The Reversal

It was only a hearing on pretrial motions but the courtroom was packed. Lots of courthouse gadflies and media, and a fair number of trial lawyers were sitting in as well. I sat at the prosecution table with Maggie and we were going over our arguments once again. All issues before Judge Breitman had already been argued and submitted on paper. This would be when the judge could ask further questions and then announce her rulings. I had a growing sense of anxiety. The motions submitted by Clive Royce were all pretty routine and Maggie and I had submitted solid responses. We were also ready with oral arguments to back them, but a hearing like this was also a time for the unexpected. On more than one occasion I had sandbagged the prosecution in a pretrial hearing. And sometimes the case is won or lost before the trial begins with a ruling in one of these hearings.

I leaned back and looked behind us and then took a quick glance around the courtroom. I gave a phony smile and nod to a lawyer I saw in the spectator section, then turned back to Maggie.

“Where’s Bosch?” I asked.

“I don’t think he’s going to be here.”

“Why not? He’s completely disappeared in the last week.”

“He’s been working on something. He called yesterday and asked if he had to be here for this and I said he didn’t.”

“He’d better be working on something related to Jessup.”

“He tells me it is and that he’s going to bring it to us soon.”

“That’s nice of him. The trial starts in four weeks.”

I wondered why Bosch had chosen to call her instead of me, the lead prosecutor. I realized that this made me upset with Maggie as well as Bosch.

“Listen, I don’t know what happened between you two on your little trip to Port Townsend, but he should be calling me.”

Maggie shook her head as if dealing with a petulant child.

“Look, you don’t have to worry. He knows you’re the lead prosecutor. He probably figures you are too busy for the day-to-day updates on what he’s doing. And I’m going to forget what you said about Port Townsend. This one time. You make another insinuation like that and you and I are going to have a real problem.”

“Okay, I’m sorry. It’s just that-”

My attention was drawn across the aisle to Jessup, who was sitting at the defense table with Royce. He was staring at me with a smirk on his face and I realized he had been watching Maggie and me, maybe even listening.

“Excuse me a second,” I said.

I got up and walked over to the defense table. I leaned over him.

“Can I help you with something, Jessup?”

Before Jessup could say a word his lawyer cut in.

“Don’t talk to my client, Mick,” Royce said. “If you want to ask him something, then you ask me.”

Now Jessup smiled again, emboldened by his attorney’s defensive move.

“Just go sit down,” Jessup said. “I got nothing to say to you.”

Royce held his hand up to quiet him.

“I’ll handle this. You be quiet.”

“He threatened me. You should complain to the judge.”

“I said be quiet and that I would handle this.”

Jessup folded his arms and leaned back in his chair.

“Mick, is there a problem here?” Royce asked.

“No, no problem. I just don’t like him staring at me.”

I walked back to the prosecution table, annoyed with myself for losing my calm. I sat down and looked at the pool camera set up in the jury box. Judge Breitman had approved the filming of the trial and the various hearings leading up to it, but only through the use of a pool camera, which would provide a universal feed that all channels and networks could use.

A few minutes later the judge took the bench and called the hearing to order. One by one we went through the defense motions, and the rulings mostly fell our way without much further argument. The most important one was the routine motion to dismiss for lack of evidence, which the judge rejected with little comment. When Royce asked to be heard, she said that it wasn’t necessary to discuss the issue further. It was a solid rebuke and I loved it even though outwardly I acted as though it were routine and boring.

The only ruling the judge wanted to discuss in detail was the oddball request by Royce to allow his client to use makeup during trial to cover the tattoos on his neck and fingers. Royce had argued in his motion that the tattoos were all prison tattoos applied while he was falsely incarcerated for twenty-four years. He said the tattoos could be prejudicial when noticed by jurors. His client intended to cover these with skin-tone makeup and he wanted to bar the prosecution from addressing it in front of the jury.

“I have to admit I have not had a motion like this come before me,” the judge said. “I’m inclined to allow it and hold the prosecution from drawing attention to it but I see the prosecution has objected to the motion, saying that it contains insufficient information about the content and history of these tattoos. Can you shed some light on the subject, Mr. Royce?”