“What concerns me right now is how to secure the source, the original, of this video. It’s obvious to me that the authenticity, the completeness, of this is important, very important. Ms. Harding, what’s the source of this video?”
“Our computer people are working on that right now.”
“But at this critical moment, as we sit here with a jury about to arrive to start the third week of this trial, you don’t seem to know whether this video is authentic?”
“Not yet,” Margaret Harding said.
“If not yet, when?”
“I’m just not certain.”
For the first time Raquel saw an expression other than calm indifference on the judge’s face: she raised her eyebrows above the black frame of her glasses.
“When we finish do you think you can ask Mr. Lupo what his office is doing? And by the mid-morning break I’d like to get some kind of report on this-where this tape has been, is it complete, who has had access to it? That kind of thing.”
“I just want to make clear, Judge,” Margaret Harding said, “that we never had this tape.”
“You know, Ms. Harding, I try not to decide anything until I know what the facts are. But at the moment I don’t know what you mean when you say we didn’t have the tape. You just told me you didn’t see it until this morning. And we is a very large concept, isn’t it? It’s not just you. You have a large office, or I should say Mr. Lupo does. Is the detective who testified last week part of the we?”
Margaret Harding gave Conley a narrow-eyed, withering look, the scorn of the beautiful for the plain. She said nothing.
Conley turned to Raquel. It was, she realized, the first time Conley had ever looked directly at her. “And is there anything you want to say, Ms. Rematti?”
“I appreciate your sensitivity in handling this, Judge.”
“I’m not looking for compliments, Ms. Rematti.”
But Conley seemed, somehow, to like these words from this famous woman. She looked flattered. But quickly she reverted to form: “I’m trying to deal, Ms. Rematti, with a situation that’s very troubling to me, too. I find it’s best to take things in steps. So my question to you is: Do you want anything done now, before we go any further?”
“Certainly, Judge. As I said in my email, I want Detective Halsey recalled to the stand. And I want to ask the detective when he first saw that tape. Or when he was first aware of it. Or when it was first mentioned to him.”
Margaret Harding interrupted Raquel. “We are prepared to dismiss the charges relating to larceny and burglary.”
Judge Conley had no visible reaction. She waited for Raquel.
Harding’s words caught Raquel off guard. She immediately recognized that this unexpected statement was very skillful. If Harding dropped the charge to which the video related, then Harding could argue the video was not relevant. Raquel said, “That doesn’t remedy the problem, Your Honor. I understand that the government wouldn’t want the jurors to see the tape in this courtroom, and that to prevent that from happening, Ms. Harding is willing to drop the theft charges. But the tape has greater importance, Judge. If other people-in this case the police-were doing things that Mr. Suarez is accused of doing then the jurors are entitled, at this stage, to see the tape to evaluate whether Mr. Suarez did other things.”
“I can’t prevent the government from dismissing part of its charges, Ms. Rematti.”
Raquel had an only uncertain grasp of how to deal with this judge. There were times during the trial when she was surprised by her willingness to sustain her objections, to listen to her arguments, and to make small rulings that were helpful. There were also times when Conley’s parochialism-her grandfather had been a county supervisor, her father a judge, she had benefitted from the nepotism of an engrained political party in the county-led her to allow Margaret Harding to ask questions that were certainly irrelevant but damaging to Juan. Yet Conley was savvy. She was worried about reversals: she wanted a promotion, and a reversal in the most high-profile criminal case in the country since the Casey Anthony and George Zimmerman trials wouldn’t help her.
Raquel said, “I know you don’t have any control, Judge, over whether Ms. Harding drops the theft charges, just as you had no control over what charges Ms. Harding brought in the first place -”
“Ms. Rematti, it’s not Ms. Harding who brought these charges. It was the Grand Jury.”
Raquel shrugged off the fourth-grade teacher’s reprimand, just as she shrugged off the impulse to say that a Grand Jury would indict the Pope if the DA asked for it. “But this tape is essential for reasons that relate to the murder charges.”
“You said that before, Ms. Rematti, and I’m not sure you’re right. In fact, it seems to me the tape could be irrelevant. The fact that, even assuming the tape is authentic, other people were stealing money on the same day as the murder does not mean that another person was in the house that day committing a murder.”
“That’s for the jury to decide, Judge. But without the tape the jurors don’t have the ability to decide one way or the other whether the fact that other people were stealing cash leads to a reasonable doubt that Mr. Suarez committed the murder.”
“Ms. Rematti, there is another problem with this tape. I have a sense that the end of the case is fast coming on. Whether it’s relevant or not, whether or not it tends to exonerate your client on the murder count-and at the moment I don’t necessarily see that it does-I have no idea whether it’s authentic. I’d never let a jury see any piece of evidence where there’s an obvious question as to whether it’s authentic or a fabrication.”
“Mr. Suarez is entitled to a fair trial. Suspending a murder trial for a day or two to test the authenticity of the tape is more important than the possibility of an innocent man’s conviction.”
Judge Conley gave Raquel an icy glance and then turned to Margaret Harding. “Ms. Harding, you’ve been uncharacteristically quiet. Is there anything you want to tell me?”
“We’re not looking at a one- or two-day break, Judge. My office is unlikely to know in what format this video existed. Even when we do find that, we may not have the electronic forensics people who can do the kind of analysis we would do on a traditional recording device. It will take time, and resources the government may need even more time to locate, to find out how the tape was recorded, where, who set it up, who was responsible for maintaining its integrity, where the recording has been all these months, who released it, and whether it was or wasn’t altered. We live in the age of electronic animation, the Pixar era.”
“Pixar?” Raquel said. “A man’s life is in the balance, and we’re talking about Pixar?”
Conley ignored her. “I’d like to hear some sort of presentation late this afternoon, Ms. Harding, where the best expert you’ve currently got can answer some of the questions you’ve just raised.”
“I don’t know whether we even have the capacity with the assets we have now to do that by this afternoon.”
“That,” Judge Conley said, “is your problem.”
And, before calling an end to the conference, she said to Raquel, “It’s only fair to alert you now that I’m not inclined to require Detective Halsey to return to the stand for further cross-examination by you regarding this video. I just heard that the state is dropping the theft charges. Even if it’s authentic, the video has little or no relevance to the murder charge.”
This time Raquel Rematti couldn’t control herself. “That is so profoundly unfair. It negates any likelihood that Mr. Suarez will have a fair trial.”
Conley stood up. She said, “I won’t tolerate being spoken to like that by any lawyer, including you, Ms. Rematti. I want an apology now or I’ll call a hearing after the trial to hold you in contempt.”