Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Times is depicted as a powerful local newspaper whose coverage can shape the public story surrounding Walter Elliot’s murder trial and reach into the courtroom itself. Through reporter Jack McEvoy, the paper becomes more than a source of reporting: it is a possible conduit for exchanging information and, later, the publisher of a front-page account that Judge Stanton considers a potential threat to the trial’s fairness.

Reporting and the Proposed Exchange

Jack McEvoy first approaches Michael Haller with an offer to trade information. He presents the arrangement as reciprocal: McEvoy claims to have access to the police department, while Haller has access to the courthouse, and each could tell the other what they are hearing. He expects the Elliot case to become a major story and says he needs information. The exchange is proposed, not shown as accepted; Haller asks what McEvoy means by a deal rather than agreeing to provide information.

The encounter places the newspaper’s reporting alongside the competing channels of information surrounding a criminal case. McEvoy seeks access through conversation with the defense attorney, while Haller’s work gives him a courthouse perspective. The scene does not establish that the proposed trade occurs, but it does show the reporter trying to turn those different kinds of access into a two-way flow. The paper’s presence in the case is therefore tied both to public reporting and to the effort to obtain information before publication.

The Delayed Front-Page Article

McEvoy later meets Haller outside the courtroom, after prospective jurors have begun leaving for lunch. Haller is wary of the encounter, calling McEvoy trouble, and challenges him over an article that had not appeared when promised. McEvoy had told him it would run on Sunday; by Thursday, Haller says, there is still no story and his calls have gone unanswered. He warns that other reporters are interested and that he does not need the Times.

McEvoy explains that the article was held so it would appear closer to the trial. Haller points out that the trial has already begun. The newspaper’s timing thus turns an earlier interview into immediate trial-period coverage, rather than the advance profile Haller had expected. McEvoy eventually tells Haller that the story will run on Sunday or Monday, on the front page. Haller passes that news to Harry Bosch, who responds that it is finally happening and should be prepared for.

The published article is headed Walking in a Dead Man’s Shoes, with a secondary headline identifying the case as a murdered colleague’s first case for his successor and calling it the Trial of the Decade. Its byline identifies McEvoy as a Times staff writer. The article describes Haller’s sudden return to practice: after a year-long sabbatical, he went from having no cases to inheriting 31 clients through Jerry Vincent’s arrangements for the transfer of his practice in the event of his death. It distinguishes the workload from the central challenge, the high-stakes case of Walter Elliot, chairman of Archway Studios, accused of murdering his wife and her alleged lover in Malibu. The article also reports that Vincent had been found shot to death in his car in downtown Los Angeles.

Framing and Effects in Court

The article’s arrival becomes a courtroom issue when the lawyers and Elliot meet with Judge Stanton before proceedings resume on Monday. The story has appeared on the front page of the morning’s Los Angeles Times, and Stanton objects that it presents a heavily defense-oriented account, casting Haller as a sympathetic underdog. Although the judge had admonished the newly sworn jury not to read or watch reports about the case, he worries that jurors might have encountered the article.

Haller explains that he gave the interview ten days earlier because he had been told it would appear at least a week before trial. Jeffrey Golantz argues that this timing could suggest an effort to affect jury selection; Haller counters that the article says the prosecution was contacted but refused to comment, which explains why the published account appears one-sided. Stanton seems to accept Haller’s explanation but cautions the lawyers against speaking to the media. The exchange shows how the article’s framing, as well as its publication date, becomes part of the judge’s assessment of possible prejudice.

The warning changes Haller’s own media plans. He cancels an agreement to provide commentary to Court TV after each day’s trial session, deciding that the publicity is not worth risking a conflict with the judge’s direction. In this sequence, the Los Angeles Times does not determine the trial’s outcome, but its front-page portrayal of Haller helps set the limits on how openly he will engage with other media while the case is underway.