The Trial: Witnesses of Various Worth

Only lawyers know why they call the witnesses they do.

Most were at the party when Joe died but didn't see it happen. And...?

One testified he knew he wasn't drunk because he still had some beers left in his Friday night 12-pack. The judge laughed though we couldn't.

An expert showed a knife everyone agreed wasn't used to kill Joe. They'd found it in Poke's home.

A detective provoked an urgent and sustained "Objection!" for saying he worked in the gang unit. It's the, ahem, Youth Violence Strike Force.

Then there was Chris. Chris mattered. He'd been flown in from an Army base in Germany and, wearing his dress uniform, wept as he told a roomful of strangers his First Aid training failed his best friend. Like a movie, he held Joe in his lap and begged him to hang on. The ambulance was too slow, and death too indifferent.

Continue: Joe We'll Never Know

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