The Reversal by Michael Connelly Read Free Book Online

County alone.”
    Bosch saw her throw another look at her ex-husband. As if he were responsible for the courtroom obfuscations of all defense attorneys everywhere. Harry was starting to get an idea about why their marriage didn’t work out.
    “It’s amazing how far we’ve come,” Haller said. “Now they make and break cases on the DNA alone.”
    “Moving on,” McPherson said. “The prosecution had the hair evidence and the eyewitness. It also had opportunity—Jessup knew the neighborhood and was working there the morning of the murder. As far as motivation went, their backgrounding of Jessup produced a history of physical abuse by his father and psychopathic behavior. A lot of this came out on the record during the death penalty phase, too. But—and I will say this before you jump on it, Haller—no criminal convictions.”
    “And you said no sexual assault?” Bosch asked.
    “No evidence of penetration or sexual assault. But this was no doubt a sexually motivated crime. The semen aside, it was a classic control crime. The perpetrator seizing momentary control in a world where he felt he controlled very little. He acted impulsively. At the time, the semen found on her dress was a piece of the same puzzle. It was theorized that he killed the girl and then masturbated, cleaning up after himself but leaving one small deposit of semen on the dress by mistake. The stain had the appearance of a transfer deposit. It wasn’t a drop. It was a smear.”
    “The hit we just got on the DNA helps explain that,” Haller said.
    “Possibly,” McPherson responded. “But let’s discuss new evidence later. Right now, I’m talking about what they had and what they knew in nineteen eighty-six.”
    “Fine. Go on.”
    “That’s it on the evidence but not on the prosecution’s case. Two months before trial they get a call from the guy who’s in the cell next to Jessup at County. He—”
    “Jailhouse snitches,” Haller said, interrupting. “Never met one who told the truth, never met a prosecutor who didn’t use them anyway.”
    “Can I continue?” McPherson asked indignantly.
    “Please do,” Haller responded.
    “Felix Turner, a repeat drug offender who was in and out of County so often that they made him a jail orderly because he knew the day-to-day operations as well as the deputies. He delivered meals to inmates in high-power lockdown. He tells investigators that Jessup provided him with details that only the killer would know. He was interviewed and he did indeed have details of the crime that were not made public. Like that the victim’s shoes were removed, that she was not sexually assaulted, that he had wiped himself off on her dress.”
    “And so they believed him and made him the star witness,” Haller said.
    “They believed him and put him on the stand at trial. Not as a star witness. But his testimony was significant. Nevertheless, four years later, the Times comes out with a front-page exposé on Felix ‘The Burner’ Turner, professional jailhouse snitch who had testified for the prosecution in sixteen different cases over a seven-year period, garnering significant reductions in charges and jail time, and other perks like private cells, good jobs and large quantities of cigarettes.”
    Bosch remembered the scandal. It rocked the DA’s office in the early nineties and resulted in changes in the use of jailhouse informants as trial witnesses. It was one of many black eyes local law enforcement suffered in the decade.
    “Turner was discredited in the newspaper investigation. It said he used a private investigator on the outside to gather information on crimes and then to feed it to him. As you may remember, it changed how we used information that comes to us through the jails.”
    “Not enough,” Haller said. “It didn’t end the entire use of jailhouse snitches and it should have.”
    “Can we just focus on our case here?” McPherson said, obviously tired of Haller’s posturing.
    “Sure,”