The Neon Lawyer (9 page)

Eighteen

Two weeks came and went in the blink of an eye. Brigham’s days were spent researching motions and drafting cross-examinations for the eventual preliminary hearing and trial. He used Scotty as his mock jury, but he frequently fell asleep because of an anti-anxiety medication he was on. Brigham let him sleep and kept going.

The roll call was as packed as the arraignment. Brigham came early to the courthouse so he could get the first spot. He went into the holding cells and sat in a chair in the corner. A bailiff shouted, “Pierce. Your lawyer’s back here.”

Amanda quietly walked out with a rattle from the chains. She sat across from him and tried to smile. She looked pale and skinny.

“Everything all right at the jail?” he asked.

“Fine.”

“They’re feeding you okay and everything?”

She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”

“If you’re having any problems, let me know.”

She looked up at him. “I’m fine. What’re we doing today?”

“We’re just going to be setting the case for what’s called a preliminary hearing. It’s kind of like a miniature trial. The state has to present enough evidence to convince a judge that a crime was committed and that you committed it. They have to show evidence for every element of every crime they’re charging you with. But the standard is much lower than a trial. Just enough to make sure they have the right person.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

“Do you have any questions?”

“No.”

“Okay, I’ll call your case as soon as I can.”

Brigham hurried back to the courtroom. At least five lawyers were now ahead of him. As he went to sit down at the end of the bench, the doors to the courtroom opened and Vince Dale walked in.

The suit he was wearing probably cost more than anyone else’s in the courtroom. The knot of his bow tie today was perfectly flawed, just enough to show that it wasn’t a cheap pre-tied one. His pocket square echoed a glimpse of the lining of his suit. An assistant trailed behind him, holding his files and a laptop. Brigham had asked Tommy about Vince, and all Tommy had said was that Vince Dale was next in line to be district attorney. He had the political support of the county Republican Party, which was essentially a guarantee that he would be DA, and he had wealthy backers. Brigham wondered how it was someone found wealthy backers—probably with deals they wouldn’t want made public.

“Mr. Theodore,” Vince said, a smile on his lips. “So glad you could make it.”

“We’ll still take manslaughter if you wanna offer it.”

He scoffed. “I think we’re past the point of negotiation.”
“Guess you’re right. Conviction in a big case like this right before an election looks pretty good, don’t it?”

Vince leaned down, close enough to whisper. “I eat cocky assholes like you for breakfast.”

Brigham grinned. “Yeah, that’s the kind of breakfast I’d expect of you.” He leaned back. “Might want to get comfortable. I’m last in line.”

“Nonsense. Now we can’t have poor Ms. Pierce sitting on pins and needles, can we?” Vince went up to the podium, practically pushing a female defense attorney out of the way, and said to the bailiff, “I’m ready on my case.”

The bailiff, as if receiving an order from his boss, went back behind the judge’s seat and through a door. He came back out a minute later and said, “All rise. Third District Court is now in session. The Honorable Thomas Ganche presiding.”

The judge sat down and turned on his computer before noticing Vince.

“Mr. Dale, pleasure to see you again.”

“You too, Your Honor. How was George’s graduation?”

“Four grandchildren down and two to go. Then I can retire once they’re all out of college.”

“Well, that would certainly be our loss.”

He grinned as the clerk handed him a red file. “Opinions vary on that, I think. What have you got today?”

“Amanda Pierce, Your Honor.”

Ganche scanned the courtroom and his eyes rested on Brigham. “Care to join us, Mr. Theodore?”

Brigham confidently strode to the defense podium to the sneers of a few defense attorneys. It reminded him of a group of vultures laughing at one of their own who was about to be eaten.

“What’s anticipated, Counsel?”

Brigham said, “We request a preliminary hearing, Your Honor.”

Ganche looked at both of them and then closed the file. “In chambers, please.”

Vince strolled around the podium and casually walked across the courtroom, following the judge through the door that the bailiff had used earlier. Brigham followed.

That was how powerful judges were, Brigham thought. That they could leave a hundred people at any time and the people would just have to wait for them.

They went back to the judge’s chambers, nothing but a large office with its own bathroom. An American flag hung on one wall, along with several photos of a young Thomas Ganche in military uniform. His diplomas, displayed prominently behind the desk where everyone entering could see them, said he received his undergraduate degree from Cornell and his law degree from the University of Texas.

“Don’t tell me you have your eyes on a trial,” he said.

Vince went to a mini-fridge and took a bottle of water. He sat down next to Brigham and unbuttoned his suit coat.

“Yes, we are going to trial,” Brigham said.

Ganche shook his head. “Son, that is just stupid. What’s the offer?”

“Homicide, fifteen to life,” Vince said.

Ganche turned to Brigham. “No death penalty. That’s a fine offer for something done with people around.”

“I’ll decide after prelim,” Brigham insisted.

Vince took a sip of the water. “After prelim, the offer’s off the table.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re going to make me do a prelim on a case that you should plead to.”

Ganche shrugged in an up-to-you way.

“I’ll talk to my client,” Brigham said.

“You do that,” Ganche said. “We’ll wait.”

Brigham hesitated and then rose. He went out to the courtroom and to Amanda, who was still standing at the podium.

“The prosecutor said if you don’t take the deal right now, it’s off the table.”

“I have to decide right now?” she asked.

“I’m afraid so.”

She thought for a second. “What do you think?”

“I think we should tell them to shove their deal where the sun don’t shine. But if we lose, I’m not the one that’s looking at the death penalty.”

She shook her head. “They just want me to go away. I saw my case in the news. They want me to go away.”

“Maybe. It can’t look good to parents that someone who did what you did is facing the death penalty. You’d also be the first woman to face it in this state. I don’t think the prosecutor wants to be known as the first prosecutor in Utah to execute a woman.”

She nodded. “I want to fight it.”

“Are you sure? There’s no going back after today.”

“I’m sure.”

He glanced to another inmate, who was drooling and staring blankly at the wall. “I will do everything I can to take care of you.”

“I know you will.”

Brigham went back into the judge’s chambers. Ganche and Vince were laughing about something. They stopped when he came in. Brigham didn’t sit this time.

“My client has turned down the offer. We’ll be moving forward.”

The judge sighed. “It’s a mistake, son. She’ll die.”

“All of us in here know the state of Utah isn’t going to execute a woman. Especially one that killed a homicidal rapist pedophile. So both of you can stop trying to intimidate me.”

“I would watch your tone, young man,” the judge warned. “You need to respect this Court as you would respect the law itself.”

“Respect the law?”

“Counsel, you better—”

“If I sense that you are not being fair, totally fair, for even a second, I will file a motion to recuse you. I’m sure you don’t want to be recused from a case that’s getting national press any more than Vince does.”

Brigham paused to see the effect of his words on both men. Vince was grinning, but the judge’s face was twisted in anger and slightly blushing.

Brigham turned and walked out. His heart was thumping as if it were trying to break out of his chest and fly away.

Nineteen

The preliminary hearing was set on a Wednesday morning. On the Tuesday morning before, Brigham was in his office reading transcripts of murder trials where the defense had obtained an acquittal. Every single one had the exact same strategy: paint the victim as the biggest lowlife in the world. Make it seem like the defendant had done the world a favor by offing the victim. In this case, it wouldn’t be difficult to do.

Tommy walked in with an unlit cigar dangling from his mouth. He placed a check on the desk and slid it toward Brigham. The check was for $4500.

“What is this?”

“For you. The murder.”

“It’s more than a quarter.”

“I know. You’ve earned it. And when you get to trial, I’m going to let you keep the full thing.”

Brigham stared at the check. He had never seen one for this amount. “I’m fine with the deal. You don’t have to do this, Tommy.”

“I know I don’t have to. I want to. You’re doing good work. Besides, Law Offices of TTB is in the news every week. You can’t buy that kind of advertising.”

He turned and left, leaving Brigham staring at the check. $4500. Enough to pay rent for a year, or buy groceries for just as long. He could stretch this money out for a long time. He placed the check in his bag and went back to the transcripts.

Over the past two weeks, he and Molly had been spending the evenings together.

After the first couple of dates, their initial format of dinner and a movie had turned into drinks at her place. Now, he was over there almost every night.

She lived in a high-rise downtown that Brigham didn’t think he would ever be able to afford. The condo overlooked the entire city and had white carpets with mirrored walls. More than once, Brigham had fallen asleep in the hot tub next to the pool on her roof while reading legal treatises on Molly’s iPad. Her soft touch would wake him and they’d go downstairs to her bedroom.

Brigham had always felt somewhat awkward in the bedroom, but Molly knew exactly what to do. She was perfect in the nude, an image of feminine beauty. Even the way she smelled drove him crazy, and he found himself thinking about her when he wasn’t with her.

One night, when they were lying in her bed with moonlight cascading over them, she told him that she hadn’t been with a man in a long time—not since her messy divorce complete with all the clichés, including an insane husband who used to beat her in drunken rages, an affair, and a nasty financial split, which all culminated in her leaving her hometown of Los Angeles and moving to Salt Lake City, of all places.

Brigham listened quietly. He could tell this was something she hadn’t intended to share with anyone, so he didn’t say anything. He just held her and they watched the moon out the windows.

The next morning, he felt a bond to her that he knew hadn’t been there the night before. She had shown him a wound she didn’t want seen and it was a secret between them now. Secrets had the power to make people stick together against the rest of the world.

On the morning of the preliminary hearing, Brigham had a breakfast of Cap’n Crunch and rode his bike straight to the courthouse. The bailiff had now seen him on three separate occasions and still got out his wand for him.

In the courtroom he waited a good half hour while the judge took care of some housekeeping matters: two cases that had motions for him to sign. Then the judge called Amanda Pierce.

Tommy had told Brigham that the preliminary hearing was the most important hearing in a criminal case—what the state or the defense thought a witness was going to say was almost never what they were actually going to say, and prelim was the place to discover that. It was held in front of a different judge than that assigned to the trial, so the trial judge wouldn’t know the case before the trial.

Today’s judge was an older woman with white hair. Her face looked carved of stone: no emotion whatsoever. Her voice was deadpan. Even when she was sentencing the defendant of the case before to jail, she sounded like she was reading a phone book.

The Court had to wait ten minutes for Vince Dale to show up. The judge didn’t say anything as he and his assistant set up a laptop on the prosecution table. Brigham figured that if he had been the one who was ten minutes late, he’d probably be in cuffs.

He glanced behind him. Molly was sitting where the defense attorneys usually sat in line. She smiled at him and he couldn’t help smiling back. Scotty sat next to her, nodding off.

“Your Honor,” Vince said, “the state is ready to proceed with the Amanda Pierce preliminary hearing.”

The bailiff brought Amanda out to sit next to Brigham. He had several legal pads in front of him, and on his laptop were the cross-examination questions he had prepared for the officers and witnesses.

“Your Honor, the state moves to admit eleven-oh-two statements in lieu of today’s witnesses,” Vince said.

“Any objection from the defense?”

“Um, one moment, Your Honor.” He turned to Molly and leaned close to her ear. “Can he do that?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “Eleven-oh-two lets them submit affidavits instead of testimony. But I’ve never seen a prosecutor do it with all their witnesses. They usually do it with one or two.”

Brigham faced the judge. “Your Honor, I would object on the grounds that my client doesn’t get an opportunity to confront her accusers.”

“This is prelim, I don’t believe she has that right here.”

“I think if we look at the intent of a preliminary hearing, it is so the client is not wrongly accused of a crime, so that someone can sit on that stand and point the finger and say ‘yes, that’s her right there.’ The state is denying her a preliminary hearing by submitting these documents. How am I supposed to cross-examine documents?”

“Mr. Dale?” the judge said.

“The law is clear, Your Honor,” he said, winking at Brigham. “The preliminary hearing is a procedural hearing, not a substantive one. The accused has no right to confront anything. This hearing is strictly for the judge. If the Court feels the affidavits from four sworn law enforcement personnel and three civilian witnesses are inherently trustworthy, that’s enough. The accused gets a trial. She doesn’t need two.”

The judge took a second to think. “That’s essentially how I see it, Counsel. I’m allowing the eleven-oh-two statements in lieu of testimony. My clerk will read them into the record.”

Brigham sat down as the clerk began reading the statements. They were about as he expected—no one doubted what had happened. Amanda deliberately shot Tyler Moore in the head. The only question in Brigham’s mind was whether a jury would convict her for it.

When the clerk had finished reading the last statement, the judge said, “Unless you intend to call the defendant, I’m ready for arguments.”

“I’d like to renew my objection,” Brigham said, “for the record. And the defendant will not be testifying.”

“So noted. Mr. Dale?”

“We’ll submit, Your Honor.”

The judge began writing on a red file. “I find there is probable cause to bind the defendant over for trial. I’m setting second arraignment out three weeks unless someone has a problem with that. Thank you, Mr. Dale, Counsel.”

Amanda turned to Brigham and said, “What does that mean?”

“It means we lost. I’ll come visit you soon.”

Brigham sat at the defense table as Amanda was taken back to the holding cells. She had a crutch, but every step was a struggle. The bailiff was texting on his phone rather than really helping her.

“It doesn’t matter,” Molly said behind him. “I’ve never even
seen
the defense win a prelim and get the case dismissed.”

“Why do I get the feeling we’re playing a rigged game?”

“Because you are.”