I stood again. “Your Honor, I mean, Commissioner. He didn’t strike Haskell. I have proof.”
“I said sit down!” Schlereth didn’t have a gavel, so he knocked the table with the tape recorder mic. Mrs. Thornton jumped when the amplified bang resounded in the room. “Sit down, now!”
“Besides,” I said, ignoring Schlereth’s demands, “this isn’t about Haskell. It’s about a mysterious woman named Vera. An evil woman, who manipulated my client.”
Schlereth rose out of his chair. “Mr. O’Brien, you’re disrupting the proceedings. I demand that you sit down and keep quiet.”
“Larry, wait a minute,” Mrs. Thornton said to Schlereth in a small voice. “Although the inmate wasn’t extradited to Arizona back in 1945 to stand trial for Haskell’s murder, from what I understand it was a factor in his plea agreement involving the woman’s homicide. Now, I’d like him to tell us why-if he didn’t hit the man over head-why was he implicated at all in Haskell’s death back then. And why his death would be a factor in his plea agreement.” Without waiting for Schlereth to reply, she said, “Go ahead, Mr. Roberts, would you please tell us what this is all about?”
We all turned to Roberts, who lumbered out of his chair. Staring straight ahead, not seeming to look at anyone in particular, he said, “Mr. Haskell was asleep, probably dead already, I dunno. When I stopped the car and opened his door, he fell out. His head hit a rock. My idea was to hide the body, not to rob him, but then I remembered I’d need money for gas. Besides, it was stupid to leave all that money on a dead man. What else could I do?” He hung his head and sat down.
“Money? Gas? I’m sorry, Mr. Roberts. I don’t understand.”
I jumped in. “That’s just it. He didn’t kill Haskell, but the DA had him over a barrel. The District Attorney lied. He knew Haskell wasn’t hit on the head. He knew the guy had died of natural causes, a heart attack. Haskell’s wound was a result of his body rolling out of the car and then his head hit something, a rock maybe, after he died. There’s not even a warrant outstanding in Arizona, never was. I checked.” I hadn’t checked, but they wouldn’t have known that.
I looked down at my client, sitting there. Roberts knew now that the DA had lied to him, convinced him that he’d be sent to Arizona to stand trial for Haskell’s murder, conned him into believing he’d be convicted and die in the gas chamber. But if he confessed to murdering Vera, he’d get an indeterminate life sentence here in California. The deal, he thought, saved him from death row. Without a lawyer, and without a reasonable defense, he had no choice. But the DA was bluffing. The authorities in Arizona must’ve known Haskell died of a heart attack and the gash on his head was postmortem. He now knew what I’d figured out yesterday: the DA’s office in Yuma had no intention of putting him on trial for murder. Roberts sat at the table, his face buried in his hands.
I turned back to the board. “The District Attorney at the time, a guy named Byron, lied and played Roberts for a fool. I have evidence, proof.”
“Okay, that’s enough,” Schlereth banged the mic again. “As I said earlier, Mr. O’Brien, this is not a court of law. If you have any exculpatory evidence, file a motion with the proper authorities.” Fingering his glasses, he pulled them down a millimeter on the bridge of his nose and glared at me. “Tell them about your so-called proof. Ask them for a new trial.”
Yeah, sure, I thought, a new trial almost thirty years after a guy pleads guilty to murder. “I’m going to do exactly that!” I announced, and sat down.
Schlereth glared at me, anger building, but didn’t add anything. He obviously wasn’t used to being challenged in the hearings, his fiefdom.
Everything went downhill from there, not that I was having much luck before then. When his turn came, Stephen Marshall, the Deputy DA from Los Angeles, got to his feet and reminded the board of their legal obligation to consider only the facts existing at the time of sentencing and disregard any claims of new evidence. Then he spoke eloquently about the need to punish murderers. “To allow heinous criminals back into society would violate the sense of right and wrong of a just people.” He mentioned the Supreme Court, how they had recently banned the use of the death penalty and now the only protection society had against murderers and other vicious predators was the ability of the State to keep them locked away forever. Especially double murderers like Roberts. I objected when the young assistant DA used that term.
When Marshall finally sat down, I got to my feet and spoke for a few minutes. I told the board about Roberts’s excellent prison record. “Not only that, he’s a gifted pianist. He performs in the prison band, entertaining the inmates, and has even played for the warden a time or two.”
But once I started delving into the facts concerning Roberts’s ill-gotten confession, Commissioner Goodwin, who’d been quiet up to that moment, dusted me off with a wave of his hand. He then leaned forward and peered at Roberts. He asked him if there was remorse in his heart, sorrow for murdering the woman.
Roberts didn’t answer. He stood there steadfast, staring at Goodwin, remaining stoically silent. Schlereth adjourned the hearing. The guards moved in to take Roberts away.
As they approached him, he turned to me and said in a low voice, “I thought Haskell might’ve been dead when he rolled outta the car, but I figured it would look like I clobbered him for his dough. The DA, that son-of-a-bitch! He knew.” Roberts pounded the air with his balled fists. “Goddammit, he knew I had nothing to do with it. I wasn’t gonna be sent Arizona, after all.”
“Maybe it was for the better,” I said.
“Man, what are you saying?”
“If you went to trial here in L.A. County over Vera’s death, with the lawyer you had at the time, you would’ve lost. You would’ve drawn the death penalty.”
“I didn’t kill her, either. I swear.”
The guards cuffed Roberts’s wrists, securing them to a chain lashed around his middle. Then they started to lead him away. He looked back at me over his shoulder. “Can I get a new trial, or were you just blowing smoke?” Without waiting for my answer, he turned and hobbled toward the door.
I stood there and watched Roberts as the prison guards frog-marched him across the room. He’d been railroaded by the DA back in 1945, which might be grounds for a new trial, but the courts wouldn’t go along with it unless I had new evidence to offer. Not evidence about Haskell’s death, but evidence that exonerated Roberts regarding Vera’s murder. And even if he were innocent and the evidence existed and the courts allowed me to proceed with a new trial, what about the money? The cost would be substantial and I figured Roberts had nothing. I’d have to be Merlin the Magician to pull that rabbit out of a hat, not an inexperienced lawyer with a Cub Scout merit badge.
CHAPTER 5
It took over an hour to get back to the office. I didn’t care; KFWB had broadcast a Beatles tribute practically the whole way. “Hey Jude,” the full version, three times in a row.
“The phone’s been ringing,” Mabel said as I came through the door.
“Clients?”
“Hardly.”
“Who?”
“Your little friend, Millie. Called several times. She’s upset.”
“Why?”
Before Mabel could respond, the phone rang. After answering it she handed the receiver to me. “Ask her yourself.”
“What’s up, Millie?”
Millie, an attractive divorced woman whom I’d taken to lunch several times, was Judge Balford’s clerk. She’d been instrumental in persuading the judge to assign cases to me when the public defender office was jammed up. The cases didn’t pay much but they provided a steady flow of income. I wondered for a moment why she was upset. Couldn’t have been the last lunch we had together. She said she loved Burger King.