A House on Liberty Street

by Neil Turner

  “What’s the offer?”

  “First-degree.”

  “Sentence?”

  Walker meets his gaze. “Twenty-five years.”

  He’s already walked back the offer of twenty years?

  Mitton gives him a long look. “You haven’t moved beyond that?”

  “We’ve given this our best good faith effort.”

  The judge’s expression telegraphs his dissatisfaction.

  “With all due respect, Your Honor, it’s not your place to tell us how to manage a case.”

  Mitton takes a step towards Walker. “I agree. On the other hand, misconduct in my courtroom is most assuredly my business, wouldn’t you say?”

  Walker doesn’t bat an eye. “Misconduct is overly harsh to describe a clerical oversight.”

  “Don’t try my patience. I’m not one of your pals at City Hall or down in Springfield. A pair of cops disposing of evidence to cover up criminal behavior by another police officer is hardly a clerical oversight.”

  “Reasonable people can disagree about what happened, Judge. The bottom line is that we must protect our communities and the folks who keep us safe. Where does it leave us when people think they can question the decisions and actions of the authorities?”

  “In a free country,” I retort.

  Judge Mitton’s eyes twinkle when he looks at me. Walker’s lips tighten into a straight line.

  “Are you prepared to rule on our motion to set aside the grand jury indictment, Your Honor?” Mike asks.

  Mitton nods. “I am, but we’ll discuss the discovery violation first. Be in my chambers at eight-thirty.”

  Walker turns to me as soon as the door closes behind the judge. “Willing to gamble with your father’s life, are you?”

  “I’m not willing to sacrifice him to your career aspirations.”

  “That’s not what this is about,” Walker says indignantly before he spins on his heel and marches out with his minions in tow.

  “The hell it isn’t,” Mike mutters as we watch them go. “I thought they might come around.”

  We grab a couple of coffees from a vending machine and spend the next half-hour reviewing our opening statement and witness list. Judge Mitton’s clerk shows us into his chambers when we arrive at eight twenty-nine.

  The judge’s eyes immediately settle on Walker. “Mrs. Russo spoke to the police the day after the shooting,” he says without preamble.

  “I haven’t had much time to look into this,” Walker says. “Mrs. Russo isn’t even on our witness list.”

  Mitton’s eyes smolder. “You’ve had this since September.”

  “As Mr. Dempsey told you, this looks like a clerical oversight.”

  Mike snorts. Mitton doesn’t bother to admonish him.

  “Technically,” Walker continues, “this wasn’t an eyewitness statement. Mrs. Russo told the police what she heard, Your Honor. I suspect someone misunderstood our instructions to turn over all eyewitness statements.”

  He’s got to be kidding. I’ve generally considered allegations of prosecutorial misconduct on this scale to be so much sour grapes from defense attorneys. Goes to show how much I know.

  Judge Mitton’s eyes narrow. “That’s quite a story, Counselor. I’m not buying. The failure to turn over Mrs. Russo’s statement is an egregious discovery violation. Mr. Valenti’s ability to mount a defense has been jeopardized by your misconduct.”

  Walker shrugs. “Friday was the first time we heard of Sandy Russo.”

  “That’s the result of poor supervision of your investigators and weak administrative oversight within your offices,” the judge says. “The defense is entitled to a remedy.”

  “We’re well into this case, Judge. Whatever Sandy Russo may or may not have heard isn’t going to make much difference in the outcome. A remedy is inappropriate.”

  “I’m afraid you’re again mistaken on a point of law, Mr. Walker,” Mitton replies before turning to Mike. “Have you given some thought to an appropriate remedy, Counselor?”

  “We’ve been blindsided, Your Honor. Mrs. Russo won’t speak with our investigator.”

  Walker spreads his hands. “Because she has nothing to tell them, Your Honor. This is no more than a red herring thrown out by—”

  “I’m speaking with Mr. Williams!” Mitton snaps at the state’s attorney. “You may speak when I tell you to. Understood?”

  Walker flushes with anger. The judge invites Mike to continue.

  “The circumstances of this shooting are not what we believed them to be, Your Honor. Given all that’s coming to light, we may need to re-evaluate our position and reconsider Mr. Valenti’s defense.”

  “How long do you think you’ll need?”

  Dempsey jumps in. “There’s no need to delay the trial, Your Honor. If the Court orders Mrs. Russo to cooperate, we can send someone out to take her statement today. If she has anything relevant to say, we will bring that forward in rebuttal.”

  Mitton turns to Mike. “Counselor?”

  “Sounds to me like the State wants to skate over its discovery violation, Your Honor. However much Mr. Dempsey and his boss try to spin what’s happened, the fact remains that they withheld information about a key witness—deliberately, if you ask me.”

  Walker indignantly comes halfway out of his seat. “I object to—”

  “Don’t bother, Counselor,” Mitton says. “I’m not persuaded that withholding Mrs. Russo’s statement was an innocent oversight.”

  The state’s attorney continues to look aggrieved. When Cook County voters finally wake up and throw his ass out of office, he’s got a future in Hollywood.

  Dempsey tries to step in. “Your Honor, you know I don’t—”

  Mitton shuts him down with an angry glare. “It happened! If your office hadn’t played games with discovery we wouldn’t be in this position, would we?”

  Walker crosses his arms and stares at the wall above the judge’s head.

  Mitton turns back to us. “Remedy?”

  “Given the prosecution’s track record with this witness, it hardly seems prudent to trust them to do things right this time,” Mike replies. “Perhaps the Court should order Mrs. Russo to speak with our investigator and then we’ll decide how to use the information.”

  Walker jumps in. “We would, of course, immediately be given a copy of her statement, as per the rules of discovery.”

  “Mr. Williams?” the judge asks.

  “They had their shot at this, Your Honor. Perhaps a suitable remedy would be to withhold Mrs. Russo’s statement from the prosecution. They’ll have a chance to cross-examine her if we choose to call her as a witness.”

  Judge Mitton thinks for a moment. “That sounds reasonable. It even includes a touch of poetic justice. Our second order of business is the defense motion to dismiss the grand jury indictment. The motion is denied.” His eyes settle on Walker as he continues, “In light of the potentially exculpatory evidence withheld from the prosecution and defense prior to the grand jury hearing, the Court is sympathetic to the defense pleading that this case has been overcharged. I might have ruled differently if the motion had come before the prosecution rested.”

  Walker smirks while Mike and I try to mask our disappointment.

  The judge slaps his hands down on the desk and pushes his chair back. “Now, go prepare so we can bring in our jury at nine o’clock and move things along.”

  We spend the next ten minutes getting organized as press and spectators filter into the courtroom. Brittany has joined Pat in the seats immediately behind our table. She mouths “hi” when I turn back to wink at her. The prosecutors are conspicuously absent, something we comment on as the minute hand creeps closer and closer to the top of the hour. Mike wonders what they’re up to; I suspect their boss is throwing a temper tantrum. Dempsey and Perez stride in at one minute to nine, seconds before a door opens and a pair of sheriff’s deputies march Papa into the courtroom. He settles into the seat next to mine. I fill him in on our fru
itless meeting with the prosecutors while Judge Mitton sweeps in and settles behind the bench.

  Once the jury is seated, the judge turns to Mike. “Are you ready to proceed, Mr. Williams?”

  Mike nods and gets up to deliver our opening statement. It’s a study in brevity. He asks the jurors to keep an open mind and then spends several minutes highlighting what we perceive to be the contradictions and holes in the prosecution’s case. I admire his confident delivery. You’d never guess we’re flying by the seat of our pants.

  Mike directs the jurors’ attention to the only prop he will use in his statement, a picture of the mangled screen door hanging from the frame of our front entry. “Have a look at this, ladies and gentlemen. This picture shows the screen door at the Valenti home as it was when the police arrived on September seventeenth. Ask yourselves if you’ve ever seen a screen door this beaten up. Ask yourselves how much strength it would take for a person to do this to a piece of metal. Ask yourselves what kind of rage must be behind such an act. This picture tells a story, ladies and gentlemen. We intend to tell you that story.”

  As Mike winds down, he stands in front of the jury box. “Ladies and gentlemen, we will show you the tragic events of September seventeenth from an entirely new perspective. The differences between the truth and what you’ve been told by Mr. Dempsey are stark. I find them deeply troubling. I suspect you will, too.”

  Mike walks back to the defense table and pauses for a sip of water. Then he walks around to stand behind Papa and utters the only part of our opening statement we can currently substantiate. “Francesco Valenti is a good and decent man who has lived an honest, productive, and honorable life. He worked at Cook County Hospital for thirty years. He’s been a good and loyal husband, a loving father, and a doting grandfather. Mr. Valenti is a law-abiding citizen with absolutely no history of violence, a man who has made valuable contributions to his neighborhood for many, many years. He’s the father and grandfather we all wish for.”

  He walks back into the well and looks each and every juror square in the eye. “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for hearing me out. We look forward to presenting the true facts of this case, facts that will demonstrate that Francesco Valenti is a far different man than Mr. Dempsey’s jaundiced portrayal suggests.”

  When my partner sits down, I cast a sideways look at Dempsey. He looks smug. Nothing Mike said countered the fundamental fact that Papa shot Deputy O’Reilly.

  Judge Mitton raps his gavel. “We’ll take a thirty-minute recess. When we return, the defense will present its case.”

  “Tony! Mike!” Pat whispers urgently from behind us after the jury departs and Papa is taken away.

  We turn back to find Pat and Brittany at the rail behind the defense table.

  “What’s up?” I ask as we scoot our chairs back to them.

  Pat pushes Brittany’s cell phone into my hand. “Look!”

  I stare at the phone for a long moment and then hand it to Mike. I’m speechless. Mike isn’t. “Not a word,” he cautions us before he pockets the phone and leads us into the hallway. Once he finds an empty alcove, he ushers us into it and stares at the picture again. He cautions us to keep our voices down, then softly asks, “Where the hell did this come from?”

  “Dad took it before we went to school the night Papa shot the cop,” Brittany whispers back.

  I take a closer look at the picture. Brittany wears a pained frown and has her hands on her hips while she stands on our front porch, right in front of the pristine screen door. I belatedly remember the moment. She’d been bragging about the quality of the camera on her new phone while we were killing time before we left for St. Aloysius, so I’d turned it on her to snap a shot. The photo is date-stamped September seventeenth. Better still, it’s time-stamped 6:07 PM—three hours before a police photographer snapped the picture of the broken, twisted door Mike used in his opening statement.

  “Why the hell didn’t you show this to us before?” Mike asks Brittany.

  “Because she’s been in Brussels and hasn’t seen the picture of what happened to the screen door until just now,” Pat reminds him tartly. “You should be thrilled to have the damned thing. Leave the kid alone.”

  “Sorry,” Mike says to Brittany. “I’m just thinking about how much it would have helped to have this sooner.”

  “We’re plenty glad to have it now,” I tell Brittany. “Good work!”

  Mike leads us back into the courtroom after he clarifies the details. He catches the eye of Detective Plummer and waves him over.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  “We need to get this into evidence,” Mike replies. “The story of how the picture got here this morning needs to be told and corroborated as fast as we can make it happen. Chain of custody is going to come into play. That’s going to be dicey. You can bet your ass the State will try to keep this out. The sooner we legitimize it, the better.”

  My knee-jerk reaction is not to share this with the enemy, but Mike’s logic is sound. Still. “Can’t we do it ourselves?”

  Mike shakes his head. “Best to have the cops involved. Plummer will play it straight.”

  I’ll be damned if I don’t agree.

  “What’s up?” the detective says after he greets everyone.

  Mike hands him the phone with the picture open. Plummer looks down at it, glances up at us, then studies the image some more. “Where did this come from?”

  Mike explains.

  “I’ve never seen what happened to the door before this morning,” Brittany adds. “When I did, I remembered that Dad took this picture.”

  Plummer nods thoughtfully. “You keep all the pictures you take with your phone?”

  “Pretty much.”

  He thinks that over. “This is the new phone you had on September seventeenth?”

  “Yup.”

  “I remember you mentioning it. You were pretty excited.”

  Brittany blushes a little when she nods.

  Plummer smiles. “Hey, don’t be embarrassed. This is way nicer than my phone. I’d be showing this thing off if it was mine.”

  She gives him a grateful smile. “Yeah, it’s pretty cool.”

  “I’ll say. Mind showing me where you hide the pictures?”

  Brittany angles the phone towards Plummer and scrolls through a gazillion photos.

  “All date and time-stamped, huh?” he says.

  “Yeah. I like to know when and where, y’know?”

  “Sure do,” Plummer replies. Then he turns to me. “Still got the sales receipt for this?”

  “I do.”

  The detective turns to Mike. “What do you wanna do?”

  “The phone needs to be taken into evidence but I don’t want it solely in police custody. We’re going to need expert analysis to authenticate the picture.”

  Plummer thinks on that, then nods. “How are we going to do that?”

  “My brother Reg probably knows what needs to be done,” Mike replies. “He’s a cell phone guy at Motorola. Not that this is a Motorola, but I imagine they’re all similar enough.”

  “No way is a Motorola anything like my phone,” Brittany says indignantly. Mike has apparently uttered a cell phone sacrilege. Given what I paid for the damned thing, it’s probably true.

  “That’s a question for you attorneys to tackle,” Plummer replies.

  “I’ll buzz Reg,” Mike says before he takes a few steps away to call his brother. He turns back to us when he finishes. “Reg has a couple of ideas about who can do the work. He’ll get back with me after he makes a call or two.”

  “Let’s hear what the judge and Mr. Dempsey have to say,” Plummer suggests. He walks over to the Clerk of the Court to tell her what’s going on.

  “I can’t have my phone back?” Brittany asks with a tremor in her voice.

  “If not, we’ll get you a new one,” I assure her.

  “But my life is on there, Dad. I can’t live without it!”

  “They can transfer the
data, can’t they?” I ask no one in particular.

  “I’ll see what can be done,” Mike says.

  Pat rests a hand on Brittany’s. “I’ll take you to a cell phone store.”

  Five minutes later, we’re in Judge Mitton’s chambers explaining how the photo came to light.

  He takes a long look at the picture, shakes his head, and looks up at Mike. “As you were saying earlier, Mr. Williams, the door tells quite a story.”

  “Having that phone turn up here literally minutes after Mr. Williams made that exact statement in his opening is a little too convenient for my liking,” Dempsey says.

  The judge looks at Mike. “The same thought crossed my mind, Counselor.”

  “I can see why it might, Your Honor, but we brought this to the Court’s attention as soon as Brittany showed it to us.”

  “Detective?” the judge asks Plummer.

  “I’m no expert on this stuff, Your Honor, but it looks like it may be legit to me. We’ll need experts to verify that the phone hasn’t been tampered with, but I remember the girl telling me about the phone the night of the shooting. She said it was new. Mr. Valenti says he has the receipt, so that and store records should confirm ownership and date of purchase. It looks like she’s kept all the pictures she’s taken with it. It’s not like the old days when a splice on a film negative showed right up, but the techies can tell if a picture file has been imported or manipulated.”

  “This is our piece of evidence,” Mike says. “We want someone of our choosing to look at it. The police are welcome to send a technician along.”

  “Who is your guy?” Judge Mitton asks.

  Mike pulls out his phone. “Lane Brown at Brown Photo and Electronics. My brother gave his name to me.” Mike then fills Mitton and Dempsey in on his brother’s occupation.

  The judge nods. “Sounds reasonable to me. Mr. Dempsey?”

  “The phone should be in police custody. I don’t trust any of this and will move to suppress this picture on the basis of chain of custody.”

  “You’re going to do that anyway,” I retort. “It’s not like you’re looking for the truth.”

  “Let’s wait and see what the experts can tell us,” Mitton says. “Log this into evidence and arrange to have the experts look at it right away, Mr. Williams. I don’t want to hold things up.”