'Did my client hate Ron Nolan? Yes, he did.
'Was Evan Scholler struggling to recover from the physical injury and mental anguish he sustained as a result of fighting for his country in Iraq? Yes, he was.
'As a result of the pain, both physical and mental, did he sometimes drink too much during the months of his recovery? Yes, he did.
'And as a result of the combination of these things, did he display bad judgment? Without a doubt.
'He did misuse his authority as a policeman to keep track of Ron Nolan's whereabouts. He did break into Ron Nolan's house in the belief that Ron Nolan had a hand in the deaths of the Khalils. He did give way to despair and alcohol and anger, and threaten Ron Nolan. He did go to Ron Nolan's house and fight with him on the night of June third. He did all of these things and has freely admitted doing all of these things.
'But these are not the things for which he is on trial.
'Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, at the close of all of the evidence, you will find that what Evan Scholler did not do was kill Ron Nolan. That is something the evidence does not show. And when, at the close of the evidence, you can see that this has not been proved against my client, you will be obliged by your conscience and by the laws of this state to find him not guilty.'
23
After the opening statements, they got right down to it as Mills called her first witness.
The medical examiner, Dr. Lloyd Barnsdale, had been in his position for fifteen years. Dry as dust, pale as the corpses in his lab, the bespeckled and weak-chinned coroner wore what was left of his graying, dirty blond hair in a combover. Today, though the warm Indian summer days of September continued outside, he wore a cardigan sweater over a plain white shirt and a snap-on bow-tie.
Mills waited impatiently for the ME to be sworn in. The confidence she'd felt in the morning when she'd finished with her opening statement had pretty much dissipated under the amiable onslaught of Washburn's monologue. The truth was that she had her work cut out for her. It would never do to become complacent. Washburn would eat her alive if she gave him any opportunity at all.
'Dr. Barnsdale, you did the autopsy on Ron Nolan, did you not?'
'I did.'
'Would you please tell the Court your ruling as to the cause of death?'
'Certainly. Death was caused by a gunshot wound fired at close range into the head.'
Barnsdale had, of course, been a witness a hundred times before. This did not necessarily make him a good witness. He spoke with a wispiness that was very much of a piece with his looks. Mills, from halfway across the room, found herself straining to hear him.
She saw that the jurors had, to a person, come forward in their chairs. It did not help that outside the building, road construction continued unabated on Redwood City's never-ending downtown beautification project. The noise of the heavy equipment was nearly as loud as the building's air-conditioning.
Mills backed up a couple of steps, to just beyond the last juror in the box. If she could hear the witness, so could all the jurors. She raised her own voice, hoping to lead by example. 'Doctor,' she asked, 'were there other marks or injuries to the body?'
'Yes. There were multiple signs of blunt-force and sharp-force trauma-contusions, bruises, and lacerations on the torso, the groin, and the face.'
'Approximately how many separate injuries were inflicted on the victim?'
'I counted twenty-eight separate injuries.'
'And did each of these appear to be a separate application of force?'
'There were a couple that might have been the result of a single blow. For example, the same blow with an instrument could have hit the victim on the forearm and the head. On the other hand, from the size and irregular features of some of the injury sites, it appeared that some bruises might have resulted from multiple blows landing in approximately the same place on the body. I would have to say the man was hit at least two dozen times.'
Mills went back to her table and brought forward a large piece of cardboard on which she'd taped some 81/2 11 color photographs from the autopsy and had it entered into evidence as People's Two, since the autopsy report was People's One.
When they had gotten to it, Judge Tollson had hand-picked the six autopsy photos that he was going to allow the jury to see. Mills considered his choice a partial victory for herself-whoever had done this to another human being barely deserved to be called one himself. Even without the head wound, the damage to Nolan's body was severe.
'Doctor,' Mills began, 'using the photographs to illustrate your testimony, can you characterize these injuries more particularly?'
'Well, yes,' Barnsdale whispered. 'As we can see in Photograph A, there were quite a few injuries that either raised bruises, or cut the skin, or both. Although the gunshot wound, particularly the exit wound in the back of the head, no doubt obliterated some of these, there still remained a profusion of them, particularly on the head.'
Using the laser pointer, she walked him through the other five photographs.
'Do you know what caused these bruises and contusions?'
'Not specifically. It was my finding that there appeared to be more than one type of bruise, caused by different objects, some blunt and some less so.'
'Doctor, were you given any implement or implements in an effort to determine whether they might have caused the injuries you observed?'
'Yes. I was given a fireplace poker and a pair of brass knuckles from the evidence locker of the Redwood City Police Department.'
Two more exhibits marked and presented to the doctor.
'Yes,' he said, 'these are the items I compared.'
'What was your conclusion, Doctor?'
'Several contusions, particularly on the jawline, appear to be the result of contact with the brass knuckles. These particular knuckles have a piece or fragment missing from one edge. You can clearly see the pattern injury in several locations that match this implement. Further, in a general sense, the damage inflicted at those injury sites is consistent with what one might expect from being struck with this sort of an object.'
'And what damage is that?'
'They both cut and bruise. They leave a distinctive imprint.'
'Were there a lot of these brass knuckle contusions?'
'Distinctly, there were three. Perhaps five. I could not rule them out as having been used to cause other injuries, but there was not enough detail to tell you definitively that this was the weapon used.'
'What about the poker?'
'I could only find one injury across the forearm that definitively appeared consistent with the poker or something very like it. But all of the injuries to the top and side of the head were consistent with a blow from a hard, cylindrical object that could have been this poker. Further, I understand from the lab that the victim's blood and tissue was removed from the poker, which also supports the suggestion that this was the weapon used.'
'As to the injuries you've discussed so far, were they consistent with having been inflicted with a man's fist?'
'No. I don't think so. The injuries I've attributed to the poker and brass knuckles were far too extensive typically to have resulted from a simple blow from the fist.'
'But that leaves, Doctor, does it not, many other bruises on Mr. Nolan's body?'
'Yes, it does.'
'Could they have been inflicted by a man's fists?'
'Well, yes they could, although they are very nonspecific and might have been inflicted by any blunt object, including a glancing blow by the poker or brass knuckles, or even by the impact of Mr. Nolan having hit the ground or a table or anything else as a result of one of the other blows.'
'Doctor, could you describe the gunshot wound in any greater detail?'
