(2012) The Key to Justice

by Dennis Carstens

  “So, counselor,” Carl asked crushing out his cigarette. “What do you think?”

  “Boil it all down and I think it’ll come down to a couple of things. I mean, take each piece of evidence, by themselves, the witnesses and the physical stuff, and they don’t add up to much. Except, the eyewitness who says he saw you running away. And, the knife and the cop.

  “This witness, this Hobbs guy. We may be able to cast some doubt on him. Who knows? Eyewitnesses aren’t always the best evidence. It would actually be better for us if there was more than one. Then we might be able to get contradictory testimony. But, if this guy is believable and sticks to his story, well, who knows?

  “Then there’s the cop and the knife. He’s gonna testify that he found that knife while conducting a legal search, hidden in a closet of your apartment. Taken along with everything else, do I think it’s enough to convict you? I gotta be honest, Carl. Yeah, I do.”

  These last words hung in the air of the small room while the three of them remained silently frozen in place. Maddy leaning against the back wall with an impassive look on her face. Feeling detached and uninvolved in the drama being played out before her. Marc leaning on an elbow on the table, softly staring at Carl with unblinking eyes while he allowed the words to work through Carl’s thoughts. Sink in and let their full impact hit home. Carl blankly staring down at his hands as they rested on the formica of the tabletop, silently allowing the severity of what his lawyer had just told him to come to the surface of his conscious mind. A reality that he had known all along but had stubbornly suppressed.

  After almost two full minutes of this frozen in place scene, Carl looked up at Marc, let out his breath in a heavy sigh and said, “Shit, man. I’m in deep trouble here aint I? They could really nail my ass for this.”

  “Yes, Carl,” Marc answered, almost in a whisper that Maddy could barely hear. “I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but somebody’s got to and it’s part of my job. Sorry.”

  “So, you made a deal with ‘em,” Carl said, a statement not a question.

  “No,” Marc replied shaking his head and leaning back. “No, I haven’t made a deal with them ...”

  “Good,” Carl interrupted. “No deals. Fuck ‘em. I’m not gonna take that bullshit again. I’ll take my chances at trial.”

  “I haven’t made a deal, but they have made an offer,” he continued as he held up his hands to cut off Carl’s protest. “Listen to me. Just relax and hear what I have to say. Nothing’s been decided, but I have an ethical obligation to tell you what it is so, I just want you to hear me out. Okay?”

  “All right. I’ll listen but I aint gonna take it.”

  “Carl, just relax,” Marc said desperately controlling his frustration. “Just listen to the offer.”

  “Okay, tell me.”

  So he did, quickly and with as little inflection in his voice as he could. Consciously not wanting to slant the plea offer one way or another. Simply putting it out on the table for Carl to hear.

  “Thirty fuckin’ years! Are you shittin’ me ...”

  “Twenty with good time, Carl.”

  “Oh, great. Fine. Twenty years. I do twenty goddamn years for somethin’ I didn’t do. Do they really think I’ll go for that? That’s bullshit. They’re fuckin’ crazy.”

  “No, Carl. I don’t think they believe you’ll take it,” Marc said quietly.

  “And what’s this bullshit with the one in St. Paul? I aint even charged with that. What kinda shit is that? The Governor’s fuckin’ daughter.”

  “That’s why they made the offer at all, Carl. To tell you the truth, I don’t think Slocum and Gondeck are happy about it. Slocum must think he’s got a slam dunk case or he wouldn’t be trying it himself. He’s up for reelection next year and a case like this will get him plenty of press. If he wins it’ll probably get him reelected. If he loses, the whole thing could blow up in his face.”

  Carl stood up and began to pace. Rapidly at first. Then slowly and again more quickly. He crossed his arms and hugged himself several times. Stopped, paced, hugged, inhaled and exhaled heavily. Facing the wall, he leaned against it with the top of his head pressed against the concrete blocks and stared at the floor with his arms wrapped about himself. Stood this way for a minute then raised his head, rolled his eyes at the ceiling and heavily sighed. Looked down at the wall and lightly thumped his forehead against the cool, unpainted cinderblock.

  Maddy had rejoined Marc at the table and they silently sat watching Carl trying to come to grips with the enormity of the decision he faced, Maddy believing Carl was about to face it and accept the deal. Marc waiting for the explosion. It came.

  “Nooooo! No goddamnit, no,” Carl bellowed. He remained in place, facing the wall, lightly pounding it with his fists as he repeated several more times his initial response. He turned his head to face the table and calmly said, “No, Marc. No. I just can’t do it. I mean shit. Twenty years. Jesus Christ,” he continued as he walked back to his chair, “I don’t wanna do no twenty years. But, shit man. It aint even that. I took a deal before. Ya know. With the rape. Now, Christ, they want me to admit to somethin’ I didn’t even fuckin’ do. What do you think?” he asked looking back and forth between Marc and Maddy, his eyes pleading for help. Some guidance. Some confirmation that these two people he trusted would agree with him.

  “I don’t know, Carl,” Maddy said. “It’s a tough choice and I’m not the one to say what your chances are at trial.”

  “Marc?” Carl asked, looking to his lawyer for help.

  Marc paused for a long moment, folded his hands together and leaned up against the table to look straight into his client’s eyes. “I gotta look at the downside, Carl. If we lose, and don’t kid yourself, the way it looks right now, we probably will, you never get out of prison. You die in there. If you take the deal, well, you still have a life someday. I know it’s a tough decision to face, but I just don’t know. I don’t have a magic answer for you. Look” he continued as he straightened and waved a hand between them to cut off the conversation, “you don’t have to decide anything right this minute. I just wanted to come down and put it to you. Let it all sink in. Let’s give it a couple days and I’ll talk to you again. I’ll come down on Sunday and we’ll kick it around some more, okay?”

  “I aint gonna change my mind,” Carl said.

  “Then you don’t,” Marc said. “We’ll see. You think about it and we’ll talk some more.”

  After the two of them had walked about a block toward the ramp where Marc had parked his car, Maddy looked at him and said, “Well, I guess that’s that. We better get our ducks lined up for trial.”

  “What do you mean? I think he’ll go for it,” Marc replied

  “Are you serious? Did you hear him?” she asked incredulously.

  “I knew that would be his initial reaction. It always is. Give it a couple days and the thought of dying in prison won’t sound like such a hot idea. We’ll see,” he shrugged.

  Two days later Marc made the trip downtown to see Carl and again discuss the plea bargain with him. This time he was intentionally alone. He had spent the past two days trying to convince himself that he was being objective. Simply doing his job as Carl’s lawyer; spell out the pros and cons of accepting or rejecting the offer and remaining professionally indifferent.

  Fifteen minutes before leaving his apartment, while standing in front of the mirror knotting the tie he had decided to put on to look the part, he looked at his face in the mirror and finally admitted it to himself. He wanted Carl to take the deal. In fact, he wanted it badly. He felt guilty about it but, the reality of what a quick end to this case would do for his own life was simply too great to deny. A real job with a decent salary. Patch things up with Margaret and have a nice relationship with a damn fine woman. And, best of all, put an end to the stress of the case itself. The doubts had never gone away, never been too far beneath the surface. Was he really up to handling a case of this significance? A plea woul
d put a stop to all of it.

  “Well, Carl, what do you think?”

  Carl sat facing him in the same chair in the same room they had met in two days before. He had entered the room with a smile on his face, a slight bounce in his step and had cheerfully greeted Marc. Now, as Marc’s heart sank deeper and deeper, Carl sat silently shaking his head several times in response to Marc’s question.

  “No, man. I aint gonna do it,” he quietly said. “Not now. Not ever. I aint gonna say I did somethin’ that I didn’t do. Look,” he continued as Marc silently listened, “I done time, ya’ know? I didn’t like it and I don’t wanna go back. But, I aint afraid of prison either. I mean, I hate the thought ya’ know. But, I just can’t bring myself to say I did somethin’ I didn’t do. I’ll take my chances at trial. You’re a smart guy. I know you’ll do your best and, if they convict my ass, well, then they do. But, I aint gonna admit to this and that’s final.”

  “Okay, Carl. It’s your call. Just so you understand what can happen,” Marc said impassively as he saw his own future melt away.

  FIFTY-NINE

  On the morning of the first day of the trial, Marc stepped off the crowded elevator from the subterranean parking garage onto the second floor courtyard of the Government Center. He headed for the bank of elevators on the Court side of the building to make the trip up to Prentiss’ courtroom when, half-way there, he was spotted by one of the local TV reporters hanging around the building. He was quickly surrounded by microphones and minicams but before a single question was asked, he said, “You all know there’s a gag order on this case so I’m not gonna hold a press conference here this morning.”

  Ignoring the statement, a female reporter from the Minneapolis daily paper asked, “Is it true your client turned down a plea bargain offer?”

  “What?” Marc asked, looking at the woman. “Where’d you get that?”

  “Have you seen this morning’s paper?” she asked.

  “No, no I haven’t,” Marc answered looking at the faces of the media mob surrounding him. “What’s in it?”

  “There’s a story that your client turned down a very good plea offer from the prosecution,” said a reporter from one of the local TV stations.

  Inwardly furious that Slocum’s office would leak plea discussions, Marc managed to maintain enough self control to seize the opportunity by saying, “Look, my client is an innocent man so, of course he would turn down any plea bargain.”

  “The prosecution claims…,” the reporter began to say.

  “The prosecution can claim whatever they want. My client maintains his innocence,” Marc said, cutting her off. “That’s all I’m going to say.”

  He began to move on toward the elevators when one of the reporters asked,

  “Don’t you want us to use your side of the story?”

  Marc turned, surveyed the faces and cameras, and curtly said, “You people can use whatever you want. You will anyway. You always do. Whether it’s accurate or not doesn’t seem to matter much. Watch the trial. Pay attention and try to get it right. Other than that, I have no comment.”

  Later that morning, having had the chance to read the story in the paper, Marc waited patiently while Carl read the paper in an attorney conference room attached to Prentiss’ courtroom. He was seated across from Marc, his hair neatly cut by Marc’s barber, who made a special trip to the jail at Marc’s request and a hundred dollars. Carl wore a conservative dark grey suit, white shirt and tie, courtesy of his brother, and looked like he could pass for an up and coming executive at any bank or corporation.

  He finished the article, folded the paper and, as he handed it back to his lawyer, said, “It makes me sound guilty as hell and makes them look like they’re tryin’ to be decent about the whole thing. Spare the public the expense of a trial and the families all the pain and everything. It’s pure bullshit.”

  “We could probably get a continuance,” Marc calmly said.

  “No. No more delays,” Carl said emphatically, “I’m ready. I wanna get at this. Get it over with. Besides, in a few days, this’ll blow over.”

  “Yeah, but we gotta pick a jury today. Or, at least start. This story won’t help.”

  “How many of ‘em ya’ think will have seen this?”

  “Who knows,” Marc said with a shrug.

  “What about the jury? What are ya’ lookin’ for?” Carl asked.

  “Twelve people who have done time for crimes they didn’t do,” Marc said. “I don’t think we’ll get that. Other than that, who knows for sure? Every lawyer has his own theory about juries. None of them are right and none of them are wrong. The simple truth is, we could probably take the first twelve people through the door and do just as well for either side.

  “I guess I’m looking for younger, better educated types. Maybe a little more liberal. A little less inclined to believe a cop just because he’s a cop.

  “I gotta go see the judge. At least raise a little hell about this leak to the media about the plea bargain. You have a seat at the table out front and we’ll start jury selection in a little while. One last thing, Carl,” Marc continued as he looked at his client. “I know we’ve been over this before but I can’t stress it too much. You have to stay cool. No matter what happens or what gets said. From this point on, out in that courtroom, you’ve gotta look like everything is going exactly as we expected. Okay?”

  “Yeah, Marc. I know. I will. I promise.”

  “It’s not for me, Carl. It’s not my ass that’s on the line here.”

  A half hour or so later, Marc was seated to Carl’s left at the table on the right hand side of the Courtroom. The one closer to the jury box. Seated behind them, in the front row directly behind the rail separating the spectator area, sat Joe, Carl’s sister and her husband. Behind them, every other chair was taken by the members of the media. on the other side of the aisle, the seats were almost all taken up by family members of the six victims. No one would be allowed to stand.

  The jury selection, Prentiss had decided, would be done in groups of ten. Both sides had been given, the previous Thursday, the list of one hundred people from whom it was expected that twelve jurors and two alternates would be selected. Marc had wanted each juror to be brought in individually and questioned one at a time. Prentiss had overruled this. He had made it clear that jury selection was going to be done no later than Wednesday at noon. Two days. Wednesday afternoon was a weekly golf time for the judge and this trial wasn’t going to interfere with that. The trial was going to get underway with opening statements at 9:00 a.m., Thursday morning.

  Maddy had spent Friday with a computer geek she knew gathering up as much biographical data on each of them as she possibly could. A process which Marc didn’t want to know the details about. Marc had taken that information and gone over every member of the jury. Trying to decide which ones to accept and which ones to remove.

  Saturday had been spent at the office with all of the lawyers and staff in attendance, pouring over the list. Arguing and cajoling. Everyone got in an opinion about every name on the list. Finally, by 4:00 p.m. Sunday, Marc had prioritized the one hundred names into a list that he believed would be to Carl’s best advantage. At the top, number one on Marc’s wish list of potential jurors, was a twenty eight year old single man. A graduate student at the U majoring in medieval philosophy. At the bottom of the list, a sixty-two year old, retired Marine Corps Colonel with two tours of duty in Vietnam and was also a veteran of the first Gulf War. Marc was certain he would be at the top of Slocum’s list and there was no way this man was going to be on the jury.

  The first batch of ten were led into the courtroom by a deputy and, after they had all found seats in the jury box, Prentiss took a couple of minutes to explain to them the selection process. They would introduce themselves and then they would be questioned. First by the prosecution. Then by the defense. As a group and then individually. The procedure would continue until the fourteen lucky ones had been chosen.

  While t
hey introduced themselves, Marc and Steve Gondeck went down their respective lists checking the names off. After the tenth one finished, Prentiss gave Slocum permission to begin.

  The idea behind jury selection is supposed to be to find twelve impartial people who will listen to the evidence and make their decision based strictly on the facts presented and the law as instructed by the judge. The reality is exactly the opposite. Both sides are trying to find people who are as biased as they possibly can be and, hopefully, hear only what those biases permit and have their minds made up before the trial even begins Their minds made up in a way favorable to your case. Since both sides of a trial are attempting to do that, the logic is that you will end up with a jury somewhere in between the two extremes. Which is exactly where they are supposed to be.

  Slocum, while remaining seated, began by pleasantly introducing himself and gently tossing some soft questions to the group as a whole. Things like: Have any of you ever been on jury duty before? Have any of you ever been arrested? Have you or any close family members been the victims of a violent crime? Occasionally, a hand or two would go up and then Slocum demonstrated an excellent politician’s memory by addressing the individual by name without looking at any notes. He would then seek out more specific information about the particular question.