Resurrection Walk

“Your Honor,” he said. “If Mr. Haller is going to ask about cellular data collection, then, again, we are going to have a discovery issue.”

“How so, Mr. Morris?” the judge asked. “I seem to recall this was reported on the most recent discovery inventory Mr. Haller filed with the court.”

“Yes, Your Honor,” Morris said. “He turned over a printout of more than nineteen hundred pages of data from six different cell towers, and now, just four days later, he plans to introduce his specific findings in court.”

“Are you asking for a continuance of the hearing so you have additional time to study the material?” Coelho asked.

“No, Your Honor,” Morris said. “The State asks that the petitioner be disqualified from using this material because of bad faith in meeting even basic discovery standards.”

“Well, that is certainly an extreme remedy,” Coelho said. “I am sure the petitioner has something to say about that. Mr. Haller?”

“Your Honor, there is no bad faith here,” Haller said. “And I’m tired of having to defend myself in regard to these matters that Morris brings up like a broken record. The rules of discovery are clear. I was under no obligation to turn this material over to him and his team until I decided that I intended to use it in court. I made that decision when briefed Friday morning by my investigator Mr. Bosch after he reviewed the materials. Please keep in mind, Judge, that I am a solo practitioner with one associate attorney and one full-time and one part-time investigator. Mr. Bosch received the data from AT and T last Tuesday afternoon and reported his findings to me on Friday morning. He is just one man. Morris, on the other hand, has the power and might as well as the personnel of the entire attorney general’s office at his disposal. He is also representing the L.A. County DA’s office in this matter, and last I checked, there are eight hundred prosecutors and two hundred investigators across the street in that office. And he couldn’t get someone to help him look through this material over the weekend?

“Your Honor, that’s where the bad faith is. What happened was that Morris guessed that I was dumping this material on him because it was worthless and he’d be spinning his wheels reviewing it. So he ignored it all weekend and now he finds out that maybe it is not so worthless, that there is actually exculpatory material here, and he wants to cry foul. I’ll say it again, Judge: This is supposed to be a search for truth, but Mr. Morris is not interested in that. He’s only interested in putting up roadblocks to the truth, and that to me is bad faith in its ugliest form.”

Morris spread his arms like they were wings.

“Your Honor, really?” he said. “Mr. Haller, up there on his high horse, is conveniently forgetting the facts. The court approved the subpoena for records from AT and T more than three weeks ago. He waited until the eve of trial to execute it and gather the data. That was a planned delay, Judge, and he isn’t fooling me or you. The People stand by the complaint and the suggested remedy.”

“Your Honor, may I respond?” Haller said.

“No, I don’t think I need you to, Mr. Haller,” Coelho said. “I have a good idea of what you would say. I am not going to disqualify this material from introduction in the hearing. We are going to proceed with Mr. Bosch’s testimony. And when direct examination is completed, I will give Mr. Morris time to prepare his cross if time is indeed needed. Now, let’s take a ten-minute break, go back to our corners, and cool off, and then we will continue the hearing.”

33

Bosch spent most of the ten-minute break keeping Haller separated from Morris in the hall outside the courtroom. Haller was no doubt crestfallen by the Arslanian setback, as was Arslanian. She’d been scheduled to fly out on a red-eye that night but she insisted on delaying her return home so she could watch Bosch’s testimony and be part of a brainstorming session afterward.

No name-calling or physical scuffles broke out in the hallway and soon Bosch was back on the stand awaiting the arrival of the judge and the prisoner. Lucinda came first, and after she was placed next to Haller, he immediately leaned toward her and started whispering. Bosch could tell by his gestures that he was trying to console her and tell her that losing Arslanian’s testimony and presentation did not constitute the end of the world. The trouble was, Bosch wasn’t sure Haller believed that himself.

The judge came through the door, took her position at the bench, and went back on the record, telling Haller to proceed. Haller took his legal pad to the lectern.

“When we were interrupted,” he said to Bosch, “you were about to tell us about a collection of cell-tower data obtained with a subpoena. Why don’t you walk us through the steps you took in getting that data.”