Page 26 of The Lincoln Lawyer

“Very well,” she said. “Louis, I will see you at dinner.”

Dobbs walked her through the door of the conference room and I saw them exchange conversation in the hallway. I couldn’t hear what was said. Then she left and Dobbs came back, closing the door.

I went through some preliminaries with Roulet, telling him he would have to be arraigned in two weeks and submit a plea. He would have the opportunity at that time to put the state on notice that he was not waiving his right to a speedy trial.

“That’s the first choice we have to make,” I said. “Whether you want this thing to drag out or you want to move quickly and put the pressure on the state.”

“What are the options?” Dobbs asked.

I looked at him and then back at Roulet.

“I’ll be very honest with you,” I said. “When I have a client who is not incarcerated, my inclination is to drag it out. It’s the client’s freedom that is on the line—why not get the most of it before the hammer comes down.”

“You’re talking about a guilty client,” Roulet said.

“On the other hand,” I said, “if the state’s case is weak, thendelaying things only gives them time to strengthen their hand. You see, time is our only leverage at this point. If we refuse to waive our right to a speedy trial, it puts a lot of pressure on the prosecutor.”

“I didn’t do what they are saying I did,” Roulet said. “I don’t want to waste any time. I want this shit behind me.”

“If we refuse to waive, then theoretically they must put you on trial within sixty days of arraignment. The reality is that it gets pushed back when they move to a preliminary hearing. In a prelim a judge hears the evidence and decides if there is enough there to warrant a trial. It’s a rubber-stamp process. The judge will hold you over for trial, you will be arraigned again and the clock is reset to sixty days.”

“I can’t believe this,” Roulet said. “This is going to last forever.”

“We could always waive the prelim, too. It would really force their hand. The case has been reassigned to a young prosecutor. He’s pretty new to felonies. It may be the way to go.”

“Wait a minute,” Dobbs said. “Isn’t a preliminary hearing useful in terms of seeing what the state’s evidence is?”

“Not really,” I said. “Not anymore. The legislature tried to streamline things a while back and they turned the prelim into a rubber stamp because they relaxed hearsay rules. Now you usually just get the case cop on the stand and he tells the judge what everybody said. The defense usually doesn’t get a look at any witnesses other than the cop. If you ask me, the best strategy is to force the prosecution to put up or shut up. Make them go sixty days from first arraignment.”

“I like that idea,” Roulet said. “I want this over with as soon as possible.”

I nodded. He had said it as though a not-guilty verdict was a foregone conclusion.

“Well, maybe it doesn’t even get to a trial,” Dobbs said. “If these charges don’t hold muster—”

“The DA is not going to drop this,” I said, cutting him off. “Usually, the cops overcharge and then the DA cuts the charges back. That didn’t happen here. Instead, the DA upped the charges.That tells me two things. One is that they believe the case is solid and, two, they upped the charges so that when we start to negotiate they will deal from a higher ground.”

“You’re talking about a plea bargain?” Roulet asked.

“Yeah, a disposition.”

“Forget it, no plea bargain. I’m not going to jail for something I didn’t do.”

“It might not mean going to jail. You have a clean rec—”

“I don’t care if it means I could walk. I’m not going to plead guilty to something I didn’t do. If that is going to be a problem for you, then we need to part company right here.”

I looked closely at him. Almost all of my clients make protestations of innocence at one point along the way. Especially if it is our first case together. But Roulet’s words came with a fervor and directness I hadn’t seen in a long time. Liars falter. They look away. Roulet’s eyes were holding mine like magnets.

“There is also the civil liability to consider,” Dobbs added. “A guilty plea will allow this woman to—”

“I understand all of that,” I said, cutting him off again. “I think we’re all getting ahead of ourselves here. I only wanted to give Louis a general idea of the way this was going to go. We don’t have to make any moves or any hard-and-fast decisions for at least a couple of weeks. We just need to know at the arraignment how we are going to play it.”

“Louis took a year of law at UCLA,” Dobbs said. “I think he has baseline knowledge of the situation.”

Roulet nodded.

“Okay, good,” I said. “Then let’s just get to it. Louis, let’s start with you. Your mother said she expects to see you at dinner. Do you live at home? I mean at her home?”