Exhilarating one moment, the case and her client could be maddeningly frustrating the next. For two weeks, Battles had been getting to work by 7:00 a.m. and not making it home before midnight. She either ate and worked, or ate and slept on the ferry, putting those precious sixty commute minutes to use. Her exercise had become riding her bike to and from the terminals—except for one night when she absolutely had to relieve her stress or risk imploding. She left work early to attend her Krav Maga training.
The long hours became a certainty when Captain Peter Lopresti, Naval Base Kitsap’s commanding officer, convened an Article 32 hearing, and made it clear this would not be the typical Article 32 hearing, which usually proceeded entirely on filed paperwork. Lopresti wanted an actual hearing, open to the public, with witnesses and summations. His reason was unspoken but transparent—he believed a strong showing by the prosecution could go a long way toward appeasing the public speculation that the Navy had taken jurisdiction to protect one of its own. That rationale also explained Brian Cho’s over-the-top charging documents, which included the holy trifecta of hit-and-run offenses:
Unpremeditated murder [UCMJ Article 118(3)]
Involuntary manslaughter [UCMJ Article 119(2)]
Negligent homicide [UCMJ Article 134, para 85]
And, just because he was a putz, Cho had included a charge under UCMJ Article 111—usually reserved for occasions when the enlisted member was drunk but which included a charge for operating a vehicle in a reckless or wanton manner, resulting in injury. He’d also tacked on an assimilated charge under UCMJ Article 134 for wrongfully fleeing the scene of a crime. The prosecution did not have to prove each charge at the hearing. It just needed to put on enough evidence to demonstrate probable cause existed to proceed to a general court-martial against Laszlo Trejo for his alleged crimes.
The linchpin to each offense required Cho to demonstrate that Trejo had engaged in a dangerous act resulting in D’Andre Miller’s death, thus showing a wanton disregard for human life. Speeding through an intersection against the traffic signal certainly fit that bill. The potential punishments for each offense varied greatly—from a conviction for unpremeditated murder, which could result in life in prison, to a finding of negligent homicide, which was punishable by one year in confinement.
If Battles had wanted a case in which her client had something to lose, she’d gotten it.
Be careful what you wish for.
Thanks, Mom.
Leah’s plan—if the matter ever proceeded to a general court-martial—was to attack the first two charges with the most grievous sentences, then invoke her Catholic school education and pray, pray, pray for a conviction under either Article 134 or Article 111. Even that, however, would be a miracle to rival Jesus turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana. Battles had delved into the evidence, viewing the videotape first. That was really all it took to convince her that she could not win. No way. No how. No matter how she cut it, Laszlo Trejo was guilty, making the Article 32 hearing a mere formality to appease the public.
Once she’d reached this conclusion, Battles did what any good trial lawyer had to do. She’d sucked up her pride and brought all the evidence, and its consequences, to her client so they could discuss a plea.
Trejo wasn’t interested.
He continued to maintain his innocence. He said he hadn’t been in Seattle—that his car had been stolen. When Battles pressed him to explain the convenience store video, Trejo had simply shrugged and said, “It isn’t me. It’s someone who looks like me, but it isn’t me.”
Dumbfounded, Battles pointed out that Trejo was the same height as the person in the convenience store. She pointed out that Detective Crosswhite would testify that he’d been drinking a can of Red Bull when the Seattle detectives spoke to him, the same drink the man in the video had purchased at the convenience store. Battles explained that if the matter proceeded to a general court-martial, the jury would view the video and conclude Trejo was lying. She told him, bluntly, military jurors hated liars.
“It wasn’t me,” Trejo said.
She wondered if, perhaps, Trejo didn’t understand the attorney-client privilege, if perhaps something in his naval training had led him to believe that Battles, a Navy officer, was required to divulge their conversations to persons higher in the chain of command. She explained that, though she was a Navy officer, she was first and foremost Trejo’s attorney and that she could not divulge anything said between them—not to the other side, not to the judge, not to the independent investigator, not even to their CO.
“I wasn’t there,” Trejo said. “I didn’t hit nobody.”
Frustrated, but managing to keep her temper in check, Battles said, “I can’t guarantee you I can do better than what they’re offering.”
“No plea,” Trejo said.
That was the night she went to Krav Maga training and nearly killed her workout partner.
Someone knocked on her office door. She didn’t need to ask who. No one else would be in the office this late. Brian Cho was taking pleasure goading her about Trejo’s unwillingness to take a plea. Cho knew as well as Battles that command wanted the plea, that they didn’t want the hearing, and they certainly did not want the court-martial to go forward and generate bad publicity for the Navy. The longer Trejo resisted, the more Cho insisted that Battles was not explaining the evidence in terms her client could comprehend, that somehow she wanted this case, despite it having every appearance of a dead-bang loser, as Stanley had said from the start.
Cho pushed open the door and stepped inside. Battles rocked back in her chair. She had the overhead lights off, her desk illuminated under the Tiffany lamp’s green-tinted glass. Cho entered as if casing the joint for a burglary. He considered her paintings on the far wall like it was the first time he’d noticed them, though she’d hung them two years ago.
“That one of yours?”
Battles looked at the oil painting, an abstract inspired by a field of tulips she’d visited during a trip to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. “Yep.”
“It’s good,” Cho said. “What is it?”
“Tulips.”
“Huh.” Cho took another second to study the painting before turning to Battles. “Have you talked with your client again?”
This guy was as subtle as a sledgehammer. “I did,” she said.
“And?”
“He won’t take the plea.”
Cho lowered himself into the chair across from her desk as if to do so required great effort. The circle of light from the lamp barely illuminated him. “You know he’s going down, Lee.” He sighed, voice soft and sickeningly patronizing—as if she hadn’t figured that much out for herself.
She suspected Cho had convinced himself that Battles wanted Trejo to turn down the plea; that her competitive nature wouldn’t allow her to back down from the challenge of dethroning Cho from his unbeaten pedestal. Or maybe he was just worried that Battles had figured out how to keep the videocassette out of evidence and planned to surprise him at the court-martial.