Two Places at Once
From the public gallery, Elena could see the whole courtroom. Below her, the prisoner sat very still between two officers. He was a thin man in a grey suit, and he did not look like a thief.
Judge Aliyev had been listening to the evidence all morning. The shop’s gold rings had disappeared on a Sunday night, and the police said this man had taken them. But the defence lawyer was not finished.
“My client cannot have committed this crime,” the lawyer said, turning to the judge. “He was in another city that night. Three witnesses say they saw him there.”
The judge asked the lawyer to explain the camera footage. The lawyer replied that the man in the video was too far away to recognise. He told the court that the police must have made a mistake.
The room was silent. Elena held her breath. Everyone knew that the punishment for this crime was many years in prison.
Then the lawyer did something strange. He held up a small receipt. He explained that his client had bought a coffee in the other city at exactly 11 p.m. — the same time as the robbery.
“He can’t have been in two places at once,” the lawyer said quietly.
Judge Aliyev looked at the receipt for a long time. Finally, he spoke. He said that the new evidence changed everything, and that the court would meet again the next day.
As the officers led the prisoner out, the thin man looked up at the gallery. For one second, his eyes met Elena’s. She could not tell if he was innocent or not. Perhaps, she thought, that was the judge’s hardest job of all.