Silenced Witness by Larry A Winters

Author:Larry A Winters [Winters, Larry A]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-05-04T04:00:00+00:00

22

Jessie waited as Warren gazed mournfully out the window of his office. From her seat in one of his visitor chairs, she could see a slice of overcast sky, crowded with gray clouds. After a few seconds, he said, “We knew opposing those motions was a Hail Mary move, Jessie. Don’t beat yourself up about losing.”

Judging by the expression on his face, Warren looked like the one who needed a pep talk. Maybe that’s what he was really doing right now—talking to himself.

“I agree,” she said. “It still stings, though. You know how it is. Every time you go into the courtroom, no matter how strong or weak your case, you always believe you’re going to win. It’s the mindset you need to have as a trial lawyer.”

Warren turned from the window and looked at her. “The question is, how are we going to win now? The glove and the confession are out. Fine. Let them go. Forget about them. Focus on what we do have.”

“What we do have isn’t much, unfortunately.”

Warren grunted. “Leary hasn’t dug anything up? Graham and Novak? There’s got to be more evidence out there. A guy doesn’t drop a bloody glove within walking distance of his crime scene, but make no other mistake.”

“He made other mistakes. He got himself caught on video, for one thing. Wearing two different outfits—one coming, one going. And we found a witness who says she saw him enter Edley’s house.”

“That sounds good.”

“Well.” Jessie chewed her lip. “She saw him from a house across the street. At night. And she didn’t ID him from a photo array or a lineup. She told the police it was him after seeing Hazenberg’s picture on the news.”

“Sounding less good,” Warren said.

“I know. If we just had the glove and the confession.”

“I told you, forget about those. Thinking about them is holding you back. Did we have a couple smoking guns? We thought we did. But we don’t. So why are you comparing every piece of evidence to something we don’t have? Evaluate the new evidence on its own merits, not on whether it can replace evidence that we lost.”

Jessie nodded. She might have her issues with Warren as her boss, but there was no question he was an experienced and knowledgeable prosecutor. She recognized the value of the advice. But she was finding it difficult to implement. Her brain kept coming back to the glove and the confession. Imagining twelve jurors looking at that glove, holding it in their hands, hearing about the DNA evidence recovered from it. Imagining them listening to Maxine Hazenberg’s harrowing testimony. All that great evidence, lost.

And she couldn’t shake the premonition that Hazenberg was going to walk.

“Thanks, Warren. I’ll try.”

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