Jeff was certain that the women had already decided on a course of action and were challenging him to see if he would come to the same conclusion.
“Joe sounds like he’s telling the truth when we talk to him, but I don’t know how he’ll hold up under one of Vanessa’s cross-examinations. He’s told us that he has a bad temper. And Vanessa will rip apart his story about being blackmailed. Let’s face it. It makes more sense for a homeless man to be burglarizing a home for money.
“And I see another problem. Didn’t Judge Wright rule that evidence that Joe had killed Carlos Ortega in an illegal fight could not come in at the trial?”
“Yes.”
“Won’t that come out if Joe explains why he was in a position to be blackmailed?”
“Good point,” Robin admitted.
Jeff shook his head. “You’re probably going to have to wait until you see how the state’s case comes across before you decide whether to call him.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
In 1972, in Furman v. Georgia, the United States Supreme Court struck down all of the existing death penalty schemes in the United States. In the course of writing the opinion, the court established the principle that “death is different.” Robin Lockwood knew that this was true in more ways than one. The rules governing death cases and the jurisprudence of capital cases differed from other criminal cases, but the emotional impact on lawyers who represented defendants in death cases was also different.
When Loretta asked her how she could take on a death case, Robin had given her an answer that was mostly philosophical. She hadn’t talked about the way your gut reacted with every mistake and the fear that gripped you when you wondered if you had done everything possible to save your client’s life, knowing that the failure to dot one i or cross one t could kill her.
Robin didn’t know if there was an afterlife. If there wasn’t, all a person had was the span of years allotted to her. Death ended the experience, and she knew that one mistake on her part could put an end to Joe Lattimore’s existence. That was a very heavy burden, and Robin felt the pressure mount as the start of Joe’s trial neared.
The night before she was scheduled to give her opening statement, Robin barely slept. Every time she started to drift off, she thought of something else she had to do. When she woke up at five, she felt groggy and a little nauseous. Strong coffee helped her combat her fatigue, but nothing could settle the butterflies that flitted through her stomach or quell the awful feeling that she wasn’t up to the task of saving Joe Lattimore’s life.
On Monday morning, Joe, dressed in a suit and tie Robin had purchased for him, was led out of the holding area and into the courtroom. Joe had always been a private person, and he hated being the center of attention. When he fought, the worst part was the walk from the dressing room through the crowds to the ring, when every eye was on him. Once the fight started, he was so focused on his opponent that he didn’t hear the crowd, but having to sit in court, unable to move, with nothing to do with his hands, knowing that everyone was staring at him, was hard to handle.
As soon as he was out of the holding area, Joe looked for Maria. Robin had arranged a seat for her in the front row of the spectator section behind his chair at the defense table. Joe smiled when he saw his wife. He couldn’t touch her, but they talked whenever they could, and she would tell him about Conchita, who was trying to stand and talk.
“How are you doing?” Robin asked Joe as Judge Wright called for the jury.
“I’m hanging in,” Joe answered, trying to sound brave. He didn’t want to think about what would happen if he was convicted. Locked in a cage forever or put to sleep like a rabid dog were the most realistic results. He trusted Robin Lockwood to do her best, but he found it hard to see a happy ending.
“Are both sides ready to proceed?” Judge Wright asked.
As soon as Robin and Vanessa said they were, the judge nodded to Vanessa. The prosecutor walked to the jury box. After a few minutes, Robin knew that she was going to lose the battle of the opening statements.
Vanessa told the jurors that circuit court judge Anthony Carasco would testify that he had received a call from his wife at seven fifteen in the evening and his wife sounded fine. The judge would then tell the jury that he had seen a man who resembled the defendant fleeing the scene of the crime a little more than an hour later. She promised to corroborate the judge’s testimony by producing Ian Hennessey, a deputy district attorney who had been with the judge the evening that Carasco’s wife was murdered.
Vanessa told the jurors that a forensic expert would tell them that prints that matched the running shoes the defendant was wearing when he was arrested were found inside the Carasco home, and Joseph Lattimore’s fingerprints and palm print were on a wall in proximity to the body of Elizabeth Carasco. The state medical examiner would testify that Elizabeth Carasco had been beaten to death. Vanessa promised that evidence would establish that Joseph Lattimore, who was homeless and desperate for money, was a professional boxer. She had concluded her opening statement by explaining that professional boxers used hand wraps to protect their knuckles and that hand wraps covered in Elizabeth Carasco’s blood and stained with Lattimore’s DNA had been found near the scene of the crime.
Vanessa’s opening was loaded with facts. Robin had not decided whether she would call Joe to the stand, and she did not have any evidence that
