He’d left me a letter to open after he died. It contained the combination to a safe he had installed in his home office where I found a quarter-million dollars in cash. The letter provided detailed instructions about to whom and in what amounts I was to deliver the money. I visited a half-dozen cities across the country delivering bundles of cash to various people. I asked few questions, and they volunteered little information. Had I broken the law? Not as far as I knew. It was Larry’s money, and he could give it to whomever he wanted. I was simply the courier. What they did with the funds was not my concern. Nonetheless, the appearance of the FBI agents had me rattled. I’d been a defense lawyer a long time and I knew that insulating myself through ignorance of possibly illegal activity went only so far.
I started up my car and headed off to court.
••••
The Santa Monica courthouse was one of those ubiquitous institutional, International Style buildings of the 1960s— straight lines, square corners, glass fenestration, a gleaming white façade— that could have been a bank, a school, or for that matter a church; all the architect would have had to do was add a cross. The hearing in People v. Woods, et al., however, was not being conducted in one of the building’s austere courtrooms but in a trailer behind the courthouse pressed into service to handle the court’s overflow.
I was not an attorney of record in Woods. A friend had asked me to stand in for him because he was in trial elsewhere. Woods involved the arrests of some UCLA students at an anti-apartheid demonstration at the federal building for trespassing. A few of the demonstrators had scuffled with the cops and were then also charged with resisting arrest and with battery on a police officer. The kids said the cops started the fracas. I and the lawyers representing the other defendants were here on a Pitchess motion. Pitchess was a defense request to examine a cop’s personnel records for prior citizen complaints of misconduct that could be used against the cop at trial. We wanted to know if any of the officers in this case had been subjects of prior complaints of excessive force to buttress the kids’ claim that the cops started the fight and the protestors acted in self-defense.
••••
Despite attempts to invest the trailer with some kind of judicial dignity— there were wooden benches in the gallery and an elevated dais for the judge— it was unmistakably a trailer, windowless, cramped, and poorly ventilated. My fellow defense counsel— six of us in all, for each of the six defendants, Lewis Woods being the lead defendant— were huddled around one of two counsel tables at the front of the room. As was typical of pretrial hearings, the defendants themselves were not present. At the other table sat the solitary DA assigned to the case, and in the gallery was another lawyer I recognized but was surprised to see here, Marc Unger.
Marc was an Assistant Los Angeles City Attorney. He ran the division of the office that represented the police departments in civil suits, defending cops from lawsuits that charged them with misconduct up to and including the wrongful death of suspects in their custody. He had a cop’s beefy build himself— three quarters muscle, one-quarter fat— and an easy but authoritative baritone. He exuded such unapologetic, traditional masculinity few people would have guessed he was gay. But he was gay, uncloseted, and comfortable in his skin.
I knew Marc from meetings of the gay and lesbian lawyers association where he flirted with me relentlessly. Not that I was special in that regard— he flirted with any attractive gay man who crossed his path. He saw me and smiled his charming, crooked smile. He was, as always, elegantly turned out in a bespoke suit, his handsome face smooth and glowing as if he’d just been shaved by his own personal barber who had also clipped and styled his hair to camera-ready, movie star perfection.
“Marc?” I queried, approaching him. “What are you doing here?”
“Hello, Henry,” he said, shaking my hand. “You represent one of the defendants?”
I shook my head. “I’m standing in for Mitch Prynne. He’s in trial. You didn’t answer my question.”
He smiled sunnily. “Just observing.”
That was, as we both knew, a lie. Marc was far too busy and was too much of a big shot to waste a morning observing a pretrial motion in a misdemeanor prosecution in a trailer courtroom on the far end of town from his posh office in City Hall East.
“Bullshit,” I said.
Still smiling, he leered and rumbled, “You kiss with that mouth?”
When it was clear that was all I was going to get from him, I headed back to the counsel table and asked the same question of Ellen Lefkowitz, a tough, smart defense lawyer representing the lead defendant Woods.
“I don’t know,” she said, “but something’s up. I saw him out in the parking lot arguing with the DA. Don’t worry, I’ll get to the bottom of it.”
At that moment, the bailiff stood up and said, “All rise. Department 5 of the Santa Monica Superior Court is now in session, the Honorable Pauline Masanque-Brown presiding.”
The judge came in unceremoniously through a door behind the clerk’s desk and took her seat. She was a small, dark-skinned woman— the superior court’s only Filipina— with graying hair, a frosty demeanor, and a stern, no-nonsense reputation. If you were prepared, she was an exemplary judge, efficient and fair, but if you weren’t, God help you.
“Be seated,” she said. “We’re here on People v. Woods, et al. Counsel, state your appearances for the record and then we’ll move on to the motion.”
When I stated my appearance and explained that Mitch was in trial, she glared. I braced myself for an interrogation about why he hadn’t moved heaven and earth to make his appearance, but instead she turned to her clerk and asked, sharply, “Did he call?”
“Yes, Your Honor. He called on Friday. The trial is in Lancaster and the judge denied his request for a continuance so he could be here today. He apologizes.”
I’s dotted and t’s crossed, she said, “Fine. Welcome, Mr. Rios.”
I smiled. “Always a pleasure, Your Honor.”
“Now,” she said, “I’ve read the motion and the opposition. I will allow each side five minutes if they wish to say anything further before I—”
“Your Honor,” the DA said.
“What is it, Mr. Robinson?” she asked, displeased at the interruption.
“Your Honor, the People move to dismiss all charges against all defendants in the interests of justice.”
At the defense table we exchanged baffled looks.
“Did you file a 1382 motion?”
“No, Your Honor. I’m making it verbally now.”
This was exactly the kind of surprise she did not like. “Tell me, counsel, what are the interests of justice that would be served by dismissing a case against these defendants after two months of taking up this court’s time and resources?”
Robinson visibly paled but plunged on. “We have new information.”
“What information?”
He took a deep breath. “I can’t say in open court.”
Before she could respond Marc Unger was on his feet. “Your Honor, Marc Unger, Assistant City Attorney. If I may approach.”
“What’s your interest in this case, Mr. Unger?” she asked, sharply.
“If Mr. Robinson and I could approach and speak to you privately, I will explain everything,” he said suavely.
Ellen was on her feet. “The defense objects.”
Unger