Deegan paused for a moment, holding her anger in check. “It’s obvious that the defendant or someone associated with him is trying to disrupt this trial by intimidating me and my family. Who knows? He may have already made similar threats against potential jurors or witnesses. Accordingly, I’m asking that the court revoke his bond and sequester the jury.”
“What?” The word was out before Alex even knew he had said it. He turned to Taj Deegan. “What evidence do you have that my client was behind this?”
“Who else do you think did this?” she shot back. “Open your eyes, Alex. You think somebody did this for a prank? Maybe I just got ‘punked’ by someone in my office?”
Rosenthal put his cigarette in an ashtray and held up his hand. “That’s enough. I don’t need you two at each other’s throat before we even pick the jury.” The judge sighed and snuffed out his cigarette. “Let’s stick to the issue at hand. Mr. Madison, what’s your response to the commonwealth’s motion to revoke bail and sequester the jury?”
“It’s ridiculous,” Alex said. “Mr. Mobassar was sitting at home last night with his disabled wife, wearing a court-ordered electronic ankle bracelet. Why would he do something like this? How could he? Next thing you know, Ms. Deegan’s going to march into court with a confession pasted together from cutout magazine letters and claim that she should be able to introduce it into evidence.”
“I don’t need your sarcasm,” Taj said. Her voice was as biting as Alex had ever heard it. She turned, eyes flaring, neck muscles taut. “Nobody messes with my kids. If you’re right and this is just a setup, you ought to join me in asking for Mr. Mobassar’s confinement so that nothing else gets blamed on him.”
The judge held up his hand a second time. “Okay,” he said, drawing the word out as he thought. “I’ve heard enough. Here’s what we’re going to do: As far as I’m aware, there is no specific evidence linking this note to Mr. Mobassar.” Rosenthal looked at Detective Sanderson. “Is that right?”
“Other than the reference to the case,” Detective Sanderson said.
“Yes, I get that,” Rosenthal said. “And even without the existence of a direct link, the court has wide latitude when it comes to the issue of bail. I tend to agree with Ms. Deegan that it is far better to err on the side of safety in these matters. I cannot let this case get derailed by intimidations and threats.”
The judge turned squarely toward Khalid. “If you’re behind any of this, sir, you need to know that neither the prosecutor nor this court will be intimidated.” The judge paused for a moment before continuing. “And if you’re not behind this, then revoking your bail will protect you from blame for things you didn’t do.
“Accordingly, I’m going to grant the commonwealth’s motion to revoke Mr. Mobassar’s bail during the pendency of the trial and restrict his communications to only his attorneys and family-”
“She didn’t even ask for that,” Alex interrupted.
The judge gave him a nasty look. “She doesn’t have to ask for it. I have the absolute power to impose my own terms, and that’s what I’ve just done.”
“We understand, Your Honor,” Shannon said. She apparently realized that Alex was too emotional right now to respond and would only dig himself a deeper hole if she let him. “Please note our objection.”
“So noted,” Rosenthal said. His tone had become more reasonable. “Given this occurrence, I also feel that the court has no choice but to sequester the jury.”
“We object to that as well, but we understand the court’s concern,” Shannon said quickly.
Rosenthal nodded at her. “I thought it best to conduct this hearing in my chambers so that the media didn’t catch wind of what happened and publish a story during the jury selection process. We’re going to have enough trouble picking an unbiased jury as it is. If either side objects, I’ll be happy to go into open court and state the reasons for my rulings on the record.” Rosenthal looked from Taj to Alex and back.
“We don’t want to make this any more complicated than it already is,” Taj said.
“Fine by us,” Alex said, though his tone said, What’s the use?
Rosenthal thought about this for a moment. “I’ll have to say something in open court. The issue of sequestering the jury is an easy one. It’s often done in cases like this to protect the jury from the press. But I won’t tell them they’re going to be sequestered until the end of the day so that we don’t have more than the usual number trying to get off the panel.
“But with regard to the revocation of bond, my intent is to simply say that some matters have come to the court’s attention that would justify revocation of bond pending trial. I’ll probably get an FOIA request about this hearing from the press by the end of the day, but I’ll take that up if and when it’s filed.”***
When Rosenthal convened court that morning, he matter-of-factly announced that some things had been brought to his attention that made it prudent for him to revoke Mr. Mobassar’s bail. He then had the deputy sheriff bring in the prospective jury members and launched into an explanation of the jury selection process. For the rest of the morning, Judge Rosenthal and the lawyers went about the business of trying to find unbiased jurors to hear the case.
The media lawyers wasted no time. By lunch, they had filed their motions to obtain a transcript of the hearing held in Rosenthal’s chambers. The judge said they could argue the motion on Monday morning, and he would rule shortly thereafter.
The rest of the day on Friday was taken up with the tedious process of questioning individual jurors about their perspectives and biases. Every one of them had heard about the beheadings. Most promised they could be unbiased despite what they had seen or read.
But several of the jurors-especially those who were self-employed, Alex noted-were more blunt about their ability to be unbiased. “It’d be hard,” one juror admitted. “My understanding is that they have a text message from his phone.” Another took a swipe at Alex and his motion to suppress. “Actually, Judge, in my gut I’d have a hard time listening to somebody who’s already challenged the Patriot Act in order to find a loophole for his client.”
In order to keep any one juror’s opinions from poisoning everyone else, much of the questioning was done with individual jurors while the others waited in the deliberation room. Shannon had a clever way of talking to the jurors so that they would lower their guards and let some of their prejudices slip out. She and Deegan would then argue at length about whether this juror should stay or that juror should go. By the end of the day, the parties had sifted through only eighteen prospective jurors and had dismissed fifteen of them for cause. Not one of the three remaining jurors was a member of the Muslim faith.
“At this rate, I won’t be giving my opening statement until Tuesday,” Alex whispered to Shannon.
“You want an unbiased jury or a lynch mob?” Shannon whispered back.
“So far, it’s hard to tell the difference.”
76
Alex practically lived at the office from the time court adjourned on Friday until court reconvened Monday morning. But no matter how early he arrived or how late he left, Shannon was there before him and stayed later.
The rest of the world was getting into the holiday spirit, but for Madison and Associates, there was not a Christmas card or decoration anywhere in the office. There was certainly no tree. Those types of things all took time-the one thing that Khalid Mobassar’s legal team did not have.
By Monday morning, there were documents scattered throughout every square inch of the office. They still needed about ten more days to prepare for the case-and ten more lawyers. And when Alex dragged his weary body out of bed Monday morning, he couldn’t remember the last time he had managed more than five hours of sleep.