Resurrection Walk (The Lincoln Lawyer, #7; Harry Bosch Universe, #38)

by Michael Connelly

“Man’s laughter…”

The year before, when Bosch worked as a volunteer with Ballard in the Open-Unsolved Unit, they broke open a case that identified a serial killer who had operated unknown in the city for several years. During the investigation, they’d also determined that the killer was responsible for a murder for which an innocent man named Jorge Ochoa had been imprisoned.

Haller set up what amounted to an in-house innocence project and installed Bosch to do the initial review of the claims. Haller wanted a gatekeeper with an experienced detective’s

On the occasions that Bosch drove the Lincoln, he insisted that Haller ride in the front seat so that they could converse side by side. Bosch had been adamant: he would not play chauffeur to a defense lawyer, even if that attorney happened to be his half brother who had hired him so that he could get private health insurance and be in the clinical trial at UCLA.

He had already driven Haller to many meetings with Lorna, either at her place or at Hugo’s up the street if food was involved. Since the so-called Lincoln Lawyer worked out of his car instead of an office, Lorna managed things from her condo on Kings Road. It was the center of the practice.

Dennis “Cisco” Wojciechowski was Haller and Associates’ longtime investigator — and Lorna Taylor’s husband.

The suspect was arrested and identified as Anthony Marcus. He denied burglarizing the house or running from the police. He claimed he had snuck out of his nearby home and was walking to his girlfriend’s house for a secret rendezvous when he was suddenly confronted by Dexter. He also denied shooting Dexter but admitted that he ran from the scene after the shot was fired and Dexter went down because he didn’t know what was happening and who was shooting at them.

By pleading no contest — technically, nolo contendere — Lucinda Sanz did not have to acknowledge in court killing her ex-husband.

One of the more disappointing and frustrating parts of being a criminal defense lawyer is being named in a 504 motion to vacate a conviction based on ineffective assistance of counsel — bad lawyering. No matter how well you think you represented your client or how good you think the result was, if your client sits in prison long enough, you’ll be named in a Hail Mary

If her conviction is vacated, she ought to be able to recover statutory compensation for an erroneous conviction, but there’s not much a lawyer gets from that.

The prisons were filled with people who had literally talked themselves through the gates. That is, instead of keeping their mouths shut, they decided to explain their actions or reasons. But once they waived their rights, they were done for.

“Oh, boy,” I said.

There were not-guilty verdicts to cherish, cross-examinations to savor, and the adrenaline-charged moments when you just know the jury’s eating out of the palm of your hand. I’d had all of those over the years. In spades. But nothing could ever beat the resurrection walk — when the manacles come off and the last metal doors slide open like the gates of heaven, and a man or woman declared innocent walks into the waiting arms of family, resurrected in life and the law. There is no better feeling in the world than being with that family and knowing you were the one who made it so.

“Back in the thirties and forties, there were more Jews than Latinos in Boyle Heights. Did you know that? Instead of East Los it was called the Lower East Side. And Cesar Chavez Avenue? That was Brooklyn Avenue.”

she asked, referring to her cousin, Haller’s daughter.

Agent MacIsaac?” “Not yet. But I will. When I know more

Most defense attorneys operated by the “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire” creed. They needed to sow the seeds of doubt but didn’t necessarily have to believe in the doubts sown. But Bosch could not operate that way, even if he was working for a defense lawyer. He needed to get through the smoke to the fire. If there was a fire. As his mind pushed through the smoke he came

Attorney Frank Silver had represented Angel Acosta the same year he’d represented Lucinda Sanz. He tried to remember what Lucinda had said about how Silver had come to represent her. He had pushed his way onto the case, volunteering to take it off the public defender’s hands.

“Then here’s your chance to school me, Frank. Tell me what I don’t know.” “I was fucking threatened, you dumbass. I had no choice.” There. I had broken through.

“Mickey told me you two are brothers.” “Half brothers, actually.” “Ah. Which was the common parent?” “Father.” “But you two didn’t know about each other until you were grown up?” “Yeah. Our father was a lawyer like Mickey. Mickey’s mother was his wife. My mother was a client.”

Started as a business arrangement — payment for services rendered. My mother was gone by the time I figured out who he was. And I met him only once, and very briefly at that. He was dying at the time, and soon afterward he was gone too.”

Since you’re half brothers, you have very similar genomes. A comparison might be beneficial to you both. Have you heard of precision medicine?”

Bosch had come to realize that working on the defense side made Haller the long-shot underdog. He was like a man on the beach holding a surfboard and looking up at a hundred-foot wave coming in. The power and might of the state was limitless. Haller was just one man making a stand for his client. He was willing to paddle out to that crushing wave.

I had spent most of my decades-long practice trying to avoid being in federal courtrooms. The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California was where defense cases went to die.

that gives us an approximate height from which the shots were fired.” “And what height was that?” “Between five foot two and five foot six would be a liberal range.” “And if you had a woman who was five foot two, like Ms. Sanz, could she make those shots from a high-ready stance?”

comparison. Though Stephanie Sanger was certainly not a member of my team, the main event would be her return to the witness stand. No rehearsal could prepare me for that. It would be up to me, and all I knew was that my questions to Sanger had to carry the information I needed to get to the judge. My feeling was that Sanger would not break on the stand and would confine herself to as few words as possible when answering questions under oath.

The plan was to use the DNA evidence and Sanger’s denials to force the judge to take action and compel FBI agent MacIsaac to appear for questioning.

an FBI agent confirming under oath that Roberto Sanz was cooperating in an invest...

The one fly in the ointment was Silver, who steadfastly inflated his own worth and legal acumen in answer to my initial questions. It forced me to reshape how I would question him when the testimony was for real.

“Something tells me you’re not here to tell me you’ll testify.” “I’m here to tell you I will not and that you need to stand down on that.” “I’ve got an innocent client and I think you can help me prove it. I can’t stand down.” “Helping you prove it doesn’t necessarily mean me testifying.”

“Why do you think I can’t testify? Why is the U.S. attorney willing to defy a federal judge if it comes to that?”

“I want to help you but you don’t know shit about what went down,” MacIsaac said. “So school me, Agent MacIsaac. Why won’t you testify and what’s with the fucking mask?”

“Then what can you do for me? For her?” “I can tell you that Roberto Sanz was no hero, but in a way, he was trying to be.” “The shoot-out at Flip’s was no ambush. He was ripping those guys off. Tell me something I don’t know.” “He agreed to wear a wire. That day we met, he said he would do it. We were going to take down the whole

unit. And then an hour later, it was over.” “Because Sanger saw you two.” “I didn’t know.” “Obviously. Let me ask you something: Did he come to you or did you go to him?” “He came to us. He wanted to clear his conscience, try to make things right. The clique he was in was taking things too far.”

And I have something for you. That’s why I’m here. I want to trade. Sanz told me things in that meeting. The clique was just a ground team. They were working for something bigger.” “Who?” “More like what.

Bosch had often considered how time changed something that was righteous back in the day into something far from it today. He thought about how that bust and the harsh sentence that followed had changed the course of Teodoro’s life. When Bosch was still with the LAPD, he kept tabs on him through the California law enforcement tracking system, running his name from time to time.

And that was his worry now — that his testimony under cross-examination might somehow contribute to Lucinda Sanz losing her bid for freedom and that it would haunt him for the rest of his days.

“The writ of habeas corpus is a fundamental pillar of our justice system,” Coelho said. “Chief Justice John Marshall wrote nearly two hundred years ago that habeas corpus is the sacred means of allowing for the liberation of those who may be imprisoned without sufficient cause. It safeguards our freedom, protects us from the arbitrary and lawless actions of the State.