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Back Brass Verdict Save as PDF
Chapters (64)
  1. PART ONE
  2. One
  3. Two
  4. Three
  5. PART TWO
  6. Four
  7. Five
  8. Six
  9. Seven
  10. Eight
  11. Nine
  12. Ten
  13. Eleven
  14. Twelve
  15. Thirteen
  16. Fourteen
  17. Fifteen
  18. Sixteen
  19. Seventeen
  20. Eighteen
  21. Nineteen
  22. Twenty
  23. Twenty-one
  24. Twenty-two
  25. Twenty-three
  26. Twenty-four
  27. Twenty-five
  28. Twenty-six
  29. Twenty-seven
  30. Twenty-eight
  31. Twenty-nine
  32. Thirty
  33. Thirty-one
  34. Thirty-two
  35. Thirty-three
  36. PART THREE
  37. Thirty-four
  38. Thirty-five
  39. PART FOUR
  40. Thirty-six
  41. Thirty-seven
  42. Thirty-eight
  43. Thirty-nine
  44. Forty
  45. Forty-one
  46. Forty-two
  47. Forty-three
  48. Forty-four
  49. Forty-five
  50. Forty-six
  51. PART FIVE
  52. Forty-seven
  53. Forty-eight
  54. Forty-nine
  55. Fifty
  56. Fifty-one
  57. Fifty-two
  58. Fifty-three
  59. PART SIX
  60. Fifty-four
  61. Fifty-five
  62. Acknowledgments
  63. About the Author
  64. ALSO BY MICHAEL CONNELLY

The process began with the judge asking each prospective juror questions about what they did for a living and the area of Los Angeles County they lived in. He then moved on to basic questions about whether they had been victims of crime, had relatives in prison or were related to any police officers or prosecutors. He asked what their knowledge of the law and court procedures was. He asked who had prior jury experience. The judge excused three for cause: a postal employee whose brother was a police officer; a retiree whose son had been the victim of a drug-related murder; and the screenwriter because although she had never worked for Archway Studios, the judge felt she might harbor ill will toward Elliot because of the contentious relationship between screenwriters and studio management in general.

A fourth prospective juror — one of the engineers — was dismissed when the judge agreed with his plea for a hardship dismissal. He was a self-employed consultant and two weeks spent in a trial were two weeks with no income other than the five bucks a day he made as a juror.

The four were quickly replaced with four more random selections from the venire. And so it went. By noon I had used two of my preemptories on the remaining postal workers and would have used a third to strike the second engineer from the panel but decided to take the lunch hour to think about it before making my next move. Meanwhile, Golantz was holding fast with a full arsenal of challenges. His strategy was obviously to let me use my strikes up and then he would come in with the final shaping of the jury.

Elliot had adopted the pose of CEO of the defense. I did the work in front of the jury but he insisted that he be allowed to sign off on each of my preemptory challenges. It took extra time because I needed to explain to him why I wanted to dump a juror and he would always offer his opinion. But each time, he ultimately nodded his approval like the man in charge, and the juror was struck. It was an annoying process but one I could put up with, just as long as Elliot went along with what I wanted to do.

Shortly after noon, the judge broke for lunch. Even though the day was devoted to jury selection, technically it was the first day of my first trial in over a year. Lorna Taylor had come to court to watch and show her support. The plan was to go to lunch together and then she would go back to the office and start packing it up.