Chapter 538 - 252: 12 Angry Men
But before Davis could finish.
Juror Number Three, Cobb, shot to his feet, the movement so abrupt it knocked over his chair.
"Evidence!"
Cobb’s thick, beefy hand slammed down on the tabletop.
He pulled a high-definition photo from the messy pile of documents and threw it onto the center of the long table, where it slid to a stop in front of Davis.
"You want to talk about evidence? Fine. Let’s start with this."
Cobb pointed at the grayish-white object in the photo, his voice harsh, spittle flying.
"This is a gun. A homemade pistol. The so-called ’ghost gun’ from the news."
Cobb glared around the room, trying to overwhelm anyone who was still hesitant with his booming voice.
"The prosecution made it very clear. Luigi Randall spent a full three months preparing for this murder. He downloaded the blueprints, bought a printer, bought the materials, and then, in his dorm room, like some kind of freak, he built this murder weapon piece by piece."
"This wasn’t a crime of passion. This was deliberate. This was premeditated."
Cobb stared at Davis.
"Does a normal college student build a gun in his dorm room? He’s a potential terrorist! If we don’t convict a guy like this, who the hell should we convict?"
Davis wasn’t intimidated by Cobb’s bluster.
He reached out, picked up the photo, and carefully studied the crude weapon pictured within.
"Mr. Cobb, you’re right. He made it himself."
Davis set the photo down and looked up, his tone calm.
"But have you ever considered *why* he made it himself?"
"What?" Cobb was taken aback for a moment. "To get past security! To avoid leaving a paper trail!"
"It’s more than just that."
Davis shook his head.
"If he wanted to kill someone, to ensure a foolproof execution, he could have spent five hundred US dollars and bought a Glock, maybe even one with the serial number filed off."
Davis pointed at the plastic gun in the photo.
"But this thing? After firing a single shot, the barrel could warp from the heat, or even explode in his hand. It’s an extremely unreliable weapon."
"He’s a math genius, a top student with a highly logical mind. It’s impossible that he didn’t know how high this gun’s failure rate would be."
Davis looked at the others and presented his counter-argument.
"The reason he used a 3D printer is because he was a clean-cut student. He had never bought a gun before."
Davis’s voice rose slightly.
"What does that tell us?"
"It proves that he is not the well-trained, professional killer the prosecution made him out to be."
"He’s just an ordinary person, backed into a corner, with nothing but a computer and a pile of plastic."
"He was holding a toy that could have blown his own fingers off at any moment."
"You call that premeditation?"
Davis let out a cold laugh.
"I call that desperation."
His words caused a crack to appear in the previously one-sided atmosphere.
Everyone looked at the photo.
The grayish-white plastic gun no longer looked menacing. Instead, it seemed almost pathetic and tragic.
"That’s sophistry."
Juror Number Four, who had been watching coolly from the side, finally spoke.
He was a stockbroker, dressed in an expensive suit, maintaining a rational composure even in the stuffy room.
Number Four reached for the remote and pressed the play button for the TV on the wall.
"It doesn’t matter what kind of gun he used. The fact is, he fired it."
Number Four pointed at the screen.
A montage of surveillance footage provided by the prosecution began to play.
"Look at this. This is the surveillance from the underground garage of Arthur Vance’s office building, three days before the incident."
On the screen, Luigi, wearing that conspicuous hoodie, was huddled behind a pillar.
"This is the street in front of the Vance residence, two days before the incident."
Luigi’s figure appeared again, loitering in the rain.
"And this is the morning of the incident. He tailed Vance’s motorcade to the business center."
Number Four turned off the video, took off his glasses, and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"He stalked the victim for three whole days."
"He familiarized himself with Vance’s route, learned his habits, and looked for the best opportunity to strike."
"Mr. Davis, what do you call this? Desperation?"
Number Four’s tone was tinged with mockery.
"I call it a hunt. He stalked his prey like a wolf, waiting for it to show a moment of weakness."
"This is standard ambush tactics. It proves his murderous intent was firm, sustained, and unwavering."
Number Four put his glasses back on and looked at Davis.
"We can’t forgive his cruelty just because of some flight of fancy the killer had while acquiring a weapon."
A murmur of agreement rippled through the room.
"Yeah, stalking him for three days... that’s terrifying."
"He was clearly out to kill."
Davis felt the pressure returning.
"Rewind the video."
Davis said suddenly.
"What?" Number Four frowned.
"Rewind it. Go back to the footage from the day of the incident," Davis insisted.
Annoyed, Number Four pressed the rewind button.
The image froze on the exact moment Luigi burst out from the crowd.
"Pause."
Davis stood up and walked to the television screen.
He placed his finger on the screen, pointing at the group of people opposite Luigi.
"You see Luigi, and now look at who he’s facing."
Everyone’s gaze followed his finger.
"The prosecution said Luigi chose a moment when Vance was alone and at his most vulnerable, which proves his cunning and cold-blooded nature."
Davis’s finger slid across the screen, bringing up another diagram.
It was a floor plan of the crime scene.
"But, look at this."
Davis pointed to Vance’s position on the floor plan, and then to a spot a dozen meters behind him.
"This is where Vance’s driver was standing. According to court testimony, that driver is a retired Navy SEAL, has a legal firearm license, and is professionally trained in rapid response."
"Now look at the surrounding environment."
Davis’s finger drew a circle on the map.
"This is the entrance to the Four Seasons Hotel. The foot traffic is immense. At the moment before Luigi fired, there were at least a dozen eyewitnesses around him, and he was under the coverage of at least ten different security cameras from various angles."
Davis turned around, his back to the screen, and faced all the jurors.
"If this was a killer who wanted to murder someone and escape, would he choose to attack in broad daylight, in front of a crowd of people?"
"Would he charge forward with a plastic gun in a place where he could be counter-attacked by a professional bodyguard at any moment, be filmed by a dozen cameras, and be surrounded by a hundred bystanders?"
"It’s completely impossible to succeed. In fact, he never expected to leave there alive."
Davis stared into Number Four’s eyes.
"You call this an assassination?"
"No."
"This is a charge."
"This is one man’s war."
"He was charging at a tank."
"He knew he was going to die."
"But he charged forward anyway. The fact that he managed to escape was pure luck."
Davis took a deep breath and delivered his core argument.
"I don’t believe this was murder."
"It was a declaration."
"He was trading his own life for the right to let out a single scream in this goddamn world."
The deliberation room fell into a dead silence once again.
The air conditioner seemed to have broken down completely, and waves of heat rolled through the room.
But everyone felt an inexplicable chill.
They stared at the frozen image on the screen.
This really didn’t look like an ordinary murder case.
It was more like a martyrdom.
"Well said."
A young voice broke the silence.
Juror Number Five, who had been sitting in the corner, stood up.
He was a young Black man wearing a t-shirt with a basketball star on it, and there were several noticeable scars on his arms.
Since he’d entered the room, he had kept his head down, fiddling with a pen in his hand, as if he couldn’t care less about any of this.
But now, he looked up.
"I know that look in his eyes."
Number Five pointed at Luigi’s blurry face on the screen.
"I’ve seen it in my neighborhood."
"When the cops have your brother pinned to the ground with a knee on his neck."
"When the landlord throws your stuff out on the street and tells you to get lost."
"When you’ve waited in line all night at the emergency room door, only for the doctor to tell you they can’t treat you because you don’t have money."
Number Five’s voice trembled with long-suppressed anger.
"At times like that, you get a feeling."
"You feel like the whole world is closing in on you, like all the walls are collapsing."
"You have no way out."
"There’s a cliff in front of you and pursuers behind you."
Number Five looked at Cobb, then at Number Four.
"You people, living in your big houses in the suburbs, you’ll never understand that feeling."
"The feeling of being backed into a corner, where even taking a breath feels like a luxury."
"In that moment."
Number Five clenched his fists.
"What you’re holding in your hand isn’t a gun."
"It’s a lifeline."
"Luigi didn’t want to kill anyone."
Number Five’s voice grew quieter, but gradually firmer.
"He wanted this goddamn world to stop, for just one second, and see his pain."
No one in the room spoke.
Even the hot-tempered Cobb kept his mouth shut.
They were beginning to realize that this case couldn’t simply be defined as "guilty" or "not guilty."
This was about survival, about desperation, about one man’s final roar from the abyss.
Davis looked at Number Five and nodded slightly.
He knew he’d made a breakthrough.
A sliver of light had finally pierced through the locked door.
But he also knew it wasn’t enough.
Sympathy alone couldn’t overturn a first-degree murder charge.
They needed something more.
Davis turned back to the ballistics test report.
"Let’s go back to the second bullet."
Davis said.
"There’s a secret hidden in here that no one has noticed."
"When he fired the second bullet, his hand was shaking."
Davis’s eyes were firm.
He held up the ballistics report, pointing to the dense data on it.
"The prosecution has repeatedly emphasized that after firing the first shot, Luigi followed up with two more to ensure the execution, which they claim is a sign of cold, merciless intent."
Davis drew a crude diagram of a human torso on a blackboard.
"However, the ballistics report shows that the trajectory of the second bullet was not a precision shot, as the prosecution claimed."
"The bullet’s entry angle had a slight deviation, which caused it to miss Arthur Vance’s heart and hit his left lung instead."
"And the trajectory of the third bullet was even more erratic."
Davis pointed to the data on the report.
"The point of impact missed the torso entirely and hit Vance’s right arm."
All the jurors leaned in closer.
They looked at the data on the report and the trajectories Davis had drawn on the blackboard.
Cobb frowned. "So what does that prove? That he’s a bad shot? That he was nervous?"
"No. It proves he was hesitating."
Davis replied.
"Would a cold-blooded avenger, facing an unarmed target at close range, show such a significant deviation on the second and third shots?"
Davis looked at the young Black man, Number Five.
"When you play basketball, do you suddenly miss a shot that badly?"
Number Five shook his head. "No. Not unless someone pushed me, or I didn’t actually want to make the shot."
"Exactly."
Davis’s voice rose again.
"He was hesitating."
"He was struggling internally. He wanted to stop, but he felt forced to continue."
"What does this tell us?" Davis scanned the room, his gaze locking onto Cobb’s face.
"It shows he’s just an ordinary person, backed into a corner, forced to carry out a mission that he himself was terrified of."
"This undermines the prosecution’s charge of first-degree murder."
"First-degree murder requires malicious aforethought, a well-considered, premeditated killing. But him? At the moment he pulled the trigger, his hand was shaking, and his heart was in turmoil."
"At most, this constitutes second-degree murder, or possibly even manslaughter."