Justice Served

38 | My Forever

Chapter Thirty-Eight
Jayce Mirella

Nearing the closing of the trial, the prosecution had brought up a psychologist unlike the previous trial who had, analyzed me and said that I had a 'one up from zero mentality,' meaning that I allegedly tended to crave a step higher from the previous crime I had committed because I, 'liked to feel the rush of something new even if it may be only a little bit worse than the previous thing I did.'

He went on about how many criminals have this complex where they grow with their crimes and Kyo had the gall to use my previous criminal history for that quack psychologist to use to prove his point. The man couldn't have been more wrong though as I only stole money to put food on the table for Blue and I as well as house us. I wasn't some thrill-seeking felon — except for pick-pocketing, that was fun — however, that's what prosecution was going with this time around and it felt like it was working in their favor. Despite having a jury that was a good mix of people of color that varied from black to Asian to Indian to anything else, the judge who had a good reputation and was proven to be clean unlike the previous judge, still ruled the evidence Rhys found to be admissible within court because it was stolen evidence.

Again, the only thing Rhys could get away with was the flash drive that was found with the addition of the video and pictures I took in Ian Lennox's office which did nothing but create speculation, I did not believe that it was firm enough to create a suspicion of doubt within the jury. Aside from that, the prosecution now had an idea of how they were going to tackle the trial more efficiently.

If that woman Mary had taken the stand this time as well, I'm sure Rhys would've been able to elicit the same response and the jury would've been able to doubt prosecution and the credibility but they purposely omitted her in the last minute, leaving for there to be no room for Rhys to contact the woman and make her a witness of our own.

It felt like everything we did to try to make this trial work in favor of us crashed and burned; it's like I was destined to go to prison. We didn't have a fair judge and jury last time but we did have Mary on prosecution's side who poked a hole in their little narrative and that helped us tremendously, we also had Vincent who — with enough provocation — cracked a bit and made things more favorable for Rhys and me.

I'm so certain that if the judge and jury were the ones in this retrial, we may just have gotten a different verdict. The thing about this trial is Kyo brought in a credible psychologist who even Rhys found hard to cross-examine in ways that would benefit us, the man knew what he was talking about, he just didn't know that it didn't apply to me so he was only doing his job and only spat out what he learned in college as instructed to do so.

Aside from that, we only had Lillian who had gone up a bit more confidently than before but having encountered her before, Kyo ripped her story apart with his questions and left her a quivering mess. Rhys had seen the poor girls desperation to leave the stand so he called for an objection on the basis that Kyo was backing her into a corner and intimidating her into giving him a response that he wanted to hear, the judge favored the objection and deemed it permissible so Kyo was forced to head back to his seat but he had already managed to strip away the credibility of her testimony.

Thus, this time around we have a fair judge and jury but our defense is just lacking overall though I don't blame Rhys. He's done the best he could given the cards that were handed to him, he's an amazing lawyer and he'd always be in my eyes. Rhys Chandler did everything he could for me and it made me feel bad inside. Even after spending over six hours at the hospital the night of the incident with Vincent, Rhys had dropped me off at home and went straight back to the firm, I only know this because Dimitri told me that he caught Rhys sleeping away at his desk when he came in for work the next day.