Juror seven was blue for another reason. He was listed as an aerospace engineer. The industry he worked in had a large presence in Southern California and consequently I had questioned several engineers during voir dire over the years. In general, engineers were conservative politically and religiously, two very blue attributes, and they worked for companies that relied on huge government contracts and grants. A vote for the defense was a vote against the government, and that was a hard leap for them to make.
Last, and perhaps most important, engineers exist in a world of logic and absolutes. These are things you often cannot apply to a crime or crime scene or even to the criminal justice system as a whole.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I think the engineer should go.”
“No, I like him. I’ve liked him since the beginning. He’s given me good eye contact. I want him to stay.”
I turned from Elliot and looked over at the box. My eyes traveled from juror seven to juror ten and then back again. I was hoping for some sign, some tell that would reveal the right choice.
“Mr. Haller,” Judge Stanton said. “Do you wish to use your last challenge or accept the jury as it is now composed? I remind you, it is getting late in the day and we still have to choose our alternate jurors.”
My phone was buzzing while the judge addressed me.
“Uh, one more moment, Your Honor.”
I turned back toward Elliot and leaned into him as if to whisper something. But what I really was doing was pulling my phone.
“Are you sure, Walter?” I whispered. “The guy’s an engineer. That could be trouble for us.”
“Look, I make my living reading people and rolling the dice,” Elliot whispered back. “I want that man on my jury.”
I nodded and looked down between my legs where I was holding the phone. It was a text from Favreau.
Favreau: Kick 10. I see deception. 7 fits prosecution profile but I see good eye contact and open face. He’s interested in your story. He likes your client.
Eye contact. That settled it. I slipped the phone back into my pocket and stood up. Elliot grabbed me by the sleeve of my jacket. I bent down to hear his urgent whisper.
“What are you doing?”
I shook off his 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.
– Fillet of Soul
Walking in a Dead Man’s Shoes
BY JACK McEVOY,
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.
