Homicide: A Year On The Killing Streets

by David Simon

  “I’ve been assigned personally to slightly over fifty cases.”

  “And,” says Doan, leading, “I assume you have been involved in one way or another in parts of other cases.”

  “Numerous investigations,” says Garvey.

  Slowly, Doan begins to take the detective through the crime scene at 17 North Gilmor. Garvey describes the apartment, giving special attention to the security features, including the burglar alarm that had been turned off. He provides a detailed description of the scene, and the jury again hears about the lack of forced entry, the nested pile of clothes, the scratches on the headboard suggesting that she was stabbed while lying in bed. Then, at Doan’s direction, Garvey walks over to the jury box, where Doan takes him through the crime scene photos already admitted to evidence.

  The photos themselves are always the source of considerable courtroom conflict, with defense attorneys arguing that the depiction of the bloodied victim is unnecessarily prejudicial and prosecutors arguing that the photos have probative value for a jury. Prosecutors usually win the argument, as Doan has in this case. Thus Lena Lucas and her wounds are displayed for the jurors in glossy splendor from a variety of camera angles over Polansky’s continuing objection. The jurors seem impressed.

  Garvey is at the jury box for ten minutes before returning to the witness stand, where Doan takes him through the search of the crime scene and the interviews with neighbors. The prosecutor makes a point of asking about street lighting outside the Gilmor Street rowhouse and Garvey describes the sodium vapor light in the middle of the block-an essential foundation for the coming testimony from Romaine Jackson.

  “At this time, I have no further questions of Detective Garvey,” says Doan after twenty-five minutes of testimony. “However, I wish to recall him later.”

  “You may,” says Gordy. “Cross-examination, Mr. Polansky.”

  “For the same reasons, I will restrict my cross-examination to the testimony elicited on direct.”

  Fine with me, thinks Garvey, calm and collected on the stand. With just the boilerplate of the crime scene to worry about, he reasons, there won’t be much in the way of controversy this afternoon.

  Polansky goes into some detail on the pattern of wounds, prompting the detective to agree that the stab wounds came before the gunshot wound to the head; the defense wounds to the hands prove as much. The defense attorney also spends some time dealing with the empty purse, the broken bag of rice and the empty gelatin capsules on the bedroom floor. “So it would appear, would it not, sir, that whatever assailants attacked and killed Ms. Lucas probably took whatever drugs she had in that pocketbook?”

  “Objection,” says Doan.

  The judge agrees that the defense attorney’s question is too speculative, but the image of Vincent Booker hovers over the courtroom. Why, after all, would Frazier murder someone to take drugs that were already his? No reason unless, of course, he wanted to make the killing seem like a drug robbery.

  Polansky moves forward, chronicling the drug paraphernalia scattered around the crime scene in an effort to make his point another way. He brings Garvey back to the nested clothes. The apartment was very tidy, was it not? Very neat, Garvey agrees.

  “The kind of individual who would not take off her clothes and throw them on the floor but would take them off, fold them up and put them away. Would you agree?”

  Oh my, thinks Garvey, you tricky bastard, you. “No,” says the detective. “I would not agree.”

  Polansky leaves that seeming contradiction with the jury and moves on to state’s exhibit 2U, a photograph of the bedroom floor after the bed had been lifted. The defense attorney points out a soft pack of Newport cigarettes visible on the floor.

  “And there is an ashtray?” he adds.

  “Yes, sir,” says Garvey.

  “Did you ever determine Ms. Lucas was a smoker?”

  Aw shit, thinks Garvey. He’s going to run wild with this crap. “I can’t recall if I did or not.”

  “Do you think that might have been of some significance?”

  “I’m sure the question came up during the investigation,” says Garvey, trying to tiptoe around the minefield. “Obviously, the answer didn’t have any significance.”

  “Did you ask her daughters or anyone close to her whether she was a smoker?”

  “I don’t recall specifically doing that.”

  “If she wasn’t a smoker, do you agree that finding a pack of cigarettes would have been worth looking into?”

  “I would agree the cigarette pack would have been,” says Garvey, his voice clipped.

  “To find out who was close to her and was a smoker,” Polansky continues. “Because you assumed someone close to her was in there because there was no forced entry, correct?”

  “That is correct,” says Garvey.

  “So it might be significant to find out if anyone close to her or any of the possible suspects which we’ll talk about at some later time may have been a smoker and specifically a smoker of Newports.”

  “Objection,” says Doan, trying for a broken field tackle. “Is there a question?”

  “Yes,” says Polansky. “Would you agree it is significant?”

  “No,” says Garvey, regrouping. “Because we don’t know when the cigarette pack was placed there. It was beneath the bed. It certainly would have been something to look into, but it would have been something I wouldn’t base an investigation on.”

  “Well,” says Polansky, “except for the fact, sir, wouldn’t you agree that Ms. Lucas was a very neat person and not likely to have left a pack of cigarettes on the floor for some long period of time?”

  “Objection,” says Doan.

  “Isn’t it much more likely the pack was left there the night of the murder?”

  “Objection.”

  Gordy intervenes. “Can you answer that question to a reasonable degree of certainty? Yes or no?”

  From the prosecution table, Doan is staring at the detective, his head moving back and forth in a slight, barely discernible shaking motion. Take the out, he wants to say. Take the out.

  “I can answer,” says Garvey.

  “Overruled,” says Gordy.

  “Underneath the bed there appeared to be a fair amount of debris. The overall visible areas in the house were neat and tidy, but underneath the bed I would not characterize it as being neat and tidy.”

  “Was the phone under the bed?” asks Polansky.

  “Yes,” says Garvey, looking at the photo. “We moved that back to take the photograph.”

  “It is fair to say the phone wasn’t lying there a long period of time?”

  “I don’t know when the phone was placed there,” says Garvey.

  A partial save by a veteran detective. Polansky counts his winnings and moves on, asking about the human hairs that were recovered from the sheet by the lab tech and sent to the trace section. Were they ever compared to anyone?

  “You can’t tell from a hair who it belongs to,” says Garvey, now on his guard.

  “They can’t tell you anything more than that about hair. There is no scientific test that is at all helpful in a homicide investigation?”

  “There is no way they can tell you that a particular hair can come from a particular person.”

  “Can they narrow it down to a white man’s or black man’s?” asks Polansky.

  Garvey grants the point: “But they can’t go too much farther.”

  The detective and defense attorney circle each other for several more questions until Polansky’s point is clear: The hair recovered at the scene was never compared to anyone else’s hair. Even though such a comparison would be pointless, Polansky leaves the impression that Garvey’s investigation was less than thorough.

  So far Polansky has earned his money. Garvey proves as much at the end of the cross-examination, when the defense attorney asks him about time-of-death.

  “Rigor mortis had been fully set and she was coming out of rigor mortis,” says the detective. “
Also, with the dried bloodstains underneath her head-the blood was thick and coagulated and the outer edges of the blood were dried into the carpet-it seemed to me she had been there probably for twenty-four hours.”

  Polansky and Doan both look up. Twenty-four hours would put time of death at late afternoon the previous day.

  “She had been dead for twenty-four hours?” asks Polansky.

  “That’s correct,” says Garvey.

  Doan looks hard at the witness, trying to make Garvey think the answer through.

  “So it would have been your conclusion she had to have been killed at least at five P.M. on the twenty-first?” says Polansky.

  Garvey realizes. “I take that back. No, I’m sorry. I got confused. I meant at least twelve hours.”

  “I thought that’s what you meant,” says Polansky. “Thank you. No further questions.”

  On redirect, Doan goes back to the recovered hairs, but that only allows Polansky, in his follow-up questions, to suggest again that the detective was not interested in pursuing all the evidence: “If you checked those hairs, you would have been able to determine whether they belonged to Mr. Frazier or Ms. Lucas or someone else. Is that not true?”

  “If we did a comparison between their hairs we can tell if they were similar,” repeats Garvey wearily.

  “Which you had the ability to do, but you didn’t do it,” says Polansky.

  “I felt no need to do it,” says Garvey.

  “That’s a pity, sir. Thank you.”

  The last comment gets to Doan, who turns in his chair to look at Polansky. “Come on,” he says sarcastically. Then Doan looks up at the judge. “I have no further questions.”

  “You may step down, sir,” says Gordy.

  The first day ends. In the corridor five minutes later, Garvey encounters Polansky and feigns anger, cocking a fist as if ready to throw a punch. “You miserable shyster,” he says, smiling.

  “Hey, now,” says Polansky, a little defensive. “Nothing personal, Rich. I’m just doing the job.”

  “Oh, I know it,” says Garvey, hitting the defense attorney’s shoulder. “I got no complaint.”

  But Doan is not so easily mollified. Walking back to his office with Garvey, he issues a few choice epithets for his worthy adversary.

  The hairs, the Newports-that was smoke, the raw material of any good defense attorney. Smoke is the theory that says: When you don’t want to argue the state’s evidence, create your own. No doubt Robert Frazier is ready to take the stand and declare that Vincent Booker buys Newports.

  Garvey knows the cigarette pack could be a problem and he apologizes to Doan. “I’m sure I dealt with it out at the scene. I just couldn’t remember the specifics, though.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” says Doan charitably. “But can we-”

  “I’ll check with Jackie or Henrietta right away,” says Garvey, ahead of him. “Larry, I’m sure it was Lena’s cigarettes, but I just don’t remember who told me.”

  “Okay,” says Doan. “The bullshit about the hair, I could care less, but he made some points on the cigarettes. We’ve got to shoot that down.”

  THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20

  On the second day of the trial, Larry Doan moves quickly to make up for lost ground.

  “Your honor,” says Doan, as court comes to order. “The state at this time will recall Henrietta Lucas for two questions.”

  Polansky can see what is coming.

  “Miss Lucas,” asks the prosecutor, “were you aware at the time of the death of your mother whether she smoked?”

  “Yes,” says Lena’s older daughter.

  “Do you know, approximately, when she started smoking?”

  “Around the beginning of this year.”

  “And,” asks Doan, “whatbrand of cigarettes did she smoke, if you know?”

  “Newports.”

  Polansky, sitting at the defense table, shakes his head. But he is not quite ready to give in. On the cross, he works hard to suggest that Robert Frazier spent more time with his lover than her grown daughter did and that he would be in a better position to know whether Lena was smoking or not. He tries to suggest that it was oddly coincidental that a forty-year-old woman would start smoking two months before her death. He asks the daughter whether she had discussed her testimony in detail with the prosecutor, suggesting to the jury that she may have been led to her answers. It is a good effort; once again, Polansky earns his money. Still, when Henrietta Lucas leaves the stand after five minutes’ testimony, the cigarette pack is no longer a real threat.

  Doan follows her with John Smialek, who describes the autopsy and the nature of the wounds and brings in as evidence a series of black-and-white photos depicting the injuries in detail. More than the scene photos, the antiseptic shots from the overhead camera on Penn Street catch the excess of violence: three gunshot wounds-one with thick powder burns to the left side of the face, one to the chest, one to the left arm; eleven stab wounds to the back, plus superficial cuts to the neck and lower jaw; defense wounds to the palm of the right hand. In the form of ten graphic pictures, admitted over the continuing objection of Robert Frazier’s attorney, Lena Lucas is allowed her day in court.

  But the morning’s testimony is merely prelude to the real battle-a war of credibility that begins later in the day when a seventeen-year-old schoolgirl, obviously terrified, walks past Robert Frazier and takes the stand.

  Romaine Jackson is literally shaking as she takes the oath; the jurors can see that. She sits demurely, hands in her lap, face locked on Doan, eyes unwilling to acknowledge the tall, dark man at the defendant’s table. In Doan’s worst nightmare, he sees this witness-this essential witness-collapsing from fear. He sees her unable to answer, unable to tell the truth about what she saw from her window on Gilmor Street that night, unable to recall the things that they had talked about in the pretrial interviews. All of which would be understandable, even forgivable: The state of Maryland will not allow her to cast a vote or buy a beer, but the state’s attorney will nonetheless ask her to identify a murder suspect in open court.

  “My name is Romaine Jackson,” she says softly, responding to the clerk’s questions. “I live at Sixteen-o-six West Pratt Street.”

  “Miss Jackson,” says Doan soothingly, “try to keep your voice up so the ladies and gentlemen of the jury can hear you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  As slowly, as calmly as possible, Doan takes her through the foundation questions and back to that night on Gilmor Street, back to the moment when she happened to be looking out of that third-floor window before falling off to sleep. The girl’s answers are close to monosyllabic; the court clerk reminds her once again to speak into the microphone.

  “At some point, did you have an occasion to see your neighbor Charlene Lucas outside of your apartment?” asks Doan.

  “Yes.”

  “Would you tell the ladies and gentlemen of the jury approximately what time it was when you saw her?”

  “Eleven o’clock going onto twelve.”

  “Was she by herself or with someone else?”

  “Yes,” says the girl. “A man.”

  “Do you see that individual in court today?”

  “Yes, sir,” says the girl.

  “Would you point that individual out?”

  Romaine Jackson’s eyes break from the prosecutor for half a second, just long enough to follow her right hand in the direction of Robert Frazier.

  “Him,” she says quietly, her eyes once again riveted on Doan.

  The prosecutor moves forward slowly. “Would you describe what the defendant looked like on that evening?”

  “Tall, dark and slim,” she says.

  “What was he wearing that evening?”

  “A black coat. A black jacket like this one.”

  “Was he wearing anything on his head?”

  “A hat.”

  “What color was it?”

  “A white hat,” she says, a hand to her forehead, “with a snap
on it.”

  She is crying now, just enough for it to show, not enough for Doan to think of stopping. Following the prosecutor’s lead, she tells the court about how Lena and the tall man walked toward Lena’s rowhouse next door and then disappeared from her view, how she fell asleep to the sound of an argument coming from a lower floor of the adjacent house, how she later heard about the murder.

  “Miss Jackson,” asks Doan, “after you discovered or learned that Charlene Lucas had been murdered, did you go to the police with the information you had?”

  “No,” she says, crying again.

  “Why was that, ma’am?”

  Polansky objects.

  “Overruled,” says Gordy.

  “Scared,” the girl says. “I didn’t want to get involved.”

  “Are you still scared?”

  “Yes,” she says, her voice little more than a whisper.

  Frightened but firm, Romaine Jackson holds to her testimony throughout Polansky’s cross. The defense attorney works the edges of her story: the lighting on the street that night; the time that she was looking out the window; her reasons for looking out the window; her ability to hear the argument in the house next door. Polansky can’t run roughshod over this young girl; even if harsh tactics could rattle her story, the jury would resent such treatment. Instead, he can only suggest that she is mistaken, that perhaps she cannot be sure she saw Robert Frazier when she says she saw him. Polansky works the corners of the girl’s testimony for half an hour, prolonging her agony but doing little to change the essentials of her story. By the time she leaves the stand in the late afternoon, Romaine Jackson’s quiet embrace of the truth is a powerful force.

  “Whoa… Romaine, honey,” says Garvey, catching her as she races out the rear doors of the courtroom. “Hey, now, tell the truth. That wasn’t all that bad now, was it?”

  “Yes,” she says, now crying and laughing in the same breath. “It was.”

  “Oh, come on,” says the detective, wrapping an arm around her. “I’ll bet you got to like it a little at the end, didn’t you?”

  “No,” she says, laughing. “No, I did not.”

  Half an hour later, when Doan emerges from the courtroom, Garvey buttonholes him in the third-floor corridor: “How’d my girl do in there?”