Free A Cure for Night by Justin Peacock Page A

we can use him?"
    "I can see some problems with using him."
    "Yeah, like the fact that he's got a sheet, that he's drinking and
high and it's barely noon, that he probably really doesn't even remember whether
he was with Lorenzo that night. We put him on the stand, we virtually ensure a
conviction."
    "So we don't put on our guy's only alibi witness?"
    "The burden is on them, not on us. We're allowed to just attack
their version of what happened without presenting our own. But as soon as we
offer our own version, the jury's going to be comparing the two, trying to
decide which is more believable. We should only put a story forward if we either
feel like we have to, or if we're confident our story is a lot more convincing
than theirs is."
    "So we don't put on Lorenzo's alibi witness, even if Lorenzo is
telling the truth and he was hanging out with Marcus at the time of the
shooting?"
    "Whether or not something may be true isn't relevant for our purposes," Myra said.
"The only thing that matters is whether or not it's convincing."

10
    N ICE OF you to join us for a change, Myra," Michael said, once we'd sat down with Zach, Max, Julia, and Shelly in a conference room for our weekly team lunch meeting.
"Where are you on the Gibbons appeal?"
    "The first thing was that Isaac had to review the trial
transcripts for any potential ineffectiveness claim. He has and there isn't."
    "No surprise there," Michael said. "So where does that leave us?"
    "That generally leaves us with prosecutorial misconduct and
judicial error, right?"
    "The ADAs break any big rules?"
    "Much as I love to bad-mouth prosecutors, I don't see anything
there."
    "Okay," Michael said. "That leaves judicial error. Or at least, I
hope it does."
    "It does indeed," Myra said. "The judge essentially cut our whole
defense off at the knees. The first thing has to be that he wouldn't let our
expert on false confessions testify."
    "But the case law in New York supported that decision, right?"
    "The case law in New York is wrong," Myra replied.
    Michael raised his eyebrows. "That solves that," he deadpanned.
"So we have point one. What else?"
    "I'm working on it," Myra said.
    Michael gave a mirthless laugh, shaking his head. "How's Terrell
holding up?"
    "I'm going up to see him on Saturday," Myra said. "I haven't had a
chance to go up since he got sent to Sing Sing."
    Michael looked at me. "You ever been to one of our real prisons?"
    "Not unless Rikers counts," I said.
    "It certainly doesn't," Michael said. "You should go up with Myra
and see what high-stakes poker really looks like."
    "Sure," I said, glancing over at Myra. She looked like she was trying to come up with a way of opposing the idea.
    "I'm going to be leaving really early on Saturday morning," Myra said at last.
    "That's fine," I said.
    "It's actually a lovely little trip up alongside the Hudson," Julia said.
"Until you get where you're going, that is."
    "Ah, yes, the scenic prison drive," Zach said. "The public
defender version of stopping to smell the roses."
    "Speaking of prison visits, you ever find a sign language interpreter for your deaf guy?" I asked him.
    Zach shook his head. "I took a sign interpreter, but it turned out
he and my guy didn't speak the same sign language."
    "People speak different kinds of sign language?" Max asked.
    "Apparently Spanish sign language is totally different from American sign language," Zach said.
"Or else the interpreter just wanted to fuck with me."
    "What's your guy up on?" Julia asked Zach. Julia was the one member of our team who was fully fluent in Spanish, and therefore often ended up getting drafted into emergency translation duties, though this appeared to be beyond her skill set. She was first generation Cuban American, and entirely too fashionable to be working as a public defender.
    "Armed robbery."
    "How does someone who's deaf commit an armed robbery?"
    "I've got a hard time picturing it myself," Zach admitted. "But
maybe that's just