The truth of a case doesn't matter. What matters is who wins.

Arnold Hayward’s statement, “The truth of a case doesn't matter. What matters is – who wins,” crystallizes the novel’s account of Fonny’s prosecution: innocence is essential to the people fighting for him, but it does not by itself determine the case’s outcome. Spoken to Tish and her mother in his office, the line shifts attention from what happened to the unequal struggle over evidence, witnesses, and the means to pursue them.

The statement in context

Tish asks whether Hayward is saying there is no way to get at the truth. He rejects that interpretation, then states the harder distinction between truth and victory. His answer does not mean that he doubts Fonny’s innocence: he says he would not have taken the case if he did. Instead, the statement describes a legal contest in which believing the truth and proving it successfully are separate problems.

The exchange takes place amid the material signs of Hayward’s professional world: his polished dark-wood office, a broad desk with two telephones, diplomas and trophies, and photographs of his father, wife, and sons. Tish registers the room as having no connection to her, though she is there because Fonny’s fate has drawn her into it. The contrast makes the phrase more than an abstract legal maxim: the case is being fought across a distance of class and circumstance, in an office whose resources and authority are not her own.

Evidence, pressure, and unequal access

Hayward explains why winning may not follow automatically from the truth. He calls Officer Bell a racist and a liar and says the district attorney overseeing the case is worse. Fonny and Tish maintain that they were together in the room on Bank Street with their old friend Daniel Carty, but Hayward warns that their testimony counts for nothing in court. Daniel, who has a record, has been arrested by the District Attorney’s Office, is being held incommunicado, and is inaccessible even to Hayward. Hayward suspects the authorities intend to pressure him into changing his testimony; he also suspects that the same forces may explain why Victoria Rogers has disappeared.

The missing witness turns the maxim into a practical problem of expense. Hayward says that finding Victoria will require special investigators. When Tish reacts to the news that Victoria is gone, her mother identifies the consequence plainly: the search means money. The family’s access to evidence therefore depends not only on what witnesses know, but on whether the defense can pay to locate them. Hayward promises to do what he can, while making clear that the effort will remain difficult.

Time as part of the case

The family’s immediate question is how Fonny is enduring prison and when he can be released. Tish describes him as hating confinement but trying not to let it break him; Hayward’s account of the case offers no quick answer. The family understands their present work as an attempt to buy time, but Tish’s narration insists that time cannot literally be bought. Its only accepted coin is life.

That reflection connects the legal delay to the family’s intimate future: their baby is expected in six months, while Fonny serves time and imagines Tish at the beginning and end of each prison day. The repeated movement between their separate lives makes the cost of the case more than a possible verdict. While the defense tries to preserve its chance to prove Fonny’s innocence, imprisonment steadily consumes the time in which he might otherwise share his child’s arrival and life with Tish.

The witness disappears

Later, Victoria’s disappearance becomes a decisive reversal. Tish reports that Victoria has been taken to Barranguitas, a place in the mountains that is difficult to reach, and that Jaime believes she will never be seen again. The prosecution has lost its principal witness, and the trial’s prospects change sharply. Daniel remains a possible source of support for the defense, but he has been transferred to an upstate prison, and the family cannot see him or even establish where he can be found.

The family prepares for two possible outcomes: the prosecution may ask for more time, while the defense will seek to have the charge dropped and the case dismissed, but must also be prepared to settle for bail if the state agrees and the family can raise the money. The sequence gives the statement its full force. The truth of Fonny’s innocence remains central to those who love and defend him, yet the case’s direction turns on whether witnesses can be reached, whether the prosecution can proceed, and whether the family can meet the financial demands of the next step.