Monday, October 28
IT HAD BEEN a good day for the defense. I had walked a man right out of the courtroom. I had turned a felony battery charge into a righteous case of self-defense in front of the jury. The so-called victim had a history of violence of his own that both prosecution and defense witnesses, including an ex-wife, were eager to describe on cross-examination. I delivered the knockout punch when I recalled him to the witness stand and led him down a path of questioning that put him over the edge. He lost his cool and threatened me, said he’d like to meet me out in the street, where it would be just him and me. “Would you then claim I attacked you, like you have with the defendant in this case?” I asked. The prosecutor objected and the judge sustained. But that was all it took. The judge knew it. The prosecutor knew it. Everybody in the courtroom knew it. I notched the NG after less than half an hour of jury deliberation. It wasn’t my quickest verdict ever, but it came close. Within the informal downtown defense bar, there is a sacred duty to celebrate a not-guilty verdict the way a golfer celebrates a hole in one at the clubhouse. That is, drinks all around. My celebration took place at the Redwood on Second Street, just a few blocks from the civic center, where there were no fewer than three courthouses to draw celebrants from. The Redwood was no country club but it was convenient. The party—meaning the open bar—started early and ended late, and when Moira, the heavily tattooed bartender who had been keeping the tab, handed me the damage, let’s just say I put more on my credit card than I would ever see from the client I had just set free.
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