The Brass Verdict

prosecution table to the proving grounds when it was time for his big finish. He stood directly in front of the midpoint of the box and held his hands wide, like a preacher in front of his flock.
    “I’m out of time here, folks,” he said. “So in closing, I urge you to take great care as you listen to the evidence and the testimony. Common sense will lead you. I urge you not to get confused or sidetracked by the roadblocks to justice the defense will put before you. Keep your eyes on the prize. Remember, two people had their lives stolen from them. Their future was ripped away. That is why we are here today. For them. Thank you very much.”
    The old keep-your-eyes-on-the-prize opener. That one had been kicking around the courthouse since I was a public defender. Nevertheless, it was a solid beginning from Golantz. He wouldn’t win any orator-of-the-year trophies but he had made his points. He’d also addressed the jurors as “folks” at least four times by my count, and that was a word I would never use with a jury.
    Favreau had texted me twice more during the last half hour of his delivery with reports of declining jury interest. They might have been eating it up at the start but now they were apparently full. Sometimes you can go on too long. Golantz had trudged through a full fifteen rounds like a heavyweight boxer. I was going to be a welterweight. I was interested in quick jabs. I was going to get in and get out, make a few points, plant a few seeds and raise a few questions. I was going to make them like me. That was the main thing. If they liked me, they would like my case.
    Once the judge gave me the nod, I stood up and immediately moved into the proving grounds. I wanted nothing between me and the jury. I was also aware that this put me right in front and in focus of the Court TV camera mounted on the wall above the jury box.
    I faced the jury without physical gesture except for a slight nod of my head.
    “Ladies and gentlemen, I know the judge already introduced me but I would like to introduce myself and my client. I am Michael Haller, the attorney representing Walter Elliot, whom you see here sitting at the table by himself.”
    I pointed to Elliot and by prior design he nodded somberly, not offering any form of a smile that would appear as falsely ingratiating as calling the jurors folks.
    “Now, I am not going to take a lot of time here, because I want to get to the testimony and the evidence – what little there is of it – and get this show on the road. Enough talk. It’s time to put up or shut up. Mr. Golantz wove a big and complicated picture for you. It took him a whole hour just to get it out. But I am here to tell you that this case is not that complicated. What the prosecution’s case amounts to is a labyrinth of smoke and mirrors. And when we blow away the smoke and get through the labyrinth, you will understand that. You will find that there is no fire, that there is no case against Walter Elliot. That there is more than reasonable doubt here, that there is outrage that this case was ever brought against Walter Elliot in the first place.”
    Again I turned and pointed to my client. He sat with his eyes cast downward on the pad of paper he was now writing notes on – again, by prior design, depicting my client as busy, actively involved in his own defense, chin up and not worried about the terrible things the prosecutor had just said about him. He had right on his side, and right was might.
    I turned back to the jury and continued.
    “I counted six times that Mr. Golantz mentioned the word ‘gun’ in his speech. Six times he said Walter took a gun and blew away the woman he loved and a second, innocent bystander. Six times. But what he didn’t tell you six times is that there is no gun. He has no gun. The Sheriff’s Department has no gun. They have no gun and have no link between Walter and a gun because he has never owned or had such a weapon.
    “Mr. Golantz told you that he will introduce indisputable evidence that Walter fired a gun, but let me tell you to hold on to your hats. Keep that promise in your back pocket and let’s see at the end of this trial whether that so-called evidence is indisputable. Let’s just see if it is even left standing.”
    As I spoke, my eyes washed back and forth across the jurors like the spotlights sweeping the sky over Hollywood at night. I remained in constant but calm motion. I felt a certain rhythm in my thoughts and cadence, and I