As George took his seat again, the courtroom was rife with hushed murmurs. Everyone was having a hard time digesting the prosecution's cross-examination of Milan.
Hell, everyone felt bad for her.
Unbeknownst to them, the trial was going to get a whole lot heavier for the Cozart woman.
The chair Nicoletta sat in screeched loudly as she pushed it back to stand and approach the judge's desk again. "Judge Cortez, the defense asks Miss Cozart to remain on the stand for another round of questioning."
The judge was one of the people who looked like that was the last thing she wanted to do to Milan, who was dabbing her eyes carefully in an attempt to clean herself up from her crying spell.
But with a bang of her gavel and a nod, the judge approved Nicoletta's request.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, what the prosecution has tried to do by bringing up Milan's past is blind you from what the true story was. They gave you all the time frame at which the murder occurred. Milan was only a child. Her brother 16. Ramses Young, only 17 years old.
We all can agree we have grown since then?" Nicoletta implored the audience to nod and they did. Some smiling fondly at the memories of their teenage years.
"But we all cannot say that we have faced the same hardships that my client and Miss Cozart have faced in such short time.
Chicago is a world-class city, but as residents of the city, you all do know there are parts where the sun does not reach. Ramses Young is a survivor of those same parts. And, you cannot blame his childhood self for getting wrapped up in what surrounded him."
Nicoletta walked around the room as she talked, making sure to engage every corner of the room as she did so. She made sure to linger on the side of the jurors's section where two white women sat, it was like she was making sure they were listening and truly digesting what she said.
Nicki's approach was to humanize Ramses after the prosecution had done their best to separate him from his humanity. Nicki was making him relatable where they made him a villain.
"Which brings me to ask you, Milan," Nicoletta turned on one of her stiletto heels towards the witness stand.
Milan found herself gripping the sides of the desk like she could brace herself for the next question. She was up here, and she had to grin and bear it until it was over.
God, she hoped it would be over soon.
"What really happened the night your parents died? And why do you feel Ramses expressed remorse on record? Knowing he was an affiliated gang member, he still spoke to the police willingly. No blood was on his hands, as you stated before."
The question washed over Milan like cool water. Like slipping underneath the water in the bathtub. It chilled her body, but she had already been numb for hours.
She swallowed before she grasped the mic and brought it closer to her lips. The breeze in the room reminded her of the tear stains on her cheeks.
"The night my parents died, I was in bed. It was around 9 o'clock. I had school in the morning." Milan began slow and steady. She didn't look at anyone as she spoke, her eyes were straight ahead looking at the clock above the door entrance of the room.
"I remember hearing the windows shatter—"
"'Gina! Wake up, baby!"
Her father's distressed cry sliced through the mind.
"My mother was killed immediately when she was shot. My dad lived long enough to tell me where his phone was and to call the police."
The room had ceased it's murmuring. When Milan spoke they hung off each and every word.
Everyone's eyes on her burned Milan's skin. She was resisting the very real and very scary urge to simply run out of the room.
"My father was hoarse. He was wheezing and bleeding out in their bed. He told me to go wait for the paramedics in the living room. And when I walked into the living room, I saw Ramses. He was standing over my brother and our floors...our floors were streaked with blood."
Milan began to get choked up here, she felt her nose about to start running and fought the need to wipe it prematurely. Her eyes still burned from her tears earlier and the burn was intensifying with each breath she took.
"My brother had also been shot. He was the first one and Ramses had to drag him in our house. I—"
The flashes of blood in her mind had begun to overtake her. She could see her mother's sleeping face as blood from her chest soaked the silk nightgown she'd went to bed in. Her father's gasping for air, coughing, and sputtering and choking on his own blood as he turned her away to keep her from seeing him take his last breaths.
The vision of Ramses kneeling over her barely breathing brother as he spilled blood from his abdomen all over their cream carpet.
It brought her back to Devon's final moments and how red his blood was on her own hands as he begged her to take him home.
The same home that already had been soaked in enough Cozart blood.
"I..." Milan tried to start, only to get the words caught in her throat again.
"Miss Cozart, are you able to continue?" Judge Cortez asked as gently as she could. Milan couldn't even see her face when she looked to answer her. The face of the judge was completely blurred by the tears in her eyes.
"Ramses was guilty because he knew the bullets were meant for him. He did have blood on his hands." Milan was able to finally grit out between gulps of air.
Some people in the audience gasped, even Nicoletta winced from her place on the floor.
"What you people fail to understand...what you will never be able to wrap your minds around is the vicious cycle that is gang violence.
Yes, Ramses was a gang member. But his father was a cop that got pissy drunk and beat his mother every night like clockwork. The streets gave him comfort." Milan continued on, finally able to catch her breath even though the tears kept coming down her face.
Some of the officers in the room stiffened, while others leaned forward. Intently watching Milan as she powerfully pleaded for the freedom of Ramses.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Ramses turn to look at his mother on the prosecution side of the courtroom. Valerie was rubbing the woman's back as her shoulders lightly trembled.
Miss Yvonne was actively dabbing her face with tissues as Milan told her story. She even nodded a bit in agreement of the lack of stability in the Young home.
"Ramses had no home at the time and my family gave him one. He had warned my brother of the dangers of gang life and Devon didn't listen. He went out on the block looking for Ramses and the Vice Disciples, Chrisanto's men, they shot him and they killed my parents.
All because my brother was standing at the wrong place, at the wrong time, looking for his friend. Ramses did have blood on his hands, but it was my brother's blood. Damn near his own brother's blood. He was trying to save him from the streets and he failed.
The streets take whoever they want and that's why Ramses felt guilty. He couldn't save us."
Milan finished her heart wrenching retelling of that fateful night. It felt like she could throw up at any second, but she held the jurors's gaze. She would not let them look away.
They brought her up here like a pig for the slaughter, but she refused to crumble. She refused to aid the law in locking up her brother's first real friend. She refused to let them use her to lock the man she loved up behind bars.
Nicoletta let Milan's words wash over the audience for a couple crucial minutes. The silence only adding to the weight of Milan's statement. She then cleared her throat and began to speak, her hands animatedly gesturing as she did.
"I thank Miss Milan Cozart for being brave enough to tell her story. It does not have to be boiled down into another tragic statistic as the prosecution likes to make it out. It is so much more. It is one of the many stories of Chicago's inner city that have so much more than who lives and who dies and who is left behind.
It is the tale of two young boys lost to the treacherous life of gang violence. Our oldest and most deadly city-wide epidemic. And this story shows how Ramses knows how to do the right thing. We have heard from Milan how it all happened and even how Ramses tried to prevent it from happening by shooing Devon away from gang life.
And for the prosecution's information, Devon Cozart is recently deceased.
It is gross negligence for you to ask my witness any question pertaining to him as if he's with us after you call yourself looking into her file and—" Nicoletta slipped a venom laced chastisement to the slimy prosecution.
"Relevance, Yolkovich." Judge Cortez admonished Nicoletta.
William glared at her with major detest and George didn't even have the gaul to look her way. He kept his eyes on Milan and Milan wanted nothing more than to stomp his head through the floor. He looked like he knew that too.
Nicoletta missed no beat even with the judge's addition, she kept talking. "I say all of this to say, Ramses knows how to do the right thing. You think any gang affiliated seventeen year old would stay at a crime scene he could've been taken in for?
The blood of his friend soaked in his clothes as he gave his statement? The bodies of the people who have taken him in being loaded into ambulances?
I am not so sure even I would do that at my age now as an adult. But Ramses did.
This shows my client is no simple miscreant or scum of the streets as the prosecution would like you to believe. My client, Mr. Young, weighs the pros and cons. And I will go so far as saying, my client knows the power of a gun.
And because of this, I think it is safe to say Ramses Young did not go into Chrisanto's business with the mind to kill him. He was apprehended and made the decision of Chrisanto's life or his in the quick moments that he feared for his life.
Ramses Young has been a good man way earlier than most of us can say for ourselves. Ramses Young is guilty of second degree murder and nothing more. The defense rests."
With that, Nicoletta turned and nodded at Judge Cortez before taking her seat next to Ramses on the defense's bench. Ramses and Milan's faces mirrored each other. The retelling of that night put both of them through the ringer.
"The prosecution also rests, your Honor." George speaks into the mic on their table, not making eye contact with anyone. Judge Cortez quickly notates something before nodding that she's heard him. She then turns to Milan.
"You may step down, Miss Cozart. Thank you for your testimony." Judge Cortez tells her softly, and when Milan begins to stand a slow clap rolls over the audience until everyone in the room, George and William reluctantly, is clapping for her.
A standing ovation for her strength on the stand.
Even Ramses, cuffed on his legs and his arms, stood for her. Clapping the loudest in the room and she felt like she could see tears in his eyes as well.
All she wanted was to run to him and fall into his arms. That would make this all worth it.
Milan gives the people a small smile, not able to feel much else as her ability to emote was fully drained. She quietly thanked the crowd as she made her way back to her seat.
"Members of the jury," Judge Cortez waited for the applause to die down before addressing the room again. "Seeing that there are no closing remarks from our two sides, you have now heard all testimony and details concerning this case.
It is now up to you to determine the facts. You and you alone, are the judges of the facts presented. Once you decide the facts the evidence proves, you must then apply the law as I give it to you to the facts as you find them.
If you find Ramses guilty of first degree murder, he will serve a minimum sentence of twenty years in federal prison. If you find the facts deem for more, the maximum sentence can be extended to all the years of his natural life. I urge you to deliberate carefully. The verdict must be unanimous."
"All rise!" The bailiff's gruff voice suddenly pierces the air. The jury stands to be escorted out of the court room.
Milan feels the urge to put her head in her lap. This would be the longest deliberation of her life.
She had to be completely honest with herself.
She did not think she could make it through another loss.