“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, Junie Moon is a prostitute,” Yuki said. “She’s in violation of the law every time she works, and her clientele is made up largely of schoolboys below the age of consent. But we don’t hold the defendant less credible because of what she does for a living. Ms. Moon has her reasons - and that doesn’t make her guilty of the charges against her.

  “So, please judge her as you would anybody else. We’re all equal under the law. That’s the way our system works.

  “Ms. Moon is charged with tampering with evidence and with murder in the second degree.

  “In my opening statement, I told you that in order to prove murder, we have to prove malice. That is, that the person acted in such a way as we can construe them to have had ‘an abandoned and malignant heart.’

  “What does an abandoned and malignant heart look like?

  “Ms. Moon told the police that she ignored Michael Campion’s pleas for help, she let him die, and then she covered up this crime by dismembering and disposing of that young man’s body.

  “Could any of you cut up a person’s body?” Yuki asked. “Can you imagine what’s involved in dismembering a human being? I have a hard time cutting up a chicken. What would it ............