The Last Trial (Kindle County Legal Thriller, #11)

by Scott Turow

His client, the accused doctor, who is almost as aged as his attorney, kneels, holding the fallen man’s limp hand by the wrist.

faking to get a mistrial?

the old lawyer’s granddaughter,

the attorney’s daughter, his law partner for

dec...

Marta Stern

United States Attorney, Moses Appleton, will bypass minor objections rather than have the jury

He was confused for days, but by now the neurologist says his scans are normal—“for a person of eighty-five.”

But for fifty-nine years, Stern has approached every case almost as if he, as much as his client, were on trial. Each day consumes his entire spirit; he will sleep fitfully, as the witnesses take over his dreams.

He has always answered with the majestic calm of a superhero: ‘Speak to no one. I shall be there momentarily.’

Pinky, who is also at times her grandfather’s roommate, is a frequently infuriating employee. Marta would have fired her sister’s daughter long ago, but Stern continues to hold out hope. Still, he could not contain a swell of relief that

Pinky actually showed up at work this morning, or again now when it appears she’s kept the slides in the correct order.

Hoh,

it had to be WHO

g-Livia

Kiril Pafko has not grown a penny richer personally by selling PT stock.

while Stern, accompanied by the solid thump of his cane,

way. Innis apparently spent her last twenty months at PT in a state of fury after Pafko began carrying on with a far younger officer, the marketing director, Olga Fernandez.

old Judge Carrier

“RAS is the on-off switch for cell growth.

Kiril’s discovery was that in cancer, RAS somehow forgets its initial coding, allowing that wild cellular growth to occur. This was a discovery of immense importance, because it offered the first genuine opportunity to stop or even cure this disease.

earth. Kiril Pafko, this man sitting before you, was called to Sweden and awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine”—

In 2012 and ’13, PT developed something called a monoclonal antibody, a mAb for short, a product that mimics our natural immune system. That

Stern experienced the inevitable schadenfreude of his profession. He was distressed for Kiril but thrilled for himself. A lawyer called upon to salvage the entire social existence of a person formerly held in the highest esteem is like a sorcerer being asked to turn back

time. At eighty-five the opportunities to display that wizardry

So far as Stern knew, he was the first human to receive g-Livia, several months before the FDA approved it for initial experimental use on patients.

He responded as habit and professional detachment had long taught him not to. Nonetheless, in the instant, he meant

each word. Stern had told Kiril, ‘I believe you.’

‘Dad, you need to know something. Solomon and I have reached a decision. We’re going to retire. I want to start winding up by the end of the year.’ In the moment, it felt as if she was telling him she was going to die. He was too flabbergasted to answer. Marta leaned toward him, her hands joined pleadingly.

‘What have I been working for?’ he finally stammered.

understood. But he felt like Galileo after being told that he had to accept that the sun circled the earth. He knew what he knew. And there was white paint left on his car.

To the best of his memory, Pinky’s announcement that she would look into things was the end of that effort.

you?” “No.” “Well, if any of the next questions are beyond your competence, Dr. Rogers, please say so.”

probability of death by allergic response is reduced?” “‘Probability.’” She clearly doesn’t know it is a loaded word. In order to convict Kiril of murder, the jury will need to find that he recognized a ‘strong probability’ of fatalities. “The probabilities are reduced, yes.”

what happened to beyond a reasonable doubt?

Even Kiril grants Bruno’s expertise, but Kapech does not commonly testify as an expert and he is unfamiliar with the stagecraft of trials.

case. In the sealed privacy of the car, he can face the uncomfortable truth that has been gathering like a sad fog around his heart: He is no longer up to this. Marta was right. He should never have agreed to represent Kiril.

this is exactly how it feels

In 1986, Stern defended the chief deputy in the Kindle County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, a married man accused of the murder of a fellow prosecutor, alleged to be his former lover.

Unlike Kiril’s son, Lep,

DC. “A prominent lawyer” is how he’s described in the documents.

so-called surrogate endpoint, a shorter period when, for similar medicines, the benefits are normally clearly established.

anyway. In the courtroom, sometimes the best the defense can do is feign nonchalance.

“So, you’re the defense lawyer?” Kateb asks. “Just so,” says Stern. “My assistant told me you were the prosecutor.” “I am sorry. I hope I said nothing to mislead her.”

“Stern, yes. Forgive me. Well, Stern, I don’t think I have anything for you.”

“Even a Nobel. There are always undeserving winners in this life, Mr. Stern, in every arena. Right? He’s not the only one. How many successful attorneys do you know who are, on the whole, idiots?”

Finding similar changes occurring naturally in human cancer cells was the big breakthrough, because we could then identify RAS as the culprit—codon 12, to be precise, a piece of DNA in the molecule. That’s

But I believe he lifted the experiment’s protocol.” “How? From where?” “From me.

confreres

As for Pafko, the years have basically delivered their verdict on him.” “Meaning his current troubles?” “That is certainly one thing. From what I read, he’s virtually certain to die in the penitentiary. I would say what goes around comes around. You may not agree.”

I assumed he’d stolen it from someone else, a real scientist, but no one has come forward to say that.

his son?

Nonetheless, Kateb’s commitment to keep his own counsel is the only marginally hopeful news Stern can bring home from an otherwise devastating meeting.

after forty years has been debunked. Instead, he sits in his office straining to get any fix on the kind of person Kiril really is. Stern can’t imagine what went on inside the man, as he was standing before the King of Sweden to receive his medal, only a few feet away from the person from whom he had literally stolen the right to acclaim. Did he bother to rationalize? Or did he simply pretend even to himself that the theft had never occurred? The latter was Stern’s guess. But that, in truth, was the only thing we could do when it came to the inner life of others—guess. Donne had declared that no person is an island. He had it exactly wrong. We all are.