Mickey Haller 4 - The Fifth Witness

say on the defense side, the more the prosecution has to aim at in closing arguments. Less is always more when it comes to the defense. However, the capriciousness of the judge’s ruling was something else to consider. It clearly sent a message. The judge was telling us mere lawyers that he was firmly in charge of the courtroom and the trial. We were just visitors.
    Freeman went first and as is my usual practice, I never took my eyes off the jury as the prosecutor spoke. I listened closely, ready to object on a moment’s notice, but I never once looked at her. I wanted to see how the jurors’ eyes took Freeman in. I wanted to see if my hunches about them were going to pay off.
    Freeman spoke clearly and eloquently. No histrionics, no flash. It was straightforward eyes-on-the-prize stuff.
    “We’re here today about one thing,” she said, standing firmly in the center of the well, the open space directly in front of the jury box. “We are here because of one person’s anger. One person’s need to lash out in frustration over her own failures and betrayals.”
    Of course, she spent most of her time warning the jurors off what she called the defense’s smoke and mirrors. Confident in her own case, she sought to tear down mine.
    “The defense is going to try to sell you a bill of goods. Big conspiracies and high drama. This murder is big but the story is simple. Don’t be led astray. Watch closely. Listen closely. Make sure that whatever is said here today is backed during the trial with evidence. Real evidence.
    “This was a well-planned crime. The killer knew Mitchell Bondurant’s routines. The killer stalked Mitchell Bondurant. The killer was lying in wait for Mitchell Bondurant and then attacked swiftly and with the ultimate malice. That killer is Lisa Trammel and during this trial she will be brought to justice.”
    Freeman pointed the accusatory finger at my client. Lisa, as previously instructed by me, stared back at her without blinking.
    I zeroed in on juror number three who sat in the middle of the front row of the box. Leander Lee Furlong Jr. was my ace in the hole. He was my hanger, the one juror I was counting on to vote my way all the way. Even if it hung the jury.
    About a half hour before the jury selection process had begun, the court clerk gave me the list of eighty names composing the first jury pool. I turned the list over to my investigator, who stepped out into the hallway, opened his laptop and went to work.
    The Internet provides many avenues for researching the backgrounds of potential jurors, particularly when the trial will revolve around a financial transaction such as a foreclosure. Every person in the jury pool filled out a questionnaire, answering basic questions: Have you or anyone in your immediate family been involved in a foreclosure? Have you ever had a car repossessed? Have you ever filed for bankruptcy? These were weed-out questions. Anyone who answered yes to these questions would be dismissed by either the judge or the prosecutor. A person answering yes would be deemed biased and unable to fairly weigh evidence.
    But the weed-outs were very general and there were gray areas and room between the lines. That’s where Cisco came in. By the time the judge had sat the first panel of twelve prospective jurors and gone over their questionnaires, Cisco was back to me with background notes on seventeen of the eighty. I was looking for people with bad experiences with and maybe even grudges against banks or government institutions. The seventeen ran the gamut from people who had outright lied on their questionnaires about bankruptcies or repossessions, to plaintiffs in civil claims against banks, to Leander Furlong.
    Leander Lee Furlong Jr. was a twenty-nine-year-old assistant manager at the Ralph’s supermarket in Chatsworth. He had answered no to the question about foreclosure. In Cisco’s digital background search he went the extra mile and searched some national data sites. He came up with a reference to a 1994 foreclosure auction of property in Nashville, Tennessee, on which Leander Lee Furlong was listed as the owner. The petitioner in the action was the First National Bank of Tennessee.
    The name seemed unique and the two instances had to be related. My prospective juror would have been thirteen at the time of the foreclosure. I assumed it was his father who lost the property to the bank. And Leander Lee Furlong Jr. had left mention of it off his questionnaire.
    As