The Bad Judge

 The Preliminary Hearing slowly became a cold war between both sides..

Despite his feelings of friendliness and warmness towards us, Assistant District Attorney Nathan Jones 

could compartmentalize...

He was very well prepared and argued very effectively that Sherry Lancaster stood to gain a lot more financially and property wise with her husband, who he admitted was verbally abusive to everyone he met and not well liked dead than anything she hoped to win in a divorce settlement..

Olivia, Beverly and Nelson argued to the contrary and used predicates , cases and several witnesses to bolster their case ,including divorce attorneys on both sides, 

Arthur Trout and Zoey Easter-Anderson...

Knowing he wouldn't win this argument...ADA Jones switched to the night of the murder..bringing on 25 witnesses who saw Sherry enter the apartment and who heard their loud argument that afternoon..

when Josie went hard on these people on cross..

Judge Adler , still angry at her for embarrassing him did everything he could to humilate or shut her down..He agreed with every objection...and verbally admonished her several times..

When both Nelson and Beverly objected vigourously to the Judges behavior ,citing predicates and case evidence..

He threatened them both with contempt if they said another word about it.. He admonished Olivia.

"Mrs. Bennett-Alexander...Please take control of your staff, they are getting out of hand.!" he said.

Lt. Tragg sat back and smiled.

Neither side wanted to show their entire hand in the case..so after a week of arguments..

Judge Adler ordered Sherry Lancaster held over for trial...

"Trial will begin Monday Morning at 10:00 am, be on time and be ready for trial." he said..

"It's going to be a lonnnng trial with that jerk as Judge..."said Beverly..

"I know....." sighed Nelson..

"He really doesn't like me."said Josie.

"Because you exposed his pettiness."sighed Olivia.

''What we need is a little luck."I said.

I was talking about finding Wesley Lancaster and that gun...

But we were going to get lucky in a way we didn't expect !

II-

That night on Television....

"This is B.L. Benz  and this is HARD BOTTOM, the show that takes a good look at Law and Justice in the big city...

Tonight 16 women and the man identified as their pimp, Sweet Willie Tate were arrested in a major prostitution  sting by the vice squad. They were using two hotels for their operation in the Little Norway section of Philadelphia , All of the girls were undocumented  immigrants from Eastern Europe..

City Judge, James Adler was arrested also ..Caught in one of the hotel rooms used by the ring with not one but three of the girls. Witnesses say he was a constant customer ,coming by three ,four times a week.  The married Judge is the father of three children. All three of his children, two boys and a girl are attorneys...They do not live in Philadelphia.

The Judge faces Solicititation charges among other things... He was caught with not a stitch of clothing on and had to have a bed sheet put over him to cover him...

16 other local men were also arrested tonight..."

"DID YOU SEE THAT??? OH MY GODDDD, JUDGE ADLER WAS ARRESTED!! IN A PROSTITUTION STING!!! OH MY GOD!!" laughed Olivia..

"That old freak...I'm not surprised.." laughed Beverly...

Nelson was beside himself with laughter....

"AWWWW MAN, THE JUDGE WAS A FREAK!!!" laughed Nelson..

"That means he's out as Judge..."said Josie..

"Oh Most definitely..." I said...

"He'll be before the Legal Ethics Board...He could possibly be removed from the bench...Which would be good.."laughed Olivia.

"Ohhhh thank god...Thank god we don't have to try this case under him.."laughed Beverly....

At Curleys Bar, Lt. Tragg was not taking the news well..

"AGHHHHHHHHH I DON'T BELIEVE IT!!!! A STORIED CAREER RUINED BECAUSE OF SOME WHORES!!! WHORES!!!" he exclaimed..and pounded his first on the table! He was handling Olivia and Beverly and her crew...They wouldn't have gotten away with any of the stunts they usually pull in court...Damn it!!  DAMN IT!" he exclaimed..

And in another lucky move....I did something that surely would have gotten me locked up by Lt. Tragg, had I been caught.. 

I took a chance/...I went back to the original crime scene...

I went back to the original crime scene.. The condo our victim and our client shared and nosed around..In the unemptied dumpster and in the house..I looked under the ceiling tiles and sure enough..I found it!!!!

The .40 caliber handgun...Possibly , the murder weapon.. I had on latex gloves and I placed it in a plastic bag and quietly exited...

I was by myself.. I didn't take Shortcake with me... I placed the gun in an unmarked box and addressed it to Dr. Hazel Baylor, Medical Examiner's office.

"Donnie Ray...I know this was from you...I don't know how you found this..But a ballistics check shows that this is indeed the murder weapon..But the fingerprints on it are inconclusive...Meaning whoever owned this gun doesn't have a criminal record." said Hazel.

"They must be bonded...Check with the Gun shop...That's a legally owned weapon.." I said.

"Will do... I'll get back with you.." said Hazel.

When I got home, Olivia, Beverly and Nelson were in our domicile, talking and looking over witness statements..preparing for trial..They had their strategy all drawn up and a good idea of what kind of juror they wanted.

''Well Livy, This may just blow our case wide open and exonerate our client."I said, telling her about the gun verification...

"Myyyyyyyy hero...You always go the extra mile for me.."said a very grateful Olivia..

Who showed her gratitude by giving me a long passionate kiss...

"I uh think they want to be alone.."said Nelson, blushing..

''Why don't we go downstairs to our place and do a little of that?" asked Beverly.. They left and locked our door behind them...

I had Olivia's dress and blouse off in minutes after they left and we continued kissing....

I had her bent over the kitchen sink in minutes and was going to town...

"OUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU......MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

OH MY GOD, DONNIE RAYYYYYY!" she moaned..

With No guests tonight...Beverly and Nelson retreated to their living room couch...

Beverly could see that his trousers were standing out like a circus tent...She softly rubbed his erection and continued deep throat kissing him....

"Ouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu...Ouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu Nelson...We need to take this to the bedroom..."she moaned...

"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...I know...ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh but I'm losing my mind over here...Ohhhhhhh.. Nobody is here but us."he moaned and lifted her top 

and began unbuckling her bra...

"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..Husband.....Ohhhhhhhhh" she moaned as Nelson sucked on her breasts and kissed her breasts, her neck and her cheekbones and finally her lips....She moaned and leaned her head back........She was giddy with excitement....Nelson started by kissing Beverly from her mouth down to her breasts,  He began giving her french kisses,He moved his lips slowly across her breasts down to her body, He kept kissing her body as he lowered himself to her waist and hips. Beverly was wearing a short skirt and Nelson lifted it..

As he got to her panties, He placed a hand on both of her shapely legs and slowly spread them, Instead he kissed her vagina through her panties and even squeezed it slightly with his lips,

"OUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU....UMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM ,OHHHHHHHHHH

MY GODDDD!!! OUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU, NELSONNN!" she moaned.She was shaking furiously and sweating...

Beverly was near delirium.. Nelson  ran his tongue softly over her panties... He kissed  her through her panties for a few minutes  He moved slightly lower, kissing along her inner thigh. He licked & kissed her inner thigh... Then he began deep throat kissing her again...She was breathing heavily and her body was shaking..

"OH MY GODDDDD NELSON....UMMMMMMM!" she cooed.

"OHHHHHHHHHHH BEVERLY....OHHHHHHHHHHH!" Nelson moaned.

"Ouuu husband...Ouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu"Beverly moaned...She was very close to having a very intense orgasm....So was Nelson..

"OH MY GOD BEVERLY...OUUUUUUU!" he moaned..He was getting very excited and she could tell...

She unzippered his trousers..She was good and wet and majorly turned on...

and eased herself down on him slowly...

"OUUUU...WOUUUUUUUUUUUUU...OUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!"she moaned loudly..

Her window was open and she was certain she could be heard in the street...

Nelson was near delirium..Beverly kissing him softly and moving up and down on him...

They wound up making love on the couch...,slowly...

Beverly was having an intense orgasm...and holding Nelson for dear life...

Upstairs...

Olivia and I had moved to our couch also , where we were wearing it out.. She was moving up and down on me in a nice rhythm...and kissing me softly and slowly... Neither of us knew if we were coming or going..

We wound up on the living room floor..

"OH MY GODDDDDDD! OUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU DONNIE RAYYY!" she screamed....She was shaking and trembling....

We eventually wound up in our bedroom ,making sweet love...

Luck was surely with us all tonight!

III-

Monday Morning at 10:00 am , Trial began with a new Judge...

Judge Richard Baxter... Another Judge, I wasn't familliar with, but that everybody else knew.

"I've served in his court before...He's pretty fair."said Olivia.

"So Have I.."said Beverly..

"Me too!" said Nelson..

"I attended one of his lectures in law school." said Josie.

"I  guess that bodes well for me."said our client, Sherry Lancaster..

"Anybody other than that Judge we had last week is a major improvement.."I said..

ADA Nathan Jones smiled at us and waved...but it was someone else in the courtroom who caught his attention..

Zoey was there! She was sitting in the spectator section.. He figured she was there to support Olivia and Beverly and their mutual client, Sherry Lancaster..on trial for murder.. A murder he wasn't 100 percent sure she committed...

Lt. Tragg sat with a frown on his face...He didn't like the way things were going...Not at all...The Judge he wanted on this case, Judge James Adler had been busted by Vice in a major sting...He found out from the Lieutenant there that they got an anonymous call tipping them off about the operation, which they had been watching for close to a month and about who was in there...He stared at us..

Especially me, wondering if I had anything to do with it.. In fact, I had not..I couldn't imagine our former Judge with any woman, let alone three.. Come to find out..He was married and the father of three grown children...I thought the old pervert lived by himself.. Imagine that!!

He looked at Olivia and Beverly...They certainly knew the murder weapon had been discovered and "anonymously " mailed to the Medical Examiner's Office.. It was now part of discovery... He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that that was my doing...He was furious..

He had no beef with Olivia's two Junior partners as he called them, Nelson and Josie.. but he was furious that things had broken our way in this trial..

This new Assistant District Attorney, He didn't trust him....Oh he had skills...He went toe to toe

during jury selection, getting 5 of the 12 jurors needed to Nelson's 7, but he felt this kid was too emotionally attached to us...

He and Olivia had worked together in the private sector once and were good friends...

and that divorce lawyer...The one sitting in the visitors section....He and her were once engaged to be married.. 

This was enough to take any man off his game.. He just didn't have that cut-throatness, that ruthlessness needed to take down Olivia, Beverly and her team that othes had..

He called Police and Detectives on the scene and People from the Medical Examiners Office and Crime Scene Investigators for the first two days...This was dull and boring testimony that went unopposed..

Then he called 25 witnesses who were on the scene or in the building..

Olivia and her new little protoge' Josie took them apart like a surgeon, going over their witness statements made to Lt. Tragg, to me and comparing them to what they said now..

Of course the ADA's many objections were met by 

Olivia's niece, Beverly and her husband, Nelson's citing of cases and predicates...

Judge Baxter was impressed with arguments on both sides..

So was ADA Jones....He smiled sometimes , when he wasn't outright frustrated.. Liv was always prepared, but as we saw...He was prepared too...And yet he didn't really have enough to prove that Sherry Lancaster was a killer.

He called Attorney Arthur Trout as a hostile witness bringing home that Mrs. Lancaster stood to gain considerably more as she already had since her husband's death than she did in any divorce settlement with him alive..

Olivia argued that whether or not, the ADA still hadn't proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Sherry killed Mr. Lancaster.

The people rested their case with the jury split. 7 to acquit-5 to convict... It was better odds than normal.

Lt. Tragg was convinced that the kid had skills and that he put on a good enough case to possibly surprise "Auntie and Niecey"

as Olivia and Beverly were known...

Downtown at a hearing before the Legal Ethics Board...

Judge James Adler was not disbarred...but he was removed from the bench!...In a week he would face criminal charges of soliciting prostitutes...If convicted, then he might be disbarred...

FBI Agents picked up Wesley Lancaster

the estranged son of the deceased Walter Lancaster in New Haven and returned him to Philadelphia, just days before we were to begin our defense..

Beverly, Olivia and Josie met him at Central Booking with a subpeona..

As a suspicious Lt. Tragg looked on..

Nelson waited for them outside in the car...They thought it better if I not make the trip at all.

IV-

"I want you all to forget everything  you heard last week...We are here for one reason and one reason only..to determine if my client, Mrs. Sherry Lancaster killed her husband...Nothing more, nothing less.

You've been here one week..I hope I can prove my point and get you out of here in less time." she said..

Beverly pulled out a 64 inch monitor with a time stamped  Street Cam video which showed Sherry leaving and getting in a car with her cousin....and it shows the entire path of their drive..

It shows another car parking across the street with his son, Wesley Lancaster getting out and going in..

It was as plain as day...

ADA Nathan Jones turned to Lt. Tragg..

"How did you miss that?" he asked.

Lt. Tragg glared angrily at me..

I smiled...he had no one to blame but himself.. Had he of looked at this video the night of the murder and had he of done the proper research on the victim...He would have known about his son from a previous relationship and seen his son's car pull up and we wouldn't be here today...he jumped to conclusions and hastily made an arrest with little to no evidence.

Nelson called Wesley Lancaster to the stand..

Wesley looked sullen, angry..... Nelson asked him how was his relationship with his father..

He answered that he didn't have one...That he despised the man, the way he talked to and treated his mother and the way he talked to him...

Josie showed him the gun...

"This is your gun...It's registered to you and these are your prints on this gun...It's a ballistics match for the murder weapon." she said softly..

"That's because I shot the son of a bitch! " he said..  "I came over...I-I-I just wanted to talk to him, that's all..I wanted to know why he had cut my support...I was trying to enter college in the summer..He talked to me like I wasn't his son, Like I was some bum in the street...It was all I could take.. I pulled my gun out and I shot him dead!   I didn't mean for poor Ms. Sherry to get blamed for this...I had no idea she had even been there...I knew she was leaving him..finally..Lord knows she took a lot of abuse from him..I felt sorry for her a lot of times... Now , he'll no longer hurt anybody....I hope she makes out well." he said softly without a trace of emotion..

"In Light of this new information, the people dismiss all charges against Mrs. Lancaster."said Assistant District Attorney, Nathan Jones.

"OH MY GOD!!!! IT's over...Ohhh Wesley,poor poor Wesley.." she said , hugging Wesley as he was handcuffed and walked out of the courtroom....

"Now that this is over...I know a place we can uh have some drinks, and some peace.." he said to us..

"That's a very good idea... I think Sam Mother's Diner and Curley's Bar are off limits for awhile."said Olivia, hugging me..

"Yeah , a certain Lieutenant in Homicide is probably not too happy with me right now." I said.

"If he was half the detective you are Donnie Ray..We might not even be here..He wouldn't make as many bad arrests as he does."said Beverly.

"I know..I never expected the son to confess...but I wanted to at least  plant doubt in the jury's mind.."said Josie.

"Liv had em when she told em she wasn't gonna keep em another week." laughed Nelson..

"I know right?" laughed Nathan Jones..

We all broke out into loud laughter....

Lt. Tragg looked at them...He was beyond furious...He couldn't believe we were all laughing and talking after doing battle in the courtroom...

Out the corner of his eye..Nathan Jones saw Zoey..

Her husband, Lem walked in the courtroom...They talked..

Then they kissed passionately...

He knew it was time for him to turn the page and move on...find himself a love of his own!

EPILOUGE-

Sherry Lancaster inherited her late husband's entire estate...It was true...In Death, she wound up with far more than she would have in the divorce settlement with him still alive.. she and Attorneys ,Zoey Easter-Anderson and Arthur Trout worked out an Equitable settlement and shook hands..

over a Champaigne Toast....

We represented  Wesley Lancaster in court....We Used our good friend, Dr. Oakland to testify to Mr. Lancaster's extreme emotional state at the time of the murder, plus his mother and about 100 charactor witnesses, including teachers, therapists, friends and relatives..

We got First Degree Murder charges dropped to 2nd degree Manslaughter and a sentence of 5-10 years in prison, with a chance for parole in 3 years with good behavior..

Once again a gift from ADA Nathan Jones..

With Judge Percy Reynolds...

Now Former Judge James Adler was convicted of a misdemeanor, soliciting Prostitution...He was given a small fine and released...He was not disbarred...but the embarrassment would last a lifetime..

ADA Nathan Jones invited us out to the bar he had discovered....

"This bar is beautiful....I love the ambience.." said Olivia..

"I love you in this dress ." I said, nibbling on her ear....She giggled..

"Ummmmm does that mean I'm gonna get it tonight?" Olivia asked, still giggling..

''You might "get it" before we get home...as exy as you're looking.." I said..

"Oh My god...This is really nice Nate...Good looking out..I ove the look of this bar..." said Beverly..

"Thanks for the invite...I'm going to remember this bar." said Nelson..

"Well we won't have to face you in court anytime soon...We've faced you twice...Somebody else will be on the rotation." said Josie.

"Oh you guys didn't hear...I turned in my resignation after the Wesley Lancaster trial. I don't wish to lock people up anymore.. I've accepted a position at the Innocence Project.... In New York City...So I'll be leaving town again..."said Nathan Jones.

"Gotta find yourself still huh Nate?" said Olivia..

"Or does Philadelphia hold too many bad  memories?" asked Beverly...

She was speaking about Zoey.

"Both Bev...And you guys uh owe me a favor...You know that Judge....James Uh Adler? well, I thought he was a bit of a Prick myself.. And I figure anyone that close to Lt. Tragg would have to be...So I uh, you know hung around...Sometimes if you don't talk...If you just stand around and listen you hear a lot of things...Unsavory things  about people, that folks have known for years but just whisper about, like a nasty old man's predeliction for young working girls...young Russian working girls..and you know...a phone call gets made from well you know, somewhere to the right people and a nasty old man gets caught with his pants down, literally..." he said tongue in cheek....

Nelson smiled slyly...

So Did I...

The girls caught on and they laughed along with us....

As our drinks arrived.

FOR L. CHANTAY!