I checked the mirror and saw an LAPD cruiser behind me. I was halfway through when I saw the reflection of blue lights on the tunnel's exhaust-smoked green tiles. The traffic lights were with me and I followed the street into the tunnel that went under Bunker Hill. I got behind the wheel, took a left out of the lot and then another to put me back on Second Street. The party - meaning the open bar - started early and ended late, and when Moira, the heavily tattooed bartender who had been keeping the tab, handed me the damage, let's just say, I put more on my credit card than I would ever see from the client I had just set free. The Redwood was no country club but it was convenient. My celebration took place at the Redwood on Second Street, just a few blocks from the civic center, where there were no fewer than three courthouses to draw celebrants from. Within the informal downtown defense bar, there is a sacred duty to celebrate a not-guilty verdict the way a golfer celebrates a hole in one at the clubhouse. It wasn't my quickest verdict ever, but it came close. I notched the NG after less than half an hour of jury deliberation. The prosecutor objected and the judge sustained.

'Would you then claim I attacked you, like you have with the defendant in this case?” I asked. He lost his cool and threatened me, said he'd like to meet me out in the street, where it would be just him and me. I delivered the knockout punch when I recalled him to the witness stand and led him down a path of questioning that put him over the edge. The so-called victim had a history of violence of his own that both prosecution and defense witnesses, including an ex-wife, were eager to describe on cross-examination. I had turned a felony battery charge into a righteous case of self-defense in front of the jury. I had walked a man right out of the courtroom.

The law of innocence book