The Lincoln Lawyer: A Novel (51 page)

“No, high-power module. In county.”

“So you’re talking about jail, correct?”

“That’s right.”

“So you’re telling me that you didn’t know Barnett Woodson before that?”

I asked the question with surprise in my voice.

“No, sir. We met for the first time in the jail.”

I made a note on the legal pad as if this were an important concession.

“So then, let’s do the math, Mr. Torrance. Barnett Woodson was transferred into the high-power module where you were already
residing on the fifth of September earlier this year. Do you remember that?”

“Yeah, I remember him coming in, yeah.”

“And why were you there in high-power?”

Vincent stood and objected, saying I was covering ground he had already trod in direct testimony. I argued that I was looking
for a fuller explanation of Torrance’s incarceration, and Judge Companioni allowed me the leeway. He told Torrance to answer
the question.

“Like I said, I got a count of assault and one of robbery.”

“And these alleged crimes took place during the riots, is that correct?”

With the anti-police climate permeating the city’s minority communities since even before the riots, I had fought during jury
selection to get as many blacks and browns on the panel as I could. But here was a chance to work on the five white jurors
the prosecution had been able to get by me. I wanted them to know that the man the prosecution was hanging so much of its
case on was one of those responsible for the images they saw on their television sets back in May.

“Yeah, I was out there like everybody else,” Torrance answered. “Cops get away with too much in this town, you ask me.”

I nodded like I agreed.

“And your response to the injustice of the verdicts in the Rodney King beating case was to go out and rob a sixty-two-year-old
woman and knock her unconscious with a steel trash can? Is that correct, sir?”

Torrance looked over at the prosecution table and then past Vincent to his own lawyer, sitting in the first row of the gallery.
Whether or not they had earlier rehearsed a response to this question, his legal team couldn’t help Torrance now. He was on
his own.

“I didn’t do that,” he finally said.

“You’re innocent of the crime you are charged with?”

“That’s right.”

“What about looting? You committed no crimes during the riots?”

After a pause and another glance at his attorney, Torrance said, “I take the fifth on that.”

As expected. I then took Torrance through a series of questions designed so that he had no choice but to incriminate himself
or refuse to answer under the protections of the Fifth Amendment. Finally, after he took the nickel six times, the judge grew
weary of the point being made over and over and prodded me back to the case at hand. I reluctantly complied.

“All right, enough about you, Mr. Torrance,” I said. “Let’s get back to you and Mr. Woodson. You knew the details of this
double-murder case before you even met Mr. Woodson in lockup?”

“No, sir.”

“Are you sure? It got a lot of attention.”

“I been in jail, man.”

“They don’t have television or newspapers in jail?”

“I don’t read no papers and the module’s TV been broke since I got there. We made a fuss and they said they’d fix it but they
ain’t fixed shit.”

The judge admonished Torrance to check his language and the witness apologized. I moved on.

“According to the jail’s records, Mr. Woodson arrived in the high-power module on the fifth of September and, according to
the state’s discovery material, you contacted the prosecution on October second to report his alleged confession. Does that
sound right to you?”

“Yeah, that sounds right.”

“Well, not to me, Mr. Torrance. You are telling this jury that a man accused of a double murder and facing the possible death
penalty confessed to a man he had known for less than four weeks?”

Torrance shrugged before answering.

“That’s what happened.”

“So you say. What will you get from the prosecution if Mr. Woodson is convicted of these crimes?”

“I don’t know. Nobody has promised me nothing.”

“With your prior record and the charges you currently face, you are looking at more than fifteen years in prison if you’re
convicted, correct?”

“I don’t know about any of that.”

“You don’t?”

“No, sir. I let my lawyer handle all that.”

“He hasn’t told you that if you don’t do something about this, you might go to prison for a long, long time?”

“He hasn’t told me none of that.”

“I see. What have you asked the prosecutor for in exchange for your testimony?”

“Nothing. I don’t want nothing.”

“So then, you are testifying here because you believe it is your duty as a citizen, is that correct?”

The sarcasm in my voice was unmistakable.

“That’s right,” Torrance responded indignantly.

I held the thick file up over the lectern so he could see it.

“Do you recognize this file, Mr. Torrance?”

“No. Not that I recall, I don’t.”

“You sure you don’t remember seeing it in Mr. Woodson’s cell?”

“Never been in his cell.”

“Are you sure that you didn’t sneak in there and look through his discovery file while Mr. Woodson was in the dayroom or in
the shower or maybe in court sometime?”

“No, I did not.”

“My client had many of the investigative documents relating to his prosecution in his cell. These contained several of the
details you testified to this morning. You don’t think that is suspicious?”

Torrance shook his head.

“No. All I know is that he sat there at the table and told me what he’d done. He was feeling poorly about it and opened up
to me. It ain’t my fault people open up to me.”

I nodded as if sympathetic to the burden Torrance carried as a man others confided in—especially when it came to double murders.

“Of course not, Mr. Torrance. Now, can you tell the jury exactly what he said to you? And don’t use the shorthand you used
when Mr. Vincent was asking the questions. I want to hear exactly what my client told you. Give us his words, please.”

Torrance paused as if to probe his memory and compose his thoughts.

“Well,” he finally said, “we were sittin’ there, the both of us by ourselves, and he just started talkin’ about feelin’ bad
about what he’d done. I asked him, ‘What’d you do?’ and he told me about that night he killed the two fellas and how he felt
pretty rough about it.”

The truth is short. Lies are long. I wanted to get Torrance talking in long form, something Vincent had successfully avoided.
Jailhouse snitches have something in common with all con men and professional liars. They seek to hide the con in misdirection
and banter. They wrap cotton around their lies. But in all of that fluff you often find the key to revealing the big lie.

Vincent objected again, saying the witness had already answered the questions I was asking and I was simply badgering him
at this point.

“Your Honor,” I responded, “this witness is putting a confession in my client’s mouth. As far as the defense is concerned,
this is the case right here. The court would be remiss if it did not allow me to fully explore the content and context of
such damaging testimony.”

Judge Companioni was nodding in agreement before I finished
the last sentence. He overruled Vincent’s objection and told me
to proceed. I turned my attention back to the witness and spoke with impatience in my voice.

“Mr. Torrance, you are still summarizing. You claim Mr. Woodson confessed to the murders. So then, tell the jury what he said
to you. What were the
exact
words he said to you when he confessed to this crime?”

Torrance nodded as if he were just then realizing what I was asking for.

“The first thing he said to me was ‘Man, I feel bad.’ And I said, ‘For what, my brother?’ He said he kept thinking about those
two guys. I didn’t know what he was talking about ’cause, like I said, I hadn’t heard nothin’ about the case, you know? So
I said, ‘What two guys?’ and he said, ‘The two niggers I dumped in the reservoir.’ I asked what it was all about and he told
me about blasting them both with a shorty and wrappin’ them up in chicken wire and such. He said, ‘I made one bad mistake’
and I asked him what it was. He said, ‘I shoulda taken a knife and opened up their bellies so they wouldn’t end up floatin’
to the top the way they did.’ And that was what he told me.”

In my peripheral vision I had seen Vincent flinch in the middle of Torrance’s long answer. And I knew why. I carefully moved
in with the blade.

“Did Mr. Woodson use that word? He called the victims ‘niggers’?”

“Yeah, he said that.”

I hesitated as I worked on the phrasing of the next question. I knew Vincent was waiting to object if I gave him the opening.
I could not ask Torrance to interpret. I couldn’t use the word “why” when it came to Woodson’s meaning or motivation. That
was objectionable.

“Mr. Torrance, in the black community the word ‘nigger’ could mean different things, could it not?”

“ ’Spose.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes.”

“The defendant is African-American, correct?”

Torrance laughed.

“Looks like it to me.”

“As are you, correct, sir?”

Torrance started to laugh again.

“Since I was born,” he said.

The judge tapped his gavel once and looked at me.

“Mr. Haller, is this really necessary?”

“I apologize, Your Honor.”

“Please move on.”

“Mr. Torrance, when Mr. Woodson used that word, as you say he did, did it shock you?”

Torrance rubbed his chin as he thought about the question. Then he shook his head.

“Not really.”

“Why weren’t you shocked, Mr. Torrance?”

“I guess it’s ’cause I hear it all a’ time, man.”

“From other black men?”

“That’s right. I heard it from white folks, too.”

“Well, when fellow black men use that word, like you say Mr. Woodson did, who are they talking about?”

Vincent objected, saying that Torrance could not speak for what other men were talking about. Companioni sustained the objection
and I took a moment to rework the path to the answer I wanted.

“Okay, Mr. Torrance,” I finally said. “Let’s talk only about you, then, okay? Do you use that word on occasion?”

“I think I have.”

“All right, and when you have used it, who were you referring to?”

Torrance shrugged.

“Other fellas.”

“Other black men?”

“That’s right.”

“Have you ever on occasion referred to white men as niggers?”

Torrance shook his head.

“No.”

“Okay, so then, what did you take the meaning to be when Barnett Woodson described the two men who were dumped in the reservoir
as niggers?”

Vincent moved in his seat, going through the body language of making an objection but not verbally following through with
it. He must have known it would be useless. I had led Torrance down the path and he was mine.

Torrance answered the question.

“I took it that they were black and he killed ’em both.”

Now Vincent’s body language changed again. He sank a little bit in his seat because he knew his gamble in putting a jailhouse
snitch on the witness stand had just come up snake eyes.

I looked up at Judge Companioni. He knew what was coming as well.

“Your Honor, may I approach the witness?”

“You may,” the judge said.

I walked to the witness stand and put the file down in front of Torrance. It was legal size, well worn and faded orange—a
color used by county jailers to denote private legal documents that an inmate is authorized to possess.

“Okay, Mr. Torrance, I have placed before you a file in which Mr. Woodson keeps discovery documents provided to him in jail
by his attorneys. I ask you once again if you recognize it.”

“I seen a lotta orange files in high-power. It don’t mean I seen that one.”

“You are saying you never saw Mr. Woodson with his file?”

“I don’t rightly remember.”

“Mr. Torrance, you were with Mr. Woodson in the same module for thirty-two days. You testified he confided in you and confessed
to you. Are you saying you never saw him with that file?”

He didn’t answer at first. I had backed him into a no-win corner. I waited. If he continued to claim he had never seen the
file,
then his claim of a confession from Woodson would be suspect in the eyes of the jury. If he finally conceded that he
was familiar with the file, then he opened a big door for me.

“What’m saying is that I seen him with his file but I never looked at what was in it.”

Bang. I had him.

“Then, I’ll ask you to open the file and inspect it.”

The witness followed the instruction and looked from side to side at the open file. I went back to the lectern, checking on
Vincent on my way. His eyes were downcast and his face was pale.

“What do you see when you open the file, Mr. Torrance?”

“One side’s got photos of two bodies on the ground. They’re stapled in there—the photos, I mean. And the other side is a bunch
of documents and reports and such.”

“Could you read from the first document there on the right side? Just read the first line of the summary.”

“No, I can’t read.”

“You can’t read at all?”

“Not really. I didn’t get the schooling.”

“Can you read any of the words that are next to the boxes that are checked at the top of the summary?”

Torrance looked down at the file and his eyebrows came together in concentration. I knew that his reading skills had been
tested during his last stint in prison and were determined to be at the lowest measurable level—below second-grade skills.

“Not really,” he said. “I can’t read.”

I quickly walked over to the defense table and grabbed another file and a Sharpie pen out of my briefcase. I went back to
the lectern and quickly printed the word
CAUCASIAN
on the outside of the file in large block letters. I held the file up so that Torrance, as well as the jury, could see it.