The Brass Verdict

The prosecution went out of its way to make Torrance presentable and believable to the jury, which had only three black members. He was given a shave, his hair was taken out of cornrows and trimmed short and he was dressed in a pale blue suit with no tie when he arrived in court on the fourth day of Woodson’s trial. In direct testimony elicited by Jerry Vincent, the prosecutor, Torrance described the conversation he allegedly had with Woodson one morning at one of the picnic tables. Woodson not only confessed to the killings, he said, but furnished Torrance with many of the telling details of the murders. The point made clear to the jury was that these were details that only the true killer would know.

During the testimony, Vincent kept Torrance on a tight leash with long questions designed to elicit short answers. The questions were overloaded to the point of being leading but I didn’t bother objecting, even when Judge Companioni looked at me with raised eyebrows, practically begging me to jump in. But I didn’t object, because I wanted the counterpoint. I wanted the jury to see what the prosecution was doing. When it was my turn, I was going to let Torrance run with his answers while I hung back and waited for the blade.

Vincent finished his direct at eleven a.m. and the judge asked me if I wanted to take an early lunch before I began my cross. I told him no, I didn’t need or want a break. I said it like I was disgusted and couldn’t wait another hour to get at the man on the stand. I stood up and took a big, thick file and a legal pad with me to the lectern.

“Mr. Torrance, my name is Michael Haller. I work for the Public Defenders Office and represent Barnett Woodson. Have we met before?”

“No, sir.”

“I didn’t think so. But you and the defendant, Mr. Woodson, you two go back a long way, correct?”

Torrance gave an “aw, shucks” smile. But I had done the due diligence on him and I knew exactly who I was dealing with. He was thirty-two years old and had spent a third of his life in jails and prisons. His schooling had ended in the fourth grade when he stopped going to school and no parent seemed to notice or care. Under the state’s three-strike law, he was facing the lifetime achievement award if convicted of charges he robbed and pistol-whipped the female manager of a coin laundry. The crime had been committed during three days of rioting and looting that ripped through the city after the not-guilty verdicts were announced in the trial of four police officers accused of the excessive beating of Rodney King, a black motorist pulled over for driving erratically. In short, Torrance had good reason to help the state take down Barnett Woodson.

“Well, we go back a few months is all,” Torrance said. “To high-power.”

“Did you say ‘higher power’?” I asked, playing dumb. “Are you talking about a church or some sort of religious connection?”

“No, high-power module. In county.”

“So you’re talking about jail, correct?”

“That’s right.”

“So you’re telling me that you didn’t know Barnett Woodson before that?”

I asked the question with surprise in my voice.

“No, sir. We met for the first time in the jail.”

I made a note on the legal pad as if this were an important concession.

“So then, let’s do the math, Mr. Torrance. Barnett Woodson was transferred into the high-power module where you were already residing on the fifth of September earlier this year. Do you remember that?”

“Yeah, I remember him coming in, yeah.”

“And why were you there in high-power?”

Vincent stood and objected, saying I was covering ground he had already trod in direct testimony. I argued that I was looking for a fuller explanation of Torrance ’s incarceration, and Judge Companioni allowed me the leeway. He told Torrance to answer the question.

“Like I said, I got a count of assault and one of robbery.”

“And these alleged crimes took place during the riots, is that correct?”

With the anti-police climate permeating the city’s minority communities since even before the riots, I had fought during jury selection to get as many blacks and browns on the panel as I could. But here was a chance to work on the five white jurors the prosecution had been able to get by me. I wanted them to know that the man the prosecution was hanging so much of its case on was one of those responsible for the images they saw on their television sets back in May.

“Yeah, I was out there like everybody else,” Torrance answered. “Cops get away with too much in this town, you ask me.”

I nodded like I agreed.

“And your response to the injustice of the verdicts in the Rodney King beating case was to go out and rob a sixty-two-year-old woman and knock her unconscious with a steel trash can? Is that correct, sir?”

Torrance looked over at the prosecution table and then past Vincent to his own lawyer, sitting in the first row of the gallery. Whether or not they had earlier rehearsed a response to this question, his legal team couldn’t help Torrance now. He was on his own.

“I didn’t do that,” he finally said.