Without Fear or Favor
Page 27
Nash took a deep breath and let it out. She walked slowly into the well of the court. “Mr. Johnson, I’d like to begin by having you talk a little bit about your upbringing . . .”
Johnson thought the initial questioning had gone well. He thought he’d seen some of the jurors actually tearing up when he recounted growing up fatherless, poverty-stricken, and beset by all sorts of dangers in a neighborhood rife with crime and violence. The police were no better than the criminals. “They were all either on the take, or couldn’t have cared less about a little black kid. I had to learn to fend for myself.”
Nash then moved on to his criminal record. He explained that he broke into the old woman’s apartment to steal “so that I could eat” and had not intended to wake her. He denied sexually assaulting the victim. “She said I did, but it wasn’t true,” he claimed. “White women know that if they claim a black man raped them, the cops will come down on him even harder. I only agreed to plead guilty to sexual assault because the cops said they were going to pin some other stuff on me if I didn’t.”
Johnson neglected to mention that the “other stuff” was strangling the woman to death. And he contended that all he took from the apartment was “some jewelry and a little television that I sold.”
When Nash asked him about going to prison on the burglary and sexual assault convictions, he said it changed him forever. “I know it sounds funny, but it was probably the best thing that could’ve happened to me. I was living on the streets, committing crimes and hanging with the wrong people. But I met some people in prison who talked to me about my responsibilities as a black man, and I turned my life around. I found God and a calling to help other young black men.”
“Was prison where you learned about and indeed picked up the banner of black nationalism?” Nash asked.
“Yes. Some experienced long-timers who had been screwed over by the system taught me what it really means to be a black man in white America. And I did a lot of reading, such as about Malcolm X and Martin Luther King.”
“But doesn’t black nationalism envision separation between white America and black America?”
Johnson looked thoughtful for a moment before he turned to the jurors to, as he said, “speak from my heart.”
“I wish we lived in a world where all men were treated equal no matter what the color of their skin or their ethnicity. But unfortunately that’s not the way it is. This country has been racist since the slavery days, and while some progress has been made, it’s not enough, and if we wait for the white man to change things, it ain’t gonna happen. I hate to say this, but I think we’d all be better off if we were separated by race. Then we could be more like two friendly countries than white masters and black slaves.”
“And would that include better policing, do you think?”
Johnson nodded. “Yeah, each race would have police officers that come from their communities and understand the culture.”
“And after you got out of prison, did you share these beliefs with others—white and black?”
“Yes. I didn’t seek the spotlight, but I guess my words got some folks thinking. I was even asked to speak at events on college campuses.”
“And how were your views received?”
“By the audience or the authorities?” Johnson asked.
“Well, first by the audience.”
Johnson smiled. “Very well. They could see that I wasn’t advocating violence, or nothing like that. I talked about building a better, separate world where we could interact as equals and partners.”
“Was it during this time that you began to call yourself Nat X?”
“Well, actually Nat X is the name of several black activists, not just me,” he said. “The idea was that we aren’t speaking as individuals but as one for the black community.”
“Where does the name come from?”
“It’s a combination of Nat Turner, a slave who led an uprising in Virginia during the 1700s, and Malcolm X, who also advocated a separate black nation. It’s our attempt to draw a line to connect the slavery days of the past and the slavery days of the present.”
“So your audiences were receptive to your message. What about the authorities?”
“The authorities didn’t like what I had to say, and as they always do, they sent the police to let me know I wasn’t going to be tolerated,” Johnson claimed. “I don’t even really blame the police, though some are worse than others. Most are just pawns like the rest of us; they represent the white power structure that prevents all of us from treating each other as brothers and sisters. But they tried to silence me, just like they did with Malcolm X and Dr. King.”
“How did they do that?”
“Well, at first they just followed me around and showed up where I was speaking. But when I didn’t take the hint, they started getting more aggressive.” He looked at the black men on the jury. “Some of you have probably experienced the police reaction to ‘driving while black,’ but try ‘driving while black and taking on the white establishment.’ It seemed like I couldn’t even get in a car without getting pulled over and hassled.”
“Was there a particular incident last spring that told you they were ramping up their efforts to silence you?”
Johnson nodded. “It was in the evening and I was returning from the cemetery where I laid some flowers on my mother’s grave, when I got pulled over in a sort of deserted part of Oakland. I thought it was just another traffic stop, but it went to another level.”
“What do you mean?”
“They hauled my black ass out of the car and put me on the ground. One of them put a gun to the back of my head and told me if I didn’t shut up, the next time they’d say I had a gun so they had to shoot me.”
“Did you report this incident?”
Johnson laughed. “To who? The police? They was the ones putting a gun to my head. Look, they ain’t all bad, but they go along to get along and they don’t cross that blue line they like to talk about. If there’d been a next time, I’d have had my head blowed off and no one would have said nothing as far as the police.”
“Mr. Johnson, what brought you to New York City last summer?”
Johnson laughed again. “Well, the situation was getting dangerous in the Bay Area, so I thought it might be a good idea to go somewhere where I wasn’t so well known. I hadn’t seen my cousin Ny-Lee Tomes since we was kids. So I called him and he invited me to stay with him.”
“After you arrived, did you continue to speak out about your political thoughts?”
“Well, not much at first,” Johnson said. “To be honest, I was scared and planned on laying low for a while. But Ny-Lee said there was a lot of police brutality going on in the black communities here and that young black men needed someone to look up to who knew what they were going through. He asked if I would be willing to speak to some teens and young men he knew.”
“And did you?”
“Yes, of course. Sometimes you have to do what’s right even if you is scared. Like I said, I think of my philosophizing as a calling and that God wants me to be a voice for the black community.”
“So at some point in these talks you gave, did you meet Maurice Greene, DeShawn Lakes, and Ricky Watts?”
“I believe that’s probably true. But to be honest, I spoke to a lot of young men after I got here. Ny-Lee started seeing himself as my manager, like I was some sort of rap star, and he was getting me gigs. But while those names are familiar, and I sort of recognized them two boys when they testified against me, I don’t have particular recollections of speaking to them directly.”
“What about Big George Parker?”
Johnson shook his head and laughed. “George, he was sort of like a big kid. Like me, he’d had it rough growing up, but he was so big most people didn’t realize that he was hurting inside. I met him through Ny-Lee and he just started tagging along with me sometimes.”
“On the day that Officer Tony Cippio was shot, were you at Marcus Garvey Park?”
“So you weren’t there when the police officer was shot?”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“What about Big George and Ny-Lee?”
Johnson shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said, looking troubled. “I mean, I hate to think that my cousin and my friend might have got mixed up in something like that, but like I said, I wasn’t there. And I don’t know if the cop said something or tried harassing somebody and it got out of hand.”
Nash stopped and their eyes met. He could see the word “liar” in hers and he smiled slightly, but there was nothing she could do about it. “What about the party Rose Torres testified about?” she asked.
“There was a little party, but it had nothing to do with no shooting,” Johnson said. “At least not from my perspective. I was thinking about it after I heard Rose testify, and Big George and Ny-Lee was kind of acting funny, like they was suddenly real tough or something. But I was excited about something else.”
“What was that?”
“I was going back to San Francisco. I decided that I’d been gone long enough, and New York isn’t my home; it’s not where my momma is buried or where my friends are that I grew up with. And the best part is Lupe had said she’d go back with me. I’d asked her to marry me, and while she’s a little young and we’re going to have to wait to make it legal, I was happy she’d said yes.”
“That’s it?” Nash asked. “No celebrating shooting a cop? No threatening anybody with a gun?”
“No.” Johnson scowled. “I didn’t even have a gun. That’s just some shit someone made up to get the police off their back. At least that’s what I think.”
“So you left New York City. Do you know if that was before or after Ricky Watts was killed by Officer Bryce Kim?”
“Before. I remember calling Ny-Lee from the road, and he said, ‘It happened again.’ And I said, ‘What happened?’ And he said, ‘A cop shot an unarmed black kid in cold blood, but they is trying to cover it up and say the kid shot first. But he didn’t have no gun.’ That’s what Ny-Lee said.”
“And where were you at the time?”
Johnson shrugged. “I think Denver, Colorado. We was tired of driving my old junker, and I got some old homies that live there, so we stopped for a few days. That’s when I called Ny-Lee to let him know we was okay, and he told me about that kid getting shot.”
“Eventually you reached the San Francisco area and moved in with Moto Juku?”
“Yes, I’d met him a year or so earlier when I first got out of the joint. He was a DJ at one of the clubs. He liked to hang out with me; I think it made him feel tough to kick back with an ex-gangster. He invited us to stay.”
“What about the gun we’ve heard so much about—the silver forty-five-caliber revolver?”
“That was Moto Juku’s. He was real proud of having such a fine piece.”
“But we’ve heard testimony that you pawned it.”
“Yeah, Moto needed some money, but he’s not very streetwise. So since he was letting me stay there, I told him I’d take it to a pawnshop and get him the best price I could. So that’s what I did. I didn’t even know he went to get it back until he showed up at the apartment with it.”
“So why was it in your possession when you were arrested by Detective Fulton?”
“Moto said he saw someone breaking into my car,” Johnson replied. “I have to admit that old habits kicked in. I grabbed the gun off the counter where Moto put it and went to scare the dude off. I didn’t even know if it was loaded or not.”
“Did you point the gun at Detective Fulton?”
“I pointed the gun,” Johnson admitted. “I saw this big black dude going through my car, but like I said I was just trying to scare him.”
“Did you pull the trigger?”
Johnson looked at his lawyer as if she’d asked a stupid question. “Hell, no. Why would I kill somebody over a beat-up old Lincoln with a radio that don’t even work? Now what kind of stupid shit is that?”
“Did Detective Fulton identify himself as a police officer?”
“Not at first. And when he did, I put the weapon down and surrendered. But he threw me to the ground and said I was being arrested for murdering a cop in New York.”
Johnson stopped and looked at the jury. “And here we are.”
“What about the testimony of Moto Juku and Detective Fulton?”
“Lies,” Johnson said.
“Why would the detective lie?”
“Same reason the cops in Oakland stuck a gun to my head. They want to shut me up.”
Nash strolled over to the jury box and looked at their faces as she asked her next questions.
“Did you kill Officer Tony Cippio?”
Johnson shook his head and addressed his answer to the sole black woman on the jury. “I did not kill the officer.”
“Did you collaborate with Ricky Watts and give him the gun to kill Officer Bryce Kim?”
“I don’t even really remember Ricky Watts. I wasn’t there.”
Nash nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Johnson. No further questions.”
Johnson braced himself for what he believed would be an onslaught of questions by Karp. He almost looked forward to showing the jurors and the press his disdain for the man. But then the district attorney surprised him.
“Mr. Johnson, I’m not going to dignify most of this nonsense by asking you questions so that you can repeat your lies,” Karp said, picking up a sheet of paper, as well as the evidence bag holding the revolver, and walking over to the witness stand. “I’ll let the jury decide in their deliberations who was telling the truth, the People’s witnesses with their corroborated, dovetailed, comprehensive mosaic of your crimes, or a desperate killer trying to thwart justice.”
“Objection!” Nash shouted. “I didn’t realize we’d already moved on to summations. This is an extremely improper cross-examination.”
Kershner tilted her head and arched an eyebrow as she looked at Karp. “Sustained. Mr. Karp, save your ad hominem remarks for your summation. Do you have any questions for this witness?”
“Well, I think just a few, Your Honor. Mr. Johnson, I want to ask you about your conviction for burglary and sexual assault.”
“Go ahead, I got nothing to hide,” Johnson shot back. “I paid my debt to society and I’m a changed man.”
“Really? I guess we’ll see about that,” Karp said. “In your testimony, you claimed that all you took from the apartment of Mrs. Clare Dupre was, and I quote, ‘some jewelry and a little television,’ which you then sold.”
Johnson frowned. “Yeah, that’s right.”
“Were you aware that Mrs. Dupre’s son, Robert, gave the police a list of items removed by you from the apartment?”
“Yeah, my defense attorney showed me a list. Like I said, some jewelry and a television.”
“You are aware that none of the items you took from the apartment were recovered?”
Johnson shrugged. “Like I said, I sold them so I could eat.”
“Did your defense attorney later inform you after your plea agreement that there was a supplemental list added to the official list of missing items, or actually one item, provided for the record by Robert Dupre?”
Johnson scowled and shook his head. “I don’t know nothing about no supplemental list.”
Karp turned to the judge. “Your Honor, permission for ADA Katz to set up an easel in front of the witness stand so that the jurors can also see it.”
“Go ahead, Mr. Katz.”
With a nod from Karp, Katz got up and grabbed a folded easel that was lying behind the prosecution table. He set it up where Karp indicated, then returned to the prosecution table, where he picked up what appeared to be a large photograph, though it was covered by a blank sheet when he placed it on the easel.
Frowning, Nash got up from her seat and walked over to the end of the jury box so that she could see the demonstration as well.
When everything was set, Karp gave the piece of paper to Johnson and announced, “Your Honor, the witness has been handed People’s Exhibit 42, a certified copy of the aforementioned supplemental list that was dated and signed by both Mr. Dupre and the receiving court clerk the day after Mr. Johnson’s plea agreement for the burglary and sexual assault of Mr. Dupre’s mother.”
“Very well,” Kershner said.
Karp turned back to the witness. “Mr. Johnson, would you please tell the jurors what item is listed on the supplemental police report.”
Johnson was already looking at the paper. His hands began to shake. “This is bullshit,” he said.
“Bullshit is not what’s on the list. In fact,” Karp said, walking over to the easel and revealing the photograph beneath it, “this is what is listed on the report.”
The jurors’ eyes turned to the photograph. “For the record,” Karp said, “this is an enlargement of the certified, dated supplemental police report, People’s Exhibit 42, Mr. Johnson is holding in his hand. Mr. Johnson, would you please read the report and tell the jurors what item is listed there.”
Johnson sat back in his seat and crossed his arms. “This is a lie, and I ain’t reading nothin’.”
“Let the record reflect that the defendant refused a legitimate request from the People to read from the supplemental report,” Karp said. “With the court’s permission, I’ll do it for him.” He turned to the easel. “The item listed is a forty-five-caliber, stainless steel Smith & Wesson Model 460 with an after-market mother-of-pearl grip. Is that correct, Mr. Johnson?”
Johnson refused to answer, which Karp remarked on for the record. He then handed Johnson the gun. “Let the record reflect that the witness has been handed People’s Exhibit 43, a forty-five-caliber, stainless steel Smith & Wesson Model 460 with an after-market mother-of-pearl grip.”
As he looked down at the gun, Johnson could be seen mumbling but not loud enough to be heard. “Mr. Johnson, would you please look on the left side of the gun and locate the serial number above the trigger guard.”