Paul Madriani: The Jury Part 21

"Your Honor, if I may. We have a stipulation outstanding." He turns toward me for an answer.

"Do I have a copy?" says the judge.

Tannery has forgotten to give him one. The detective forages at the counsel table and finally gives up his own copy so that the bailiff can hand it up to the judge.

"What is this?" Coats looks at it as he asks the question.

"It deals with the witness's background, Your Honor. I think we can shorten her testimony if we agree to certain facts."

"Your Honor, given the limited information we have concerning this witness, I don't think we can accept this portion of the stipulation." Harry and I are conferring at the table as I address the issue.

"I don't see why not, Your Honor. The information is probably irrelevant," says Tannery. "These activities involving the witness took place over two decades ago."

"If the defense isn't comfortable with the stipulation, you know the drill, Mr. Tannery. You can object, and we'll deal with it then."

"Your Honor, this was part of a package. Two stipulations." Tannery isn't happy. "If we're not going to agree as to the one, then the previous stipulation offered by the people must be withdrawn."

Tannery looks over at me, dangling this. He knows that the family history, the relations.h.i.+p between mother and daughter, is a measure of damages he can draw out in front of the jury for emotional impact. That he is willing to offer this up makes me wonder why he is so anxious to avoid the witness's history as an undergraduate at Michigan. Harry has the same thought. He is making a note to himself on a legal pad.

"We're willing to accept the one," I tell the court.

"We're not," says Tannery.

"Very well," says the judge. "There are no stipulations. Proceed."

"Would you state your name for the record?" Tannery finally turns to the witness.

"Tanya Elizabeth Jordan." She spells her first and last names for the court reporter. There is no nervous hesitation. She is cool-almost businesslike.

"I know this is difficult for you," says Tannery. Though you wouldn't know it from her demeanor. "We will take it slow. If you need time to collect your thoughts, just tell us. You are the mother of the victim in this case, Kalista Jordan?"

She nods. "I am."

"When was the last time you spoke with your daughter?"

She doesn't have to think long. She remembers the precise date. "It was March thirtieth, last year."

"Can you tell the court, did you have a close relations.h.i.+p with your daughter?"

"Very close. I was a single parent. Kalista and I were the only family either of us had. She was my only child."

"Is her father alive?"

"No. He died when she was an infant. Kalista never knew her father."

"So you raised her alone?"

"Pretty much. My mother was with us for a time, when I was in college. She would watch my daughter when I attended cla.s.ses, or had to go to work."

"But you would characterize your relations.h.i.+p with your daughter as close?"

"Very."

"And it remained close even as she became an adult? Your daughter, I mean."

"Yes."

"How often did you see her?"

"Objection, lack of specificity as to time."

Tannery looks over at me, and before the judge can rule he reframes the question.

"Within the last year before her death, how often on average would you see your daughter?"

"At least four times a year, perhaps five. We would spend vacation time together, Christmas and Thanksgiving. Given the distance sometimes I would travel out, sometimes she would come home."

"And on the phone, how often would you talk? During this same time frame?"

"At least twice a week. Sometimes more."

"Did she confide in you?"

"We didn't have any secrets, if that's what you mean."

"Did she come to you for advice?"

"Usually. Children don't always ask, but Kalista is . . ." For the first time Tanya Jordan breaks her concentration, looks up at the ceiling and amends her answer. "She was a good child." Her voice catches a little as she places her daughter in the past tense.

"Yes." Tannery glances over at Harry and me as if to say there will be much more of this if we don't take the stipulation.

"When she was young, I take it she would talk with you about boys, her friends, what she was doing at school?"

"Oh, yes. We discussed almost everything. She never kept any secrets from me."

"And I a.s.sume you shared things with her?"

"I did."

Tannery shuffles a page to the top of the stack from the papers in front of him on the lectern.

"Did you ever discuss with her your experiences in college, at the University of Michigan?"

"I did. We talked about the fact that I'd done some things, made some mistakes, but that she was not one of them."

"What do you mean she was not one of them?"

"I mean having my daughter was not something I had planned. But I would never have changed it for the world."

"You weren't married to Kalista's father?"

"No."

"Was she troubled by this?"

"I don't think so. I mean, I'm sure there were times in her life when growing up without a father was difficult. But she didn't dwell on it. And, as I said, he died long ago."

"So she would have been without a father whether you had been married to him or not?"

"Objection."

"Yes."

"Sustained. You're not supposed to answer the question if there's an objection," says the judge.

"Sorry." She looks up at him, only a few inches shorter than Coats even though he's on the bench.

"Let's concentrate on your days at Michigan." Tannery now starts to lead her into ancient history. Harry and I are looking at each other wondering why, unless Tannery is just trying to take the sting out of an old arrest, something we are not likely to raise in any event.

"Did you talk to your daughter much about your undergraduate days?"

"We talked about it. She was interested in the period. Student activism. I think it held a certain nostalgia for her. Kids today have it much easier, but they think they missed a lot, in the sixties and seventies."

"Civil rights?" says Tannery.

"That was a big part of it. Yes."

"And you were involved back then when you were in college."

"I was."

"You were active in civil rights activities?"

"Yes."

"You engaged in demonstrations? So-called sit-ins?"

"I did."

"And Kalista was interested in this?"

"Yes. She always wanted to know what it was like. I think to her it was"-she thinks for a second- "like history. Curiosity driven by nostalgia. Kalista was born when I was in college, but she was only an infant when I graduated. She had no recollection of that time. It was very difficult. The only reason I was able to attend the university was that I had a scholars.h.i.+p, and my mother provided child care so I could attend cla.s.ses. We lived in a small apartment off campus. Kalista wanted to know about it. She was very curious."

"And you would talk about this with her?"

"We would discuss it."

"Your mother, is she alive?"

"She died four years ago."

"I'm sorry." Tannery is laying it all out, life leveraged from the bootstraps. He takes her through her studies in college, her jobs on the side to support the family while she went to school, a time punctuated with bouts of social activism. What Tanya Jordan calls her "period of commitment." She says it with a somewhat cynical grin as if she has grown up since then and come to realize there is no such thing as justice.

"And you say you partic.i.p.ated in demonstrations when you were at the university?"

"I did."

"Did you consider yourself highly active in this way?"

She thinks for a moment. "I considered myself committed."

"To social justice? Civil rights?"

"Right."

"Do you believe you are still committed in this way? To these goals?"

"Yes." She says it, but the conviction is gone from her voice. What kind of social justice can exist in a world in which her child has been savagely murdered and dismembered?

"And can you tell the court, did your daughter share this same interest? This commitment?"

"Yes, she did."

Tannery pauses, looks through his sheaf of papers, finds the one he is looking for and studies it for a moment. "I'm going to hand you a doc.u.ment. Your Honor, may I approach the witness?"

The judge motions him on.

"I want you to look at this doc.u.ment and tell the court what it is." Tannery hands her what looks like three stapled pages. The witness looks at it briefly, then looks up.

"It's a police report. A record of my arrest on May second, nineteen seventy-one."

"And what were you arrested for?"

"I'm not sure what the exact charge was. Disturbing the peace, or unlawful a.s.sembly."

"What were you doing when you were arrested?"

"We were picketing. It was a sit-in at the university. In the faculty offices."

"Why were you picketing?"

"Because of research being done at the university."

"What kind of research?"

"It was a kind of racial profiling. Intelligence quotients, based on so-called genetic research."

Tannery, who is still at the witness box, now turns to look at Harry and me.