No Way Out

exempt from the California Public Records Act, except for statements of itemized expenditure. So I requested statements from every county in the State from five years ago. Hopefully we’ll find it listed. But they have up to ten days to comply. And some of them have even written back to invoke the statutory fourteen day extension And that’s time we can’t afford. So far only one of the counties has got back to me.”

Juanita smiled.

“And is it one that has the low minority stats or one of those that doesn’t?”

“One that doesn’t.”

“So why don’t you presume that the problem is with software from one of the other three companies — I mean not the one used in the county that got back to you?

“That’s exactly what I do think. But until I’ve got responses from the others I don’t know which and that means can’t prove anything.”

“No but can’t you in the meantime, analyze the software from those three other companies? Or get David to?”

“I got the impression that David didn’t really have the time. He only agreed to help because his father wanted him to. Besides, there’s still the problem of getting the software. We still don’t know which of the other three companies its from. And whichever, it still comes from a private company. That means its proprietary, and using the Public Records Act will be a problem.”

Juanita thought about this for a moment.

“They’re a government contractor. Surely they’re still subject to an CPRA request?”

“They’re a contractor to the Courts and like I said, the courts are exempt from the act, apart from expenditure statements.”

“Maybe it would quicker to buy copies of the software from the various companies?”

“Probably would. The trouble is then all we’d have is the executable — or at best the object code.”

Juanita was shaking her head.

“Now you’ve lost me.”

“We need the source code to figure out what’s going wrong, if anything.”

“Oh I see.” Juanita was actually more knowledgeable about computers than she liked to let on. She had just taken a moment to get up to speed with Andi’s remark. “But isn’t it possible to — what’s that word — decompile it or something like that?”

“It is. And I can probably get a freeware decompiler online. But the output from a decompiler is so cryptic that it takes an experienced computer programmer to understand it.”

“And you’re not an experienced programmer?”

“Unfortunately not,” said Andi. “Barely more than a beginner.”

Andi raised her eye brows quizzically.

“Oh sorry, I guess I should explain. I started a course in C++ programming, but dropped out.”

“I’m sure David can help.”

“Until we’ve got the software, that’s a moot point. Also it’s not like off-the-shelf software. It’s very expensive and you pay for the number of seats.”

“Seats?”

“The number of parallel users. That means they’ll want to know where and in what manner we’ll be using it. And what are we going to tell them? ‘We want to analyze your software to see if it has a defect that causes African-Americans to be under-represented on juries.’?”

Juanita smiled.

“I see what you mean. The thing I don’t understand Andi, is how come you got the demographic jury data so quickly, if they’re so slow under the Public Records Act.”

“That’s easy. A lot of counties have already compiled their own demographic reports to monitor these things for internal admin purposes. The data was already out there. It was just a case of tracking it down on the internet.”

Juanita leaned forward conspiratorially

“You see I was just wondering if we could somehow get a copy of the software and present David with a fait accompli…get him to haul ass.”

Andi realized that Juanita was trying to be helpful. And maybe she was right.

“Do you think Alex would be ready to fork out for a copy of the software?”

Juanita smiled.

“Maybe as a last resort. But let’s try something else first.”

“What?”

“Are you in court this afternoon Andi?”

“No. The judge has some other business to clear up so we’ve got the afternoon free.”

“Private business or court business?”

There was an eager smile on Juanita’s face. It left Andi feeling awkward.

“Court business I assume.”

“So she’s still in the court building.”

“I assume so. Why? What do you have in mind?”

“Give me a moment.”

She picked up the phone and called a number.

“Hallo is that the Clerk to Justice Wagner… Yes I wonder if you can help me. My name is Juanita Cortez and I am the secretary to Alex Sedaka in the Elias Claymore case. I was wondering if you could find out from Justice Wagner if she would consider an ex parte emergency motion from the defense for a court order to obtain the software used by the court for jury selection” There was a long pause, and indistinct voices were heard in the distance. “Yes we can obtain the executable program from the court itself, but the source code would have to come from the supplier I assume… yes we can be there in person in half an hour! Thank you.”

Juanita put the phone down, here eyes gleaming.

“She’ll grant us an order for the executable from the court and schedule a hearing for the source code from the company that supplied the software. It’s called LegalSoft. But she’ll have to give them forty eight hours notice of the hearing.”

Andi’s face lit up.

“Yes!”

“We’d better get going now Andi.”

Andi stood up and grabbed her purse. “And on the way, I’ll tell you my theory about what’s really going on — if I can trust you.”

Wednesday, 19 August 2009 — 13:20

Martine Yin had wrapped up her reporting from the Claymore trial for the day. The court wouldn’t be reconvening in the afternoon and the TV station would simply run her earlier report again in the evening and on the late night news, filling in any additional details from the studio. She had hung around the court for a while, talking to some of the other reporters. But it was clear that nothing more was going to happen that day.

She had decided not to call Alex at the moment. By mutual agreement they had put their relationship on hold. It wasn’t just the conflict of interest in this case. It was the realization that based at opposite ends of the State, it just wasn’t going to work. It was ironic that now, when Martine was in the Bay Area and geography was no longer a problem, they had to avoid each other for ethical reasons.

So now she was making her way to her car, parked in the parking structure a couple of blocks down from the courtroom between Jackson and Madison, feeling somewhat down and dejected. She was missing Alex’s company and frustrated at having to stay away from him even now. Perhaps if she had felt in a better mood, she would have been more alert. But as it was, she simply walked, barely aware of what was in front of her, let alone what was behind.

Consequently, as she made her way to her car in parking structure a couple of blocks away, she didn’t notice