Du Laifu sat in the witness stand again.
He is tall and thin, in his thirties, with a black mole on his face and shifty eyes, looking very cunning.
Lu Ming sat and looked at the note in his hand.
It was the information that Big Head had just handed to him, from Lao Gui's investigation.
It was said that Li Xiaoyan's husband, Liu Shoucheng, the second largest shareholder of Mingjia Entertainment, went to Jincheng Hotel at around 4 o'clock on the night of the incident.
However, the witness would not appear in court to testify under any circumstances, and Lao Gui also promised that he would never reveal the identity of the witness.
Lu Ming frowned and thought.
"Defense?" Seeing Lu Ming not moving for a long time, Cao Guan had to remind him.
"Yes." Lu Ming put the note into his pocket, slowly stood up, and walked to Du Laifu. "Mr. Du Laifu, what is your relationship with the victim, Ms. Li Xiaoyan?"
Du Laifu leaned forward to the microphone and said, "I'm her cousin."
"Please give me more details."
Du Lai Fu looked at Lu Ming with some confusion.
"For example, how did your relationship come about?"
Du Laifu hesitated for a moment and said, "Ms. Li Xiaoyan's mother and my mother are from the same hometown and have been good friends since they were very young."
Liu Hanming had been prepared for these questions long ago. He had his assistant practice with him and told him not to tell a lie. However, he thought that the defense would ask him these questions on the first day of the trial, but he didn't expect it to be delayed until today.
Lu Ming nodded: "In other words, you two are not related by blood."
"Yes, but she took good care of me. Since I was a child, I treated her as my own sister."
"What kind of person is Ms. Li Xiaoyan?"
Du Laifu gradually relaxed. These questions had almost all been rehearsed before. "She is kind and friendly. She has always been very good to those close to her."
"Jincheng Hotel is a very simple little hotel. Does she often stay there?"
"Yes, actually she is not a person who likes luxury very much. She said that she feels more comfortable in Jincheng Apartment and will recall the time she spent with her neighbors when she was a child." Du Lai Fu answered with ease.
"So, she asked Mr. Li Haoran to come to her room late at night. You will understand that two lonely and pitiful people are often attracted to each other, right?"
Du Lai Fu was stunned. According to the original script, the next question should be whether Li Xiaoyan often brought men to Jincheng Hotel.
His answer should be to prove in various ways that Li Xiaoyan is not a loose woman.
But unexpectedly, the other party did not follow the routine.
"Because you understand, you don't find Ms. Li Xiaoyan's abnormal behavior strange, and you don't think there will be any problems, right?"
Du Lai Fu looked towards the prosecutor's seat, only to see Liu Hanming frowning and looking unhappy.
"Yes, yes..." Du Lai Fu answered randomly.
Liu Hanming's face looked very bad. He had fallen into the trap. His original answer was that the defense would strongly attack the character of the victim. However, he did not expect that from the very beginning, Lu Qianxing had no intention of attacking Li Xiaoyan's character at all.
In this way, in the eyes of the jury, Li Xiaoyan gradually became a pitiful and kind abandoned woman who was completely ignored by the unfaithful man who was fickle and easily attracted to the new.
Lu Qianxing is even more of a crapshoot, taking the opportunity to create the character of Li Si, which is equally pitiful and sad.
He and Li Xiaoyan became wanderers in the world.
Crimes like robbery, attempted rape, murder, etc., seem to be very unreasonable.
Even I am now wavering in my heart. Could it be that Li Si really didn't kill the person
I haven't got a deep understanding of this case, and I'm just going through the motions.
Then Liu Hanming was slightly stunned. Why did he have such an idea? This was not a good sign!
The cross-examination continued in front of the witness stand.
"According to your testimony, you found out that Li Xiaoyan was murdered four hours after Mr. Li Haoran left, around five in the morning, right?"
Du Laifu nodded gently, "Yes!"
"During this period of time, you did not see the third person enter Li Xiaoyan's room again? Right?"
"Yes."
"Have you been watching Ms. Li Xiaoyan's room? Even though Mr. Li Haoran has left, Ms. Li Xiaoyan should have fallen asleep and rested, but you are still keeping an eye on Ms. Li Xiaoyan's room?"
Du Laifu shook his head: "No, because I had a few friends who stayed in the room opposite Ms. Li Xiaoyan that day, so I stayed there with them, but they were all heavy smokers, so later they opened the doors and windows of the room, and the door was never closed."
"Yes, I saw your testimony saying that. The testimonies of several of your friends said that some of them went to sleep in the bedroom after getting drunk, and some left early. Looking at the timeline, from 3 a.m. onwards, you were the only one who continued to drink in the outer room of the suite, right? The outer room of the suite had an open door, and you were sitting opposite the door of Ms. Li Xiaoyan's suite, so you could clearly see people coming in and out."
"Yes!"
"Then, at 5:11 in the morning, you suddenly found that the door outside Ms. Li Xiaoyan's suite was ajar. You wanted to help her close the door, and then you smelled blood in the bedroom. That's when you discovered that Ms. Li Xiaoyan had been murdered."
"Yes."
"It was windy at that time. Because you had your windows and door open, the strong wind blew the door of Ms. Li Xiaoyan's room across the street. You then realized that the door was ajar. According to the weather records, there was indeed strong wind in the early morning."
"Yes." Du Lai Fu nodded again.
"How much did you drink?" Lu Ming suddenly asked.
"About two kilograms of brandy, all together."
"Why are you drinking alone? After your friends left, you continued to drink alone. Is there something troubling you?"
"No, I just like to drink." Du Laifu gradually calmed down. It seemed that his answer was okay and he would not be reprimanded by lawyer Liu Hanming. The question was also coming to an end.
"You like Ms. Li Xiaoyan, right?" Lu Ming suddenly asked.
Du Lai Fu looked up in surprise.
"Oppose the defense's groundless speculation!" Liu Hanming stood up suddenly.
"Your Highness, my question is very important, and it is not without reason." Lu Ming bowed slightly to Cao Guan.
Cao Guan nodded: "The witness needs to answer this question."
"You like Ms. Li Xiaoyan, right?" Staring at Du Lai Fu.
Du Laifu shook his head, "No, I always think of her as my own sister!"
"So, how do you explain that you have a tattoo of her country name, Xiaohua, on your private part?"
Du Lai Fu was stunned. He never thought that the other lawyer would know such a secret.
Liu Hanming frowned and was about to stand up when Du Laifu said, "Even if I have the word Xiaohua tattooed on my body, it doesn't mean I am your cousin. Xiaohua is a very common name. I have a waitress named Xiaohua in my store now, and she is also very beautiful."
Liu Hanming's expression softened slightly. He gave a good answer. This guy is not completely stupid.
Lu Ming nodded. "In fact, you drank alone that night, and you even opened the door to Ms. Li Xiaoyan's room because you were angry, right? Because what you couldn't get was easily obtained by a cripple."
"I said, there were a lot of people smoking in the room..."
"But your reason is unreasonable. A woman like your own sister brought her lover into the room, and you left the door open in the opposite room. Your drunken friends could see your sister's door and imagine what was going on inside. Do you think this is reasonable?"
"Shouldn't you get over it and close the door tightly? Or maybe change rooms with your friends?"
Du Laifu paused, "I, I was drunk at the time, I didn't think too much..."
Liu Hanming frowned. He didn't think this was unreasonable, nor did he ever think it was unreasonable.
Because, from an objective perspective, it seems very logical. There was a strong smell of smoke, and there were a few drunkards eating and drinking with the door open. It was normal and this kind of scene often occurs.
However, this omission was due to being too objective. If we put ourselves in Du Laifu's perspective, the person in the room opposite was like his own sister, who was having an affair with her lover. How could he possibly leave the door of his room across the corridor open? If someone heard any noise, wouldn't it be embarrassing
In fact, he should have taken his friend to change rooms. After all, he was the hotel operator and had the convenience of doing so.
The jurors were also whispering.
Lu Ming looked at Du Laifu and suddenly said, "You were the one who killed Li Xiaoyan, right?!"
Du Lai Fu shuddered violently and looked up in surprise.
"You turned your love into hatred, and you kept drinking. Driven by alcohol, you went into Li Xiaoyan's room to question her! However, Li Xiaoyan always looked down on you because of your ugly face, and just treated you as a servant. So, you got angry and lost your mind, and smashed the flying eagle sculpture down, once, twice, three times..."
"Finally, she stopped moving. You woke up, wiped off your fingerprints, went back to your room, woke up your drunk friend, and told him that you had found Li Xiaoyan's body."
"And the ready-made scapegoat is Mr. Li Haoran, the person you hate the most, who took away your sister whom you had a crush on for many years, right?!"
Lu Ming kept asking questions and kept objecting even though Liu Hanming stood up.
The jury and the gallery were already in uproar.
Du Laifu turned pale and kept shaking his head, "It's not me, it's not me..."
Lu Ming nodded: "In fact, you may not have had time to commit the crime, because that night, your hotel had a distinguished guest, and you went to entertain him, right?"
“Yes, that’s right…” Du Lai Fu said, and his face turned pale immediately.
Lu Ming looked at him and said in a calm tone, word by word: "So, you didn't keep an eye on Ms. Li Xiaoyan's door. If someone came in or out during this period, you wouldn't know."
Du Lai Fu's face turned pale and he almost collapsed in the witness stand.
"Court, I have no more questions!" Lu Ming bowed slightly and walked towards his seat, but suddenly stopped and looked at the jury: "In fact, the most important witness for the prosecution is a dishonest witness."
"The most important testimony of the prosecutors against my client came from Mr. Du Laifu. In fact, there was no other strong evidence at all."
"The so-called stolen goods found by the police in my client's home were just a way for Ms. Li Xiaoyan to vent her feelings about life."
"But the police did not conduct an in-depth investigation at all. My client was the only one on their suspect list. Yes, they only investigated my client!"
"There are too many doubts in the evidence provided by the police, and it is impossible to form a closed chain of evidence. Here, the principle of giving the benefit of the doubt to the defendant is not required. Instead, the prosecution's judgment on the motive for the murder is wrong."
"The prosecution concluded that my client's motive for murder was attempted rape and robbery. Based on the available evidence, this is completely wrong."
Lu Ming looked at Cao Guan, "Court, if this is a grand jury hearing, and I request that this case be dismissed, would you agree? Because even if my client is the murderer, he should not be charged with premeditated murder. The prosecution has not mentioned that my client's motive for murder may be an emotional dispute. As long as I prove that the motive for murder identified by the prosecution is wrong, the grand jury hearing will definitely dismiss this case, right?"
Cao Guan stared at Lu Ming without saying a word, but there was some admiration in his eyes.
Lu Ming sighed, "Unfortunately, I didn't have so much evidence before the trial, so this case has entered the trial stage. Here, I ask all jurors to declare my client not guilty in accordance with the principle of giving the benefit of the doubt to the defendant!"
"Although he was despicable and not a good person, and took advantage of the victim, Ms. Li Xiaoyan, he did not kill her."
"The real murderer is still at large! Only when the real murderer, Ms. Li Xiaoyan, is found can we have true peace!"
Liu Hanming's face turned pale. This guy, is he making a closing statement here
However, at this moment, it is really difficult to refute anything.
"Prosecution, can your psychological expert witness come to court to testify?" asked Cao Guan.
"I need time to prepare!" Liu Hanming stood up.
I feel that now the psychological experts have come forward to prove that Li Mingxuan is mentally abnormal, which is why he behaved abnormally like killing someone, wiping off the fingerprints and going back to sleep.
It doesn't seem to have any effect on easing the current situation in the court. It would be better to wait a few more days. The jurors' mood will be different.
But is it really possible to reverse the disadvantage
I was careless for a moment, and by the time I took it seriously, it seems it's too late. The other party was pressing me step by step, and the case was completely within their rhythm. It's probably very difficult to turn the situation around now.
Liu Hanming looked at the young lawyer's back, confused for a moment.
At the side, Zhang Jingjing noticed the confusion in her master's eyes and was startled. She had a vague feeling that the building was about to collapse.
Cao Guan checked the time and picked up the gavel. "Adjourn the court! I'll give you one day to prepare new witness statements."