'Mr. Onofrio, you knew the defendant, Evan Scholler, in Iraq, did you not?'
Washburn wanted Onofrio for a variety of reasons, not the least of which because he exuded such an appealing 'regular guy' quality. This was an inherently friendly man who worked with his crew on California's roads. He had some, but not too much, education. Good-looking in a casual way, he might be able to bring Mrs. Ellersby, for example, along in his regard for Evan Scholler.
'Yes, I did. He was my squadron leader.'
Over the next hour, Washburn led Onofrio over the same ground they'd covered during the PTSD hearing before jury selection. Mills objected to the same things she'd objected to at that time-that Onofrio wasn't even in the U.S. at the time of the murder and therefore his testimony couldn't possibly be relevant-but Washburn argued again that Onofrio's testimony was foundational to Evan's head injuries, which so far hadn't even made it into the record. Even without mention of PTSD, those head injuries were certainly relevant to his blackouts, and these, in turn, Washburn argued, and Tollson agreed, could be a core issue for the defense.
The gallery grew hushed as Onofrio began describing the firefight at Masbah, concluding with the observation, '…we could have gotten out, but two of our men had already been hit, and Evan wasn't going to leave without them.'
'So what did he do?'
'He led a couple of the other guys up to the first Humvee and pulled out the driver of that vehicle, then carried him back to our car. Then they went back for the gunner.'
'And was Lieutenant Scholler under fire at this time?'
'A lot of fire, sir. It was pretty hot, coming from all over.'
'All right.' Having established Evan's bravery as well as his concern for his men, Washburn let Onofrio get to the end of the Masbah story without further interruption. Washburn was happy to see that Mrs. Ellersby needed to dab at her eyes with a Kleenex several times during the recitation. When Onofrio finished, Evan bleeding profusely from the head and surrounded by his dead comrades, several other jurors were having similar reactions.
Washburn stood still for several seconds, moved as the jurors had been by the story. Then he turned the witness over to the prosecution.
The last time Mills had cross-examined Onofrio, during the 402 hearing on PTSD, she'd hit pay dirt with questions regarding Evan's alcohol use in the war zone. Accordingly, she wasted no time broaching the topic again as soon as she was in front of the witness.
'Mr. Onofrio, did you personally witness Defendant drinking alcohol in Iraq?'
But this time, Washburn was ready for her. 'Objection. Irrelevant.'
'Sustained.'
Mills was halfway back to repeating her question when she stopped herself in almost a double-take fashion. 'Your Honor,' she said, 'with respect, Mr. Washburn made a similar objection during our four-oh-two hearing in this matter, and at that time you overruled him.'
Tollson removed his glasses, leaned over the bench. 'Yes, I did, Counselor. At that time, the question of Defendant's alcohol use, or not, was germane to the issues involved in that hearing. Here, unless you can show me that Defendant's alcohol use, or not, in Iraq in some way refutes Mr. Onofrio's testimony, or relates directly to the crime with which Defendant is charged, I'm not going to allow it. It's irrelevant, as Mr. Washburn has noted.'
Mills stood flatfooted, then walked back to her table, checked her binder, turned a page or two of it, and looked back up. 'All right, then.' Determined not to let the jury see she'd been caught off balance, Mills smiled through clenched teeth. 'Well, then, thank you, Your Honor,' she said. 'I'll tie this up and we'll come back to it later.'
Denied his use of PTSD, Washburn's best hope was still some kind of a medical defense. If the jury didn't buy the fact that Evan had suffered a severe and extended blackout, then he was left with no defense whatsoever, except that he was lying. So, to that end, over the past weekend Washburn had spent several hours going over his next witness's testimony. He could only hope that it was going to be enough.
'Dr. Bromley,' he began. 'What kind of doctor are you?'
'I'm a neurologist at Stanford Medical Center and at the Palo Alto Veterans Center.'
'A brain doctor, is that right?'
In his mid-fifties, though he looked ten years younger, Bromley dressed impeccably. With a strong jaw, a prominent nose, fathomless eyes, and a short, well-kept Afro, he exuded a steely confidence. Now he allowed a breath of a smile to grace his features as he nodded. 'That's the lay term, yes.'
'Doctor, did you know Mr. Scholler before his arrest?'
'Yes. He was a patient of mine at the Veterans Center after he was released from Walter Reed.'
'According to your understanding, Doctor, what was his situation at Walter Reed?'
'He was admitted there in September of the previous year. When he arrived, he was still in an unconscious state from injuries sustained overseas. Doctors had already performed a craniectomy-removal of a section of skull to allow the brain to swell-and his condition was poor. They thought it highly likely he would die. Second prize was that he would survive, but be a vegetable.'
Washburn noticed several of the jurors flinch at this brutally matter-of-fact account. He went on. 'And when you first saw him here in California? When was that, by the way?'
'Mid-March, nine months after he was wounded. He had made, frankly, a nearly miraculous recovery.'
'In what sense?'
'In almost every sense imaginable. They'd replaced the disk of his skull about three months before that, and already his speech patterns had returned to almost normal. His memory still suffered small short-term lapses, and specific words would evade him from time to time, but he seemed to be improving in these areas with each test we administered. His physical coordination was such that I had no problem recommending that he go back to his work as a policeman, so long as his assignment was neither too strenuous nor stressful. In short, his was the most remarkable recovery from traumatic brain injury that I've seen in my twenty years of medical practice.'
Washburn nodded, delighted that he had fastened upon Bromley. He'd always been in the picture, of course, but the opportunities for Evan's defense that involved PTSD had always seemed somehow sexier and more compelling. Now, knowing what was going to come out, he started to entertain a small ray of hope that a straightforward medical explanation could produce approximately the same results as a PTSD defense. If he could make his client any kind of a victim, he knew he still had a chance.
'Doctor, did you have an opportunity to examine Mr. Scholler after he was arrested?'
'Yes.'
'How soon after?'
'A couple of days.'
'And what was his condition at that time?'
'Well, mostly he was suffering from headaches. But he was also experiencing fairly severe disorientation as well as some speech aphasia. All of this is, of course, consistent with trauma to the brain.'
'But you have testified that the symptoms of his traumatic brain injury had all but passed by a few months before that, isn't that so?'
'Yes.'
'And yet these symptoms seem to have reappeared. Right?'
'Correct.'
'And why is that?'
'Because of new trauma. At the time I saw him after his arrest, Mr. Scholler had sustained several new head injuries.'
'And how did he get those?'
'He told me he had been in a fight with Mr. Nolan.'
'A fight with Mr. Nolan.' Washburn half turned to bring the jury along with him. He particularly noted Mrs. Ellersby, canted forward in her chair, rapt. 'Doctor, could a mere fight produce these kinds of debilitating
