“The defense agrees with quite a bit of what Ms. Broden said,” LeMarcus says. “We’re not going to pour water in your ear and tell you that it’s raining, after all. So, let’s get that stuff out of the way right now. It’s true that Ms. Goodwin was Ms. Wright’s second-in-command. It’s true that they had an affair. Also one hundred percent correct that a text from Ms. Goodwin’s phone caused Ms. Wright to leave her home late at night and enter Central Park. And there’s no denying that Ms. Wright was shot twice at close range while she was there.”

He stops and looks into the eyes of each juror. To a person, they hold his gaze.

“But,” he says thunderously, “the evidence will show that Lauren Wright’s husband, a man named Richard Trofino, was in Dana’s office on the day of the murder. For several minutes, he was there alone. Alone in the office of the woman he knew was having an affair with his wife. That’s when it all clicked for Richard Trofino: a way he could solve all his problems. He no longer would be the jealous, humiliated husband. He would extract his revenge by killing his wife and framing her lover for the murder. All he had to do to carry out that plan was to take Ms. Goodwin’s cell phone. Once he had the phone, the rest was easy. He sent the text, snuck out of their building, fired two bullets into his wife’s head, grabbed her phone, returned home, and then put his wife’s phone back on the night table so that the police would be sure to discover the evidence that would lead them to arrest Dana Goodwin.”

Richard sits in the gallery’s first row. Like all the witnesses, he’ll be sequestered when the testimony begins, but he is permitted to hear the openings, closings, and legal arguments. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch his profile. Although he’s trying to remain expressionless, it’s a thin mask. He’s obviously furious that my lawyer is branding him a murderer.

“All of the evidence mentioned by Ms. Broden points much more at Mr. Trofino than at Ms. Goodwin. The gun was found near Mr. Trofino’s home, a borough away from where Ms. Goodwin lives. The prosecutor, Ms. Broden, she didn’t mention that, now did she? And the one case that Ms. Goodwin worked on with Detective Papamichael? That was more than four years ago. Besides, here’s another thing Ms. Broden didn’t tell you all: Lauren Wright had more than twenty cases with Detective Papamichael. If he was going to give someone a gun, who do you think it would be? Someone Detective Papamichael had one case with, or someone he had twenty cases with?