‘Similarly, there was no proof of any struggle. Let me tell you something, and Judge Salter will repeat it to you when he gives you his jury instructions: the prosecution has to prove Graham’s guilt to you beyond a reasonable doubt, and I don’t have to prove anything. The burden of proof never shifts; it is always on the prosecution, and unless they can prove something, as far as you must be concerned, it just didn’t happen.’

Salter cleared his throat and interrupted. ‘Mr Hardy, I’ll be instructing them on the law when you’re finished.’

Hardy took it calmly. Salter was right. But it wouldn’t hurt for the jury to see his passion. He turned back to the panel with an apologetic smile.

‘As it turns out, you have heard quite a lot of testimony about Graham’s character, about his relationship with Sal, about the kind of person he is. But even if you had none of that or didn’t believe it, even if Graham sat there friendless and alone with no one to speak up for him, the prosecution has presented nothing to support their theory. That’s all it is – a misguided theory with no facts, no evidence, no proof, to support it.

‘Then how did it get to here, all the way to trial? I know you’re all asking yourselves that question, and I don’t blame you. So I’ll tell you.

‘It got here for one reason, and one reason only.’

Really there were two, and he hoped the jury had read the newspapers or talked to family members or somehow had discovered the personal connection between Gil Soma and Graham Russo. Freeman had bitched about Soma’s involvement to the press on many occasions early on in the proceedings, and then Hardy had alluded to it in a couple of discussions with his reporter friend Jeff Elliot, who printed it in his ‘CityTalk’ column. It couldn’t be admitted at trial, of course, but sometimes you got things to juries any way you could.

But Hardy, now, had to get to the lies. It was unpleasant and dicey, but he had to address the issue. ‘Graham panicked when the police came to talk to him. He didn’t panic because he thought he’d done anything morally wrong’ – and here his phraseology had to be precise – ‘but because he’d been close to someone who had taken his own life. He’d shown him how to use the syringe. He’d even on occasion administered the drug himself. He’d comforted and counseled him when nobody else would. And he knew he might be condemned for it. He knew his kindness and compassion might be twisted by those more interested in politics than in justice, more eager to exact a pound of flesh than to do the right thing.

‘Graham Russo knew the world was full of bureaucrats, small men and women who live to control the lives of others. Men and women who like nothing more than to tell men like Dr Cutler what medical advice to give and tell us all what medicine we can and cannot take to ease our pain.

‘Graham knew that these petty people weren’t content to control only our lives; they seek even to control our deaths as well. Sal Russo finally was beyond their control now, but Graham Russo was not, and he was afraid. That is why he lied.’

Another pause to let it all sink in.

‘As a licensed attorney in the state of California, Graham was faced with the very real possibility that, guilty or innocent, he would lose his ability to practice law. He might be disbarred. He could then never work in the profession for which he’d spent three grueling years in school and thousands of dollars in tuition. He couldn’t let that happen.

‘So he lied to police, and then he lied to cover his earlier lies. I wish this weren’t the case, and believe me, so does he. But he did, and it’s put him here. And let me add that even Sergeant Evans, who heard all of Graham’s falsehoods firsthand, has told you she thinks Graham is a trustworthy person, not a liar.’

Hardy took a breath, relieved. He’d expected to be interrupted by objections at every second, but the closing argument was just that, an argument. He was making his case and evidently keeping within the bounds of specificity. That was going to change in a minute, but for the moment he was on safe ground.

‘Graham knew that it looked like Sal had committed suicide. Indeed, Dr Strout, the coroner, is still not able to say it wasn’t suicide. Perhaps Graham knew better. Perhaps he knew about the DNR sticker that was out for the paramedics when they arrived. Perhaps he knew that his father’s pain had become unceasing, that life had become truly unbearable, that Sal was ready to die. That death itself, when it came, would be a peaceful and blessed relief.’

Hardy scanned the jury box, resting on several jurors. He wasn’t offering any challenge, just telling them what he believed, what they had to believe.

He lowered his voice to a near whisper. ‘Graham is a trained paramedic. He got two calls from his father on the morning of his death. He went to the apartment, where his father was in blinding pain. Perhaps Sal, sitting on the floor by his coffee table, had a last drink or two for courage. An intravenous morphine shot is – as Dr Strout has told you – instantaneous and painless. There was no struggle at any time. And for Sal Russo, there would be no more pain, no more confusion as the past inexorably slipped away from him, no loss of dignity. There would, finally, be peace.’

He met the eyes of every juror, one by one. It seemed to take forever.

‘I tell you that Graham Russo has committed no crime. No murder was done here, no injury to society that requires retribution. This is an innocent man. Legally, factually, and, above all, morally innocent. You must find him not guilty – for all of our sakes.’

CityTalk, by Jeff Elliot

The hottest ticket in town on Thursday was Department 27 at the Hall of Justice, the courtroom of Judge Jordan Salter. There, to an SRO crowd comprised of most of the state’s legal powerhouses, including California Attorney General Dean Powell and San Francisco District Attorney Sharron Pratt, euthanasia lobbyists, citizens’ groups, and media representatives, the murder trial of lawyer/athlete Graham Russo closed in a flurry of rhetoric from both sides.

This reporter’s view has always been that this trial was less about the murder of Salmon Sal Russo than it was a kind of grudge matchup between Gil Soma and Graham Russo, both of whom served a few years ago as clerks for Federal Judge Harold Draper. Soma hated Russo for leaving him a big workload, and here was the chance to pay him back.

Petty? You bet.

Defense Attorney Dismas Hardy took a bold stance and ignored the great majority of evidence presented by Messrs Soma and Drysdale for the prosecution, and instead painted his own picture of a devoted son who found himself in the agonizing dilemma of his father’s terminal illness.

The jury evidently believed him. After deliberating only one and a half hours, at about three-thirty yesterday afternoon, as all the country now knows, they returned with a verdict of acquittal. They didn’t say that Graham Russo assisted in his father’s suicide. The way the law is written, that’s just not an option.

Instead, they had to say that Graham did nothing wrong.

I think they were right.