Without Fear or Favor

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  It was rough going at times for the DA; an older white man proudly proclaimed himself “a card-carrying member of the Communist Party USA” and admitted that he wanted to see the institutions of American government overthrown.

  “Who do you see as the guardians of those institutions?” Karp asked.

  “Why, the police and the military,” the man replied, his tone making clear that this should be evident.

  “So is it fair to say that you are not a supporter of police in general?” Karp asked.

  “Of course I’m not,” the man scoffed.

  “Then of course it follows that you believe that police officers lie?”

  “That’s putting it mildly, Mr. DA,” the man said, rolling his eyes.

  Karp looked at Kershner. “Your Honor, I would like to approach the bench on the sidebar on the record regarding this prospective juror.”

  “By all means,” the judge replied.

  When Karp and Nash reached the side of the dais out of hearing of the jurors, he said, “Your Honor, based upon the answers given by this prospective juror, it is clear to the People that he is unfit to serve given the nature of his expressed bias toward police.”

  “All he’s doing is speaking the truth,” Nash responded. “Then again, that’s not the type of person the prosecution wants in this case.”

  Karp was about to say something, but Kershner interrupted him. “Just a minute, Mr. Karp, let me get the prospective juror over here on the record.” She turned to the man and said, “Mr. Mannheim, would you please join us.”

  When he walked over, the judge asked, “Notwithstanding how you answered Mr. Karp’s questions, do you believe that you can be fair and impartial in this case?”

  Mannheim smirked. “I believe I can. I’ll listen to all the evidence before I reach any conclusion.”

  Karp shot back, “Well, Mr. Mannheim, can you explain what part of your alleged brain is going to be fair and impartial regarding the police when you just said they’re a pack of liars?”

  “Typical of a bourgeois district attorney, trying to intimidate me just because I was being honest and forthright,” Mannheim sputtered.

  “No, Mr. Mannheim,” Karp replied. “It is your blatant hostility and biases that would preclude you from sitting on any jury and rendering a fair decision. Your Honor, I renew my application to have this man dismissed for cause.”

  “Mr. Karp,” Kershner said, “the court believes that Mr. Mannheim can be fair and impartial in spite of some of the comments he’s made responding to your aggressive approach. Mr. Mannheim, you may return to your seat.”

  “In that case,” Karp interjected, “I will use one of my peremptory challenges, and I want him removed from the courtroom so that he doesn’t contaminate any of the other jurors.”

  “Very well,” Kershner said. “Mr. Mannheim, you are excused from these proceedings. Please leave.”

  At last it had come down to one more seat to fill. So far the jury was composed of seven white jurors—three women and four men—a Hispanic male, and three black men.

  Karp had only one peremptory challenge left when Mrs. Fenton, the middle-aged black woman, was called. A single mother raising two young boys, she lived in East Harlem and ran a small boutique there. She’d described her living situation as “scraping by” and said she worried about her sons in the crime-riddled neighborhood.

  When Karp told her that he wanted her honest response, she said, “Well, I have to say, Mr. Karp, that I do think there are some issues between the police and the black community. I think sometimes the police jump to conclusions when they see a black person, especially a young black man, that they might not with a young white man.”

  “Have you had any personal problems with the police or know someone who has, whether it was a perceived problem or a real one?”

  The woman nodded. “Not me personally. But I know some people through my church who have had problems with police officers.”

  Karp walked over to the rail of the jury box until it was just him and her talking. “Mrs. Fenton, what schools do your sons attend?”

  “My boys are ten and twelve and attend a charter school uptown.”

  “Have they had a good experience?”

  Fenton smiled. “Yes they have, sir.”

  “Why did you send them to a charter school and not a regular public school?”

  “Mr. Karp, I was fortunate to be able to get my boys into that school. There are fifty thousand other children on the waiting list to get into charter schools in this city. I want them to get a good education so that they can get into college and someday be somebody. The public schools are too violent and dangerous. I don’t want my boys bullied and pushed around or called names for trying to study and get good grades. I work all hours sewing the dresses and shirts and blouses I sell in my store, trying to put a little aside every day for their college funds.”

  “Thank you very much, Mrs. Fenton,” Karp said. “Now, is there anything you’d like to ask me?”

  Mrs. Fenton shook her head. “Only that I hope I don’t have to answer any more questions,” she said, which brought a laugh from everyone else in the courtroom.

  “None from the People.” Karp smiled. He turned to the judge. “Your Honor, Mrs. Fenton is acceptable to the People.”

  “Well, then, it looks like we have a jury,” Judge Kershner said. “We will proceed with opening statements tomorrow morning at nine.” She turned to the twelve jurors. “I’m going to turn you over to my chief court clerk, Al Lopez, and he will take you through what to expect and what is expected of you. So I’ll leave you with this admonishment. Please do not discuss this case with anyone, including your closest family members and friends, the other members of the jury, or the media. Do not watch television news reports about this case, or read newspaper or magazine articles about it. If someone should approach you and try to talk to you about the case, do not answer their questions and report this contact to Mr. Lopez at your earliest convenience. Mr. Lopez, please escort the jury from the courtroom.”

  “About time,” Vansand muttered again as the jurors left. He stood up and looked around. There weren’t any other reporters in the courtroom. They all thought jury selection was too boring to cover, and they’d certainly been right—not much happened, at least nothing that would make the national television news executives sit up and take notice of him. He could feel his opportunity slipping through his fingers. He needed something big.

  Leaving the courtroom, he was met out in the hall by his cameraman. “Anything worth filming?” Escobar asked.

  Vansand let out a sigh and shook his head. “Nothing to get excited about. We can maybe run some old footage—find a way to work in the Karp shooting—but otherwise we don’t have much.” He thought about it for a moment, then nodded toward the elevators. “Let’s swing by the DA’s office and see if anything is shaking there.”

  As they reached the eighth floor, two women were leaving the district attorney’s office and heading for the elevator. He recognized one of them as Judy Pardo, who was on the prosecution witness list. Nash had shown him an old mug shot of her and described her as “a former cop–turned-prostitute” who was a major issue for the defense as she connected Johnson to the shooting death of Ricky Watts.

  An interview with her might make the national news, he thought, especially right before the trial. But she’s probably not going to cooperate. “Get off first when we get to the lobby and be ready to film,” Vansand whispered to his cameraman. He smiled and held the door for the two women. “Going down, ladies?”

  The smaller woman frowned when she saw him but nodded. “Yes, thank you.” The other woman seemed to recognize him but didn’t speak. He waited until the doors had closed, then turned to the taller woman. “Are you Judy Pardo?”

  “You don’t have to reply,” the smaller woman said to her companion before turning to him. “Leave us alone, please.”

  “I just want to ask a few questions,” Vansand replied. He m
oved into position so that when the doors opened in the lobby, Escobar got out first and turned the camera to the reporter and the women.

  “Ms. Pardo, is it true you’re a former police officer?” Vansand said loudly as he jumped in front of the women.

  “No comment,” the smaller woman said as Pardo held her hand up in front of her face. “I told you to back off. You’re already way out of line. Now get the hell out of our way.”

  As the women attempted to go around him, Vansand pursued them. “Have you been arrested for drugs and prostitution?”

  Judy Pardo’s shoulders slumped and she slowed, but the other woman grabbed her by the elbow and propelled her forward. “Don’t answer,” she said.

  “Who talked you into testifying, Ms. Pardo?” Vansand yelled. When there was no reply, he added, “Once a whore, always a whore, right?”

  This time Pardo stopped and faced him. “I guess you would know, Mr. Vansand,” she said before turning back and leaving the building with the other woman.

  Vansand laughed as he looked at his cameraman. “You get that?”

  “Yeah. You do know that was the district attorney’s wife with her,” Escobar said.

  “Really?” Vansand smiled. He nodded toward the door. “C’mon, let’s see where they go. I know the defense has been trying to find out.”

  “Why do they want to know?” Escobar asked as they ran outside and hailed a cab.

  Vansand shrugged as they got in. “I guess Margarite wants to question her before the trial. Johnson asked me to find out where she is living. He’s my ticket back to the Bigs, and I’m not going to ask too many questions.” He tapped on the glass to get the driver’s attention. “You see those two women getting in the cab up the block? I want you to follow them.”

  17

  AFTER THE JURY HAD BEEN impaneled, Karp and his co-counsel, Kenny Katz, had gone back to his office to continue the ongoing process of witness prep.

  “So you’re happy with the jury?” Katz had asked.

  Karp thought for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah, pretty happy. I mean, in some ways it’s always a crapshoot. You hope you’ve picked people who will be fair and judge the evidence on its merits, not their personal beliefs or whatever hocus-pocus the defense attorney is going to try to conjure up. But you can’t always account for someone who makes a decision based on emotions, or even the chance that someone slipped onto the jury by saying all the right things and hiding their true agenda so that they can make a political point by ignoring the evidence and the law. That’s why when I thought we might have someone like that—such as our favorite Communist, Mr. Mannheim—I asked to speak to the judge at sidebar so the other jurors couldn’t hear.”

  “I thought that was to keep his opinions from tainting the others,” Katz said.

  “It was in part,” Karp agreed. “But it was also to prevent anyone else with an agenda from knowing what to say, or not say, to get selected as a juror.”

  Karp considered such conversations teaching moments for his young protégé, just as his own mentors had brought him along when he was a rookie assistant district attorney. Katz was a quick study who was already working major cases, including several homicides, though nothing this complicated or as politically charged.

  Katz had been a law student at Columbia when Islamic terrorists had crashed airliners into the World Trade Center. He dropped out of law school and joined the Army and became a Ranger. He’d served three tours of duty, two in Afghanistan and one in Iraq, earning his sergeant’s stripes, two Bronze Stars, and a Purple Heart in the process.

  When he left the Army, he returned to law school and graduated magna cum laude. But instead of going into a more lucrative branch of law, he applied for the only job he ever wanted, as a prosecutor with the New York DAO. In that, Karp saw a lot of himself and, seeing the young man’s brilliance, toughness, and work ethic, he took him under his wing, often having him sit second chair during the toughest cases in order to learn on the job.

  Katz’s question about the jury had spilled over into Karp’s philosophy on jury selection, which included such minute details as the way prospective jurors dressed when they came to court. “This is serious business,” he said. “Not only are we on a solemn, sacred search for truth and justice for a slain police officer, a man’s life is at stake. We want people who will take it all seriously. If they show up in a T-shirt, old jeans, and flip-flops, that’s not the sort of person we want on the jury.”

  “You’re not concerned about black jurors? I mean given today’s climate and the nature of this case?” Katz asked.

  Karp shook his head. “Not at all. In fact, in a way it’s an advantage. We’re still looking for the same sort of juror regardless of race. But these so-called progressives, like Nash, see all black people as one big homogenous group who all think and act alike. Plus, they’re never going to kick a black juror off because of how it would look if they said a black person couldn’t be fair.”

  Katz nodded. “Yeah, the jury foreman, Al Maxwell, seems real solid. Army sergeant, combat vet, Purple Heart. I saw a lot of guys like him when I was in-country. There’s something about sharing a foxhole that tends to make you forget about race; all that matters is that the guy next to you has your back. Not always, maybe—there’s racism in the military, just like there is in civilian life.”

  “Which is something he acknowledged,” Karp pointed out.

  “I was a bit worried about him when you asked if he’d ever had any experiences with the police in which he felt he’d been treated unfairly because of his race, and he came back with that story about ‘driving while black’ in Newark. It sounded like that cop was a real asshole.”

  “Yeah, but Maxwell isn’t just a combat vet,” Karp said. “I don’t know if Nash even noticed that on his first tour to Afghanistan, he was an MP, an Army cop. He knows there are good cops and bad cops, but that most are doing the best they can in a difficult job under stressful circumstances. He’s not going to hold the actions of one bad apple against everybody else in the barrel. He was also well-dressed and well-spoken. And when he got out, he used his GI Bill benefits to go to college and started up an Internet security company. Did you notice what he said when I asked him how he would describe himself?”

  “Yeah, it was American first, and a proud veteran who had served his country honorably second,” Katz said. “He was obviously proud that he’d worked hard to make something of himself and didn’t make excuses when things didn’t go his way. It wasn’t until Nash asked him if he was involved in the black community that he discussed his pride in being deacon in a Baptist church and an African American. I loved it when he talked about his efforts to trace his ancestors back to slavery on a Georgia plantation and before that to West Africa. I’m a little surprised that the defense didn’t try to get him off the jury, especially because he was going to be the foreman.”

  “No way,” Karp said. “All Nash saw was a black man and all she heard was that he’d had a bad experience with the police and that his ancestors were slaves. She sees a caricature, not the man under the skin. And she couldn’t very well kick the first black man seated off the jury; she’d have been drummed out of every liberal cocktail party in New York for the rest of her life. The same with the other black men.”

  Katz laughed. “How about Mrs. Fenton? She thinks there are issues between the police and the black community.”

  “Right, and a lot of it drummed up by the so-called activists and the complicit media,” Karp said. “But the police have always got to be vigilant about how they go about their jobs. We allow them to carry weapons and, when lawful, use deadly force; with that comes extra responsibility. That sort of power is bound to attract a few bad apples, bullies like Satars and Delgado or a guy like Gilliam who thinks that badge puts him above the law when something happens he doesn’t like. The point is we don’t pretend these issues don’t exist; we acknowledge them and deal with them, as we are with those three numbskulls. But this case isn’t about raci
st cops and black activists. And for that reason, Mrs. Fenton is the best of the lot.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “She’s a small-business owner,” Karp said, “which makes her a great judge of character and demeanor. Every time someone comes into her business, she has to make snap judgments: Is this guy going to buy something, or is he going to rob me? She also understands the value of honesty and makes important decisions every day that affect her bottom line and life.”

  “Nash didn’t seem to care that her kids go to a charter school.”

  “Well, for one thing, it’s a neighborhood charter school, not out in the white burbs, and going after her would be attacking every single black family—what did she say the waiting list is now, fifty thousand?—that wants to get their kids into a charter school instead of subjecting them to the war zones otherwise known as the failing and violent New York City public schools,” Karp said. “Again, Nash just sees a struggling black single mom with two kids who knows people whose children have been in trouble with the law. It fits her narrative. But they’re the ones judging people by the color of their skin, not the content of their character, to quote MLK.”

  Karp urged Katz to stay on top of the order in which the prosecution witnesses would appear. “You know the parade I expect to call, so make sure they’re called in an orderly fashion.”

  Then the discussion had turned to Judge Kershner. Anorexically thin and frail with overly large eyeglasses—a sort of younger version of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Kershner had butted heads with Karp several times when she was the lead attorney with the New York ACLU. She was also a social climber among the liberal elite in New York City, courting invitations to cocktail parties and events, always with an eye on an eventual appointment to the federal bench.