The Fifth Witness - Michael Connelly [60]
The cause of action was Opparizio’s. He and his legal crew were out to quash the subpoena and prevent his participation in the trial. In strategizing how to do so they had thought it prudent to tip Freeman to the hearing in case the prosecution also saw merit in keeping Opparizio from the jury. Though largely there as a bystander, Freeman could step into the fray whenever she wanted and she knew that whether she joined in or not, the hearing would likely offer her a good look at the defense’s trial strategy.
It was the first time I saw Opparizio in person. He was a block of a man who somehow appeared as wide as he was tall. The skin on his face had been stretched tight by the scalpel or by years of anger. By the cut of his hair and of his suit, he looked like money. And he seemed to me to be the perfect straw man because he also looked like a man who could kill, or at least give the order to kill.
Opparizio’s lawyers had asked the judge to hold the hearing in camera—behind closed doors in his chambers—so that the details revealed would not reach the media and therefore possibly taint the jury pool that would assemble the following day. But everybody in the room knew that his lawyers were not being altruistic. A closed hearing guarded against details about Opparizio leaking to the press and informing something much larger than the jury pool. Public opinion.
I argued vigorously against closing the proceedings. I warned that such a move would cause public suspicion about the subsequent trial and this outweighed any possible taint of the jury pool. Elected to the bench, Perry was ever mindful of public perception. He agreed with me and declared the hearing open to the public. Score a big one for me. My prevailing on that one argument probably saved the entire case for the defense.
Not a lot of the media was there but there was enough for what I needed. Reporters from the Los Angeles Business Journal and the L.A. Times were in the front row. A freelance video man who sold footage to all the networks was in the empty jury box with his camera. I had tipped him to the hearing and told him to be there. I figured that between the print media and the lone TV camera, there would be enough pressure on Opparizio to force the outcome I was looking for.
After dispensing with the request to hide behind closed doors, the judge got down to business.
“Mr. Zimmer, you have filed a motion to quash the subpoena of Louis Opparizio in the matter of California versus Trammel. Why don’t you state your case, sir?”
Zimmer looked like a lawyer who had been around the block a few times and usually got to carry his enemies home in his briefcase. He stood to respond to the judge.
“We would love to address the court on this matter, Your Honor. I am going to speak first to the facts of the service of the subpoena itself and then my colleague, Mr. Cross, will discuss the other issue for which we seek relief.”
Zimmer then proceeded to claim that my office had engaged in mail fraud in laying the trap that resulted in Opparizio being served a subpoena. He said that the glossy brochure that had baited his client was an instrument of fraud and its placement in the U.S. mail constituted a felony that invalidated any action that followed, such as service of the subpoena. He further asked that the defense be penalized by being disallowed from any subsequent effort to subpoena Opparizio to testify.
I didn’t even have to stand up for this one—which was a good thing because the simple acts of standing and sitting still set off flares of pain across my chest. The judge raised his hand in my direction to hold me in check and then tersely dismissed Zimmer’s argument, calling it novel but ridiculous and without merit.
“Come on, Mr. Zimmer, this is the big league,” Perry said.