For a moment, I understood how much courage could fit inside a sentence recited without drama.
Then Lin asked me to state my name.
Saying my occupation under oath felt unexpectedly awkward.
“Superior court judge,” I answered.
Lin asked about my prior work, then the morning of the encounter. We moved through the sequence carefully: entrance screening, the public lift, the third-floor stop, my name, the identification demand, the offered extension, the contact, the strike.
I tried to answer without turning every question into an argument.
It was harder than it had looked from the bench.
Price began with the parts I had never disputed.
I had not opened my briefcase to produce identification.
I had questioned Briggs's authority to hold me.
I had pulled my arm free.
I had moved his wrist when he reached again.
“Yes,” I said to each accurate proposition.
The microphone made the answers sound smaller than the experience.
I could see the court reporter's hands moving and caught myself slowing down too deliberately. Ward reminded me to speak naturally and wait when an objection was made. I thanked her. Accepting that instruction from someone else felt like returning to a basic rule I had enforced for years without noticing how much effort it could take from a frightened witness.
Price asked whether a physical card could have resolved the question of identity.
“It might have.”
“So you chose not to take the step that would have ended the uncertainty.”
“I offered another available way to resolve it. He did not use it.”
“But you controlled whether you opened the case.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn't.”
“No.”
He allowed the answer to settle.
I understood the method. Separate one action from its surroundings until it seemed capable of explaining everything.
Knowing the method did not permit me to refuse the question.
He asked whether I believed my title excused me from identification requirements.
“No.”
“Then why insist that he contact your chambers?”
“Because he said the name I gave was false. Someone in chambers could verify it immediately.”
Price referred to my movement toward the stairs.
“You were attempting to leave.”
“I was attempting to get to work.”
“While an officer instructed you to remain.”
“Yes.”
“You disagreed with him.”
“Yes.”
“You're trained to argue with officers.”
“I'm trained to examine an account and the basis for it.”
“As a public defender, you challenged police credibility for fifteen years.”
“When the case required it.”
“That work shaped your views.”
“So did representing clients whose accounts the evidence did not support.”
He moved to the strike.
I repeated the sequence without claiming I could identify every fraction of a second. His first grip, my pulling free, the second reach, my open hand, his palm against my cheek.
Price asked whether Briggs could have perceived the wrist contact as an attack.
Lin objected to speculation about his perception. Ward sustained and directed Price to ask about what I observed or did.
He rephrased.
“Did you know what he believed at that moment?”
“No.”
“You've said he ignored information.”
“Yes.”
“You don't know what he noticed.”
“I know what he was given and what I offered.”
He asked about race.
I had dreaded the question because any careless answer could become the headline replacing everything else.
I did not claim to read his private thoughts.
I described the mismatch.
Talia was younger, taller, wore long braids and a camel coat. I had short hair and a charcoal suit. We were both Black women in the same general area.
Price suggested that stressful environments could impair attention.
“Yes,” I said.
“And people can make mistakes.”
“Yes.”
“Even judges.”
“Yes.”
He looked satisfied until Lin stood again.
She asked whether I objected to the proposition that officers sometimes needed to check identity.
“No.”
“What did you object to in this encounter?”
“The decision that every answer I gave was further reason not to check it.”
Ward wrote something.
I stopped myself from trying to interpret the note.
After I stepped down, my hands shook badly enough that Paul opened the water bottle for me.
I disliked needing the help.
I took it.
In the corridor, a reporter asked whether I felt humiliated by the questions.
I said the hearing was continuing and walked on.
The questions had been uncomfortable. Some had been fair. Some had invited an inference I rejected.
That was different from what happened beside the public elevator.
I needed to keep the distinction clear, especially while it cost me something to do so.