that made it an open and shut case. The prosecutor was kind of new and absolutely full of himself, and he figured with that in hand, he had it in the bag, you know?”
I cringed. “So what happened?”
“During cross examination, I showed that the chain of custody had been broken. It’s…” He waved a hand. “The short version is that there’s a very rigid chain of custody where the whereabouts and custodian of the evidence is documented to be sure it isn’t compromised or tampered with. Somewhere along the line, someone fucked up, which meant the evidence was compromised. They couldn’t actually prove that the evidence we had in the courtroom was the same piece collected at the scene, which meant no one could rely on any of the forensic testing performed on it after the chain of custody was broken.”
My lips parted. “And their entire case was based on it?”
Aaron nodded. “It pretty much fell apart. There really was no question that the guy was guilty, but the prosecutor fucked up and couldn’t prove it in the eyes of the law.” With a heavy shrug, he said, “So, he was acquitted.”
“Did that bother you?”
“Oh God, yeah. But not because I’d gotten this guy out of an attempted murder charge. I was pissed that the prosecutor didn’t do his job.” He touched his hand to his chest. “I did my job. I did exactly what I was supposed to do.” Lowering his hand, he rolled his eyes. “Of course the media and everyone blamed me for ‘defending a would-be killer,’ but the whole ‘innocent until proven guilty’ thing means it’s the state’s job to prove guilt, not my job to prove innocence. The prosecutor fucked up, but my reputation is the one that took the hit because I”—he made air quotes—“defended a dangerous man so he could roam the streets and probably do more than attempt murder next time.”
“Ouch.”
Will draped his arm behind Aaron and ran his fingers through his hair. Aaron closed his eyes, and the tension I hadn’t even noticed just melted out of his features and his shoulders.
After a moment, he sighed. “The thing is, there was also a case where everyone knew the defendant was guilty as sin. He insisted he wasn’t, but I mean, we all knew. And the evidence was piling up.” Aaron pushed out a breath. “So then we go to trial. And there were some shoe impressions from the crime scene, and the investigators had very carefully documented all of them, plus they took imprints and photos of all the first responder’s shoes. That way if they found, say, a size eight women’s New Balance print, and it matched one of the paramedics, we could eliminate it as evidence.”
“They do that?”
“Oh yeah. All the time. So anyway, as I’m going through the evidence before the trial, I realize there’s a print no one’s identified. They documented the shoe size and style, but they never actually matched it to anyone’s shoe. And since it was in blood, it was obviously someone who was there during or after the crime. I called in an expert, and—”
“Wait.” I sat up. “Like a footprint expert?”
“Yep.” Aaron chuckled. “You’d be amazed at all the experts I’ve called in for things. Anyway, long story short, I get her on the stand, and she tells the courtroom there’s a print that’s unaccounted for and that couldn’t possibly belong to the defendant because it’s like three sizes too small. But then I showed her the images of the defendant’s prints—both his shoe and the print found at the scene—and ask if they match. Which is pretty much standard procedure. There’s an expert on the stand, have them confirm what we already know, check another box on the ‘prove him guilty’ list because now we can positively connect him to the crime scene.”
“And, what? They didn’t match?”
“Oh, they matched…in size and style. But then she looks closer, and now that it’s blown up on a projector screen, she notices there’s some damage to the tread on the print found at the scene. The first guy who’d analyzed it had thought it was just distorted because, I mean, you almost never get a full, perfect print, but she insisted there was…I mean, I can’t remember exactly how it worked, but basically the tread wasn’t worn the same way, and the wear indicated someone who had a slight pronation. Which the defendant didn’t have.”
“No shit?”
“No shit.” Aaron exhaled. “And then it was just