The Brass Verdict

There is nothing you can do about the past except keep it there.

Los Angeles was the kind of place where everybody was from somewhere else and nobody really droppped anchor. It was a transient place. People drawn by the dream, people running from the nightmare. Twelve million people and all of them ready to make a break for it if necessary. Figuratively, literally, metaphorically -- any way you want to look at it -- everbody in L.A. keeps a bag packed. Just in case.

I've learned over the years that sometimes if you ask the same question more than once you get different responses.

Eenie, meenie, minie, moe, catch a killer by the toe. If his lawyer’s Haller, let him go. Eenie, meenie, minie, moe. Hey bro.

The bag was a hybrid I had picked up at a store called Suitcase City while I was plotting my comeback. [...] It had a logo on it -- a mountain ridgeline with the words "Suitcase City" printed across it like the Hollywood sign. Above it, skylights swept the horizon, completing the dream image of desire and hope. I think that logo was the real reason I liked the bag. Because I knew Suitcase City wasn't a store. It was a place. It was Los Angeles.

He's dead: Internal bleeding. When they opened him up they found a toothbrush shiv lodged in the anal cavity. It was never determinded whether he'd put it up there for safe keeping himself or somebody else did it for him, but it was a good lesson for the rest of the inmates. They even put up a sign. "Never put sharp objects up your ass.

Mounted on the wall beneath the fish was a brass plate. It said: IF I’D KEPT MY MOUTH SHUT I WOULDN’T BE HERE

I reminded myself of a simple truism—everybody lies

And I think that the public believes that the more guilty you are, the more lawyers you need.

Everybody lies. Cops lie. Lawyers lie. Witnesses lie. The victims lie. A trial is a contest of lies. And everybody in the courtroom knows this. The judge knows this. Even the jury knows this. They come into the building knowing they will be lied to. They take their seats in the box and agree to be lied to.

I have always believed that the quickest way off a jury panel is to announce that you are convinced that all cops lie or all cops are always right. Either way, a closed mind is a challenge for cause.

Anybody who relished the idea of being a juror was blue ink all the way.

most often for protest marches organized by the underclasses.

an honorary degree?” “Hell, no,” she said forcefully. “I worked my butt off two years to get that sucker.

The state’s forensic witness was a lab geek with the personality of a test tube.

There are three roads that can be taken in recovery. There is the clean path of sobriety and there is the road to relapse. The third way is the fast out. It is when the traveler realizes that relapse is just a slow suicide and there is no reason to wait.

Suitcase City wasn’t a store. It was a place. It was Los Angeles. Los Angeles was the kind of place where everybody was from somewhere else and nobody really dropped anchor. It was a transient place.

There’s nothing you can do about the past, Patrick. Except keep it there.

That’s my job, to forge the blade. To sharpen it. To use it without mercy or conscience. To be the truth in a place where everybody lies.

It seemed like the most important things in life were the easiest to break apart.

Cisco pointed south in the

Back when I was riding patrol, you know what we called a killing that came down to simple street justice?” “What?” “The brass verdict.

Sometimes hot sauce was the only way I knew I was still alive.

we hit the tunnel that marks the end of the freeway and dumps out onto the Pacific Coast Highway. I cracked the window open. I always loved the feeling I got when I’d swing out of the tunnel and see and smell the ocean. We followed the PCH as it took us north to Malibu. It was hard for me to go back to the computer when I had the blue Pacific right outside my office window. I finally gave up, lowered the window all the way, and just rode.