Mickey Haller 4 - The Fifth Witness

Angeles Superior Court on charges of first-degree murder. A special circumstances count of lying in wait was added by the district attorney’s office, which made her eligible for a sentence of life without parole and even for the death penalty. It was a bargaining chip for the prosecution. I could see the DA wanting this case to go away with a plea agreement before public sympathy swung behind the defendant. What better way to get that result than to hold LWOP or the death penalty over the defendant’s head?
    The courtroom was crowded to standing room only with members of the media as well as FLAG recruits and sympathizers. Overnight the story had grown exponentially as word spread about the police and prosecution’s theory that a home foreclosure may have spawned the murder of a banker. It put a blood-and-guts twist on the nationwide financial plague and that, in turn, packed the house.
    Lisa had calmed considerably after almost twenty-four hours in jail. She stood zombie-like in the custody pen awaiting her two-minute hearing. I assured her first that her son was safe in the loving hands of her sister and second that Haller and Associates would do all that was possible to provide her with the best and most rigorous defense. Her immediate concern was in getting out of jail to take care of her son and to assist her legal team.
    Though the first-appearance hearing was primarily just an official acknowledgment of the charges and the starting point of the judicial process, there would also be an opportunity to request and argue for bail. I was planning to do just that as my general philosophy was to leave no stone unturned and no issue un-argued. But I was pessimistic about the outcome. By law, bail would be set. But in reality, bail in murder cases was usually set in the millions, thereby making it unattainable for the common man. My client was an unemployed single mother with a house in foreclosure. A seven-figure bail meant Lisa wouldn’t be getting out of jail.
    Judge Stephen Fluharty pushed the Trammel case to the top of the docket in an effort to accommodate the media. Andrea Freeman, the prosecutor assigned to the case, read the charges and the judge scheduled the arraignment for the following week. Trammel would not enter a plea until then. These routine procedures were dispensed with quickly. Fluharty was about to call a short recess so the media could pack up equipment and leave en masse when I interrupted and made a motion requesting him to set bail for my client. The second reason for doing this was to see how the prosecution responded. Every now and then I got lucky and the prosecutor revealed evidence or strategy while arguing for a high bail amount.
    But Freeman was too cagey to make such a slip. She argued that Lisa Trammel was a danger to the community and should continue to be held without bail until further into the proceedings of the case. She noted that the victim of the crime was not the only individual involved in foreclosing on Lisa’s place of residence, but only one link in a chain. Other people and institutions in that chain could be endangered if Trammel was set free.
    There was no big reveal there. It seemed obvious from the start that the prosecution would use the foreclosure as the motive for the murder of Mitchell Bondurant. Freeman had said just enough to make a convincing argument against bail, but had mentioned little about the murder case she was building. She was good and we had faced each other on cases before. As far as I remembered, I had lost them all.
    When it was my turn, I argued that there was no indication, let alone evidence, that Trammel was either a danger to the community or a flight risk. Barring such evidence, the judge could not deny the defendant bail.
    Fluharty split his decision right down the middle, giving the defense a victory by ruling that bail should be set, and giving the prosecution a win by setting it at two million dollars. The upshot was that Lisa wasn’t going anywhere. She would need two million in collateral or a bail bondsman. A ten percent bond would cost her $200,000 in cash and that was out of the question. She was staying in jail.
    The judge finally called for the recess and that gave me a few more minutes with Lisa before she was removed by the courtroom deputies. As the media filed out I quickly admonished her one more time to keep her mouth shut.
    “It’s even more important now, Lisa, with all of the media on this case. They may try