“Oyez, oyez, oyez,” the court clerk said, her voice ringing out in the near-empty courtroom. “All rise, the Honourable Justice Tator presiding.”
The clerk sat as Tator strode from a door behind the bench and raced up to her seat on the raised dais. She was a thin, fit woman, with strong arms that she spread out as if she were stretching in a gym class, before she opened her court book, picked up a pen, wrote something in it, looked up, and scanned the courtroom.
It was a wide, windowless room lit by dull fluorescent light. There was nothing on the pallid beige walls except for printed-out sheets with the next four calendar months that were messily taped to the wall to the left of the witness box.
The seats in the body of the court were hard, functional wooden benches. The only people in attendance were the court staff, an elderly attendant dressed in uniform stationed by the door, Parish, Melissa, and Fernandez standing behind the counsel tables, and a pair of young people in the back row with clipboards taking notes. They looked like college students doing an assignment.
Tator scowled. “Good morning, Ms. Parish, Mr. Fernandez.”
“Good morning, Your Honour,” Parish said.
“Your Honour,” Fernandez said.
Tator grabbed the court docket from her desk, glanced at it, tossed it down, and stared down at Parish, her eyebrows arched.
“Ms. Parish, your matter is the only one on my docket. Are we having a trial today or is this being resolved in some other way?”
Parish knew the question was judge-speak meaning: What the hell is going on? Are you really going to have a trial about this? A mere breach of bail conditions? She was a busy judge with serious trial matters to deal with.
But Tator was wily. She knew that even though her voice was full of sarcasm, none of this would come through on the court transcript, which would read as her being an even-handed and reasonable jurist.
Parish stiffened her back. It was important to look strong in Tator’s court or she’d run right over you.
“Thank you very much, Your Honour. Yes, we are here for trial.”
Tator gave a slow nod. She looked over at Melissa, who was still standing at Parish’s side. “Tell your client to be seated,” she said. Then to Fernandez, “Mr. Fernandez, call your first witness.”
“The Crown calls Doctor Rebecca Ennis.”
Doctor, Parish thought.
Fernandez could have simply referred to Ennis by her full name: “The Crown calls Rebecca Ennis.” Instead he’d made sure that Doctor was the first word that Tator heard about his first witness. It was a signal to her about how credible Doctor Ennis would be. And what a waste of time it was to have her appear in person in court.
Tator looked at Parish and frowned.
Damn.
Fernandez turned to the court attendant by the door and nodded. The attendant nodded back, and opened the door.
Ennis walked in, looking tentative. For most people, their only image of what a courtroom looked like came from TV and movies, where the courtrooms were big and luxurious and packed with spectators. It was disorienting for them to enter this ugly, utilitarian room.
“Doctor,” Tator said, breaking out into her first smile of the morning. “Step right up beside me to the witness box here, to my left, your right.”
Doctor, Parish thought. Great.
Ennis looked to be in her mid- to late forties. She wore a crisp white shirt under a modest sport jacket. She stood in the witness box and scanned the courtroom. Parish watched her carefully. As she suspected, Ennis looked everywhere but at Melissa.
The woman is embarrassed to be here, Parish thought. Uncomfortable.
“Good morning, Doctor Ennis,” Fernandez said, after rising to his feet and making eye contact with her.
“Good morning,” Ennis said, looking relieved to have someone to talk to.
Doctor, doctor, doctor, Parish thought.
Fernandez was an efficient advocate. He quickly established Ennis’s qualifications and her address.
“Now, Doctor, do you know a woman named Ms. Melissa Copeland?”
Ennis bit her lip. “Yes, I do.”
“And Doctor, do you see that person in the court today?”
She stole a glance at Melissa. “Yes, I do,” she said again.
“Could you point her out, please?”
She flicked her finger at Melissa.
“Indicating the accused, for the record,” Fernandez said.
The rest of his examination was standard examination-in-chief by an experienced prosecutor who knew how to get a witness’s story out efficiently: How did the doctor know Melissa? They’d been neighbours for about ten years, until Melissa left the neighbourhood. How did Ennis know about Melissa’s bail conditions? The police had informed her and her neighbours, who all lived four blocks away from the Hodgson home. How often had she seen Melissa walk on her front lawn? Three days in a row until finally she felt compelled to call the police.
“Are you certain the person you saw was the accused?”
She nodded, with a sad look on her face. “It was Melissa. Even though she wore different clothes every time. We used to take our daughters to Gymboree classes together. Sometimes we’d go for coffee while the girls played. One winter my husband and I built a skating rink in our backyard, and Melissa would bring Britt over on the weekends if she wasn’t working.”
This was why it was usually better for the defence to work out an agreed statement of facts with the prosecutor before a trial if the evidence was uncontested, to avoid having a witness such as Ennis take the stand. Not only did it anger a judge that you were wasting court time and dragging a law-abiding citizen into court unnecessarily, but when people testified in court, they were more compelling than dry words on the page. Inevitably, just as Doctor Ennis was doing now, the witness remembered more detail than when interviewed by a police officer.
“Thank you,” Fernandez said. “Those are my questions.” He turned from the witness stand, caught Parish’s eye, and gave her a little tilt of the head, his way of saying, “Well, you asked for it.”
Ennis looked at the judge, confused. “Am I done?”
“I’m afraid not, Doctor Ennis.” Tator turned her head to ensure the doctor couldn’t see the sour look on her face as she faced Parish. “The defence lawyer may have some questions for you.”
Parish stood. She avoided the judge’s eyes, instead looking directly at Ennis, who seemed to steady herself, as if she was expecting some kind of assault. The other thing people saw all the time on TV and in the movies was defence lawyers who berated witnesses, harshly cross-examining them about the minutest details.
Parish knew that would have been the worst possible approach with such a credible witness. The key was to acknowledge, and indeed celebrate, her honesty, not to question it.
She smiled. “Doctor, I understand you are anxious to get back to work.”
“I am.”
“You have patients at your clinic who are waiting for you.”
“Yes, I’ve rebooked people, and I’ll work tonight.”
“Thank you for coming to court. This won’t take long. I’ve only got a few questions.”
“Okay,” Ennis said. Relaxing.
“Melissa and you were neighbours for years.” Parish put her hands on Melissa’s shoulder. She intentionally referred to Melissa by her first name. Make the witness feel they were having a conversation about a mutual friend.
“That’s right.”
“You yourself never had any problems or conflict with her, did you?”
“Me? With Melissa? No.” Ennis looked relieved to be able to say something positive about her former neighbour. “Well, sometimes Melissa got stuck at work,” Ennis added, still sounding nervous. “Then I’d pick up Britt and take her if Karl, her husband, wasn’t available.”
“Normal parenting stuff, correct?”
“Yes, normal.”
“And you’re still friends with her ex-husband, correct?”
“I wouldn’t say friends, but we know each other. It’s a tight-knit neighbourhood.” She was starting to sound wary.
“Can we agree you were normal friendly neighbours?”
“That’s right.”
“In other words, you are totally neutral about this matter. You’re not taking sides.”
“Absolutely not,” she said, shaking her head.
“You are here for one reason, and only one reason. To tell us exactly what you observed the three times you say you saw Melissa walk across your lawn.”
“Yes, and it was Melissa.” She was starting to sound defiant. Exactly what Parish wanted.
“You saw her clearly all three times.”
“Yes, I did. She was right in front of the window.”
Parish glanced up at the judge. Tator looked surprised that Parish seemed to be conceding what she assumed was the key point of the defence—the identity of the woman walking across her neighbours’ lawns.
Parish was still standing behind her desk. She pulled out three sheets of paper, walked over to Fernandez’s desk and dropped one in front of him, and then went up and gave another copy to the court clerk, who gave it to the judge. She approached the witness box with the third and last copy in her hand.
“Doctor,” she said in a soft voice, “I went on Google Maps this morning and printed out a photo of what I believe is the front of your house. Can you look at this, please.”
“Sure.” She took the photo.
Out of the corner of her eye, Parish could see Tator looking closely at the photograph she’d been handed.
“This is our house,” Ennis said.
Parish put her arm on the edge of the witness box as if she were leaning on the fence of a friendly neighbour, about to have a casual conversation. “You’ll agree with me that at the bottom of the photo we can see your street, above that the sidewalk, and above that your front lawn and then your house and front window you were looking out of.”
Ennis nodded.
“Excuse me, Doctor,” Parish said. It was her turn to play the doctor card. “You will need to say the words yes or no for the court record.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Yes. Yes, it’s our house.”
“Can you do me a favour then?” Parish asked, pulling out a red marker and uncapping it. “Please mark with an X where you saw Melissa walking in front of your house and the path she took.”
“Sure,” Ennis said, happy to do such an easy task. She took the marker and put an X mark in the middle of the lawn and drew dotted lines going across it parallel to the sidewalk.
Parish took the photo and examined it. “And did Melissa walk on the same part of your lawn each time?”
“She did. The same way all three times.”
Parish took the marker and marked-up photograph back and walked over to show it to Fernandez. She could tell by the look on his face that he’d figured out what she was doing. He glanced at it, frowned, and said, “Thanks.” She took it back to the clerk, who passed it up to Tator.
Parish watched her study the photo for a minute with a quizzical look on her face. Parish could tell that, unlike Fernandez, Tator didn’t get it.
“Proceed, Counsel,” Tator barked. “This witness has sick people waiting for her.”
Parish smiled at the judge and turned to the witness stand.
“Doctor, you’ll agree with me, your front lawn is quite large.”
“Yes. Our house is set back twenty-five yards from the street.”
“You saw Melissa walk across the middle of your lawn, as you’ve indicated here on this photo. Three times.” Parish was using her kindest voice.
“Yes.”
“You never saw Melissa set foot on the street itself, did you?”
“Absolutely not.” The doctor let herself smile and stole a glance at Melissa.
“You never saw her set foot on the sidewalk, did you?”
“No. I never saw Melissa walk anywhere but across our lawn. I’m one hundred per cent sure of that.”
Parish turned from the witness and now it was her turn to catch Fernandez’s eye. He put his head in his hand and nodded ever so slightly.
“Thank you, Doctor,” she said, adding her own emphasis to the word, “those are my questions.”
Parish took her seat before she looked up at Tator. But the judge already had her head down reading through the court documents. Her focus would be on the key line in the charge, that Melissa had breached her bail by being “on the street…”
Tator glared up at Parish. But Parish could see she was also thinking, I get it. Clever.
Never gloat in court, Parish told herself. Words of wisdom Ted DiPaulo had drilled into her when she first joined his practice. “Modesty is a weapon,” he’d told her. “And it’s your natural personality. Use it.”
Tator turned back to the doctor. “Thank you for coming today, Doctor,” she said.
“May I go?” Ennis asked.
Tator held up her hand. “One moment. Mr. Fernandez, any questions in re-examination?” There was a hopeful tone in her voice.
Fernandez stood. “No, Your Honour. I have no further questions.”
He looked at Parish. Gave her a hint of a smile.
“Your Honour,” he said. “I’m going to ask that we take the morning break earlier than usual this morning. There are some matters I’d like to discuss with counsel before I call my next witness.”
Tator shook her head at Fernandez. Then she turned on Parish.
Uh-oh, Parish thought. She’d just poked the bear.