“Only one previous time in court. But he had given information on three other cases I could find. Nothing about Arizona came up.”
“Nobody thought to check to see if this guy had been anywhere else or used variations of his name?”
“I guess not. He was passed on to me by the original prosecutor on the case. I just assumed she had checked him out.”
“Bullshit,” I said.
The judge turned her eyes to me. I could have sat back and watched Minton go down but I wasn’t going to let him try to take Maggie McPherson with him.
“The original prosecutor was Maggie McPherson,” I said. “She had the case all of about three hours. She’s my ex-wife and she knew as soon as she saw me at first apps that she was gone. And you got the case that same day, Minton. Where in there was she supposed to background your witnesses, especially this guy who didn’t come out from under his rock until after first appearance? She passed him on and that was it.”
Minton opened his mouth to say something but the judge cut him off.
“It doesn’t matter who should have done it. It wasn’t done properly and, either way, putting that man on the stand in my opinion was gross prosecutorial misconduct.”
“Your Honor,” Minton barked. “I did -”
“Save it for your boss. He’s the one you’ll need to convince. What was the last offer the state made to Mr. Roulet?”
Minton seemed frozen and unable to respond. I answered for him.
“Simple assault, six months in county.”
The judge raised her eyebrows and looked at me.
“And you didn’t take it?”
I shook my head.
“My client won’t take a conviction. It will ruin him. He’ll gamble on a verdict.”
“You want a mistrial?” she asked.
I laughed and shook my head.
“No, I don’t want a mistrial. All that will do is give the prosecution time to clean up its mess, get it all right and then come back at us.”
“Then what do you want?” she asked.
“What do I want? A directed verdict would be nice. Something with no comebacks from the state. Other than that, we’ll ride it out.”
The judge nodded and clasped her hands together on the desk.
“A directed verdict would be ridiculous, Your Honor,” Minton said, finally finding his voice. “We’re at the end of trial, anyway. We might as well take it to a verdict. The jury deserves it. Just because one mistake was made by the state, there is no reason to subvert the whole process.”
“Don’t be stupid, Mr. Minton,” the judge said dismissively. “It’s not about what the jury deserves. And as far as I am concerned, one mistake like you have made is enough. I don’t want this kicked back at me by the Second and that is surely what they will do. Then I am holding the bag for your miscon -”
“I didn’t know Corliss’s background!” Minton said forcefully. “I swear to God I didn’t know.”
The intensity of his words brought a momentary silence to the chambers. But soon I slipped into the void.
“Just like you didn’t know about the knife, Ted?”
Fullbright looked from Minton to me and then back at Minton.
“What knife?” she asked.
Minton said nothing.
“Tell her,” I said.
Minton shook his head.
“I don’t know what he’s talking about,” he said.
“Then you tell me,” the judge said to me.
“Judge, if you wait on discovery from the DA, you might as well hang it up at the start,” I said. “Witnesses disappear, stories change, you can lose a case just sitting around waiting.”
“All right, so what about the knife?”
“I needed to move on this case. So I had my investigator go through the back door and get reports. It’s fair game. But they were waiting for him and they phonied up a report on the knife so I wouldn’t know about the initials. I didn’t know until I got the formal discovery packet.”
The judge formed a hard line with her lips.
“That was the police, not the DA’s office,” Minton said quickly.
“Thirty seconds ago you said you didn’t know what he was talking about,” Fullbright said. “Now suddenly you do. I don’t care who did it. Are you telling me that this did in fact occur?”
Minton reluctantly nodded.
“Yes, Your Honor. But I swear, I didn’t -”
“You know what this tells me?” the judge said, cutting him off. “It tells me that from start to finish the state has not played fair in this case. It doesn’t matter who did what or that Mr. Haller’s investigator may have been acting improperly. The state must be above that. And as evidenced today in my courtroom it has been anything but that.”
“Your Honor, that’s not -”
“No more, Mr. Minton. I think I’ve heard enough. I want you both to leave now. In half an hour I’ll take the bench and announce what we’ll do about this. I am not sure yet what that will be but no matter what I do, you aren’t going to like what I have to say, Mr. Minton. And I am directing you to have your boss, Mr. Smithson, in the courtroom with you to hear it.”
I stood up. Minton didn’t move. He still seemed frozen to the seat.
“I said you can go!” the judge barked.
FORTY-TWO
I followed Minton through the court clerk’s station and into the courtroom. It was empty except for Meehan, who sat at the bailiff’s desk. I took my briefcase off the defense table and headed toward the gate.
“Hey, Haller, wait a second,” Minton said, as he gathered files from the prosecution table.
I stopped at the gate and looked back.
“What?”
Minton came to the gate and pointed to the rear door of the courtroom.
“Let’s go out here.”
“My client is going to be waiting out there for me.”
“Just come here.”
He headed to the door and I followed. In the vestibule where I had confronted Roulet two days earlier Minton stopped to confront me. But he didn’t say anything. He was putting words together. I decided to push him even further.
“While you go get Smithson I think I’ll stop by the
“Look,” Minton sputtered. “We have to work this out.”
“We?”
“Just hold off on the
“For what?”
