Resurrection Walk

Bosch didn’t like hearing such talk. He knew anything could happen in a courtroom and didn’t want Haller to jinx what sounded like a good morning for the team.

“Where are we going?” Bosch asked.

“Someplace good,” Haller said. “We earned it. This woman is a giant slayer.”

“I’m not sure,” Arslanian said, “that we should celebrate until the judge rules on the petition.”

“I agree, but I think she’s going to walk,” Haller said. “You nailed it, and after lunch, Harry will deliver the knockout punch.”

“Don’t forget, Morris still gets to take his shot at me,” Arslanian said.

“There’s no way,” Haller said. “He just asked for the lunch break because he knows he’s fucked. And it’s only gonna get worse for him when Harry gets up on the stand with the cell data.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Bosch said.

“Oh, come on,” Haller said. “Grumpy old Harry. Let’s go over to Water Grill. We’ll get some good food for lunch and hold off on the celebration till this thing is over.”

“I’ll take you over there,” Bosch said. “But I’m going to wait in the car. I need to go over everything again before I testify. Maybe you should think about going through it with me, get our ducks in a row.”

“I’m not worried about it,” Haller said. “Your testimony will be the frosting on the cake that Shami baked for us. I’m telling you, Harry, she clearly demonstrated that Lucinda could not have fired those shots.”

“You give me too much credit,” Arslanian said. “And you still have to finish presenting your case. You need to be ready for anything. You told me that a long time ago.”

A few minutes later Bosch dropped them off in front of the restaurant on Grand Avenue. He then drove down the block until he found a parking space and pulled in. He reached back to the floor behind his seat and grabbed the file containing the printouts from AT&T that Haller would offer as exhibits to the court.

He started reviewing the printouts and checking the numbers against the map he’d unfolded on the passenger seat. He was rehearsing because he was nervous. He had taken new digital technology and reduced it to a distinctly analog presentation. He hoped it would be defining evidence in the case for Lucinda Sanz’s innocence.

32

Bosch sat in the last row of the gallery, waiting to see whether Hayden Morris was going to cross-examine Shami Arslanian or if it would be his turn on the witness stand. When the assistant AG called Arslanian back, no one seemed to notice that Bosch was in the courtroom, so he stayed put. Haller had been so enamored with Arslanian’s direct examination that Bosch wanted to see how well she did under cross. As it turned out, he witnessed the case for Lucinda Sanz’s innocence begin to crumble like a sandcastle.

And it took Morris no more than five minutes to do it.

It began when Morris asked Arslanian to put her re-creation program’s table of contents back up on the big screen. She quickly complied with a few taps on her keyboard.

“Now, I want to draw your attention to the bottom right corner of the screen,” Morris said. “That’s a copyright protection notice, correct?”

“Yes,” she said. “Technically, it’s been applied for, but we are confident we will get it.”

“Project AImy is the name of the re-creation software?”

“Yes.”

“Am I saying that right? Like the woman’s name Amy?”

“Yes.”

“So that is A, capital I, not A, lowercase l?”

“Correct.”

“Why is it spelled that way?”

“The program is built on a machine-learning platform I developed with my partner Professor Edward Taaffe at MIT.”

“By machine learning, you mean artificial intelligence, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you. No further questions.”

Coelho excused Arslanian. Bosch looked at Haller and saw the lawyer drop his head. Something was going wrong. Before Arslanian was even through the gate to the gallery, Morris addressed the judge.

“Your Honor,” he said, “the State moves to have the testimony and presentation of the witness struck from the record under Federal Rules of Evidence section seven-oh-two C.”

Haller stood up to be heard. Arslanian quickly slipped into the bench where most of the members of the media were sitting.

“Your Honor?” he said.

“Not yet, Mr. Haller,” the judge said. “You’ll get your turn.

Mr. Morris, do you wish to elaborate?”

“Thank you, Judge,” Morris said. “In regard to expert testimony, section seven-oh-two C states that the testimony and presentation of an expert witness must be the product of reliable principles and methods. The use of artificial intelligence has not been approved in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California. Therefore, the witness’s presentation as well as any testimony derived from her presentation must be rejected.”

The judge was silent for a long moment and then turned her attention to Haller.

“Mr. Haller, I’m afraid he’s right,” she said. “This district is looking for a test case for the use of artificial intelligence... but it has not yet come to pass.”

“May I be heard?” Haller said.

“You may,” Coelho said.