“Again, that’s the key. No matter what he did, by Mr. Richardson’s definition of the law, we would be here trying the same case for a different set of deaths.”
“The law against second degree murder is for punishing someone who knows that doing something completely voluntary, such a pulling the trigger on a gun they’ve cocked and aimed, would likely result in a death, and they did it anyway. This law was never intended to cover a dire emergency by reference only to its outcome. Captain Marty Mitchell, as he said himself, never did anything volitionally or knowingly to hurt another human. That has one conclusion and only one when you get into the jury room. You must acquit.”
“Please keep this in mind: If you do not acquit, you will be sending a major message to every airline pilot who flies into or through Colorado that should an emergency ever happen with life threatening potential, their only hope of avoiding criminal prosecution will be blindly following whatever their company tells them to do. Imagine being on such an airplane and the pilots are not allowed to use their own training and intelligence. Imagine your life hanging on the opinion of someone in a distant command center who isn’t even there and who cannot have all the facts. If that’s what you want to fly with, then convict Captain Mitchell. If you want thinking, caring humans doing their best, you must acquit.”
Richardson was not about to let Judith have the last word, and since the prosecution gets the chance to make the final comment, he rose again to address the jury with as much simplicity as he could muster.
“Ladies and gentlemen, Ms. Winston certainly didn’t disappoint in providing a great opportunity to distract you. But let me bring you back to reality. Captain Mitchell made the conscious decision to maintain a dangerous airspeed knowing that the potential for loss of human life was very great, and thus regardless of any other information about runways or headlights or any other distraction, the fact is unavoidable: Because of his refusal to slow down to a safe speed, he knowingly caused five deaths, and in accordance with Colorado law, you have no choice but to convict.”
Two hours of intense wrangling between Judith and Grant Richardson in front of the judge finally distilled the court’s final instructions to the jury, as she explained to Marty later, the best compromise they could engineer. With that, the case went to the jury, and the waiting began.
Sitting quietly at the defense table, Marty was aware of Judith and the team beginning to repack all the notebooks and legal pads and other supporting materials, but he remained without comment until she snapped her briefcase shut and turned to him.
“You okay?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never wanted to snap anyone’s neck before, but with Richardson… I…”
They were interrupted by someone handing a folded note to Judith
“What’s this?” she asked.
“A gentleman in the back would like a word with you, if you have a moment.”
She unfolded the note.
It is urgent I have a moment to speak with you. I believe a great injustice is about to be done, and there is a very material element to all this that you — and the court — should be aware of. Carl Moscone
“What is it?” Marty asked.
“I’m not sure. Would you go with Joel and the others back to that conference room and let me see.”
“Sure. But what do you think?”
She touched his arm, “Marty, I think we hit all the points, and I don’t think Richardson scored any home runs. But this is what we all hate about the jury system — having to wait and worry.”
He knew that wasn’t a real answer, but he was being kind enough and calm enough not to press.
She moved toward the courtroom door feeling a combination of exhaustion and dread, none of which she could articulate.
When the small conference room door closed behind her, Carl Moscone shook her hand formally and asked her to sit.
“What is this about, sir?” she asked.
He remained standing, a well-groomed man in his late sixties, gray at the temples but with a full head of dark hair and a sculpted, almost regal profile.
“Had you wondered, Ms. Winston, why Grant Richardson is so angry with your client?”
She sat forward. “Absolutely, but despite spading up heaven and earth with our PI’s, we couldn’t discover any connection, other than his attendance at two of the funerals.”
“He would have attended the funeral for my wife, Victoria, but he feared someone would find out.”
“I’m not following you.”
“My wife, Ms. Winston, was much younger than I. There was the usual clucking about a trophy wife, but when we married, we were both very much in love, and we remained so, although in certain areas… libido, for one… we became increasingly mismatched. She quietly set out to do something about it, and I essentially pretended not to notice.”
“I… find this fascinating, but what does it have to do with…”
“Victoria had a longtime lover, Ms. Winston, and his name is Grant Richardson, our District Attorney.”
“Oh my God!” Judith responded, her had involuntarily going to her mouth. “No wonder…”
“Victoria enjoyed him as a clandestine lover, but I happen to know that she wasn’t prepared for him to fall head over heels in love with her, which happened years back.”
“So, when she died in the crash…”
“He was devastated, angry, and determined to blame someone, and your client was in the crosshairs.”
“Richardson has a wife and kids!”
“Yes, as he has reminded us all in his exploitive political ads. That didn’t bother Victoria. As for my attitude? Frankly, I don’t respect hypocrites, and the more Richardson puffed his chest out as a pseudo-lawyer politician and a defender of family values while banging my wife behind my back, the more I disliked him.”