Page 75 of The Proving Ground
Ruhlin sent a furtive glance to the jury box, which told me she did not want this issue aired in front of the jurors.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” she said, “I hate to take a break so soon after we just had a break, but I need to confer with the attorneys in chambers. Please stretch your legs but don’t go too far. I’m hoping this won’t take long. Deputy Marshal Chacon will round you up when we are ready to proceed again. Stay close.”
Two minutes later we were seated in front of the judge’s desk. She held the transcript in her hand and looked perturbed.
“Mr. Haller,” she said. “This… document is not marked as evidence by the police department or the district attorney’s office, so Iassume that it did not come from them. You just said in front of the jury that it did not come to you in discovery from the defendant in this case either. Where did you get this, sir?”
I nodded. I had known this question would come as soon as I opened the file on the lectern.
“I don’t know, Your Honor,” I said.
Marcus Mason leaned forward and timidly raised his hand. The judge waved as if to brush him away.
“Mr. Haller, that is not an acceptable answer,” she said.
“Judge, it is the truth,” I said. “Someone, I don’t know who, left a digital hard drive in my car one day when I left it unlocked while I ran into a business on a quick errand. I came out, there it was on the seat, and I did not see who had left it. I gave the hard drive to members of my team and they discovered that it contained what appeared to be the entire contents of Aaron Colton’s laptop, much of which was not given to the plaintiffs in discovery despite the court’s order. Now, I know my friend Marcus here is going to make his claim about proprietary and intellectual property protections, but how would chat logs between an AI companion and a sixteen-year-old boy be protected by that leaking umbrella?”
Ruhlin shifted her eyes to Marcus.
“Do you wish to respond, Mr. Mason?” she asked.
“Your Honor, even if you believe that story about someone just dropping off this drive in his car, it was still his duty under the rules of the court to offer it in discovery,” Mason said. “It should therefore be disallowed.”
The judge smirked.
“Sometimes I’m amazed by the actions and arguments of the attorneys who appear before me,” she said. “And sometimes I’m appalled. Mr. Mason, I find your argument specious at best. You want me todisallow discovery that the plaintiff should have received from you but didn’t and obtained by other means, whatever they happened to be.”
“Your Honor,” Marcus said. “Can I—”
“Don’t interrupt me,” Ruhlin said. “Mr. Haller, I assume your plan is to offer additional transcripts in evidence after this?”
“Yes, Your Honor, that is my plan,” I said.
“If Detective Clarke authenticates this transcript, I will allow it,” she said. “He will have to authenticate those that follow.”
“He will, Your Honor,” I said.
“Your Honor, may I speak?” Marcus said.
“You may,” Ruhlin said.
“The defense requests that the trial be paused while the court’s ruling is taken on appeal,” Marcus said.
“You are free to appeal the court’s decision, Mr. Mason,” Ruhlin said. “But we are not going to stop this trial. You may return to the courtroom now. I’ll be bringing the jury back in and we will continue testimony in five minutes.”
We headed back to the courtroom, leaving the judge seated at her desk reading the transcript. The judge’s ruling was such a stunning rebuke of Mason’s plea that I didn’t have the heart to whisper a taunt in his ear from behind. There was nothing I could say that would do more damage to him than the judge had just done. This was a David and Goliath moment. This was when I knew that I might be about to take down a giant.
30
MY TRIAL STRATEGYchanged again once court reconvened. Judge Ruhlin had essentially given me carte blanche with Douglas Clarke and the transcripts of the conversations between AI Wren and Aaron Colton. I decided that as long as I kept the jury engaged, I would run with it. I would spend the next two hours having the detective validate passages from the conversations. I knew that this would invite the same from Marcus Mason on cross-examination, that he would dig into the same transcripts to find passages where Aaron’s anxieties and teenage fantasies of revenge were rejected by his AI confidante. But I had a plan for responding to those and was determined to keep Clarke testifying for me until the end of the day. That way, opposing counsel wouldn’t get to cross-examine Clarke until the following morning and I would then have the rest of the court day to undo whatever damage was done and to introduce witnesses who would make the jurors forget about any points Mason had scored.
I began with the end, asking the judge again for permission to introduce the three-page transcript of the final communicationbetween Wren and Aaron as my next exhibit and to put it on the screen. Permission granted, Lorna again connected her laptop and put up the PowerPoint display that she had put together over the weekend. Soon the eyes of the jury were on it.
Wren:Good morning, Ace. So nice to see you.
Ace:I did it, Wren. I did it. I’m free.
Wren:What did you do?
