In two hours I reduce Ruskin to a babbling fool, one who can’t wait to get off the witness stand.

I am often a sanctimonious asshole when my clients are dead guilty. Give me an innocent man, though, and I reek of arrogance and superiority. I realize this and struggle mightily to give the impression, to the jury anyway, that I am actually likeable. I don’t really care if they hate me, as long as they don’t hate my client. But when representing a saint like Doug Renfro, it’s imperative that I come across as zealous, but not offensive. Incredulous at the injustice, but also trustworthy.

Their next witness is Chip Sumerall, the leader of the invasion, a lieutenant on the force. He’s brought in from a witness room and sworn to tell the truth. As always, he’s wearing his uniform with as many patches and medals as possible. Full uniform and regalia and finery, but minus his service revolver and handcuffs. He’s a cocky ass with a strut, thick arms, and a crew cut. We had words during his deposition and I glare at him as if he’s already lying. Finney walks him through their narrative. They dwell on his extensive training and experience, his glorious record. They walk methodically through the time line of the Renfro episode. He passes the buck as best he can, saying more than once that he was just following orders.

I get a sense the entire courtroom is waiting for me to annihilate him on cross, and I struggle to control myself. I begin by commenting on his uniform, how nice and professional it is. How often does he wear it? What do some of the medals signify? Then I ask him to describe the uniform he was wearing the night he kicked in the door of the Renfro home. Layer by layer, article by article, weapon by weapon, from his steel-toed jackboots to his panzer-style combat helmet, we go through every bit of it. I ask him about his submachine gun, a Heckler & Koch MP5, designed for close combat and the finest in the world, he says proudly. I ask him if he used it that night and he says he did. I grill him on whether he fired the shots that killed Kitty Renfro, and he claims he doesn’t know. It was dark and things happened fast. Bullets were flying; the police were “taking fire.”

As I walk around the courtroom, I glance at Doug. His face is in his hands as he relives the nightmare. I glance at the jurors; some are in disbelief.

“You say it was dark, Officer. But you were outfitted with night-vision glasses, weren’t you?”

“Yes.” He’s been well coached and keeps his answers as short as possible.

“And these are designed to allow officers to see in the dark, right?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, then why couldn’t you see in the dark?”

The answer is obvious; he squirms a bit, but he’s a tough one. He tries to evade with “Well, again, it all happened so fast. Before I could focus, shots were fired and we just responded.”

“And you couldn’t see Kitty Renfro at the end of the hallway, thirty feet away, in her white pajamas?”

“I didn’t see her, no.”

I badger him relentlessly on what he saw or should have seen. When I’ve scored every point possible on this, I jump back to the issue of police procedure. Who authorized the SWAT mission? Who was in the room when the decision was made? Did he or anyone else have the common sense to say perhaps such a mission was not necessary? Why did you wait until three in the morning to go in, when it was dark? What led you to believe Doug Renfro was such a dangerous man? He starts to crack, to lose his cool. He looks to Finney for help but there’s nothing he can do. He glances at the jury and sees nothing but suspicion.

I grind away and expose the idiocy of their procedures. We talk about their training and their equipment. I even manage to bring the tank into the proceedings, and Judge Ponder allows me to show the jury an enlarged photo of it.

The real fun begins when I’m allowed to explore other botched raids. Sumerall has been suspended on two prior occasions for excessive force, and I walk him through those episodes. At times his face gets red. At other times he’s sweating. Finally, at 6:00 p.m., after Sumerall has spent four grueling hours on the stand, Judge Ponder asks me if I’m almost finished.

“No, sir, just getting started,” I say, real chipper, glaring at Sumerall. I’m so pumped I could go until midnight.

“Very well, then, we’ll stand in recess until nine in the morning.”

21.

At nine sharp on Friday morning, the jurors are led in and welcomed by Judge Ponder. Officer Sumerall is called and takes the stand again. Some of his cockiness is gone, but not all of it.

“Please continue your cross-examination, Mr. Rudd,” Ponder says. With the assistance of a clerk, I unfold and mount a large diagram of the Renfro home, both first and second floors. I ask Sumerall, as the leader of this team, to enlighten us about how the eight men were selected. Why were they divided into two teams, one for the front door, one for the back? What was each man’s role? What weapons did each cop have? Who made the decision not to ring the doorbell, but instead just go crashing in? How were the doors opened? Who opened them? Who were the first cops in? Who shot Spike, and why?

Sumerall cannot, or will not, answer most of my questions, and before long he’s looking like an idiot. He was the commander, and proud of it, but on the stand he’s not sure of a lot of details. I hammer him for two hours and we take a break. Over a quick coffee, Doug tells me the jurors are skeptical and suspicious; a few seemed to be seething. “We got ’em,” he says, but I caution him. Two of the jurors in particular worry me because they have ties to the police department, according to my old pal Nate Spurio. We met last night for a drink and he says the cops are leaning on numbers four and seven. I’ll deal with it later.

I resist the urge to hound Sumerall for the entire day, something I do more often than I should. There is an art to cross-examination, and quitting while you’re ahead is part of the skill. I haven’t learned it yet because my instinct is to kick a brute like Sumerall repeatedly when he’s already down.

Doug says, wisely, “I think you’ve done enough with this witness.”

He’s right, so I tell the judge I’m finished with Sumerall. The next witness is Scott Keestler, the cop who got shot, apparently by Doug Renfro. Finney takes him first on direct and tries his best to evoke some sympathy. The truth is—and I have all the medical reports—the bullet wound to his neck was only slightly more serious than superficial. In combat, he would have been given a couple of Band-Aids and sent back to the front. But the prosecution needs to score here, and Keestler sounds like he took a bullet between the eyes. They drag this out far too long, and we finally break for lunch.

When we’re back in the courtroom, Finney says, “No more questions, Your Honor.”

“Mr. Rudd.”

At full volume, I pounce on Keestler with “Officer, did you murder Kitty Renfro?”

Talk about sucking the air out of a room. Finney stumbles to his feet, objecting. Judge Ponder says, “Mr. Rudd, if you—”

“We’re talking about murder here, Judge, aren’t we? Kitty Renfro was unarmed when someone shot and killed her in her own home. That’s murder.”

Finney says loudly, “It is not. We have a statute on this point. Peace officers are not liable—”

“Maybe not liable,” I interrupt. “But it’s still murder.” I wave my arms at the jury and demand, “What else do you call it?” Three or four actually nod affirmatively.

Judge Ponder says, “Please refrain from using the word ‘murder,’ Mr. Rudd.”

I take a deep breath; so does everyone else. Keestler looks like a man facing a firing squad. I return to the podium, stare at him, and say politely, “Peace Officer Keestler, on the night of this SWAT raid, what were you wearing?”