The Brass Verdict

I didn’t see Stallworth and hoped the deputy had gone out into the hallway as I had instructed and was waiting. Elliot was all over me when I got to the defense table.

“What happened? What’s going on?”

I used my hand to signal him to keep his voice down. I then whispered to him.

“Juror number seven didn’t show up today and the judge looked into it and found out he was a phony.”

Elliot stiffened and looked like somebody had just pressed a letter opener two inches into his back.

“My God, what does this mean?”

“For us, nothing. The trial continues with an alternate juror in his place. But there will be an investigation of who number seven was, and hopefully, Walter, it doesn’t come to your door.”

“I don’t see how it could. But we can’t go on now. You have to stop this. Get a mistrial.”

I looked at the pleading look on my client’s face and realized he’d never had any faith in his own defense. He had been counting solely on the sleeping juror.

“The judge said no on a mistrial. We go with what we’ve got.”

Elliot rubbed a shaking hand over his mouth.

“Don’t worry, Walter. You’re in good hands. We’re going to win this thing fair and square.”

Just then the clerk called the courtroom to order and the judge bounded up the steps to the bench.

“Okay, back on the record with California versus Elliot,” he said. “Let’s bring in our jury.”

Forty-eight

The first witness for the defense was Julio Muniz, the freelance videographer from Topanga Canyon who got the jump on the rest of the local media and arrived ahead of the pack at the Elliot house on the day of the murders. I quickly established through my questions how Muniz made his living. He worked for no network or local news channel. He listened to police scanners in his home and car and picked up addresses for crime scenes and active police situations. He responded to these scenes with his video camera and took film he then sold to the local news broadcasts that had not responded. In regard to the Elliot case, it began for him when he heard a call-out for a homicide team on his scanner and went to the address with his camera.

“Mr. Muniz, what did you do when you arrived there?” I asked.

“Well, I got my camera out and started shooting. I noticed that they had somebody in the back of the patrol car and I thought that was probably a suspect. So I shot him and then I shot the deputies stringing crime scene tape across the front of the property, things like that.”

I then introduced the digital videocassette Muniz used that day as the first defense exhibit and rolled the video screen and player in front of the jury. I put in the cassette and hit “play.” It had been previously spooled to begin at the point that Muniz began shooting outside the Elliot house. As the video played, I watched the jurors paying close attention to it. I was already familiar with the video, having watched it several times. It showed Walter Elliot sitting in the back passenger seat of the patrol car. Because the video had been shot at an angle above the car, the 4A designation painted on its roof was clearly visible.

The video jumped from the car to scenes of the deputies cordoning off the house and then jumped back again to the patrol car. This time it showed Elliot being removed from the car by detectives Kinder and Ericsson. They uncuffed him and led him into the house.

Using a remote, I stopped the video and rewound it back to a point where Muniz had come in close on Elliot in the backseat of the patrol car. I started the video forward again and then froze the image so the jury could see Elliot leaning forward because his hands were cuffed behind his back.

“Okay, Mr. Muniz, let me draw your attention to the roof of the patrol car. What do you see painted there?”

“I see the car’s designation painted there. It is four-A, or four alpha, as they say on the sheriff’s radio.”

“Okay, and did you recognize that designation? Had you seen it before?”

“Well, I listen to the scanner a lot and so I am familiar with the four-alpha designation. And I had actually seen the four-alpha car earlier that day.”

“And what were the circumstances of that?”

“I had been listening to the scanner and I heard about a hostage situation in Malibu Creek State Park. I went out to shoot that, too.”

“What time was this?”

“About two a.m.”

“So, about ten hours before you were videoing the activities at the Elliot house you went out to shoot video at this hostage situation, correct?”

“That’s correct.”

“And the four-alpha car was involved also in this earlier incident?”

“Yes, when the suspect was finally captured, he was transported in four-alpha. The same car.”

“About what time did that occur?”

“That wasn’t until almost five in the morning. It was a long night.”

“Did you shoot video of this?”

“Yes, I did. That footage comes earlier on the same tape.”

He pointed to the frozen image on the screen.

“Then, let’s see,” I said.