Mickey Haller 4 - The Fifth Witness

tireless advocate. I need to ask, however, if you know what you’re doing here. You want to stipulate to the prosecution’s contention that the victim’s blood was found on your client’s own shoe? Are you sure about that, Mr. Haller?”
    I nodded as if to concede that he had made a good point in questioning my trial strategy.
    “Judge, we did the analysis ourselves and it came back as a match. The science doesn’t lie and the defense is not interested in trying to mislead the court or the jury. If a trial is a search for truth then let the truth come out. The defense stipulates. We will prove later that the blood was planted on the shoe. That is where the real truth lies, not with whether or not it was his blood. We acknowledge that it was and we’re ready to move on.”
    “Your Honor, may I be heard?” Freeman said.
    “Go ahead, Ms. Freeman.”
    “The state objects to the stipulation.”
    She had finally caught on. The judge looked aghast.
    “I don’t understand, Ms. Freeman. You get what you want. The victim’s blood on the defendant’s shoes.”
    “Your Honor, Dr. Stanley is my last witness. Counsel is seeking to undercut the state’s case by robbing me of the ability to present evidence in the way I wish to present it. This witness’s testimony is devastating to the defense. He just wants to stipulate to lessen its impact on the jury. But a stipulation must be agreed to by both parties. I made a mistake taking the stipulation on the hammer, but not this time. Not on the shoes. The state objects to this.”
    The judge was undaunted. He saw a savings of at least a half day of court time and he wasn’t going to let it go.
    “Counsel, understand that the court can overrule your objection in the cause of judicial economy. I’d rather not do that.”
    He was telling her not to go against him on this. To accept the stipulation.
    “I’m sorry, Your Honor, but the state still objects.”
    “Overruled. You can step back.”
    And so it went. As with the hammer, the judge relayed the stipulation to the jury and promised they would receive a document outlining the evidence and facts agreed to by the start of deliberations. I had successfully silenced the crescendo of the prosecution’s case. Instead of going out with the crashing of cymbals, drums and evidence that screamed SHE DID IT! SHE DID IT! SHE DID IT!, the prosecution went out with a whimper. Freeman was seething. She knew how important the payoff was to the gradual buildup. You don’t listen to Boléro for ten minutes and turn it off with the final two minutes to go.
    Not only did the truncating of her case hurt, but I had effectively turned her last and most important witness into the first witness for the defense. By stipulating, I had made it seem as if the DNA returns were the initial building blocks of my case. And there was nothing Freeman could do. She had put the whole case out and had nothing left. After excusing Stanley from the witness stand, she sat at the prosecution table, turning through her notes, probably thinking about whether she should put Kurlen or Longstreth back on the stand to finish the case with a detective’s roundup of all the evidence. But there were risks to that. She had rehearsed their testimony before. But not this time.
    “Ms. Freeman?” the judge finally asked. “Do you have another witness?”
    Freeman looked over at the jury box. She had to believe she had the verdict. So what if the evidence wasn’t delivered according to the plan she had choreographed? The evidence was still there and in the record. The vic’s blood on the hammer and on the defendant’s shoes. It was more than enough. She had the verdict in her pocket.
    She slowly rose, still looking at the jurors. Then she turned and addressed the judge.
    “Your Honor, the People rest.”
    It was a solemn moment and again the courtroom turned still and silent, this time for almost a whole minute.
    “Very well,” the judge finally said. “I don’t think any of us thought we would be at this place so soon. Mr. Haller, are you ready to proceed with the presentation of the defense’s case?”
    I stood.
    “Your Honor, the defense is ready to proceed.”
    The judge nodded. He still seemed a bit shell-shocked by the defense’s decision to acknowledge and accept as evidence the victim’s blood on the defendant’s shoes.
    “Then we’ll take our afternoon break a little early,” he said. “And when we come back, the defense phase will