Then Ruiz asked him about the day Jackson was arrested. I stood and said, “Objection, Your Honor. What’s the relevance of this to a probable cause hearing?”
“I’ll allow it,” the judge said, “but make it brief, Mr. Ruiz. And Mr. Blount.”
Blount said, “We located the defendant in a shed on Dexter Street.”
“And what did you do then?”
“We proceeded to arrest him.”
“And what did the defendant do?”
“He used foul language and didn’t cooperate. In other words, he resisted arrest. At one point, as we were attempting to place him in the police cruiser, he attempted to run, but he was in handcuffs at that point and didn’t get far.”
That wasn’t in the arrest report. I made a note to think about either moving to exclude any testimony on that at trial or letting Blount say it and then using the arrest report to make the jury wonder if he was lying.
My turn came to cross him.
“Morning, Detective Blount.”
“Morning, Leland. I mean, Mr. Munroe.”
Judge Chambliss laughed and said, “It’s a small town, ain’t it.”
Jurors would probably react the same way. Stumbling over my name made Blount more personable. I was glad trial was several months away, because I was going to need time to think through all the ways I could handle him as a witness and how each might play to the jury.
There were no holes to poke in his work experience, so I didn’t try. I kicked off with, “Detective Blount, could you tell the court about any encounters you’ve had with Jackson Warton in the past?”
He looked at Ruiz, who shrugged.
“I’m not sure what you mean by encounters,” Blount said.
“Meetings. Interactions of any kind. Let’s start with encounters in your professional capacity.” I was leaving it open-ended so they wouldn’t get a sense of what we knew and what we didn’t.
“Uh, well, I’ve been present on, I believe, three occasions when Jackson was arrested.”
“So, all the occasions? All of his arrests?”
“Yes.”
That was a point in Jackson’s favor, to me at least. He’d told me Blount was there, but I hadn’t been able to check his memory or his honesty because the arrest reports only named the arresting officer.
“And isn’t it true, Detective Blount, that until this last time, when you arrested Jackson in connection with this case, none of his arrests were for any type of violence or assault?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, it’s true.”
“They were for possession of a single marijuana cigarette, and for spray-painting a local bar? That’s Jackson’s entire criminal history?”
“That’s correct.”
“Your Honor,” said Ruiz, “we’ve stipulated to this.”
“I’ll move on,” I said. “Now, in your position as a police detective, did you ever have occasion to learn that Karl Warton had a criminal history?”
“I’m not sure what you mean,” he said. I leveled an Oh, come on look at him, and he shifted in his seat. If he was going to waffle on something as basic as this, I could use that. Juries didn’t like witnesses who tried to weasel out of questions.
“Your Honor,” said Ruiz, “we’ll stipulate to Karl Warton’s record, although I don’t see how it’s relevant at this stage.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Some parts of his record are certainly relevant, but right now I’m not trying to establish that Karl had a record. I’m just trying to get a sense of what Detective Blount knew.”
To Blount, Judge Chambliss said, “You can go ahead and answer.”
“Uh, I was not the arresting officer on anything involving him, but yes, I was aware he’d been arrested.”
“Multiple times?”
“Yes.”
“For violent crimes?” I said. “Child abuse, for instance?”
“That’s correct.”
“Beating the mother of his child?”
“Yes.”
“Bar fights? Plural?”
“I was aware of that, yes.”
“Were you aware he’d broken his son’s arm?”
“He was arrested for that, yes. And there was a plea.”
“Okay. And you knew that at the time?”
“I think we all did,” he said. “It’s a small town.”
“I’ll stipulate to that,” I said. Ruiz and the judge chuckled. “So, knowing as you did that Karl was abusing his son and beating the boy’s mother, did you at any point intervene to protect them?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
I gave him another look and let the silence sink in. In my experience, most people didn’t like silence. They rushed to fill it. He was no exception.
“I was never called to the scene of any of that,” he said. “If I had been, I would’ve followed procedures.”
I cocked my head like I had my doubts. “Detective Blount, you knew Karl from high school, right?”
“I did.”
“And you dock your own boat at the same marina he did, right?”
“That’s correct.”
“So you had occasion to see him around? Not just in your professional capacity?”
“At times, yes.”
He was getting nervous. I didn’t know why, and I wasn’t about to derail my cross by asking questions whose answers I didn’t know, but I made a mental note to look harder at whatever relationship he and Karl may have had.
“Okay. And isn’t it true that you have intervened personally in domestic violence cases before? By which I mean, you’ve warned perpetrators to cut it out?”
He glanced at Terri. He knew where I’d gotten that information. I enjoyed the thought that to him, that little Oprah at her laptop might look like a ticking time bomb. They’d worked on the same police force for years, and if he had secrets, he had no way of knowing whether she’d uncovered them.
“I have done that, yes.”
“You’ve warned violent men to stop beating their kids more than once, am I right?”
“Yes.”
“And why’d you do that?”
He hesitated. It seemed he wanted to choose his words carefully. Finally he said, “The law is the law. On
