Division called me last night after you and I had spoken. I wasn’t able to reach you again.”
I looked at him, puzzled.
“The pictures show Mr. Boheim leaving the hotel garage. Please look at the time on the first photograph; the video camera always stamps them in the bottom left-hand corner. The time is shown as 3:26:55. We checked the clock setting on the camera; it’s correct. The cleaning lady discovered the dead girl at 3:26. That time is also correct; it’s confirmed by the first call to the police, which came in at 3:29. I’m sorry, but there can’t be any other perpetrator.”
I had no alternative but to withdraw from the remand hearing. Boheim would remain in detention as a suspect until the trial.
The next months were taken up with preparations for the trial. All the lawyers in my chambers were working on it; every tiny detail from the file was checked and rechecked—the cell-phone tower, the DNA analysis, the camera in the garage. The Homicide Division had done good work; there were almost no mistakes we could find. Boheim Industries commissioned a private detective agency, but it came up with nothing new. Boheim himself stuck to his story, despite all proof to the contrary. And despite his miserable prospects, he remained good-humored and relaxed.
Police work proceeds on the assumption that there is no such thing as chance. Investigations consist of 95 percent office work, checking out factual details, writing summaries, getting statements from witnesses. In detective novels, the person who did it confesses when he or she is screamed at; in real life, it’s not that simple. And when a man with a bloody knife in his hand is bent over a corpse, that means he’s the murderer. No reasonable policeman would believe he had only walked past by chance and tried to help by pulling the knife out of the body. The detective superintendent’s observation that a particular solution is too simple is a screenwriter’s conceit. The opposite is true. What is obvious is what is plausible. And most often, it’s also what’s right.
Lawyers, by contrast, try to find holes in the structures of proof built by prosecutors. Their ally is chance; their task is to disrupt an overhasty reliance on what appears to be the truth. A police officer once said to a federal judge that defense attorneys are no more than brakes on the vehicle of justice. The judge replied that a vehicle without brakes isn’t much use, either. Any criminal case can function only within these parameters. So we were hunting for the chance that would save our client.
Boheim had to spend Christmas and New Year’s in detention. ADA Schmied had given him wide-ranging permission for conversations with his operating officers, accountants, and civil lawyers. He saw them every second day and ran his companies out of his detention cell. His board members and his staff declared openly that he had their support. His wife also visited him regularly. The only person he refused to be visited by was his son; he didn’t want Benedict to see his father in prison.
But still there was no ray of hope that broke through for the trial, due to start in four days. Aside from a few procedural motions, no one had a basic concept for a successful defense. A deal, otherwise a regular occurrence in criminal cases, was out of the question. Murder carries a life sentence, manslaughter a sentence of five to fifteen years. I had nothing that would allow me to negotiate with the judge.
The printouts of the video pictures were on the library table in my chambers. Boheim had been captured on them in piercing detail. It was like a pocket camera strip with six images. Boheim activates the exit button with his left hand. The barrier opens. The car drives past the camera. And then suddenly it was all completely clear. The solution had been in the file for four months, so simple that it made me laugh. And we’d all overlooked it.
The trial took place in Room 500 in the courthouse in
I looked at him, puzzled.
“The pictures show Mr. Boheim leaving the hotel garage. Please look at the time on the first photograph; the video camera always stamps them in the bottom left-hand corner. The time is shown as 3:26:55. We checked the clock setting on the camera; it’s correct. The cleaning lady discovered the dead girl at 3:26. That time is also correct; it’s confirmed by the first call to the police, which came in at 3:29. I’m sorry, but there can’t be any other perpetrator.”
I had no alternative but to withdraw from the remand hearing. Boheim would remain in detention as a suspect until the trial.
The next months were taken up with preparations for the trial. All the lawyers in my chambers were working on it; every tiny detail from the file was checked and rechecked—the cell-phone tower, the DNA analysis, the camera in the garage. The Homicide Division had done good work; there were almost no mistakes we could find. Boheim Industries commissioned a private detective agency, but it came up with nothing new. Boheim himself stuck to his story, despite all proof to the contrary. And despite his miserable prospects, he remained good-humored and relaxed.
Police work proceeds on the assumption that there is no such thing as chance. Investigations consist of 95 percent office work, checking out factual details, writing summaries, getting statements from witnesses. In detective novels, the person who did it confesses when he or she is screamed at; in real life, it’s not that simple. And when a man with a bloody knife in his hand is bent over a corpse, that means he’s the murderer. No reasonable policeman would believe he had only walked past by chance and tried to help by pulling the knife out of the body. The detective superintendent’s observation that a particular solution is too simple is a screenwriter’s conceit. The opposite is true. What is obvious is what is plausible. And most often, it’s also what’s right.
Lawyers, by contrast, try to find holes in the structures of proof built by prosecutors. Their ally is chance; their task is to disrupt an overhasty reliance on what appears to be the truth. A police officer once said to a federal judge that defense attorneys are no more than brakes on the vehicle of justice. The judge replied that a vehicle without brakes isn’t much use, either. Any criminal case can function only within these parameters. So we were hunting for the chance that would save our client.
Boheim had to spend Christmas and New Year’s in detention. ADA Schmied had given him wide-ranging permission for conversations with his operating officers, accountants, and civil lawyers. He saw them every second day and ran his companies out of his detention cell. His board members and his staff declared openly that he had their support. His wife also visited him regularly. The only person he refused to be visited by was his son; he didn’t want Benedict to see his father in prison.
But still there was no ray of hope that broke through for the trial, due to start in four days. Aside from a few procedural motions, no one had a basic concept for a successful defense. A deal, otherwise a regular occurrence in criminal cases, was out of the question. Murder carries a life sentence, manslaughter a sentence of five to fifteen years. I had nothing that would allow me to negotiate with the judge.
The printouts of the video pictures were on the library table in my chambers. Boheim had been captured on them in piercing detail. It was like a pocket camera strip with six images. Boheim activates the exit button with his left hand. The barrier opens. The car drives past the camera. And then suddenly it was all completely clear. The solution had been in the file for four months, so simple that it made me laugh. And we’d all overlooked it.
The trial took place in Room 500 in the courthouse in
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