Jack walked out the back door into the parking lot. As Brent started to leave through the front, it didn't take long for a thought to pop into his head, so he ran out back to see if he could catch Jack to ask him a question.

When Brent ran out the back door, he almost bumped into Jack, who seemed to be in a Mexican standoff with a disheveled and very drunk looking Gary Goldstein. The moonlight danced and gleamed off the shiny blade of a large knife Goldstein was holding in his hand.

"Who hired you?" Goldstein screamed, spittle flying. "My wife?"

"I did Goldstein," said Brent. "Now drop the knife and back off, unless you want to get arrested for felony assault and spend the next five years in prison."

"And what if I don't?" he had the nerve to ask.

"Then I'll have to take that knife away from you and stick it in your neck," said Jack, calmly and matter-of-factly, as if it were something he was used to doing.

Goldstein looked at Jack, then at Brent, dropped the knife and ran away.

"Call 911," said Jack, who ran after him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.

The Santa Barbara Courthouse was a brilliant piece of California Spanish Colonial architecture that had been in place since the days of Clarence Darrow. It was a lovely building with arched corridors and an exquisite courtyard garden. It was so beautiful, that one being forced to jury duty there may actually enjoy it. Brent loved having a trial there because he felt as if he could feel a whole century's worth of great minds who had tried cases there, like Melvin Belli and F. Lee Bailey. These adobe plastered and wood paneled walls had heard scores of brilliant and eloquent orations throughout the years.

The old wooden benches in the spectator gallery gave the courtroom more of a church feel than a courtroom. Brent and Nancy settled into their chairs at the counsel table just after the doors of the courtroom opened. Brent got out his master trial notebook and turned to the outline for voir dire, a set of questions he had prepared to ask potential jury members. Judge Hanford Curtis, the judge assigned to the trial, had already heard all the preliminary motions in limine. He was a firm but soft-spoken African American jurist, who had been on the bench for over 20 years. There would be no business today except for choosing a jury. Bradley Chernow came in and took his seat. There were only a few observers in the galley.

"Morning Brad," said Brent.

"Brent."

"All rise!" said the Clerk. Everyone stood.

"The Superior Court for the State of California for the County of Santa Barbara is now in session, the Honorable Hanford Curtis, Judge presiding."

"Good morning ladies and gentlemen," said the Judge. "Please be seated. We are on the record today in the case of People v. Haskins. Counsel, please state your appearances."

"Brent Marks for the Defendant, Nancy Haskins, who is present in court, Your Honor."

"Good morning, Your Honor. Bradley Chernow for the people."

"Thank you, Mr. Marks and Mr. Chernow. We've had a conference and a pretrial hearing and I think we've gotten all the preliminaries out of the way. Am I correct?"

All counsel answered yes.

"Alright, it appears there are no further matters for the Court to consider before proceeding to jury selection. Madame Clerk, will you please send in the first panel?"

The gallery filled up with about three dozen prospective jurors, and the Clerk called the first twelve, who had been chosen by random. They filled up the twelve of the fourteen chairs in the jury box; the two extra being for the selection of alternate jurors, in case a juror was sick or could not serve for some other reason. All jurors had filled out questionnaires which were given to Brent and to the D.A. Brent immediately turned a copy of the questionnaire over to Jack, who ran out to perform quick background checks on the entire panel. The Judge read a statement of the case which had been prepared and agreed upon by both counsel during the pretrial conference, and asked the jurors to answer some basic questions that were on display on a chart in front of the jury box, such as age, occupation, and family background. Both counsel would be looking for biases and prejudices. In this game, the Judge wanted each juror to be fair and unbiased, and each attorney wanted a juror that would not be biased against their case, but perhaps have a tinge of bias in favor of it.

Brent was looking for jurors who had had bad experiences with homeowners associations. He knew that was too ideal, because Chernow would use all of his peremptory challenges to kick off any prospective juror whoever had a problem with an HOA. But Brent would also be looking for jurors who knew someone who had been involved with an HOA. There wasn't a chance for many because Santa Barbara didn't have many new real estate developments. Most housing was at least 30 years old, and that was young for Santa Barbara. Brent was also looking for older people, perhaps widows or widowers, who would have sympathy for Nancy due to her age and position in life. Luckily for Brent, most of the people who were sitting in the box would either be retired, unemployed or their employment encouraged jury duty and they were on a kind of "paid vacation" in court.

After the jurors finished answering the Judge's questions, the Judge turned it over to the attorneys for the voir dire inquiry into the prospective juror's backgrounds. Because it was a capital case, each side was given a total of 20 peremptory challenges to potential jurors, which allowed the lawyer to kick any juror off the panel without giving a reason. Each lawyer could make a motion to dismiss a juror for cause as well, but it was rarely, if ever, done.

"Mr. Chernow, the people have the floor," said the Judge.

"Thank you, Your Honor. Ladies and gentlemen, if you're chosen to serve on this jury, the Judge will instruct you that circumstantial evidence is evidence that does not directly prove a fact to be decided, but is evidence of another fact or group of facts from which you may logically and reasonably conclude the truth of the fact in question. He will also instruct you that facts can be proved by circumstantial evidence, direct evidence or a combination of both. Do any of you feel that you could not make a logical and reasonable conclusion from only circumstantial evidence? If so, please raise your hands."

Of course, nobody raised their hand. Chernow was not playing dirty, but he was planting seeds in the juror's minds because he knew that a tremendously big jump had to be made to infer that Nancy was the murderer because the only real evidence against her was the clear plastic wrapping from the flowers that had been found in her garbage can.

Chernow went through an exhaustive list of questions with the potential jurors, and it seemed he would never stop. Finally, he came to the most important question.

"Juror number 12, Antonio Jalisco. Mr. Jalisco, as the Court informed you, this is a capital case, where the penalty for guilt may be death. If you thought that someone was guilty of premeditated murder and that it had been proven without a reasonable doubt, would you have any problem voting guilty knowing that the person could be sentenced to death?"

"No, I would not," replied Mr. Jalisco.

Chernow varied his questions for each juror, but he posed this particular one to every juror. One of them, juror number 6, Helen Wyndam, had very strong religious convictions and could not vote guilty if it meant the defendant could possibly be put to death.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE.

Jack noticed that the VW van was parked in the driveway at Keith Michel's, so he knocked on the door. Michel answered the door, dressed in a white tee shirt and shorts, with messy hair and sleepy eyes. It looked like he had either just woken up or had just gone to bed. Typical druggie, thought Jack.

"Mr. Michel?"

"Who wants to know?"

Jack put out his card. "Jack Ruder, private investigator."

"What's this about?" Michel asked, wiggling like he had to go to the bathroom.

"I was attacked by one of your roommates the other night."

"Way I heard it, dude, you were trespassing."

"Who else lives here with you, Mr. Michel?"

"Well there's Manny."

Jack took down the name in his notebook.

"What's his last name?"

"Dude, I don't know. I'm not a census taker. All I care about is the rent. Cash is king."

"So your roommates are your tenants?"

"Yeah."

"Who else lives here with you?"

"Well, there's Moe."

Jack started to write down the name, "Moe," and then stopped and looked up at Michel, who was wearing a shit-eating grin.

"Let me guess, you don't know Moe's last name either, right?"

"Dude, you're good!"

"And your other roommate's name must be Jack, right? Manny, Moe and Jack?"

"Dude, it's like you're a psychic or something."

"Thanks for your cooperation, Mr. Michel," Jack said, and turned to leave.

"Anytime, dude!"

After the lunch break, Brent was given the floor, and tried to fuse the principle of reasonable doubt with the principle of circumstantial evidence in the minds of the jurors. His job during the trial would be to drive a wedge of reasonable doubt into every piece of circumstantial evidence that he could.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the panel, when my colleague Mr. Chernow spoke to you about circumstantial evidence, he explained how the Court would instruct you what it was and how it can be used to draw an inference about a proven fact. However, the Judge will also instruct you that before you may rely on circumstantial evidence to conclude that a fact necessary to find the defendant guilty has been proved, you must be convinced that the People have proved each fact essential to that conclusion beyond a reasonable doubt. Who knows what that means?"

A man in the panel raised his hand.

"Juror number four, Mr. Samuels, what do you think reasonable doubt means?"

"It means you have to be sure about it."

"The Judge will tell you what the law says reasonable doubt is. He will instruct you that the defendant is presumed innocent and that the People have the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that it was the defendant who committed the crime. They must prove this as to every element of the crime, and if they don't, you have to acquit my client. He will instruct you that the defendant does not have to say anything or prove anything. The entire burden is on the People. With that in mind, does anybody on the panel think they would have to hear the defendant's side of the story to decide anything?"

Two hands shot up and Brent took notes of who they were.

"The Judge will tell you that the reasonable doubt standard is more stringent than the preponderance of evidence standard we use in a civil case. The preponderance of evidence standard asks you to decide whether the evidence shows that a fact is more likely than not true. The reasonable doubt standard goes one step further. It asks you to decide whether each essential element of the case has been proved by the People to the point of an abiding conviction in you that the charge is true. Does anybody not understand this concept?"

Juror number 7, Joseph Baker, raised his hand.

Brent continued to question the jurors until he had run out of questions, then informed the Judge.

"The Court will hear any challenges for cause," said Judge Curtis.

"Pass for cause, Your Honor," said Brent.

"Pass for cause, Your Honor," said Chernow.

"Alright then, the first peremptory challenge is with the People."

"The People wish to thank and excuse Juror No. 6, Mrs. Helen Wyndam."

Ms. Wyndam was excused, and the clerk drew another potential juror's name from the gallery, filling her empty seat. This began a process of questioning the next prospective juror, who took a seat in the jury box and underwent the entire voir dire process.

"The next peremptory challenge is with the Defendant."

"The Defendant wishes to thank and excuse Juror No. 7, Joseph Baker."

Jury selection continued through the end of the day and into the next, until all 40 peremptory challenges had been used. The final jury was composed of five men, seven women and two alternates; one man and one woman. To Brent's delight, most of the members of the jury had grey hair.

"Madame Clerk, please swear in the jury," instructed Judge Curtis. The swearing was followed by the traditional admonishments, prohibiting the jurors from talking to anyone about the case, even amongst themselves. Then Judge Curtis turned to the lawyers and asked, "Mr. Marks, Mr. Chernow, is there anything else to bring before the Court's attention before we start?"

"Yes, Your Honor, I move that witnesses be excluded from the Courtroom except during their testimony," said Chernow.

"Any objection, Mr. Marks?"

"No, Your Honor."

"Motion granted."

Then Court was adjourned to the following day for the real work to begin.

If home is a state of mind, Brent slipped into it even before he pulled up to his Harbor Hills Drive home. After he got in and fed the cat, he relaxed and had a drink on the patio and looked at the ocean for a while. It was a calming end to a hectic day, and there were even more hectic days to come.

Brent spent some time after dinner going over his outlines for the opening statement and cross examination of witnesses. You never could be ready enough for a trial, but he was going to be as ready as he possibly could.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR.

Bradley Chernow stood in front of the jury at the podium confidently. He had done this many times, and had his cookie-cutter analogies all set to go. With his opening statement, the first battle of the war had begun.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. This is the guilt phase of the trial, where you will be asked to decide whether the defendant, Nancy Haskins, murdered the victim, Barbara Densmore, by poison, which is a special circumstance under the law which could lead the defendant to a sentence of life in prison or the death penalty. As the Judge will instruct you, you are not to consider the possible penalty in making your decision on whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty of this heinous crime.

"As the Judge also will instruct you, the People have the burden of proving their case beyond a reasonable doubt. That doesn't mean that you must have no doubts at all about the evidence; it simply means that from the evidence you consider, you must decide whether, to an abiding conviction, that the charge is true."

As he spoke, Chernow made eye contact with each person in the jury, to make them comfortable and at ease with him, but also so he could see whether he was getting through to them. So far, it looked as if they were following him alright.

"We talked a lot about circumstantial evidence during the jury section. Most cases only have circumstantial evidence. It's very rare when you have an actual eyewitness to a crime who can tell you everything that happened.