This morning Armando sits next to me dressed in a dark suit, something Lili picked from his wardrobe. It hangs on him like the skin on an Auschwitz survivor, so much weight has he lost since we stalled.
Our first move is tactical. I ask the court to exclude all witnesses from the courtroom. This so that they may not hear the opening statements and conform their testimony accordingly.
Radovich goes me one better and instructs them not to listen to or read reports of the doings in this trial, though this is impossible to enforce.
“Mr. Kline, are you prepared to open?” says Radovich.
“Your Honor.” Kline rises from his chair. He tugs the French cuffs of his linen shirt an inch from the end of each sleeve of his suit coat, like a warrior girding himself for battle. Today he is dressed in his finest, a dark worsted suit, power blue, set off against a blue-and-red-striped club tie. The maroon satin lining of his coat flashes open as he approaches the jury box, and glances quickly at the watch on his wrist.
Then to the rapt silence of the courtroom, Kline opens slowly with the core concepts of his case, the central themes of the prosecution.
Standing four feet from the jury railing, without benefit of a rostrum or notes, he speaks in firm, clear tones, the discourse of death; how the victim’s body was found, dumped unceremoniously in a trash bin, how copious amounts of blood were discovered in her apartment, and the graphic nature of her death-a prelude to the pathologist who will soon take the stand.
“The state, ladies and gentlemen, will prove that this was a murder committed by the defendant, a man who held a position of trust in our society, a judicial officer sworn to uphold the law,” he says, “who betrayed that oath of office.” Through all of this he has an outstretched arm loosely directed at Acosta, pointed more generally at our table so that his words are an assault on any who might support the defendant.
This is an important theme, since if Acosta takes the stand, Kline is certain to revisit the implied violation of his sacred oath of office in weighing the man’s credibility. In all of this, the elements of deceit, the betrayal of trust, place high among the uncharged sins of my client the inferential and unstated reasons why the jury should put him to death.
“We will show that this murder was intended to obstruct the very ends of justice to which the defendant, Armando Acosta, was himself sworn to protect.”
With this, Kline lays open his theme, “the fallen judge,” to which he will return time and again. He tells them that the state will produce a witness who will verify beyond any reasonable doubt that the defendant attempted to engage in illicit and unlawful sexual relations with the victim, an undercover operative working with the police, and that Acosta was netted in this undercover sting, “a corrupted and fallen judge,” he says.
He walks them through the chronology of events in the earlier case, from the failed wire on Brittany Hall the night of the prostitution sting, to the collection of her statement by prosecutors, the contents of which he carefully skirts to avoid the hearsay objection. Still the point is well-made: that Acosta had a clear and indisputable motive for murder.
Through all of this, the eighteen souls-twelve jurors and six alternates-sit behind the railing, riveted by the unfolding tale.
Kline deftly deals with the picky little points, the circumstances that incriminate, stacking one upon the other as he continues to gather steam, until at a point he breaches the surface, belching fire and brimstone, unable to avoid the moral judgment. He is a verbal Vesuvius.
“We will show,” says Kline, “that this defendant had a reputation for illicit liaisons with other women that ultimately led to prostitution and murder.”
Radovich’s eyes go wide. A look at the seamier side, judicial life in the big city.
I can hear the frantic scratching of soft lead on paper. Reporters behind us in the front row getting cramps taking notes, trying to catch all the sewage being dumped on Acosta’s head at this moment.
The man is tugging at my sleeve.
“You should object,” he says.
I am already halfway to my feet as he says this.
“Your Honor, this is improper.”
“Mr. Kline,” says Radovich, “you are aware of the limitations regarding character,” he says.
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“Then the jury will disregard this last statement,” says the judge.
The issue here is whether the state will be allowed to delve into Acosta’s character, past acts that are not related to the crimes in question. This is taboo unless we open the issue ourselves by placing evidence of our client’s good character before the jury. With the Coconut, this would be something on the order of foraging for grass in the Sahara.
“Carry on,” says Radovich.
Kline gives him a slight bow of the head, an appropriate show of respect that for anyone else might come off as subjugation, but not with Kline. He picks up without losing a beat.
“The state will prove,” he says, “beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant, Armando Acosta, brutally and in cold blood murdered Brittany Hall, a judicial witness, in order to silence her and save his faltering judicial career.”
It is only a taste of what awaits us in the trial.
Then, for nearly two hours of uninterrupted monologue, Kline postures for effect, pacing in front of the jury box, as he makes point after point, turning on the key issues of his case, the hair and fibers, which he says expert witnesses will link to the defendant; the note in the victim’s own hand showing an appointment with the defendant for the day of the murder; the absence of any alibi for the defendant; the broken pair of reading glasses found at the murder scene, which Kline says he will link unequivocally to our client.
With this I glance over at Acosta, who gives me a daunting look. If they have evidence of this they have failed to disclose it.
Harry nearly rises from his chair, but I motion him to let it go. There is time for this out of the presence of the jury. Why make an issue here and mark it indelibly in their minds?
I see Harry make a note.
Kline has difficulty on one point that he cannot seem to explain, and yet cannot pass over without comment. Why, in his theory of Acosta as killer, would the judge move the body after the murder, to deposit it in a trash bin a mile from the woman’s apartment?
Kline admits that this involved risk, which no rational person would take on lightly. But then he adds that the defendant at that moment would not be acting rationally. His quick explanation is that having committed murder, the man panicked.
“Your Honor, I object. This is surmise and argument,” I tell Radovich. “Do the people intend to produce evidence on the point?”
Kline gives me a look like this is unlikely. How would he climb into my defendant’s mind?
“Then you shouldn’t be mentioning it here,” says Radovich. “The jury will disregard the last comment, the speculations of the district attorney,” says the judge.
Acosta raps me on the arm lightly with a clenched fist, a blow for our side.
It is a nagging loose thread, one that Kline cannot tuck neatly into his case. The fact remains that he has no ready explanation why the killer would take the time and assume the risk of moving the body. It is one of those gnawing points that lends itself to other theories, suggesting another sort of killer, one with reason to move Hall’s body. The first that comes to mind is a live-in lover. And yet no evidence of cohabitation was discovered in the apartment, no male clothing in the closet or drawers, no witnesses who saw men coming and going. And no effort was made to conceal the fact that death occurred in the woman’s apartment. For the moment, the mysterious movement of Hall’s body is a little more useful to our side, since we have no burden of proof.