Gotham's autumn is originally clearer than other seasons. On those days when dark clouds cover everyone's heads, you can still see a touch of blue on the skyline in the early morning and evening that is too brilliant for this city.
, intertwined with the faint morning light, illuminating the leaves and puddles into blurry colors.
When the dark clouds dispersed, in the late autumn morning, the cold and humid air condensed into a dense mist. The red taillights of the cars during the morning rush hour were looming in the mist, like a broken bead chain.
The tall city in the distance changes between iron gray and dark brown, and the neon lights on the streets that have just quieted down after a night of carnival are shining lonely in the mist where tiny water droplets are illuminated by the sun.
The Gotham Courthouse was born together with the city. It is an older building than the Gotham Cathedral and the Gotham Theater. It has not been forgotten in the long history of city development. It experienced two phases in the 19th and 20th centuries respectively.
Renovated and rebuilt.
Like the courts in most cities in New Jersey, the Gotham Courthouse has white exterior walls, solemn Roman columns in front of the door, a gray-green roof, and three circular arches in front of the porch for daily passage.
It was the working hours of the court at this time, and many judges, judge assistants and legal advisers in suits and ties were walking back and forth in the square in front of the court carrying briefcases.
The morning light has just risen to the roof of the nearby building, giving everything here a bright and warm color.
If you walk further inside, you can see the historical heritage of this brand-new building. The interior decoration is not modern style, but brown-red wooden hard decoration, combined with dark natural marble slab decoration, which is quite British style.
At this time, the reception hall was filled with the strong aroma of coffee. A tall man in a suit was holding a cup of coffee in his hand and a briefcase in the other hand. He walked in and nodded friendly to his colleagues.
He walked quickly up the stairs through the crowd, and a woman just walked out of the corner and almost ran into his arms.
"Oh my God! Judge Dent, why are you here so early today?" The curly-haired lady pushed up her glasses in surprise.
"Because a special charge sheet will be sent this morning from the Gotham Police Department. I want to go there early to take a look."
"You have only been transferred to the criminal prosecution department for three months, and you are already taking charge of major cases?" The curly-haired lady looked surprised, "Do you need me to ring the do-not-disturb bell for you?"
"Of course, thank you, I have to go there quickly."
Turning around the corridor, the sun shone on this man, and the nameplate on his chest clearly read "Harvey Dent".
As soon as he walked into the office, he saw an old man with gray hair sighing at the file.
"What's wrong? Teacher, what case deserves you to be so..."
"This James Gordon is becoming more and more unreliable!" The old man took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes and said: "The only useful information in the charge sheet he sent here about murder and intentional injury is the title!"
Harvey immediately leaned over and flipped through the documents, then frowned and said, "Where is the copy of the arrest warrant?"
The old man glanced at Harvey and said, "They didn't arrest him at all."
Harvey was shocked and said: "How could he get to the stage of charging without arrest? Shouldn't the normal sequence be arrest, search, interrogation, and then charging? How could he get to court without arrest? Who should we sentence??
"
Harvey had an expression on his face that said, "Am I crazy or is the world crazy?" The old man shook his head, curled his lips and said, "You still have too little experience. Gordon said he would appear in court."
"ah?????"
Harvey's mouth opened again and again, as if he could not accept the fact at all. He said: "This is a criminal prosecution. They didn't even arrest anyone. Then they told us that the suspect would appear in court by then. They thought it was
Are you going through a divorce lawsuit?"
"Why don't you take a look at this first." The old man handed a document to Harvey.
As soon as Harvey picked up the document, his heart skipped a beat because there was a photo printed in the upper right corner of the document, and the photo was of Schiller Rodriguez.
At least now Harvey is somewhat sure that the suspect will appear in court.
Continuing to read, Harvey breathed a sigh of relief. This was a typical preparation item before the accusation conference. It turned out that it was not going directly to court.
Then he looked at the charge sheet in the old man's hand, which listed many proposed charges, including intentional injury, murder, maiming, and even terrorist attacks.
Harvey felt a little headache. He took the file and walked to the sofa to sit down and said, "So what did this Professor Rodriguez do?"
"To be honest, I don't know either."
Harvey looked at his teacher in disbelief, but his teacher showed a recalling look and said: "James called me last night. To be honest, I suspected that he drank too much. He kept
He told me something about the Mexican Day of the Dead, the corpse was squirming, etc. I guessed that it might be a crime scene he saw during the day."
"Crime scene? But isn't he a policeman? He is actually afraid of crime scenes?"
The old man shook his head and said: "I know James. He was an extremely bold young man when he first came to Gotham. An ordinary corpse would not frighten him like this, so I suspect it might be a notorious serial murderer.
."
"But what does this have to do with Schiller?"
"I am also thinking about this issue. James probably means that it is not a corpse, but a living person."
"ah???"
The old man also sat behind the desk, rummaged through his drawer, pulled out a few photos and handed them to Harvey. Harvey's facial features wrinkled up when he saw it, and he took the paper further away with disgust.
.
The photo showed a man being peeled out of a layer of skin. Harvey felt he shouldn't have had breakfast.
??????55.??????
He covered his mouth and turned his face to the side. He quickly drank a few sips of coffee to suppress the desire to vomit. He waved his hand to the old man and said, "Sorry, I have to go to the bathroom."
Harvey came back soon, and he didn't even bother to button up his suit and slumped into the chair.
"That's it." The old man spread his hands and said: "The man hanging in the police station is actually not dead, but the skin on his body must come from a dead person. After comparison by the forensic doctor and the Gotham Physical Evidence Department,
The discovery came from a 32-year-old Mexican man named Brata Elsanti.”
"What about the people in this skin?"
"He's the trouble. He's Officer Clay Aldo of the Gotham Police Department."
"Did he report the case?"
"In fact, there is no need to report the crime. This body, I mean a living person wrapped in the skin, is hanging in the lobby of the Gotham Police Department."
"Where's the surveillance?"
"There was a power outage and nothing was photographed."
"Witnesses?"
"Officer Clay said that Professor Schiller attacked him and sewn him into the human skin."
"Where did he attack him?"
"This is another trouble, in fact, at the Rodriguez estate."
"ah???"
Harvey was stunned for a moment, and then said: "You mean that Officer Clay broke into the Rodriguez Manor, and then was attacked by Professor Rodriguez and sewn into human skin, so why did he break in?"
Go in?"
The old man shook his head.
"I also asked James this question, but James said he didn't know. He said that Officer Clay told him before leaving that he would find evidence that Schiller was a serial murderer."
"Did he find it?"
"Of course not, otherwise Schiller would have been arrested long ago."
"The problem has come back to the original point." Harvey rubbed his aching brow.
"Also, there is this." The old man took out another document from the drawer, which was another charge sheet. This time there was a copy of the arrest warrant.
"Intrusion into private houses, dereliction of duty, false accusation..."
Harvey read out the above charge items, shook his head and said: "I have to say, this is much stronger than the previous charge. Just these photos of the destruction at the scene are enough for the prosecutor to give this guy a hard record."
It’s a stroke of luck.”
"So they are now accusing each other?" Harvey looked at the two indictments and asked: "Clay accused Schiller of murder, and Schiller accused Clay of breaking into private homes and dereliction of duty..."
"Wait a minute." Harvey suddenly said: "How can Clay accuse Schiller of murder? Isn't he still alive?"
"This is the most complicated part of this case." The old man frowned deeply and sighed: "Clay said that Schiller sewed him into human skin and hung him in the lobby of the police station, but he
He’s not dead, it’s the Mexican named Brata who died.”
"Did Clay see Schiller kill Bratta?"
"No, no one can prove that Schiller killed Brata. There are no witnesses or physical evidence."
"Then why does he have Brata's skin?"
"He said he picked it up on the road."
Harvey opened his mouth to refute, but his professionalism stopped him a second before he spoke. He is a judge and needs to present factual evidence. He cannot just let the wind take its course.
Indeed, from a common sense point of view, it is ridiculous to pick up a piece of human skin on the road, but the judgment logic in the United States is "we assume that someone has committed a crime and find evidence for him that he has not committed a crime."
So if there is no other evidence to prove that Schiller picked up human skin on the road, then it is true.
If other places can still use the "serious violation of common sense" in the law to argue, but in Gotham, picking up human skin on the road is not completely contrary to common sense, and it is possible.
"If Schiller could not be proven to have committed murder, the only possible charge would be intentional injury, but Rodriguez claimed it was self-defense because the police officer broke into a house without permission," the old man said.
Harvey felt his head hurt.
He tried hard to analyze the current situation. If Clay broke into the house first and Schiller injured others later, then according to the "no yield law" followed by most states in the United States, that is, if he is attacked in his own territory, he should
Never give in, defend where you are, and have no obligation to escape from the house. See, Schiller has the right to defend.
New Jersey is not a strong castle law state, but it also needs to judge the size of the right of defense based on some circumstances. Schiller's situation is very likely to be judged as unlimited right of defense.
First, the intruder has a gun.
For this reason alone, as long as Clay could still walk out of Schiller's house alive, almost every prosecutor would not convict Schiller.
Secondly, the intruder is a police officer.
Unless Clay can prove that he broke in for official duties, such as investigating and collecting evidence, he can prove that this was violent law enforcement, otherwise it would be breaking into a private home and dereliction of duty.
In other words, unless Clay actually found evidence in the house, the process was not law enforcement, but an unprovoked intrusion. Without the concept of law enforcement, Clay's intrusion and aggressiveness would be judged to be infinite.
In the end Clay did a lot of substantial damage, especially scoring goals.
This would easily be deemed as a serious violent intrusion, an imminent threat to the homeowner, and the possibility that the homeowner would be frightened and use violence to defend himself.
A well-trained police officer armed with a gun broke into someone's house in the middle of the night and broke down several doors. The homeowner only sustained minor injuries. Harvey felt that the prosecutor who presided over the charging conference was very
Maybe all you can think about is "You have the nerve to sue him?"