set of jury instructions to you. He told you that negligence is a careless act or omission
