The Law of Innocence by Michael Connelly

Published by Little, Brown and Company on November 10, 2020

The lawyer novels that I most enjoy reflect the drama that is inherent in a trial and indict the frailties of our criminal justice system. Michael Connelly delivers the drama and seasons it with a stinging but accurate look at how police and prosecutors subvert justice to achieve their own ends.

Michael Haller (known as the Lincoln lawyer because he practices law from his small fleet of Lincolns) is pulled over by a cop for a missing license plate. The cop forces him to open his trunk and finds a dead body. The corpse turns out to be an ex-client who didn’t pay his bill.

The “lawyer as defendant” plot has been done before — Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent remains the gold standard — but Connelly gives it a twist by having Haller defend himself. Yes, Haller has a fool for a client, but he also has his own firm and a couple of investigators working with him (including Harry Bosch) and eventually gains the help of an ex-wife who takes a leave as a prosecutor to join his defense team.

In Haller’s view, the “law of innocence” requires him not just to raise a reasonable doubt, but to prove that a specific suspect committed the murder and framed him. Nothing else will restore his reputation and allow him to continue making decent money.

Haller is handicapped by being in jail during much of the time he’s preparing his defense because, as Connelly demonstrates, the bail system isn’t fair. When Haller finally makes bail, the prosecutor amends the charge to send him back to jail because that’s exactly the kind of sleaze that defense lawyers have come to expect from win-at-all-cost prosecutors. The prosecution also withholds critical evidence because that’s what win-at-all-cost prosecutors do. The Law of Innocence is fiction but it serves as a fair introduction to the perils that defendants face when a prosecutor is really out to get them.

The plot works for a few reasons. First, the story allows the reader to follow Haller’s investigators as they sift through evidence, concoct theories about who might have wanted to frame Haller, and chase down leads that eventually solidify one of those theories. The mystery comes to a credible resolution.

Second, it’s easy to sympathize with Haller as he sits in jail, paying inmates for protection but enduring a couple of beatings because jailers have little incentive to protect a guy they regard as the enemy. Haller suspects that at least one attack is tied to his case, along with the death of a man who might have been a useful witness.

Third, every courtroom drama rises and falls on the courtroom scenes. The inside skinny on strategy, both in cross-examination and in working the judge, are the lawyer novel equivalent of tradecraft in a spy novel. Haller comes up with some clever strategies that are unique to his defense. The novel is less melodramatic than Perry Mason — the real killer doesn’t confess from the witness stand — but courtroom drama builds incrementally as the reader begins to wonder whether Haller will be unjustly convicted. I love reading about fictional defense lawyers using their skill to outwit self-righteous prosecutors who have little regard for due process.

There were, I thought, some dangling loose ends regarding the way in which the crime was actually committed and the specific ways in which the police were used to frame Haller. But those are quibbles in a smart novel that moves quickly and maintains suspense from beginning to end. Connelly provides enough characterization to make Haller seem like a real person with real problems, but the novel is driven by plot more than characterization. The plot’s strength makes The Law of Innocence a good choice for fans of lawyer novels.

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