Higher Law Boxset, Volume 3
Page 47
“You’re going to need more than luck today.”
57
“HE WAS PLEADING FOR HIS LIFE”
Harper was at the lectern. “Please state your name for the record.”
“Roosevelt Johnson.”
“What is your occupation?”
As if we don’t know.
“I am a senior homicide inspector with the San Francisco Police Department. I have held that position for forty-seven years.”
“What did you do prior to that?”
“I don’t remember. It was a long time ago.”
The well-rehearsed line got a chuckle from the gallery and a smile from the judge.
SFPD’s most decorated homicide inspector sat in the witness box, arms folded. As always, Roosevelt was wearing a gray suit from the Men’s Wearhouse, a white oxford shirt, and a striped blue and gold tie bearing the colors of his alma mater, UC-Berkeley. He had poured himself a cup of water, but he wouldn’t touch it. He believed that witnesses who drank water appeared nervous.
Harper positioned himself between Roosevelt and me. It was a subtle move. I would be able to see Roosevelt’s eyes, but not Harper’s.
Harper introduced Roosevelt’s report into evidence. “Inspector Johnson, are you the lead homicide inspector investigating the murder of Juwon Jones?”
“Objection. Move to strike the characterization of Mr. Jones’s death as a murder.”
“Sustained.”
Harper didn’t miss a beat. “Are you the lead inspector for the death of Juwon Jones?”
“Yes.”
“I was under the impression that you had retired.”
“I had. The mayor and the chief asked me to work on this matter. Evidently, they wanted somebody with gray hair.”
More chuckles in the gallery.
I interrupted again when Harper started to walk Roosevelt through his resume. “We will stipulate to Inspector Johnson’s experience.”
This pleased the judge. “Thank you, Mr. Daley.”
Harper pressed on. “Inspector, on the morning of February ninth, were you called to the parking lot next to the post office on Geary near Fillmore?”
“Yes. I arrived at two-thirty a.m.” Roosevelt confirmed that it was about an hour after Jones had been killed. “I supervised the securing of the scene. We followed standard procedure.”
I didn’t expect him to suggest otherwise.
“Did you interview all of the officers at the scene?”
“Yes.”
“Did that include the defendant, Officer Bacigalupi, and his partner, Sergeant Murphy?”
“Yes.”
“Did either of them tell you who had shot and killed Juwon Jones?”
“Yes. Both reported that the defendant had shot Juwon.”
I noted the subtle shift in Roosevelt’s language. If my guess was correct, he would refer to Johnny only as “the defendant.” He would call Jones by his first name.
Johnny clenched his fists as Harper led Roosevelt through a minute-by-minute chronology of the events on the morning of February ninth. The dinner at Mel’s. The drive down Geary. The broken tail light. The chase. The pullover in the Safeway lot.
Roosevelt’s tone was business-like. “It looked like it was going to be a routine traffic stop. The defendant and Sergeant Murphy ran a preliminary check on the vehicle, which wasn’t reported as stolen. No outstanding tickets.”
“Probably just a fix-it ticket?” Harper suggested.
“Yes.” Roosevelt turned and spoke directly to the judge. “The defendant had just completed his probationary period. Sergeant Murphy instructed him to make the stop to give him experience handling a routine matter.”
Harper introduced the video from Johnny’s body cam. “Inspector, could you please walk us through what happened?”
“Of course.” Roosevelt left the stand and moved in front of a flat-screen positioned where the judge and gallery could see it. He narrated as he ran the video—first at normal speed, and then in slow motion.
“The defendant handled the initial encounter with courtesy and professionalism.” Roosevelt said that Johnny had approached the vehicle appropriately, introduced himself respectfully, and requested Jones’s information properly. “He returned to his unit to run the license and registration through his dash computer. It took a little longer than we like.”
Johnny was irritated that Roosevelt had deducted a couple of style points because his computer was slow. That was the least of our concerns.
Harper asked, “Did the defendant find anything relevant about Juwon?”
“He had an outstanding warrant for a probation violation. By law and in accordance with standard procedure, the defendant was required to search Juwon’s car.”
“And if he refused?”
“The defendant had the right to remove him from the vehicle and handcuff him.”
“Can you show us what happened in the video from the defendant’s body cam?”
“Of course.” Roosevelt ran the video again. “This is where the defendant approached the vehicle for the second time and explained to Juwon that there was an outstanding warrant. The conversation started politely, but turned heated. The defendant ordered Juwon to get out of the car. He refused. They argued. Then Juwon slammed the door into the defendant.”
I had watched the next few seconds of footage dozens of times. The video was shaky as Johnny lost his balance and fell onto his back. You couldn’t see Jones get out of the car because the camera was pointed up. Jones started running. Murphy ordered him to halt. It took Johnny a few seconds to pull himself to his feet. By the time that he started his pursuit, Jones was already across the plaza.
Harper asked, “Did the defendant follow procedure?”
Theoretically, I could have objected on the grounds that Roosevelt didn’t qualify as an expert because he hadn’t conducted a traffic stop in almost a half-century. If I had, I would have looked like an idiot.
“For the most part,” Roosevelt said. “The defendant made one serious error.”
Harper played the straight man. “Which was?”
“He was standing in the wrong place. We teach our trainees to position themselves slightly behind the divider between the front and the back seats to eliminate the possibility that they will be hit by the door.”
I got to my feet and tried to break up their flow. “Objection. I fail to see any relevance.”
“Overruled.”
Harper hadn’t taken his eyes off Roosevelt. “This video shows exactly what the defendant saw, right?”
“For the most part. Body cams have a more limited line of vision than the human eye. You can only see what’s in-frame. In addition, the camera was mounted on the defendant’s chest. As a result, the view is approximately ten inches below normal eye level.”
Harper nodded as if to suggest that Roosevelt had imparted a great insight. “Did the defendant tell you that Juwon drew a weapon?”
“Yes. A Kel-Tec PMR-30 handgun.”
“He knew the exact make and model?”
“Yes.”
Harper ran the video once more. He stopped it an instant after Jones had opened the door. “You’ve studied this video in detail, right?”
“Right.”
“Do you see a Kel-Tec PMR-30?”
“No.”
“Did you see a handgun in Juwon’s possession in any of the videos that you watched?”
“No.”
“Did any witnesses corroborate the defendant’s claim that Juwon had a handgun in his possession?”
“His partner, Sergeant Murphy, and two police officers: Richard Siragusa and Charles Connor.”
“Was Sergeant Murphy wearing his body cam?”
“It wasn’t turned on.”
“What about the other officers?”
“Officer Siragusa did not activate his body cam. Officer Connor did, but it did not show a weapon in Juwon’s hand.”
They went through the rest of the video from Johnny
’s body cam again. To his credit, Roosevelt pointed out that it was difficult to see Jones because he was almost a block ahead of Johnny and it was dark and raining. He noted that the footage ended when Johnny’s camera fell off as he was climbing over the gate into the parking lot.
Harper introduced the video from Connor’s body cam. “Inspector, where was this taken?”
“Officer Connor activated his body cam while he was still inside his unit. The latter part of the footage was taken just outside the gate to the parking lot.”
Harper ran the footage three times: first at normal speed, then in slow motion, then at normal speed again. In the video of Jones taken from Connor’s car, Roosevelt noted that you could not see a gun in Jones’s hand. The courtroom was silent as he ran the video taken outside the parking lot in which we could hear the fatal shots.
Harper stopped the video. “Inspector, based upon your interview with the defendant, where was he standing when this footage was taken?”
“Behind the postal van.”
“And the victim?”
“Also behind the van.”
“You can’t see the defendant, can you?”
“No.”
“But you can hear him, right?”
“Right. He had cornered Juwon behind the postal van and ordered him to lie down.”
“Can you see Juwon?”
Roosevelt pointed at the screen. “If you look closely, you can see his hands above the postal truck. They were raised above his head.”
“Is there anything in either of his hands?”
“No.”
“The defendant and his partner told you that Juwon had a gun.”
“They did.”
“Yet there is no gun in either of Juwon’s hands in this video, is there?”
“No.”
“What did you conclude?”
“That he was not holding a gun when he was shot.”
Harper re-started the video. “Inspector, while Juwon had his hands up, he was talking to the defendant, wasn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“‘Don’t shoot. I’m unarmed.’”
“How many times did he say it?”
“Three. He was pleading for his life.”
“Yet the defendant shot him anyway, didn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“And what did you conclude from this video?”
“That the defendant had shot an unarmed man who was begging for his life.”
“No further questions.”
“Your witness, Mr. Daley.”
As I pushed back my chair and buttoned my suit jacket, Luca whispered, “I hope you brought your A-game.”
58
“THEY ALL LIED?”
I stood halfway between the prosecution table and the witness box. I wanted to start a respectful distance from Roosevelt. “Good afternoon, Inspector Johnson.”
“Good afternoon, Mr. Daley.”
We had faced off in court only a handful of times. San Francisco was a small town with relatively few murders and even fewer murder trials.
I spent forty-five minutes picking away at every piece of evidence that Roosevelt and Harper had introduced during direct. I challenged the collection of the evidence. I argued that the videos were at best inconclusive, and at worst, misleading. I got Roosevelt to acknowledge that Johnny had followed procedure and acted respectfully during the traffic stop. My questions were direct and probing. His answers were candid and convincing. I couldn’t shake him or finesse him into an unforced error.
Finally, it was time to go toe-to-toe. “Inspector, when Mr. Jones knocked Officer Bacigalupi down with the car door, Officer Bacigalupi radioed for backup, right?”
“Right.”
“And so did Sergeant Murphy?”
“Yes.”
“They both clearly stated that the suspect was armed and dangerous, didn’t they?”
“Yes.”
“And Officer Siragusa and Officer Connor also told you that Mr. Jones had a gun, right?”
“Right.”
“Just so we’re clear, is it your testimony that they all lied?”
“Perhaps they were mistaken.”
“You also testified that Office Bacigalupi shot an unarmed man.”
“Objection,” Harper said. “This mischaracterizes Inspector Johnson’s prior testimony.”
Well, maybe a little.
“Overruled.”
Roosevelt cleared his throat. “I said that the video showed that the defendant shot Juwon while his hands were up. I was unable to determine whether the firearm allegedly found under Juwon’s body was in his possession before he died, or whether it was placed there by one of the officers at the scene. Either way, he wasn’t holding a gun when he was shot.”
Nice parsing. “Officer Bacigalupi said that he shot Mr. Jones in self-defense.”
“That’s what he told me.”
“Yet you seem to be suggesting that you believe he acted unilaterally.”
“I can’t tell you what was going on inside his head.”
Let me help you. “Obviously, he was afraid because he was looking at a violent man with a gun who had just knocked him over and fled.”
“Move to strike,” Harper said. “Mr. Daley is testifying.”
Yes, I am.
“Sustained. Please, Mr. Daley.”
I glanced at Rosie, who touched her left ear. It was the signal that the judge wasn’t buying what I was selling. “Inspector Johnson, a police officer with a spotless record had been accosted by a convicted felon who had a dozen AK-47s in the trunk of his car. The officer saw a gun. So did his partner. So did two other officers.”
“Objection. There wasn’t a question.”
No, there wasn’t.
“Sustained.”
“Inspector, given the fact that a convicted felon disobeyed legal commands, flashed a handgun, slammed a door into Officer Bacigalupi, knocked him down, and fled, doesn’t it strike you that Officer Bacigalupi acted reasonably in using lethal force to protect himself when he believed that Mr. Jones was reaching for a weapon?”
“Officer Bacigalupi could have de-escalated the situation by using lesser force.”
Easy for you to say. “What would you have done if you had been in his shoes?”
“Objection. Speculation.”
“Sustained.”
“Inspector, we have the luxury of sitting here in court a week after the fact. Johnny had a fraction of a second to react. The law requires us to consider the circumstances at the time, not with twenty-twenty hindsight. Isn’t it reasonable to conclude that Officer Bacigalupi acted in self-defense?”
“I believe that he could have de-escalated the situation.”
It’s your line and you’re sticking to it. “Don’t you think a police officer deserves the benefit of the doubt?”
“I do. But in this case, I believe that he acted improperly.”
I wasn’t going to shake him. “No further questions.”
“Redirect, Mr. Harper?”
“No, Your Honor. The prosecution rests.”
“Mr. Daley, do you wish to make a motion?”
“Yes, Your Honor. The defense moves to have the charges dropped as a matter of law. The prosecution has failed to meet its burden of proof that there is sufficient evidence to bind the defendant over for trial.”
“Denied.”
Big surprise.
The judge looked at the clock. “We’ll take a brief recess. Please be ready to call your first witness when we resume.”
59
“WE STILL HAVE CARDS TO PLAY”
Johnny’s voice was flat. “That’s it?”
“We haven’t started our defense,” I said.
“But that’s all you’ve got with Inspector Johnson, right?”
“For now.”
“Our witnesses aren’t going to change anything. The judge has to give the prosecution the benefit of the doubt.”
“And if they don’t work?”
“We’ll beat them at trial. The burden of proof will be a lot tougher.”
“And I’ll be sitting in jail for another year.”
“We’ll ask for bail again.”
“Come on, Mike.”
I fought back my impulse to recite a sports cliché about the fact that we were only in the first quarter. “Stay strong, Johnny. We’ll get through this.”
✽✽✽
My iPhone vibrated as I was about to enter Judge Ramsey’s courtroom. Pete’s name appeared on the display. I told Nady that I would meet her inside. I made sure that I was out of earshot of anybody in the hall. Then I hit the green button and hoped for the best.
“Give me something that we can use,” I said.
Pete cleared his throat. “Have you started your case?”
“We’re about to.”
“Take it slow, Mick.”
“You got something?”
“Hard to say. I’ll let you know.”
I pressed Disconnect and headed across the hall, where Nady was waiting for me.
“Pete?” she said.
“Yes.”
“Anything?”
“Maybe. He didn’t give me any details.”
“Is he always this coy?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Over the years, I’ve learned not to question my brother’s methods.”
60
“HE HAD A GUN”
“Please state your name and occupation for the record,” I said.
“Kevin Murphy. Sergeant, SFPD.”
“How long have you been a police officer?”
“Thirty-four years.”
Judge Ramsey’s courtroom was silent at four o’clock on Monday afternoon. The nervous energy in the gallery had dissipated into grim resignation. Afternoon sessions are always a slog—even without a jury.
In his pressed patrol uniform and polished badge, Murph looked the part of an old-fashioned neighborhood cop. With his wide face and engaging grin, he’d give you a friendly wave as he walked his beat. You’d never suspect that he would break your kneecaps if you crossed him. While he lacked Roosevelt’s gravitas, he was, in his own way, a convincing witness.
I approached the stand. “You were Officer Bacigalupi’s supervising officer?”