“Yeah, but they just shut down the phones when your time is up. You think you’ll come back to visit? I’m here every day if I’m not in court.”
I smiled like I was some sort of comedian hawking his stand-up act. Before she could answer, there was a loud electronic buzz on the phone and the line went dead. I saw her speak but didn’t hear it. She looked at the phone and then at me and slowly put it back in its cradle. The visit was over.
I nodded at her and smiled awkwardly. She made a slight wave and then got up from her stool. I did the same and started walking down the line of visitor booths, all of them open behind the prisoner’s stool. I looked through every window as I passed and caught a few glimpses of her moving parallel to me on the other side.
Then she was gone.
The hack asked me whether I was going back to the law library and I told him I wanted to go back to the module.
While I was being led back, I worked over my final view of Kendall on the phone. I had watched her lips as she spoke into the dead phone. I came to realize that she had said, “I don’t know.”
8
Thursday, December 5
Officer Roy Milton was in uniform and sitting in the first row of the gallery behind the prosecution table when I was led into the courtroom. I recognized him easily from the night of my arrest. Following Sheriff’s Department protocol I was manacled by a waist chain, with my hands cuffed at my sides. I was led to the defense table, where the escort deputy unchained me, and Jennifer, who was standing and waiting, helped me put on my suit jacket. Lorna had somehow gotten two-day tailoring done and the suit fit me perfectly. I turned toward the gallery as I shot the cuffs and addressed Milton.
“Officer Milton, how are you today?” I asked.
“Don’t answer that,” Dana Berg said from the prosecution table.
I looked at her and she stared right back at me.
“Mind your own business, Haller,” she said.
I spread my hands in a gesture of surprise.
“Just being cordial,” I said.
“Be cordial with someone on your side,” Berg said.
“All right,” I said. “Whatever.”
I did a 180 sweep of the gallery and saw my daughter in her usual spot. I smiled and nodded and she gave both back to me. I didn’t see Kendall Roberts anywhere but I wasn’t expecting to. I had come to view her visit the other day as her fulfilling some sort of duty to me. But that was all there would be.
I finally pulled out my chair at the defense table and sat down next to Jennifer.
“You look good,” she said. “Lorna did a good job with that suit.”
We had spoken earlier in the holding cell along with Cisco. But Cisco was gone now, with a full plate of investigative tasks to carry out.
I heard whispers directly behind me and turned to see that two of the reporters who had been covering the case from the beginning were now in their usual spots. Both were women, one from the Los Angeles Times, the other from the Daily News, competitors who liked to sit together and chat while waiting for court to start. I had known Audrey Finnel from the Times for years, as she had covered a few of my cases. Addie Gamble was new on the criminal courts beat for the News and I knew her by her byline only.
Soon Judge Warfield appeared in the doorway behind the clerk’s corral and court was called to order. Before getting to the motion to suppress, I told the judge that I had a new motion to file with the court on an emergency basis because the prosecution was still not playing fair when it came to the rules of discovery.
“What is it this time, Mr. Haller?” the judge asked.
Her voice took on a tone of exasperation, which I found disconcerting, since the hearing had just started. As I walked to the lectern, Jennifer carried copies of the new motion to the prosecution table and the court clerk, who then handed the documents to the judge.
“Your Honor, the defense just wants what it is entitled to,” I said. “You have a discovery motion in front of you for data from my own car and cell phone, which the prosecution has not provided because it knows it is exculpatory and will show that I was in my house and that my car was in my garage when I supposedly went out and abducted Mr. Scales and then took him back to my house to murder him.”
Dana Berg immediately stood up and objected. She didn’t even have to state her grounds for the objection. The judge was on it right away.
“Mr. Haller,” she boomed. “Making your case to the media instead of the court is unacceptable and … dangerous. Do you understand me?”
“I do, Judge, and I apologize,” I said. “Defending myself has taken me to some emotional depths I don’t usually deal with.”
“That is no excuse. Consider that your one and only warning.”
“Thank you, Your Honor.”
But as I spoke my apology, I couldn’t help wondering what the judge would do to me with a contempt citation. Put me in jail? I was already there. Fine me? Good luck collecting with me earning zero income while I fought a murder rap.
“Continue,” the judge instructed. “Carefully.”
“Judge, the motion is clear,” I said. “The state obviously has this information and we have not received it. It appears that it is the practice of the District Attorney’s Office to hold discovery and not share it unless it is specifically asked for by the defense, and that is not the way it works. This is vital information about my own property that I need in order to defend myself, and I need it right now, Your Honor. Not when the prosecution feels like it.”
The judge looked at Berg for a response and the prosecutor took the lectern, lowering the stem microphone to her level.
“Your Honor, Mr. Haller’s assumptions are completely wrong,” she said. “The information he seeks was acquired by the LAPD following the issuance of a search warrant, which took time to write and execute. The material that came from that search warrant was received by my office just yesterday and has not yet been reviewed by me or anyone on my team. I believe the rules of discovery allow me to at least review evidence before passing it to the defense.”
“When will the defense have this material?” Warfield asked.
“I would think by the end of the day tomorrow,” Berg said.
“Your Honor?” I said.
“Hold your horses, Mr. Haller,” Warfield said. “Ms. Berg, if you don’t have time to review the material, then get someone else to review it or turn it over blind. I want you to give it to the defense by the end of the day. That’s today I’m talking about. And that’s the workday. Not midnight.”
“Yes, Your Honor,” a chastened Berg said.
“Your Honor, I would still like to be heard,” I said.
“Mr. Haller, I just got you what you asked for,” Warfield said impatiently. “What else is there to say?”
I went to the lectern as Berg stepped away. I glanced back into the gallery and saw Kendall sitting next to my daughter. That gave me confidence. I raised the microphone stem back up.
“Judge,” I began, “the defense is troubled by this absurd idea that discovery does not need to be completed until a review of the discoverable evidence occurs. Review is an amorphous word, Your Honor. What is a review? How long is a review? Two days? Two weeks? Two months? I would ask the court to set out clear guidelines about this. As the court knows, I have not and will not waive my right to a speedy trial, and therefore any delay in the transfer of discovery puts the defense on an unfair footing.”