trial – Facts, Fictions & Fantasies

Six Sentence Story — Mixed Signals

May 6, 2026Fandango17 Comments

Written for the Sunday Six Sentence Story prompt from Girlie on the Edge, where the prompt word is “signal.”

The lawyer leaned forward, her voice steady as she asked the defendant to clarify what he meant by “mixed signals.”

He shifted in the witness chair, eyes darting toward the jury as though searching for someone who might understand his version of events.

Each question she posed sliced away another layer of his carefully rehearsed narrative, exposing contradictions he hadn’t expected to defend.

The courtroom felt smaller with every answer he gave, the silence between words growing heavier, more telling than anything spoken aloud.

When she finally asked whether he ever stopped to consider what signal she was sending as she kept yelling ‘no’ and screaming for him to stop, his composure cracked just enough for the room to feel it.

In that moment, the jury saw a man realizing too late that the only signal he missed was the truth.

Image conjured using Copilot..

NTT/STS — She Loves You

July 25, 2024July 25, 2024FandangoLeave a comment

Elizabeth Wright felt very confused as she looked out of the window of the plane that was taking her back to her home, her husband, and her two young children. A defense attorney specializing in capital crimes, she had been dispatched from her Boston firm to serve as first chair in an extremely difficult murder case at her firm’s LA office. Functioning as second chair was an experienced trial lawyer, Barbara Andrews. But this was Miss Andrews’ first murder trial and the firm wanted to groom her to handle murder trials for the LA office just as Elizabeth was doing at the firm’s Boston headquarters. So Barbara was instructed to shadow Elizabeth for the duration of the trial.

As the trial progresses, Barbara was, indeed, Elizabeth’s shadow, spending nearly every waking moment at Elizabeth’s side. The two women grew very fond of one another, having a lot in common. Except that Barbara wasn’t married. They truly enjoyed each other’s company and often discussed the case and the defense strategy over dinner and drinks and, sometimes, afterwards late into the night.

About two weeks into the trial, the two were working late in Elizabeth’s hotel room. Barbara stretched, looked at her watch, and said, “Oh my god, it’s almost two in the morning. I need to go home and get at least a few hours of sleep.”

Elizabeth looked at Barbara and saw a truly beautiful, smart, witty, ambitious woman, much like Elizabeth. “Don’t be silly,” Elizabeth said. “Stay the night here. I have some pajamas you can wear, and the bed is king-sized, so we can share it.”

“But I don’t even have a toothbrush here. Or make-up, or an outfit to wear tomorrow,” Barbara listed as objections.

“I brought a backup toothbrush and you can use that. We are about the same size, so you can borrow one of my outfits for tomorrow and you can use my make-up, too,” Elizabeth said. “It’s simply too late for you to go home now, so as your mentor, I insist you stay here tonight.”

Elizabeth couldn’t believe that she had just invited another woman to spend the night with her. She had never before felt any kind of physical attraction for another woman, but she was drawn to Barbara.

A few minutes later both women were in bed, and Elizabeth felt an unfamiliar tingling in her stomach. She surprised even herself when she moved closer to Barbara and said, “Goodnight, Barbara,” before leaning over and kissing her deeply on the mouth.

When Elizabeth heard Barbara gasp, she quickly moved away, but Barbara’s hand reached out and stopped Elizabeth from pulling away. She put her hand on Elizabeth’s cheek, and moved in close to Elizabeth, and returned the kiss, and then some.

Elizabeth dutifully called her husband every evening at around 6 pm LA time to say goodnight to him and to her kids. But other than the case, all she could think about was Barbara. Elizabeth checked out of her hotel and moved into Barbara’s apartment. Sex with Barbara was incredible, better than it ever was with her husband. Barbara was sexually fluid before meeting Elizabeth but she was mostly with men. However, all of this intimacy with another woman was something entirely new for Elizabeth. She was still in disbelief that this was happening to her.

A few weeks later the trial they were working on together was over and their side won. It was time for Elizabeth to fly back home to Boston to her husband and children. Tearfully, Elizabeth said goodbye to Barbara at LAX. “I love you, Elizabeth. When will I see you again?” Elizabeth turned around and boarded the plane without answering Barbara.

“She loves you,” Elizabeth thought to herself as she looked at the rapidly darkening sky from her first-class seat. “And I love her” she admitted.

She had a few hours before her plane would land at Logan where her husband would be picking her up. She wondered what she was going to say to him.

This post was written for Kevin’s No Theme Thursday prompt. Kevin presents us with 20 AI-generated images and we can choose any one and write a post about the image. Also for My Vivid Blog’s Song Title Story, where the song title is “She Loves You.”

His Day in Court

October 24, 2022October 24, 2022Fandango5 Comments

Gary felt as if he were free-falling, heading straight for the sidewalk below him when he awoke from his nightmare just before he splattered all over the concrete.

He sat up in bed, his sheets soaked by his sweat. He got up and went to his bathroom to wash his face with cold water and to get his bearings. Today was his day in court, and Gary was facing charges for having hatched an intricate scheme to take money from his gullible older clients by claiming he was an aficionado in the area of valuable antiquities.

Unfortunately, in some seemingly arbitrary case of bad luck, one of Gary’s victims happened to be a true expert in antiques and quickly realized that he and Gary’s other elderly clients had been duped. The man called the authorities and Gary was arrested.

Gary was out on bail, but as he stood in the bathroom looking at his reflection in the mirror, he sensed that his dream was a portend of what would happen during the trial.

Written for these daily prompts: E.M.’s Random Word Prompt (free-fall), Your Daily Word Prompt (concrete), The Daily Spur (bathroom), Ragtag Daily Prompt (intricate), Fandango’s One Word Challenge (aficionado), and Word of the Day Challenge (arbitrary).

SoCS — The Bounty Hunter

May 28, 2022May 27, 2022FandangoLeave a comment

I’m a bounty hunter
I hunt criminals who skipped bail
I follow their trail wherever it leads me
I search high and low until I find them
And bring them back to stand trial
I get paid a nice fee, a tidy sum
I’m a bounty hunter
Just doing my job

Written for Linda G. Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt, where we are asked to write a post that uses either one or both of the words “trail” and “trial.”

Binding Arbitration

March 31, 2022March 31, 2022FandangoLeave a comment

“Your proposal for the settlement of the dispute quickly went south,” the lawyer for one of the partners said in a lyrical, sing-song voice that exhibited his self-satisfied, taunting tone.

“The propsal was meant to serve as a guide to get all parties through this difficult process,” the arbiter said. “To declare failure at this point is pure conjecture and is premature.”

“I, for one, don’t relish the position you’re in,” the other lawyer said. “I don’t think arbitration is going to bear any fruit. The two sides are simply too far apart on the major sticking points. I think we will have to go to trial.”

“Well good luck to both of you,” the arbiter said, packing up his materials, standing up, and leaving the room. “I just hope your clients have very deep pockets,” he added as he slammed the door behind him.

Written for these daily prompts: The Daily Spur (settlement), E.M.’s Random Word Prompt (quickly), Word of the Day Challenge (lyrical), My Vivid Blog (taunting), Ragtag Daily Prompt (guide), Fandango’s One’s-Word Challenge (conjecture), and Your Daily Word Prompt (relish).

Who Won The Week? 1/19/20

January 19, 2020January 18, 2020FandangoLeave a comment

10CC3057-4EEA-4C80-B8C1-700C0FC6C906 It’s time for another Who Won the Week prompt. The idea behind Who Won the Week is for you to select who you think “won” this past week. Your selection can be anyone or anything — politicians, celebrities, athletes, authors, bloggers, your friends or family members, books, movies, TV shows, businesses, organizations, whatever.

I will be posting this prompt on Sunday mornings (my time). If you want to participate, write your own post designating who you think won the week and why you think they deserve your nod. Then link back to this post and tag you post with FWWTW.

This week I am choosing Rachel Maddow.

D59D7C8A-28E3-4ED0-9661-409C38C10F1F You know, as I said in this post earlier this month, I am a big Rachel Maddow fan. But this week, on Wednesday and Thursday nights, Rachel had an exclusive interview with Lev Parnas, the indicted associate of President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani. In his first televised interview since being indicted, Parnas unleashed a series of explosive allegations against top members of the Trump administration, among them that Trump knew “exactly” what Giuliani was doing in Ukraine. Parnas also implicated Vice President Mike Pence and Attorney General William Barr, saying that they were “in the loop” as far as the Ukraine quid pro quo effort went.

I don’t know what, if any, impact Rachel’s interview with Parnas will have on the Senate impeachment trial of Trump, which starts on Tuesday morning. But boy oh boy, it certainly does make Trump look guilty of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Will the Republican Senators continue to wear blinders and stand by Trump, or will some of them finally say that enough is enough? As Rachel Maddow is wont to say, “Watch this space.”

And now it’s your turn, folks. Who (or what) do you think won the week?

Who Won The Week? 12/22/19

December 22, 2019December 22, 2019FandangoLeave a comment

My pick for Who Won the Week this week is the Constitution of the United States of America.

Having fought for and won independence from the British monarchy, the leaders of the various states that comprised the nascent country gathered in 1787 to write the Constitution — a set of principles that told how the new nation would be governed.

They wanted a strong and fair national government, and one that would prevent the government from abusing its power. They believed they could do this by having three separate and equal branches of government: the executive, the legislative, and the judicial. This separation is described in the first three articles, or sections, of the Constitution.

The three branches of government are supposed to interact with one another through checks and balances. They each have their own distinct powers through the idea of separation of powers. However, they also share in one another’s powers so that it will be possible for them to check and balance one another.

For the first three years of his administration, Trump has run roughshod over the separation of powers, acting more like a king, dictator, and autocrat, than as the president of a democracy. He has claimed, incorrectly, that the Constitution allows him to do anything he wants to do. And, ironically, he has had a lot of support from his Republican cronies in Congress, which is supposed to be a co-equal branch of the government responsible to ensure that what Trump has been doing doesn’t happen.

But on Wednesday of this past week, the House of Representatives, one of the two bodies of the legislative branch of Congress, passed two articles of impeachment, one for abuse of power and one for obstruction of Congress. As a result, Donald Trump has become just the third president of the United States to have been impeached.

It remains to be seen whether or not the Republicans in the U.S. Senate will grow a spine, do their job as impartial, nonpartisan jurers at Trump’s trial, and find Trump guilty and remove him from office.

And now it’s your turn, folks. Who (or what) do you think won the week?

Who Won The Week? 12/15/19

December 15, 2019December 14, 2019FandangoLeave a comment

My pick for this week is the House Judiciary Committee for voting for two Articles of Impeachment against Donald Trump.

After spending two contentious, marathon days “debating” the merits of the two Articles of Impeachment presented to the House Judiciary Committee from the House Intelligence Committee, each article — one for abuse of power and one for obstruction of Congress — was passed by a 23 to 17 vote. The votes were strictly along party lines and not a single Republican managed to publicly concede that Donald Trump has done anything wrong. Not one Republican voted for either article.

So now the full membership of the House of Representatives will vote this coming week, probably Wednesday or Thursday, on the two articles. And I will be surprised if even one Republican will vote yes for either one. 737BA30B-0BE5-411F-B6D7-BBF1DA7DFA46 I do believe that the Democrats should be able, given their 36 member majority, to successfully impeach Trump, making him just the third president in U.S. history to have been impeached.

Then, the case will go to the U.S. Senate for a “trial.” The fact is that no president has ever been found guilty and removed from office as a result of a Senate impeachment trial. Unfortunately, the outcome of Donald Trump’s impeachment trial is going to keep that statistic intact.

And now it’s your turn, folks. Who (or what) do you think won the week?

3TC — The Keepsake

March 2, 2019March 2, 2019Fandango6 Comments

5FB55454-D49E-4248-AF52-A81D74FC2FA8 “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” the defense attorney said, “the matter before you is a simple case of he said/she said. The prosecutor will stand before you spewing a nonsensical word salad in which he will muddy the fundamental issue before this court. He will claim that my client, Miss Meadows, stole the jewel-encrusted, iridescent brooch from her former fiancé, Mr. Donnelly. But we will demonstrate that the relationship between Miss Meadows and my client was, for a time, nothing if not magic.”

The attorney walked over to the table where his client was seated. “In celebration of the one year anniversary of their engagement, Mr. Donnelly presented a beautiful brooch, appraised at $10,000, to Miss Meadows at a party he threw to celebrate the occasion, as a keepsake,” he said. “But after she found about his infidelities, Miss Meadows broke off their engagement and is simply trying to seek possession of the gift Mr. Donnelly gave her.”

The attorney stepped up to the jury box and in a quiet, confident voice said, “What you will be learning through the testimony of eye witnesses who attended the anniversary party will be the unfiltered truth. I have no doubt that, at the end of this trial, you will do the right and just thing and will find in favor of my client.”

Written for Paula Light’s Three Things Challenge, where the three things are “salad,” “keepsake,” and “filter.” Also for these daily prompts: Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (case), Ragtag Daily Prompt (iridescence), Your Daily Word Prompt (magic), and Word of the Day Challenge (learning).

50 Word Thursday —Blasphemous

January 31, 2019Fandango21 Comments

Donald Trump Holds Campaign Rally In Mobile, Alabama They said that God wanted him to be president, that he was a gift to America from Jesus, and they began to worship him. As he achieved his political zenith, he declared it to be a crime to openly criticize him. It was considered blasphemous to even speak his name in any negative sense.

As a blogger, I thought I would be safe. But then some of my more outspoken fellow bloggers began to mysteriously disappear. Through April, May, and into June there was no word of John, Ross, Giles, and the others. They simply vanished from the face of the Earth.

I knew that if I wanted to avoid that same fate, I would have to be careful. I didn’t want to be labeled a heretic, which is punishable by imprisonment and possibly death. But I still needed to speak my mind on my blog. I would just need to camouflage my messaging in such a way as to avoid detection by the ever present thought patrol who searched the blogosphere for any blogger who dared to stand up to him.

A week later I was arrested for a critical post I wrote. I’m now in jail awaiting trial.

(200 words)

Written for this week’s 50 Word Thursday prompt from Kristian. Kristian’s rules:

Completed piece must be in multiples of 50 words – maximum of 250 words. Anything is acceptable – poetry, story, anecdote.
There will be a photo and a random phrase that I will take from the current book I am reading – you can use either or both
Please pingback and tag 50 word Thursday, so I can do a summary.

The random phrase Kristian chose was: Through April, May, and into June there was no word of John, Ross, Giles, and the others. It was taken from “Outback Heroes” by Evan McHugh.

Here is the picture that was included in the prompt: 759ddf07-a203-48ee-81b2-4377948f5ef2 I couldn’t figure out a way to fit this into the story, so just imagine that this is the alley the narrator lived next to before he was hauled off to jail.

I also managed to fit in three daily prompt words into this dystopian tale: Word of the Day Challenge (zenith), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (heretic), and Ragtag Daily Prompt (camouflage).