Reggie handles pressure a hell of a lot better than I would.
Everybody in the gallery strains to get a look at them as they walk down the long aisle toward the front of the room. It reminds me of the footage I’ve seen of the Ali-Foreman fight in Zaire, as Ali and his entourage worked their way down to the ring.
Karen brings Reggie all the way to the witness stand. He has not seen Richard yet, because he’s facing the other direction. This is how we planned it. I even had Richard wear aftershave to mask his scent. It’s unlikely Reggie would have smelled him from this distance, with this many people, but I didn’t want to take any chances. This had to be fully choreographed.
“Your Honor,” I say, “with the court’s permission, Mr. Evans will take over.”
“Go ahead,” Judge Gordon says, and Karen turns toward Richard, who is about twenty feet away from her. In the process, Reggie turns as well.
Reggie is looking in Richard’s general direction, without reacting, for about five seconds, but it feels like five hours. The thud that can be heard in the courtroom is my heart hitting the floor, as my plan appears not to be working.
Suddenly, Reggie seems to focus in on Richard, and it is as if he had been jolted by electricity. He explodes toward Richard, and the leash comes out of Karen’s hand. “Oh, my God, I’m sorry!” she lies, since letting him get away is exactly what I’ve instructed her to do. But her apparent distress is so real that even I almost believe it.
Reggie flies through the air and lands on Richard, knocking him backward over his chair. The three bailiffs don’t have a clue what to do, and no apparent desire to try to restrain Reggie. I doubt that their handcuffs would fit on his paws, anyway. For now they are just content to watch.
Even Judge Gordon seems mesmerized by the spectacle, though he recovers fairly quickly. He starts to slam his gavel down, yelling for order, though none is forthcoming.
Richard, a look of pure joy on his face, finally makes it to his feet. “Sit, Reggie,” he says, and Reggie immediately assumes a sitting position, as if waiting for the next command. The only sign to connect him to the chaos he has just caused is the fact that he is panting from the exertion.
It is a demonstration stunning in its simplicity; just by those two words Richard said all there was to say. No reasonable person could have witnessed what just took place and continue to have any doubt that Reggie is Richard’s dog.
It turns out that Coletti is not a reasonable person. “Your Honor, may we approach the bench?” she asks.
Judge Gordon grants her request, and Coletti and I walk up for a private conference. “Your Honor, the defense should be admonished for that performance. It runs completely counter to what was agreed upon. The dog was supposed to be kept on the leash, under control.”
I laugh. “Under control? It would have taken a marine battalion to keep him under control. He was seeing his owner for the first time in five years.”
“That ownership is still to be determined,” Coletti says.
“Were you in the courtroom just now?” Judge Gordon asks her. “Did you see what I saw?”
“I saw a demonstration that might well have been staged,” she says.
I shake my head in exaggerated amazement. “Staged? He’s a dog; he’s not DeNiro.”
“Ms. Colletti,” Judge Gordon says, “if the state wants to continue this, then the defendant can put the dog through whatever tricks they have planned. But I am telling you, as far as the court is concerned, this is the defendant’s dog.”
Coletti can tell that she has pushed this as far as possible. “We can end it here.”
We both go back to our respective tables. Reggie is once again standing near the witness stand, held on the leash by Karen.
“No further questions,” I say. “The witness is excused.”
Karen and Reggie leave the courtroom, and both Coletti and I announce that we have no more witnesses. Coletti stands to give her closing argument.
“Your Honor, five years ago a lengthy investigation focused on the murder of Stacy Harriman. Hundreds of hours of work went into it by experienced, dedicated professional law enforcement officers.
“They determined that there was probable cause that Mr. Evans committed the crime. Their work was reviewed by the county attorney, who agreed with their conclusions and filed murder charges against Mr. Evans.
“A four-week trial then took place, during which Mr. Evans was ably defended. He entered that trial with the presumption of innocence and retained the right to challenge his accusers. At the conclusion of that trial, a jury of his peers deliberated for eight hours before unanimously voting to convict him.
“What has changed since then? We have now learned that Mr. Evans had infinitesimal traces of campene in his system. This might be significant, if we could be sure how it got there.
“And we know that a golden retriever seems to be the dog that Mr. Evans used to own. This also might be significant if Mr. Evans had been convicted of murdering that golden retriever, or even of dognapping. But no such charges were ever filed.
“Your Honor, the defense has not even come close to meeting its burden. To grant a new trial on this flimsy evidence would be to discredit the original trial, and there is certainly no reason to do that.”
Coletti sits down, and as she does, I stand up immediately. She has presented a reasonably convincing argument, and I don’t want it to stand unchallenged for a moment longer than necessary.
“Your Honor, I was not involved in Mr. Evans’s original trial, but I have carefully read the transcript. Most of what I read was presented by the prosecution, since the great majority of the witnesses called were theirs.
“The prosecution contended back then that Mr. Evans sustained his facial bruise from falling out of bed. When Dr. King came in here and said that it could not have happened that way, they backpedaled and said it could have happened as he was staggering around the room.
“The prosecution contended back then that Mr. Evans swallowed a bottle of pills. Yet we find out today that they cannot find any pharmacy that prescribed the pills, and that Mr. Evans would have had to eat them dry, without using water. Such a technique would have been masochistic, in addition to being suicidal.
“The prosecution contended back then that Mr. Evans’s dog was on board the boat; they presented eyewitnesses that were quite clear about it. They told the jury that he killed that dog by throwing him overboard, and then described the act as evidence of his depravity.
“Now we know with certainty that they were wrong. We know that Reggie is very much alive and that rumors of his death were, shall we say, exaggerated. There is nothing anywhere in all the hundreds of hours of investigative work, or anything presented at trial, that can come close to explaining what you saw in court here today. Reggie’s very existence means that someone else was on the boat that night, and it is very likely that the same someone else was the murderer. Certainly, there is nothing in the record that says otherwise.
“Reggie is alive, and because of that, the prosecution’s theories are dead in the water.
“Also revealing is what the prosecution didn’t say in that trial back then. They offered no evidence of motive, and no claim that Mr. Evans had ever showed violent or suicidal tendencies.
“Now, I am aware that they were not obligated to present motive, but juries usually want to hear it. But back then it wasn’t necessary, because the evidence as presented seemed so clear. Well, now it’s not so clear, and the absence of motive and previous tendencies becomes far more significant.
“Your Honor, we are not talking about reasonable doubt here. We are talking about overwhelming doubt. If we knew then what we know now, only the most overzealous of prosecutors would have brought the case to trial. And there’s not a jury in America that would have voted to convict.
“Richard Evans has spent five years of his life in prison for a crime he did not commit. The love of his life was murdered, and he was not allowed the space and freedom to grieve. He himself was nearly killed, and no one looked for, much less found, the actual guilty party.
“The truth, as always, will ultimately win out. It sometimes comes in strange shapes and sizes, and this time it came walking in on four paws. But it is the truth, and by recognizing it, you can start the process of giving Richard Evans his life back.”
* * * * *
I’VE NEVER BEEN much of a fan of self-discipline.
It generally collides head on with my enjoyment drive and rarely survives the collision. It makes no sense to try to force myself to do something I don’t want to do, since if there were a good reason to do it, I would want to do it in the first place.
But we are now entering a phase where self-discipline must rear its ugly head. It is going to take anywhere from a week to a couple of months for Judge Gordon to announce his decision about a possible new trial for Richard. We must work hard toward preparing for that trial, while knowing that if it’s not granted, our efforts will be totally wasted.
The thing I can most liken it to is betting a parley, which is a bet that requires winning two games to be a winner. If one of those games has already been played but I don’t know the result, I would root for my team in the second game, knowing that it might be a waste of time because, if I lost the first game, the second one doesn’t matter.
I’m going to have to work to develop a compelling case for Richard, but if we didn’t win the hearing, then it won’t matter.
At times like this I am particularly glad I have Kevin as my partner. He will keep me moving forward, both because he is a more dedicated attorney than I and because he is a more optimistic one.
Kevin thinks our performance in the hearing was a winning one-a “slam down,” as he puts it. Kevin is not a sports fan in any sense, and what he means to say is “slam dunk.” Or maybe “grand slam.” Or “touchdown.” With Kevin it’s often hard to tell.