“Correct.”
“Okay. So… what I want to know is if you would agree with me that, with that much blood, whomever did this would have had blood all over them? All over their clothes. Their shirt. Their pants. Wouldn’t that be the case?”
“Objection,” interrupted Battel. “That calls for expertise beyond what this witness has testified to. We would need a blood splatter expert to answer that question.”
“Your Honor,” Hixon said, “I am merely asking this man’s lay opinion from looking at the pictures. When you look at this photo, I believe it is clear we don’t need an expert to tell if blood would have gotten on the person who committed this crime.”
“I am going to sustain the objection,” McClintock said. “The jury has seen the photos; they can form their own lay opinions. I believe an expert would be necessary to give an opinion from the witness stand. I’d ask the jury to disregard the question as to this witness. Continue, Mr. Hixon, with a new line of questioning.”
“Regardless of whether or not you think the perpetrator of this crime would have been covered in blood, the only clothing you found with blood on it was the running shoes discovered in the field?”
“Correct.” Said Officer Mathews.
“No more questions, Your Honor,” Hixon said as he sat down.
Battel stood up next. “How did you determine the tennis shoes you found were the same shoes that left the bloody footprints at the scene?”
“We were able to match the pattern from the shoes with the pattern in the floor,” Matthews answered.
“How were you able to determine the shoes belonged to the defendant?”
“We found pictures of him wearing the shoes a week before the crime. Also, the shoes in the picture were never discovered in the residence.”
“Anything else?” Battel prompted.
“The shoes we found were size nine-and-a-half. All of the other men’s shoes found in the home were the same size. From this information, we deduced the bloody shoes belonged to Scottie.”
“Since you found the shoes in a field near the home, would you assume the defendant disposed of the shoes and his other clothes on his way from the murder scene to the hotel?”
“Objection,” interrupted Hixon. “Calls for speculation.”
“Sustained. Members of the jury, you shall please disregard the last question,” said Judge McClintock.
“No more questions, Your Honor,” Battel said.
***
Of course not, Steve thought. You already made your point despite the judge’s instruction. The jury is now thinking Scottie ditched the bloody shoes and clothes on his way to the hotel.
Steve added a number twelve to his list of possible claims for relief. Steve believed Judge McClintock’s decision not to allow the testimony of Matthews regarding blood on the assailant’s clothes was an error. The officer should have been allowed to give his lay opinion about the subject.
Will it be enough to win a new trial? Steve scrutinized the transcript. He didn’t know if it was enough, but he did know that, at this point, he needed to look for even the slightest issue that might turn out to be the winning argument. He knew that in this line of work, it was his job to throw everything possible at the federal court and hope something triggered a favorable decision from the court. He remembered one case, when he was a clerk, where the judge he was working with made him thoroughly research an argument he himself did not think was very strong, but the judge ended up being right.
It was now late Sunday night, and Steve’s review of the second stage of the trial would have to wait until another day.
A little over two weeks had passed since Steve had filed for the Court to appoint him a private investigator. As he sat in his living room hoping he would hear something soon, his doorbell rang.
“Mr. Thomas, what are you doing here? And how did you find my house?”
“First, did you forget I’m a private investigator? Moreover you don’t cover your tracks at all. It took me about two minutes to find your address.”
“Second, after you left thoughts of your case have been rattling around in my brain. This weekend I finally had time to do a little independent research. Once I discovered that racist asshole Deputy Blackburn was the investigative officer, I decided to take the case. Nothing I would love more than to show the world how incompetent he was in his investigation. You will be getting the order with my official appointment tomorrow, but I decided to swing by and get started.”
Steve grinned widely and reached his hand out to welcome him to their new team. Booger entered and Steve started the process of bringing Booger up to speed on everything he had found.
The next morning Steve was able to amend his appointment request with Deputy Warden Gilcrease to add Booger to the list. Once she heard she was going to get to see Booger, she acquiesced immediately.
The team was now almost to the prison for their visit. “How many times you been to death row?” Booger asked as they veered right off of the Indian Nations Turnpike and followed the exit ramp that led to the prison.
“To be honest, this is only my second time. My last meeting with Scottie was my first time ever.”
“Pretty amazing how they can legally keep these fellas in a modern-day dungeon. Everything but a stretching rack, huh?”
“Yeah,” responded Steve, recalling the dismal conditions of H-Unit. “I know they call it a bunker, but I agree ‘dungeon’ seems to fit a lot better. I was more than a little disturbed by the conditions when I was last there. I can’t imagine living in a cell underground, with the only sky you ever see being through those overhead grates for only an hour a day.”
“Well, that is a legal fight for you to have another day. Today, we need to get Scottie’s story and see how the pictures, testimony, and other evidence fits in with his version of what happened. I want you to do all the talking; that way, I can observe his body language freely. When I told you I can spot a lie a mile away, I wasn’t kidding.”
Steve nodded in agreement. There was no doubt in Steve’s mind that the retired investigator was the equivalent of a human lie detector.
CHAPTER 16
When Steve and Booger arrived at the gate, the guard set his clipboard down, walked up to the window, and smiled broadly. “Booger! Haven’t seen you here in a while. I saw your name on the list this morning and got excited to see you again. Thought you’d committed fully to your body shop?”
Booger smiled back. “Clarence, been a while. You still have that old Javelin? I don’t recall you bringing it by my shop in the last few years.”
“Yeah, well, that thing was a labor of love, and at some point, the labor exceeded the love. Sold it off to some guy from Texas.” The guard shook his head before continuing. “Well, you know the drill, Booger. Park over there.”
“Thanks, Clarence. Shame about the car.”