“Well, do we have a consensus?” Lenore whispers, leaning over the counsel table. “What do we do with Mrs. Ramirez? Is she on or off? Or do you want to do more voir dire?”
Today we are ensnared in the next course of the Coconut’s juridical minefield. The four of us, Harry and Lenore, Acosta and I, are camped at the defense counsel table in Radovich’s courtroom, delving through a pile of jury profiles.
We did some legal parrying last week, motions to suppress, arguing that the cops had exceeded the scope of the warrants when they collected the fibers from Acosta’s county car and the animal hair from his home. Radovich gave them wide berth. With this judge, if we are to win at trial, it will not be grounded in the nuance of constitutional law. He gave our motion the old smell test, and flatly pronounced that the warrants were specific enough. The hair and fibers are in, subject to the state showing relevance and proper foundation.
Kline seemed vindicated. First blood for his side. On a roll, he told the judge that he wanted to join the prostitution case with the murder. We were hard-pressed to resist this, having argued for it originally ourselves, and so the matters are now joined, to be tried in one case.
It seems that he is headed somewhere with this, but we are not sure where. Kline then told Radovich that he had one other matter to be discussed in chambers when we are finished here today.
“The judge is waiting,” says Lenore. “Mrs. Ramirez,” she reminds us. “Thumbs up or down. Do we burn a preemptory or leave her on?”
“Maybe the state will waste her,” says Harry. “Mediterranean flavor,” he says, “they can’t be too happy.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” says Acosta. Harry’s getting the evil eye.
“No offense,” says Harry. “But if I were defending, I would swing for a panel of your people every time. The last time they voted conviction was at the Inquisition,” he says.
“I don’t think so,” says Acosta. “It is true there is an ethnic factor,” he says. “But there is something about her I do not like.”
It is the thing about juries. There are as many theories as there are lawyers to produce them.
Ordinarily I would not expect the defendant to play an active role in the selection of jurors. But the facts that Acosta is trained in the law and has a vital stake here make it necessary for him to participate. It has me wondering if in doing this we are not merely spreading the accountability for a bad result.
“Could we have just one more moment, Your Honor?” Lenore says to Radovich.
“Take your time,” he says. “I want you to be happy with this jury,” he tells us.
If that’s the case, Acosta has a few hundred relatives in the hallway outside who would be happy to join the jury.
“Come on, guys, I need a decision,” says Lenore.
“Lookie here,” Harry whispers, lips barely moving, “she has a history of drugs.” Like a car salesman pitching the fact that his model has air conditioning.
Acosta hasn’t seen this in the profile, more personal information than a juror usually discloses.
Harry points it out to him. “No convictions, but to listen to her therapist, she’s a cognitive basket case, some shrink’s lifetime meal ticket,” Harry hisses.
“Maybe I have misjudged the woman,” says Acosta. This is the only place on earth where flirting with a criminal background is a positive reference.
I read the profile more carefully. Ramirez got hooked on cocaine in her late twenties, buying from a friend at work. She nicked her employer on a disability claim on her way out the door. At thirty-seven, she has been receiving supplemental Social Security benefits for eleven years, on the social fiction that self-induced drugs are a disability on the order of Parkinson’s disease. She lives in a group home, owned by a therapist who apparently tells her she will never recover, at least not until the government largesse runs out. Last year, largely on the political drag of her therapist and the drug culture’s circle of benevolence, Ramirez was appointed to a county commission and now serves as the local “drug czarina” of Capital County, where she makes public policy for other addicts. For this she is given a county car and a small stipend to go along with her perennial SSI. Upward mobility on the public dole.
“She’s our perfect juror,” says Harry.
“On its face,” I tell him. “But I am troubled as to why anyone would disclose this kind of lurid information unless they had to.”
“Why don’t you ask her?” says Lenore.
It’s a tricky point, sensitive materials picked over in front of the other jurors. And yet we cannot just ignore it.
Lenore gives me a gesture, as if to say, “Be my guest,” and sits down.
Mrs. Ramirez sits near the center of the jury box, in the second row. The courtroom is full of mostly other prospective jurors waiting their turns in the tumbler as we bounce their predecessors.
There is one row for press. This is mostly empty. Jury selection doesn’t rate heavy coverage. In the back row, Lili Acosta sits by herself. An elderly man and woman are across the aisle from her, flanked by a younger man. I am told that this is Brittany Hall’s mother, father, and younger brother, here to see that justice is done.
Like most things with this judge, Radovich does voir dire in his own way. For this trial, because of the early publicity, he has called five hundred prospective jurors. Our first meeting was in a county auditorium, where Radovich asked some preliminary questions, what people saw and thought they knew. He weeded out nearly two hundred souls, including a woman whose husband had been cited downtown in a prostitution sting. It is unknown whether she would have hanged the police for their efforts, or Acosta for being so stupid. Radovich didn’t care.
“Mrs. Ramirez, how are you today?” I ask her.
“Fine.” She smiles, no toothy grin, but businesslike. She may be in her late thirties, but looks older. She is slender and small, a kind of Latin pixie with wavy dark hair pulled back by a comb.
“You have been very forthcoming in your juror questionnaire,” I say. “You have volunteered a lot of details regarding your background. I want to thank you.”
“I wanted to be honest,” she says. “I am a recovered drug user. I have been taught that acknowledgment and acceptance is the first step in any cure. I do not deny my past,” she says.
She would give me twenty more minutes of this, admission of sin being good for the soul, the Church of Reformed Zealotry, but I cut her off.
“A healthy attitude,” I tell her.
There are now big red flags fluttering in my brain. To one holding such views, the Coconut could be seen as in a state of denial, the only cure being some further fall from grace.
She is immaculately dressed, in a silk print and high heels, wearing tasteful earrings, an outfit to make an impression. What makes me think that she wants to sit on this jury?
“As long as you have been so honest with us I think we have an obligation to be honest with you, and with the rest of the panel. You have no criminal record. Is that right?”
“No.”
“And you have never been arrested for drug use, have you?” My merit badge for the day: Self-esteem 101.
“No.” With this she sits an inch taller in her chair. She may have been a walking pharmacy, but the cops never caught her.
“And you never dealt drugs? Sold them for cash to anyone else?” On this I am on squishy ground, so I try to make the question as narrow as possible. I hold my breath until she answers.
She makes a face like perhaps she is weighing her answer-maybe given them to others, but never for money. Then she finally says: “No.”
The relief on Radovich’s face up on the bench says, “Thank you.”
It seems that the cozy rigors of therapy, acknowledgment, and acceptance do not include admissions that might involve a stretch in the joint. Maybe there is hope for this woman yet.