Page 151 of Precise Justice

Hughes gently tossed a softball question at him to begin his cross examination. A distraught father is normally not someone to hammer in front of a jury. Of course, he will say nice things about his son. To verbally beat him up in front of a sympathetic jury would be foolish.

“You love your son, don’t you, Mr. Craig?” Hughes politely asked.

“Of course,” Blake replied.

Hughes hesitated for a moment then mildly asked and in so doing broke the cardinal rule of questioning a witness. Never ask a question you don’t know the answer to before you ask it.

“I’m curious about something, though. You testified that you can guarantee that Robbie did not commit these killings. How can you guarantee that?”

Without hesitation Blake looked directly at the jury then said, “Because I did them. I did them all for what they did to my son. And that’s the last thing I’ll say about it.”

His answer hung in the air over a totally silent courtroom. What seemed like several minutes but was only three or fourseconds passed by like this. As if no one could quite grasp what they had just heard.

When it did finally come to realization, bedlam broke loose. It started with the media in the front rows. Almost all of them jumped up to get to the door. They had a story to call in and woe be unto anyone who got in their way.

Thirty minutes later, the lawyers, Judge Foster and George, the reporter were in Foster’s chambers. Raines and Hughes were in their normal chairs. In front and to Foster’s left. Jennifer, looking a bit stunned, was in her chair while Marc stood behind where he normally sat leaning against the back of the chair.

Once the crowd was shut down, Hughes tried his best to question Blake. True to his word, Blake simply repeated his right to refuse answering under the Fifth Amendment. Hughes asked him at least a dozen questions, repeating several only to receive the same response.

Judge Foster even threatened Blake with contempt. Eventually, he had a deputy put him in a holding cell near the courtroom.

While Hughes was trying to question Blake, Robbie wrote a note and passed it to Marc. When Hughes, out of frustration, gave up trying to question him, before Blake was taken to the holding cell, Marc stood up.

“Your Honor, I have one question for redirect.”

“Objection, your Honor, the witness refused to answer my questions. . .”

“And you passed him to me,” Marc said.

“He has a point, Mr. Hughes. Go ahead,” Foster said.

While still standing behind the table, Marc asked, “Did you give Robbie a drug of some kind, such as Rohypnol, on the nights you committed these murders so she would have no memory of the nights they occurred?”

With a shocked look on his face, Blake’s eyes darted about the courtroom and he nervously fidgeted on the stand. After ten to fifteen seconds of this, he stammered, “I refuse to answer, um, under the ah, Fifth, fifth um, Amendment because it might, um, incriminate me.”

After that, a deputy took Blake away and the lawyers recessed to Judge Foster’s chambers.

“What do we do now?” Foster asked the others.

“Forget it,” Marc said when Hughes looked like he was going to ask for a mistrial. “No mistrial.

“Your Honor,” Marc then said, “you can’t let this go to a jury. That statement creates reasonable doubt. Period. This needs to end now.”

“We’ll try the father,” Hughes said.

“Go ahead,” Marc replied. “He’s not my client. You know you can’t win something like that. If you try it and lose, I’ll take the civil suit against Hennepin County for prosecutorial misconduct. Then I’ll retire to Hawaii on what Hennepin County will pay me.”

“Tom, I’ll give him another chance to recant…”

“If you had anything to do with this,” an exploding Tom Hughes yelled at Marc.

“Be careful who you slander,” Marc calmly replied.

“Stop!” Foster said.

“Sorry,” Hughes meekly apologized.

“I’ll give him another chance to recant what he said. If he refuses, I’ll have no choice but to dismiss the charges,” Foster said.