“Are you sure?” the judge asked. “Do you remember? You say there were two women?”
“Well, now let’s see,” Keddie said. “One of those women was a little chunky and the other one... I can’t remember her very well, Judge. You pick up lots of people and—”
“The point is, can you swear that she wasn’t the defendant?”
“Well, I can’t remember her so clearly, but I never saw this defendant until the lineup the next morning — I mean, after that trip when I picked her up out there at that intersection.”
“Are you positive you never saw the defendant from the time you picked her up out there at the point indicated on this map until you saw her in the lineup the next morning?”
“Oh, if the Court please,” said Hamilton Burger, “I think now we are beginning to see the pattern of this—”
“Just a minute,” Judge Hoyt said. “Just a minute. I don’t want counsel for either side to interrupt me. I want to finish this line of questioning in my own way.”
“Yes, Your Honor,” Hamilton Burger said.
“I, too, would like to ask a question,” Mason told the Court.
“You may ask it when I finish,” Judge Hoyt snapped.
“I submit,” Mason said, “that in a matter of this sort, counsel should not be precluded from cross-examining the witness. My rights have been somewhat curtailed, and I—”
“The Court will do the questioning at this point,” Judge Hoyt said. “Counsel will be quiet.
“Now, I want to have this definitely understood,” Judge Hoyt continued, turning to the witness. “Is there any reasonable chance that this receipt, which was apparently taken from the defendant’s purse, is the receipt for a trip made later in the evening, the trip that you have referred to as the pickup of two women at North La Brea?”
The witness fidgeted a bit on the witness stand.
“Yes or no?” Hoyt asked.
“Yes, there is a chance,” the witness admitted.
“How much of a chance?”
“Well, if you’re going to put it that way, Judge, Your Honor, I suppose there’s a pretty good chance.”
“That’s what I wanted to know,” Judge Hoyt snapped.
“I want to ask a question,” Hamilton Burger said.
“I beg your pardon,” Mason told him. “I think I was cross-examining the witness. I haven’t finished with my cross-examination.”
“Well, I think I’m entitled to ask a question at this time, anyway, in order to get this thing straightened out for the Court,” Hamilton Burger said.
“The Court is quite able to straighten things out for itself, if they can be straightened,” Judge Hoyt said. “The Court doesn’t need a guardian or an interpreter.”
“Your Honor, I think the answer is obvious,” Hamilton Burger said. “This defendant undoubtedly knows one of the women who made that trip out from North La Brea and got this receipt from that woman. It’s very easy to see the way the thing was manipulated. The women cruised around without giving this taxi driver any definite directions. As soon as the meter had reached the amount of two dollars and ninety-five cents, these women got out, took the receipt and, undoubtedly, following the instructions of adroit counsel, delivered the receipt to the defendant so that it would be found in her purse, thereby laying a trap for the witness.
“That, Your Honor, not only constitutes unprofessional conduct, but it’s the strongest declaration of guilt we could possibly have because it shows that even at that time, the defendant knew she was going to be questioned about this trip and participated in arrangements to trap the law enforcement officers.”
“Do you have anything to say on that point, Mr. Mason?” Judge Hoyt asked.
“Why should I?” Mason asked. “That’s the district attorney’s theory. He isn’t under oath. He doesn’t know what happened. In the due course of time, at the proper time and place, I will show what happened. I will prove that this man has testified to certain things which simply aren’t so. He is the victim of his own mistaken recollection.”
Judge Hoyt stroked the angle of his chin. “Well,” he said, “you go ahead, Mr. Mason, and continue with your cross-examination. The Court will state, however, that this is a most unusual situation and one which the Court feels should be investigated.”
“I’ll say so,” Hamilton Burger muttered disgustedly.
Mason turned to the witness. “When you say that you picked up the defendant out there at the point you indicated on the map, around a quarter to five in the afternoon, did you pay particular attention to her clothes?”
“I did.”
“Did you pay particular attention to her face?”
“I noticed it was pale.”
“Did she have a hat, or was she bare headed?”
“She... well, now, wait a minute... I—”
“Don’t say unless you’re sure,” Mason said.
“To tell you the truth, I’m not sure.”
“Was she wearing earrings?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did she carry a handbag?”
“Yes, she carried a handbag, I know, because she took the money out of it.”
“Now, you noticed her face particularly?”
“I noticed it was pale.”
“And you say positively that it was this defendant?”
“Well... I thought it was this defendant.”
“But now that you think things over, there is a possibility that you have confused the face of that woman with the face of a woman who was in your cab later on in the evening, and when you saw the defendant in the lineup, you simply knew that her face was familiar and therefore picked her out.”
The cab driver again shifted his position.
“I don’t think that’s a fair question,” Hamilton Burger said.
“What’s unfair about it?” Judge Hoyt asked.
“He’s trying to trap the witness,” Burger said.
“He has a right to,” Judge Hoyt snapped. “Objection overruled. The witness will answer the question.”
The embarrassed taxi driver said, “Well, to tell you the truth, now you’ve got me confused and I don’t know just what did happen.”
“You now think there is a possibility that your memory played a trick on you?” Mason asked.
“It’s a possibility all right.”
“And that the time that you saw this defendant was later on in the evening, and the person you picked up there at approximately quarter to five might have been someone other than the defendant?”
“To tell you the truth, I don’t know what happened,” the cab driver said. “I thought I did, but now I don’t.”
“That’s all,” Mason said.
Hamilton Burger pounced on the witness. “Now don’t let some smart lawyer mix you all up,” he said. “You know what you saw and what you didn’t see. Now, you saw the defendant on the third of this month.”
The witness hesitated.
“I saw her sometime on the third, all right, because I knew her on the fourth when I saw her in the lineup.”
Hamilton Burger said, “From the time you first saw her on the third, did you ever see her again until you saw her in the lineup on the fourth?”
“No,” the witness said. “I’m positive of that. I saw her once before I saw her in the lineup, but I never saw her twice.”
“Only once,” Hamilton Burger said.
“That’s right.”
“And to the best of your recollection, the time you first saw her was out there at the point that you have indicated on the map at around four-forty-five in the evening.”
“Well, that’s the way I did feel about it, but I’m kind of mixed up now. I’m sort of going around in circles. To tell you the truth, I don’t know when I saw her.”