The Brass Verdict

grasp because I didn’t like his public display of attempting control over me. I straightened back up and looked up at the judge.
    “Your Honor, the defense would like to thank and excuse juror ten at this time.”
    While the judge dismissed the technical writer and called a new candidate to the tenth chair in the box, I sat down and turned to Elliot.
    “Walter, don’t ever grab me like that in front of the jury. It makes you look like an asshole and I’m already going to have a tough enough time convincing them you’re not a killer.”
    I turned so that my back was to him as I watched the latest and most likely the last juror take the open seat in the box.

PART FOUR. Fillet of Soul

Walking in a Dead Man’s Shoes
    Attorney Takes Over for Murdered Colleague First Case; The Trial of the Decade
    BY JACK McEVOY,
Times Staff Writer

    It wasn’t the 31 cases dropped in his lap that were the difficulty. It was the big one with the big client and highest stakes attached to it. Defense Attorney Michael Haller stepped into the shoes of the murdered Jerry Vincent two weeks ago and now finds himself at the center of this year’s so-called Trial of the Decade.
    Today testimony is scheduled to begin in the trial of Walter Elliot, the 54-year-old chairman of Archway Studios, charged with murdering his wife and her alleged lover six months ago in Malibu. Haller stepped into the case after Vincent, 45, was found shot to death in his car in downtown Los Angeles.
    Vincent had made legal provisions that allowed Haller to step into his practice in the event of his death. Haller, who had been at the end of a year-long sabbatical from practicing law, went to sleep one night with zero cases and woke up the next day with 31 new clients to handle.
    “I was excited about coming back to work but I wasn’t expecting anything like this,” said Haller, the 42-year-old son of the late Michael Haller Sr., one of Los Angeles’s storied defense attorneys in the 50’s and 60’s. “Jerry Vincent was a friend and colleague and, of course, I would gladly go back to having no cases if he could be alive today.”
    The investigation of Vincent’s murder is ongoing. There have been no arrests, and detectives say there are no suspects. He was shot twice in the head while sitting in his car in the garage next to the building where he kept his office, in the 200 block of Broadway.
    Following Vincent’s death, the fallen attorney’s entire law practice was turned over to Haller. His job was to cooperate with investigators within the bounds of attorney-client protections, inventory the cases and make contact with all active clients. There was an immediate surprise. One of Vincent’s clients was due in court the day after the murder.
    “My staff and I were just beginning to put all the cases together when we saw that Jerry – and now, of course, I – had a sentencing with a client,” Haller said. “I had to drop all of that, race over to the Criminal Courts Building, and be there for the client.”
    That was one down and 30 other active cases to go. Every client on that list had to be quickly contacted, informed of Vincent’s death, and given the option of hiring a new lawyer or continuing with Haller handling the case.
    A handful of clients decided to seek other representation but the vast majority of cases remain with Haller. By far the biggest of these is the “Murder in Malibu” case. It has drawn wide public attention. Portions of the trial are scheduled to be broadcast live nationally on Court TV. Dominick Dunne, the premier chronicler of courts and crime for
Vanity Fair,
is among members of the media who have requested seats in the courtroom.
    The case came to Haller with one big condition. Elliot would agree to keep Haller as his attorney only if Haller agreed not to delay the trial.
    “Walter is innocent and has insisted on his innocence since day one,” Haller told the
Times
in his first interview since taking on the case. “There were early delays in the case and he has waited six months for his day in court and the opportunity to clear his name. He wasn’t interested in another delay in justice and I agreed with him. If you’re innocent, why wait? We’ve been working almost around the clock to be ready and I think we are.”
    It wasn’t easy to be ready. Whoever killed Vincent also stole his briefcase from his car. It contained Vincent’s laptop computer and his calendar.
    “It was not too difficult to rebuild the