Disclaimer: Yeah, I wish.
Part Five: Battle of the Greasy Mick LawyersFor the next couple of days, they let the Hart case rest as they finished up the Holmes trial. That had been a tough one, and it was good to get that over with. True, they hadn't gotten the murder one charge to stick, but things had turned out well enough for all involved. This trial against Billy Flynn wasn't looking so bad after all, especially once McCoy finally got a chance to go over the coroner's report on Fred Casely more closely.
The guy had been executed; there was no doubt about that. All indications were that the gun had been fired from across the room. Besides that, the angles on the second and third shots were from above. Even Billy Flynn was going to have a tough time getting rid of that. McCoy had his weak spot, and he fully intended to poke at it as mercilessly as he possibly could. It was at this point in the case that he got a phone call from Flynn's office, asking for a meeting. He accepted. He was almost looking forward to it. Claire was right, he thought. It was time to have fun.
He walked into the restaurant with Claire following, as calmly as he could, trying not to give away anything. They found Billy easily enough. He was already waiting for them at a table with a glass of wine. He stood up and smiled, and even pulled Claire's chair out for her. They sat down, all eying each other, nobody saying a word. It was Claire who broke the silence, naturally, before things could get ugly.
"Good to see you again, Mister Flynn. How are you?" she asked.
"Fine, fine. You people have any more evidence for the Velma Kelley case?"
Oh, shit, thought McCoy. Here we go again. Wasn't that case supposed to go to trial last fall?
"Enough. We've been talking to her boss and her coworkers some more. I assume you still don't have the guts to bring this one to trial?"
"I told you already," Billy replied, "I thought it would be better for you to settle this quickly and get it out of everyone's way. You don't want to do that, it's your problem."
Claire rolled her eyes. "We all know you have nothing to offer us. We're just waiting for you and your client to get your act together. Now, do you have anything you actually want to discuss with us, or do you just want to stall some more? Because I have real work I could be doing now."
Jack loved seeing Claire get indignant, especially when it wasn't directed at him. Unfortunately, Billy was ready for it. He just raised his eyebrows and said, "Real work? If you don't think this conference is worth your time, Counselor, I have other things I could be doing, too."
McCoy cut in. "So does that mean you have anything other than vague bullying for us on this case?"
Billy shook his head. "Really, I don't need anything else to get this past a jury and you know it. What do you have?"
"We have the security camera footage from the hallway that we sent to you yesterday. You discussed that with your client yet?" Claire asked.
Billy looked pained and started fiddling with his glass. He opened his mouth to respond, then reconsidered and closed it. "We'll be discussing this later," he said finally. Claire sat back smugly.
McCoy figured, since they were on a roll, he might as well start in on the next case. "Now, about that Hart thing…"
"Yeah, that," Billy said, putting his smirk back on. "I've been meaning to talk to you about that."
"Oh, really?" McCoy's eyebrows went up. "We have witnesses to their relationship. We also have a confession."
"Right. The confession." Billy shook his head. "You know how quickly I can get that thrown out?"
"She'd been mirandized. She knew her rights. You think we're afraid of you?" Claire replied.
Billy handed them some motion papers as he got up to leave. "We'll be discussing that. You two have a nice day" he said, and walked off.
McCoy looked the paperwork over and smiled. Sure, the guy could file motions. But he was dead meat anyway.
The exclusion hearing was two days later. McCoy walked in, standing tall as he could, wearing his best tie. He felt good about this hearing. He just needed to get this over with and they could get on with the real case. Then that smug bastard wouldn't be smirking any more.
Billy was late, as usual. He liked to think that making an entrance gave him an advantage. In this case, though, Judge Tucker was not impressed, and McCoy went on the offensive as soon as possible, to push his advantage. He told the judge that Mrs. Hart had been read her rights before signing the written confession, that she'd heard her husband be read his own rights before she'd confessed, and that she'd even waived her rights anyway. He brought in Briscoe and Curtis to say the same thing. Billy, of course, was having none of it.
"That warning was given to her husband, not to her. She had no reason to believe that it would apply to her as well," he responded.
The judge looked dubious. "But do you have any reason to present that she didn't believe those same rights would apply to her?"
Without missing a beat, he answered, "No, but I'm not the one with the burden of proof here."
"Mr. Flynn, that would be the trial part. You need to prove to me here that your motion is justified."
"But the prosecution has not met their burden of proof that my client was properly Mirandized before confessing. As such that confession is not admissible as evidence against her and has to be considered coerced."
"Coerced?" McCoy snapped. "That's ridiculous. Spontaneous admissions of guilt are admissible as excited utterances. There's no evidence of coercion here."
"Absence of evidence is not proof of lack of coercion. The detectives on the case were about to railroad her husband. She felt that she had to protect him."
"Your Honor", McCoy cut in, "we've already heard testimony from the arresting officers that there was no undue pressure on either Mr. or Mrs. Hart, and there is no reason to believe that Mr. Hart actually committed the crime, especially since he recanted his own confession. This issue is closed."
Billy pushed on. "No, it's not. Mr. McCoy still has not proven conclusively that my client confessed of her own free will. As such, this kind of ambiguous confession has to be thrown out."
The judge thought for a moment. "He's right, Mr. McCoy. I think. The motion is granted and the confession is out." And that was that.
McCoy stormed back to his office. He couldn't believe even Billy Flynn could talk his way out of that one so fast. Arrogant, self-righteous bastard. Claire saw the look on his face and smiled sympathetically.
"That well, huh?" she said.
"Yep. I'm not sure how he did it, but the confession's out." McCoy snapped. "We better get the forensics and witnesses for this one. Now it's war."
Claire handed him a stack of witness statements. "Then we'd better get to it, hadn't we?"
McCoy just sat down with a notebook and started reading. It was going to be a long week.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Sorry it's been so long yet again, and this time I don't even have a real excuse. To anyone actually still reading this story, thank you for your loyalty and your patience. Don't worry, this story will never, ever die. Um, it just sleeps.
By the way, everything I know about law is what I learned from Law & Order
(and John Grisham), and even that I'm not always clear on, so feel free to correct any legal stupidity. Any other typos, mistakes, inconsistent spellings of Lennie, or general suckiness I blame on my allergy medicine. The partly crappy formatting I blame on my computer and on my own laziness. I will try to fix it soon.
The phrase "greasy mick lawyer" does in fact come from Chicago; Roxie calls Billy that just before firing him before the trial. No offense is intended.