If there is an edict that should be carved in the criminal law, it is that truth does not always sell to a jury. Acosta may very well have felt the bumps of bigotry in life, but people holding positions of privilege have a hard time playing the ethnic card when things turn soar. I tell him this.
“It could be something else that caught up with you,” says Lenore.
“It’s no mystery that you were not the poster boy for the cops,” I tell him.
He runs a hand through thinning hair, then begins to agree with us.
“Absolutely,” he says. “You are right. I have spent many years protecting the rights of defendants. I have sought justice in my court.”
Break out the red tights and blue cape.
“I have upheld the Constitution,” he says. “They would have every reason to hate me.”
“For a defense, it is a little broad,” I tell him.
He looks at me with a studied expression. “You think that perhaps civil liberties is a bit like race,” he tells me.
I nod. “As a possible defense it may provide some garnish, but it cannot be the centerpiece. You are not the only practitioner of libertarian views on the bench,” I tell him. “A jury may have difficulty understanding why you were singled out for prosecution.”
“But I was the only judge overseeing a grand jury probe of the Police Association.”
Bingo. Finally he goes where I have wanted to take him.
“Everything else is decoration,” I say.
He is a picture of considered opinion.
It is the funny thing about being in trouble. You are the last to see connections.
Acosta has already filled us in as to his claim that Hall set him up in the prostitution sting. According to him, she called to say she had information in the police corruption probe, evidence that she would share only with him. Whether we believe this or, more important, whether a jury will, only time will tell. But it has the threads of a possible defense. If someone in the association were willing to frame Acosta on a misdemeanor in order to dampen his enthusiasm in the search for corruption, how much more likely would they be to shower him with incrimination when Hall turned up dead?
“We have some papers,” says Lenore. “Items we need to review.” She holds them up for the guard to see. He nods, an indication that someone will be there to retrieve them momentarily, to deliver them to Acosta’s side of the partition.
“I will look at them,” he says, “but it won’t do much good. They’ve taken my reading glasses.”
Lenore shoots me a look.
“They probably thought I would cut my wrists with them.” A bitter laugh.
“When did they take them?” she asks.
“Hmm.” He thinks. “Two days ago. I can watch television. That is all.”
“You haven’t by chance lost another pair recently?” This comes from Lenore.
“No. Not that I recall.”
“How many pairs do you have?” I ask.
“What is this?” he says. “What’s the problem?”
“How many pairs of glasses do you have?”
“I don’t know. Why? Is it important?”
“Could be,” I tell him.
“It’s hard to say,” he tells me. “You know how it is. You misplace some. You tend to collect others over the years, with new prescriptions.” He gives us a shrug as if to dismiss the issue. “Maybe four or five. I don’t know. Why?”
If the cops have Acosta’s glasses, they will already know his prescription. There is little sense in hiding the ball.
“The police found a pair of reading glasses in Hall’s apartment,” says Lenore. “We think they’re operating on the assumption these belong to the killer.”
He says nothing, but his eyes no longer engage us. Instead they are looking down, at the counter on his side of the glass, as if searching aimlessly for something that is not there.
Finally he collects himself, realizes we are looking at him.
“I see,” he says. “I don’t think I am missing any glasses.”
“Where do you keep them?” I ask.
He gives me an inventory, his best recollection. Two pair in the desk of his study at home. These are older but he still uses them. Another in his chambers in the courthouse, though the location of these is somewhat in doubt. He had moved some items from the courthouse following his suspension from the bench and is not sure whether the glasses made it in the move.
“That would make four pair, counting the ones they seized from you here. Did they give you a receipt for the pair they took?”
He looks at me and shakes his head.
Lenore makes a note to get a receipt.
“We also ought to get a picture of the pair they took,” she says. “Just to be safe.”
The thought is not lost, that if the cops are making out a case, some sleight of hand or sloppy chain of custody, and these, the seized pair of glasses, could end up being identified as the pair found at the scene.
“We’ll check with your wife and have her collect all the spare glasses. To account for them,” I tell him.
“That would be good,” he says. “I think she can get into my chambers at the courthouse.”
“We may also need the address of your eye doctor. To check his records, just to be sure that we have all the glasses and to get the prescription.”
He gives us the name of an eye clinic on the mall.
“Lili will have the phone number in my Rolodex. The doctor’s name as well.”
If he is lying about the glasses he shows no sign of it.
We go through some of the other evidence. I am dying to pop the question-how his name came to appear on the victim’s calendar for the date she was murdered-but I cannot. The cops have yet to disclose this fact as part of discovery, though I am sure it is coming. To ask Acosta would be to raise the question of how we came by this information, Lenore’s little intrigue into the victim’s apartment that night. The things you do and don’t want to know in a trial.
We talk instead about hair and fibers, the stuff found at the girl’s apartment. Acosta cannot remember the color of the carpet in the trunk of his county car. “Something dark,” he says.
“What kind of a car is it?”
“Buick Skylark. Metallic blue,” he tells us. What the county would buy, a fleet of mostly GM cars, where they would get a bargain on volume from some dealer in the area.
“Do you know the year?”
A slow shake of the head. “It was assigned to me two years ago, but I don’t know if I was the first to have it.”
According to Acosta the car could have been a hand-me-down from someone higher on the political food chain, a member of the county board of supervisors or other elected official.
“It’s still in the police impound,” says Lenore. “We can have it checked by our investigator. Some fiber samples taken.” She makes a note to do it.
“What about the hair?” I ask him. “Coarse, short, and reddish brown.” This, according to notations from a preliminary lab report the cops have now released, is not human, but animal hair.
“Do you own any pets?” I ask him.
“No. I am allergic to dander. No cats or dogs,” he says.
“Grandkids don’t bring anything over?” I ask.
“It is not allowed.”
It may be a meager point, but it is one for our side.
The guard arrives with the papers on his side of the glass.
“Mostly crime scene reports, notes by the police, preliminary discovery,” Lenore tells him. “We’ve read them. We want you to review them. Tell us whether anything you see is significant. Something we should know about.”
He tells us he will do his best. Maybe we could find him a magnifying glass.
Lenore tells him she will have his wife deliver another pair of glasses as soon as possible.
“We have to plan for the preliminary hearing,” I tell him. “We want to file a motion before the end of the week.”
“You should not worry about that,” he says.
“Why?”
“There won’t be one.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I intend to waive the hearing,” he says.
There is an instant of stunned silence, as we sit slack-jawed on our side of the glass, then a flurry of argument-Lenore trying to reason, telling him a waiver of the preliminary hearing would be a major mistake.