Los Angeles - — When Johannes Mehserle took the witness stand at his murder trial last week, it was as if a wave washed over a beach, changing and reshaping everything.
Lawyers had spent 10 painstaking days trying to establish every detail of their argument - either that the former BART police officer shot train rider Oscar Grant for no good reason, or that he made a tragic mistake. Experts were consulted, documents read, videos played, guns and holsters examined, and eyewitnesses grilled.
Then, all of a sudden, the only thing that seemed to matter was what Mehserle said, how he sounded when he said it, and how the lawyers sounded when they tried to get him to say what they wanted him to say.
After Mehserle's seven-hour appearance ended Friday, there were two questions: Did Mehserle murder Grant? And now that he was a human being with a voice, was he the type who could murder Grant?
For the most part, the 28-year-old was calm, comfortable and careful, and he came across as the young and inexperienced officer that he is - or was. He often paused after questions, formulating his answers.
He cried almost every time he talked about the first moments after he shot Grant - a 22-year-old Hayward resident - in the back. Every time he did, a protest of faint muttering would emerge from Grant's relatives and supporters in the gallery. They, too, were a factor in his testimony.
Emotions in check
Judge Robert Perry was wary of letting emotion or stagecraft overwhelm Mehserle's explanation for killing Grant - that he thought he had his Taser in his hand when he shot him while trying to handcuff him on Jan. 1, 2009, that "the thought of my gun never came into the equation."
Perry told defense attorney Michael Rains to speed things up as he asked Mehserle for childhood memories, and he later cut him off - "That's too much, Mr. Rains" - when he tried to drill deeper into his client's grief.
Prosecutor David Stein at one point started to crank up an attack, but Perry admonished him: "Lower your voice." He later stopped Stein from asking Mehserle if he ever felt compelled to apologize to Grant's family.
Perry was most stern with the gallery, where a Grant supporter was arrested after telling Mehserle to "save those f-ing tears." The judge bellowed: "I'll clear the courtroom."
To the jury, he was equally forceful.
"You cannot let something like what we observed, an emotional outburst, impact your assessment of the evidence in any way," he said.
Still, Mehserle's testimony wasn't just a recitation of his account of the shooting, but a journey into theater guided by skilled lawyers. That was clear from the first questions asked by the defense and the prosecution.
Preparation for trial
Rains prompted Mehserle to say he was no professional in the witness box - that he had rarely testified in the past, and never in front of a jury. Stein, too, used the topic as a launch point, but this time for an extended assault.
"How many days have you spent preparing for your testimony in this case?" Stein asked.
"I'm not sure, sir," Mehserle responded.
Stein pressed on: Have you talked to other witnesses? Have you reviewed transcripts and police reports and watched video footage? Have your attorneys run you through mock questioning?
Rains made an objection to the last query, and Perry sustained it. Stein was edging toward confidences protected by the lawyer-client privilege.
Again, Stein asked: How many hours did you spend preparing?
This time, Mehserle had an answer - vague but laced with regret. His voice cracking, he said, "I think about this event every single day of my life."
If Mehserle's polish as a witness was an issue, so was his style as a cop. Stein asked him directly: How big are you?
Seeking softer image
Rains tried to soften the 6-foot-5, 250-pounder and distance him from another former BART officer, Anthony Pirone, who had aggressively detained Grant after a fight on a train and told Mehserle to arrest and handcuff him. Pirone's treatment of Grant and four friends had infuriated other BART riders and cost him his job.
"I was the opposite of him," Mehserle said. He said he became a cop to help people, like he did when he was in previous customer service jobs.
But Stein dwelled on video footage that shows Pirone, before the shooting, leaning into Grant and shouting, "Bitch-ass n-, right? Bitch-ass n-, right?" Mehserle was just a couple of feet away, Stein pointed out as he showed jurors not one but two different angles.
Mehserle admitted he was "pretty close" to Pirone but said, "I don't remember him saying those words."
"Do you have any trouble hearing it on the video?" Stein asked. Mehserle acknowledged he could hear it clearly on the tape.
Perhaps the biggest battle was over Mehserle's credibility - whether he could be believed when he said he had a made a historic and fatal blunder. At one point, Rains asked him to actually turn toward the jury to his right, look into their faces, and say he didn't mean to kill Grant.
