"Your Honor, the prosecution has new findings regarding Mr. Jeff Renault's ability to plan a horrific murder. We request to call witness No. 53, Sirov Lane."
The court session had just begun in the morning and Lu Ming stood up first.
Richard frowned slightly and looked at the witness list. There was this name, but he seemed to be just a small-time scoundrel. He was somewhat related to the case of the assault on the chief prosecutor, but the case of the assault on the chief prosecutor was not included in all the cases prosecuted by the prosecution. So, in theory, he was just a fake to fill in the witness list and a pawn to attract the attention of the defense.
However, Richard keenly felt that little Renault beside him seemed to frown.
Sirov quickly sat in the witness stand. He looked around anxiously, looking very frightened.
Lu Ming looked at him, "Mr. Sirov, do you know Jeff Renault, Mr. Renault Jr."
Sirov nodded.
"How did you two meet?"
"Two years ago, I was caught cheating in a casino because I lost a bet. Later, he gave me some money and asked me to get close to Miss Nicole Hepburn's assistant and find out everything about Miss Nicole..."
"Wow!" The jury was in an uproar and started whispering to each other.
"Objection. It has nothing to do with this case." Richard raised his hand.
Lu Ming looked towards the judge's seat, "Your Honor, I guarantee that the witness's testimony is closely related to this case!"
Judge Demps looked at Lu Ming and thought for a moment, "Let's get to the point as soon as possible!"
Lu Ming turned to Sirov again, "Mr. Sirov, the Miss Nicole Hepburn you mentioned, is she the movie star who just announced the termination of her contract with Reynolds Pictures not long ago, Miss Nicole Hepburn?"
"Yes." Sirov nodded.
Although they had roughly guessed that it was the big star Nicole, there was still a commotion in the gallery and the jury box at this moment.
"What did you do with the money and facilities provided by Mr. Renault Jr."
"I chased after Miss Nicole's assistant and became her boyfriend. Then, I reported Miss Nicole's movements to Mr. Renault."
"Has something happened recently that made you very upset?"
"Yes, two months ago, Mr. Renault asked me to find out why Miss Nicole didn't renew her contract and what she really thinks. A month ago, he also ordered me to report all of Miss Nicole's schedules to him every day. Not long after that, Miss Nicole was attacked."
The audience and the jury were in an uproar.
Lu Ming nodded. "I was there when Miss Nicole was attacked. She happened to take my ride, and then she was attacked by sixteen armed thugs. Fortunately, my bodyguards were strong enough, otherwise, Miss Nicole would have died."
The gallery and the jury seats were in chaos.
The case of the attack on Lu Ming and Nicole was suppressed by the Supreme Procuratorate, so there were not many media reports. Even those who were well-informed only knew that Nicole had been assassinated by a gunman, but they did not know the details.
Richard raised his hand. "I think that the prosecutors implied that my client was responsible for the attack on Ms. Nicole based solely on the confession of a gambler. This is very unethical. The chief prosecutor is very unprofessional and makes the testimony of witness No. 53 suggestive of bias. I ask the court to revoke the testimony of witness No. 53."
Judge Demps nodded and said to Lu Ming, "Your way of questioning has crossed the line." He turned around and was about to tell the jury that the conversation between the prosecutor and the witness just now was abolished, and the jurors should pretend that they did not hear this conversation.
"Your Honor, I have another witness to call. I just persuaded her to testify in court this morning. I ask your Honor to allow her to appear in court. Her testimony is closely related to that of witness No. 53. Only after listening to the testimony of both of them can we have a clearer understanding of this case. I ask your Honor to give the jurors a chance to understand the truth!"
Without waiting for Richard to object, Judge Demps waved his hand, and Lu Ming and Richard both came to the judge's bench.
"What new witness?" Demps looked at Lu Ming with a stern tone, "Besides, are you trying to stir up the jurors' emotions to put pressure on me?!"
"She is the mistress of the mob leader who attacked Nicole. She agreed to testify in court today. She is strongly related to testimony No. 53 and directly reveals the key issues in this case. Your Honor, you have no reason not to listen to her testimony! Even if my new evidence is not what I said, you can punish me, but you cannot refuse my new witness to testify now."
"If you refuse to allow her to testify in court, I will file a complaint against you and request a change of presiding judge. I heard that you had dinner with old Renault last night!"
Lu Ming looked at Judge Demps quietly with a firm look in his eyes.
Richard was slightly stunned. Since the trial began, this young man seemed to have turned a blind eye to the judge's deliberate provocations.
Is that because the previous few lessons were not very important to him? From now on, he will get to the point
Richard suddenly felt a little uneasy. He had never felt this way since he took on this case.
Moreover, Demps and old Renault had dinner together yesterday? He himself didn't know about it, and was kept in the dark. How did this young man know about it
"Sir Renault is not a suspect. I just met him by chance when dining with him. It is not against the rules!" Demps looked at Lu Ming coldly. "If you threaten me again, I will sentence you to contempt of court and put you in jail immediately!"
Then, he sat up straight and said, "The prosecution's new witness is allowed to appear in court!"
Soon, a blonde girl with blue eyes and avant-garde clothing sat in the witness stand.
"Miss Amanda, please tell me, do you know Biller Marcus? Also known as Iron Mountain?"
The girl nodded gently: "Yes, I am his mistress."
Lu Ming looked at the jury. "This Mr. Biller was one of the backbones of White Rose No. 4. According to the confessions of the captured personnel, he was involved in 11 murders. However, he and his companions were shot dead by my bodyguards when they attacked Miss Nicole."
Amanda sighed softly, "I know he's not a good person."
"Then why are you with him?"
"Life forces me to do that!" Amanda shook her head. "Besides, he treats me very well. Few people know about me, including his closest friends. He said that he and his friends are not good people. If one day he dies on the street, I might be in danger. If no one knows about me, I will be safe."
Lu Ming nodded and thought to himself that you were quite difficult to find. There were more than a dozen thugs and many of their family members were found, but none of them noticed your existence, which was even more surprising. From the time he discovered your existence until the day when Richard honestly admitted that his defense strategy was that little Renault had a mental disorder, he finally found you and persuaded you to testify.
It was also because the attack was made at an angle that the opponent could never have imagined.
Young Renault asked Biller and others to kill Nicole without telling old Renault, and he would never tell Richard.
He thought that since Biller and the others were all dead, there wouldn't be any trouble.
Therefore, no matter how careful Richard's plan was, he could not have expected that Nicole would be attacked out of nowhere.
Naturally, there was no high-profile search for the relatives and friends of Biller and others.
From a certain perspective, such an oversight should be regarded as good triumphing over evil. In such a big case, it is always more difficult to conceal the crime than to expose it.
"When was the last time Biller saw you?"
"It was on the morning of the day he died that he asked me to go to his house. He was in a very depressed mood. I had never seen him so depressed. He talked to me a lot. He said that he might get into a terrible disaster and it was very likely that the ending would be very tragic because someone originally only wanted him to scare the big star Miss Nicole, but Mr. Renault gave him a lot more money and asked him to kill Miss Nicole. Killing a big shot like Miss Nicole was different from killing people he had killed before. It was impossible to hide it. If the police found any clues, he thought that Mr. Renault would kill him in advance."
"Objection, hearsay evidence!" Richard frowned and raised his hand.
"Mr. Renault went to give the money. I was there. It was that morning. I remember it very clearly. It was the day when Miss Nicole was attacked. It was also the day when he...he died. That day was September 2. I was at his house listening to his sad farewell. Mr. Renault was gone. Biller hid me in the closet. Mr. Renault didn't know I existed, but I saw through the gap in the closet that Renault gave him the money with my own eyes. He also patted his face and said, if Nicole didn't die today, Biller would be the one to die tomorrow!"
Amanda looked at little Renault and said, "I will never forget the horrible look in his face when he said that."
The jury was numb, with bombshells being dropped one after another, making people feel a little at a loss as to what to do.
Some jurors were frightened when they saw the terrifying look in Little Renault's eyes as he stared at Amanda.
Of course, only a few jurors saw it, and little Renault quickly lowered his head.
"Your Honor, given that the prosecution's new evidence is a surprise, the defense needs time to study and prepare. I implore your Honor to adjourn the court and give the defense sufficient preparation time to ensure the fairness of this lawsuit!" Richard stood up, obviously a little confused. He wanted to spend more time to sort out his thoughts and study the prosecution, or in other words, to study what strategy this young man had.
The case of the chief prosecutor being attacked suddenly turned into a case of the superstar Nicole being attacked.
Is Little Renault the mastermind
But the prosecution did not use the Nicole attack case to prosecute Renault Jr.
The situation now is that the prosecution's breakthrough point is not at all what I have prepared, and the prosecution seems to have not launched a strong attack on the areas that I have focused on preparing for.
Lu Ming looked towards the judge's seat: "In court, I am not trying to prove that Little Renault was the mastermind behind the attack on Miss Nicole, so the defense does not need to prepare anything."
"What I want to say is that the gangster hired a money to get into Miss Nicole's life and learn about her movements. After Miss Nicole refused to renew her contract, the gangster asked for Miss Nicole's schedule every day. Then, Miss Nicole was attacked."
"And Miss Amanda has testified that Mr. Renault Jr. gave money to the leader of the thugs who attacked Miss Nicole, and personally said he wanted to kill Miss Nicole."
Lu Ming looked at the jurors. "Of course, if the charge we bring is that Mr. Renault is the mastermind behind the attack on Ms. Nicole, then the benefit of the doubt should go to the defendant. There may be some flaws in the chain of evidence, but I believe that some courts will have enough evidence to convict Mr. Renault."
"But I am not asking you to convict Reno Jr. as the mastermind of the attack on Miss Nicole."
"Rather, according to the defense psychiatrist Walker, and the popular science of various mental illness experts and scholars in the newspapers recently, we know that mentally ill people are incapable of organizing and planning group crimes with a clear mind."
"Mr. Walker, it only took him a dozen days to come to the conclusion that Mr. Renault Jr. killed someone in a state of hallucination."
"Just because, when there's music or straw, Mr. Reynolds will pick up a knife and chop around in the movie? I think there are hundreds of people in Reynolds who are more psychopathic than Mr. Reynolds, and there are many extras with good acting skills!"
There were jurors who couldn't help but laugh.
Richard frowned and stood up: "Objection, I don't think Mr. Walker's professionalism should be insulted like this."
Lu Ming nodded. "Mr. Walker is of course very professional, but the level of cognition of patients with mental illness is sometimes very vague. It is not that patients are completely unaware of what they are doing. If you read the newspaper recently, there are popular science articles about this."
Richard frowned. Why are these newspapers having the opposite effect recently
Then he suddenly raised his head and looked at Lu Ming. Was this guy doing all this on purpose? He had been pretending to be dead in court just to make the elements of mental illness more and more clear in the newspaper discussion
After all, he did not ask the jurors to be isolated from information from the outside world, and the prosecution did not make this request either.
External public opinion is extremely favorable to the defense, so of course I will not take the initiative to request that the jurors be isolated from the outside world.
But the prosecution has never made this request, which I find very strange.
Yes, intentional
This guy has actually been in control of the progress of the case
It was exactly the same as the cases he had dealt with before? In fact, he was in control of them from beginning to end
When I saw the cases he had solved, I was still laughing at his opponents, and I didn't realize that I was trapped in a trap.
But when you really fight him, even though you clearly take him seriously, you still fall into his trap
Lu Ming ignored Richard's thoughts and continued, "Even if little Renault has mental problems, when he kills people, he must be completely unaware of anything, right?"
"He really didn't know that he had killed someone? Every time, Booker and his gang concealed it very well? If Mr. Renault knew that he had killed someone, why didn't he turn himself in?"
"Mr. Renault, did he know nothing about sleeping with his brain in his arms? Why has he never sought psychiatric treatment?"
Lu Ming looked at the jury and said seriously, "According to our law, in fact, psychiatric experts do not have the authority to judge whether a mentally ill patient was truly in a state of hallucination during the murder in court. Instead, you need to listen, think, and judge. There is no question of giving the defendant the benefit of the doubt."
"Similarly, the testimonies of the two witnesses corroborate each other and prove that the defendant could not have organized and planned a terrorist attack while in a state of mental illness. Here, I am not asking you to convict the defendant of planning the attack on Nicole. Similarly, there is no benefit of doubt for the defendant."
"Instead, I ask you to open your eyes and make an impartial judgment. Based on the evidence of both the prosecution and the defense, is Little Renault a mental patient or not?"
“I think everyone will come to the same conclusion.”
"Some media thought I was targeting the defendant, but that's not true. I just want the truth."
"If these two witnesses gave false testimony at my instigation, then my fate would be dire. You all understand this."
"Okay, let's take a step back. Suppose, when Mr. Renault is ill, he will go with a group of thugs to kill people who have nothing to do with him. And when he is not ill, he will secretly plan to get rid of people who don't agree with him. Moreover, if it is a big star like Nicole, he will kill her just because he doesn't want to renew the contract!"
"He was still sleeping with his brain in his arms."
"Isn't this kind of person even more terrifying?"
"The crime of first-degree endangering public safety is designed for people like this. Fortunately, as one of the oldest prosecution charges, it has not been completely abolished."
"Objection, prosecution..." Richard stood up, wanting to object to this guy's usual practice of making closing arguments during the trial.
He also opposed the prosecution's repeated claims that it did not ask the jury to convict Leno Jr. of planning the attack on Nicole. However, every word in their words seemed to be an ironclad fact that Leno Jr. hired someone to attack Nicole.
But I find it awkward to even oppose it, and even if I oppose it, I can't change anything fundamentally.
Looking at the jurors, many of them were thinking about Lu Ming’s words.
He killed Central Asians while in a state of mental illness, and when he was sober, he hired a dozen thugs to kill one of the most famous stars in the Western world. Isn't this kind of person scary enough
Still sleeping with my brain...
Richard suddenly felt very regretful, as if some things he had done too much were as bad as too little.