You Escaped Justice for 50 Years? Cute. I Became the Judge Chapter 05

You Escaped Justice for 50 Years? Cute. I Became the Judge Chapter 05

From the moment I appeared, the live comment feed never stopped moving.

[Why is this woman back? Wasn’t she suspended? She obviously slept her way through the entire legal establishment. I bet she has a whole lineup of powerful men protecting her.]

[What did she mean by that? Is there more to Ethan’s case than we know?]

[There’s nothing more to it. I’ve followed this case from the beginning, and that woman has been creating problems on purpose. I can’t wait for Mr. Hawthorne Sr. to tear her case apart and humiliate her in open court.]

I returned to the bench.

Victor sat at the defense table as Ethan’s attorney, with Ethan beside him as the defendant.

My grandmother had once sat at the defense table too.

But she had been completely alone. No one believed her, and no attorney had stood beside her to fight for her.

All she had been able to do was repeat the same words over and over.

“I’m innocent. I didn’t kill anyone. I didn’t kill Victor.”

Once the clerk called the court to order and the preliminary instructions were read, the jury trial formally began.

Victor rose slowly.

He dissected the case with practiced precision, arguing that every criminal act from the young woman’s abduction to her death had been committed by the other four defendants.

“The only trace of my client found at the crime scene was a fingerprint on a phone that one of the other defendants had stolen from him.”

“The other four defendants have confessed to their roles in the crime. My client also has a witness who can account for his whereabouts. During the hours when the victim was killed, Ethan was drinking at a bar, leaving him no opportunity to participate in the murder.”

I turned toward the witness stand.

“Before you continue, I will remind you that knowingly giving false testimony under oath constitutes perjury and carries serious criminal consequences.”

The witness was a bartender. He repeated his account of seeing Ethan that night.

“Your Honor, Mr. Hawthorne was extremely drunk that night. I had to steady him as he left the bar. I remember it clearly because he gave me a two-thousand-dollar tip.”

“That isn’t true.”

I opened the travel records the prosecution had just submitted.

“According to these records, you booked round-trip flights to Las Vegas and a room at a casino hotel for the night of the twenty-fifth. Your return flight was scheduled for seven the next morning. If you were in Las Vegas that night, how could you have helped the defendant out of the bar?”

The bartender panicked.

“I must have the time wrong. I didn’t see him at the end of the night. I saw Mr. Hawthorne before I left for Las Vegas. That’s right. I mixed up the time.”

I gave him a faint smile.

“Then your sense of time is worse than I thought. The airline and hotel records show that you canceled the entire trip and never traveled to Las Vegas. More importantly, your employer’s records show that you called in sick that night and never reported for work.”

The bartender kept trying to explain himself, but his testimony had already lost all credibility.

Victor’s expression tightened slightly.

The bartender had been the strongest witness supporting Ethan’s alibi. Now that the man’s credibility had collapsed, the jury was unlikely to believe another word he said.

Victor steadied himself.

“Your Honor, even if the witness’s memory is unreliable, that does not prove my client committed a crime. The other four defendants have all stated that Ethan was not present.”

“Nor does it prove that he was not involved.”

After the prosecution authenticated the newly submitted file and I admitted it into evidence, I nodded to the courtroom technician. A video began playing on the evidence screen, showing Ethan’s face clearly.

“Strip her clothes off. Now!”

“If she thinks she can reject me, I’ll let her find out what it’s like to be passed around by trash like you.”

“Ethan, something’s wrong. She isn’t breathing.”

“Then burn her.”

“Ethan… she’s still alive. She’s moving.”

…

Every word exposed Ethan’s role in the crime.

The truth about the young woman’s seven-day ordeal and eventual murder was finally laid bare.

I stopped the video.

“Forensic video and voice analysts determined that the face and voice in the recording matched the defendant with more than ninety-nine percent confidence. Multiple independent experts also confirmed that the footage showed no signs of editing, splicing, or digital manipulation.”

Victor slumped into his chair.

Beside him, Ethan began shouting.

“Grandpa, I’m innocent! That video is fake! That isn’t me! I didn’t do anything! Say something! Victor Hawthorne, say something! Tell them I’m innocent!”

Outside the courtroom, the live comment feed exploded.

[What kind of monster is he? I thought he was innocent this whole time, but he was the one giving the orders.]

[The Hawthornes must have paid the other four defendants to keep Ethan’s name out of it.]

[There’s no way Victor knew nothing about what his grandson did. If someone like him is considered a legal authority, I don’t even want to imagine how many other cases he may have manipulated.]

[Thank God Judge Foster refused to let this go. Otherwise, the man behind the entire crime would have walked free.]

After closing arguments, I instructed the jury on first-degree murder and the kidnapping-murder special circumstance.

The twelve jurors retired to deliberate.

When they returned, the courtroom fell silent.

The clerk read the verdict aloud.

“We, the jury, find the defendant, Ethan Hawthorne, guilty of first-degree murder. We further find the kidnapping-murder special circumstance to be true.”

I brought down the gavel.

“Ethan Hawthorne, by ordering and directing the others, you were legally responsible for the murder they carried out.”

“The jury has found you guilty of first-degree murder and has found the special circumstance true.”

I looked directly at him.

“This court sentences you to life in state prison without the possibility of parole.”