Just Revenge

by Alan M. Dershowitz

  “Any questions?” Again no hands.

  Paul Prandus wished he were a juror so that he could raise his hand and ask the obvious question: How could there be any kind of doubt? Didn’t Max Menuchen admit that he had kidnapped and murdered his father? If the jury acquitted, it could be only out of sympathy, not justice.

  “Okay, I have one remaining item of business with the lawyers before I wrap up the instructions. Sidebar, gentlemen.

  “I’m still up in the air about your final suggested instruction, Mr. Ringel. You’ve asked me to tell the jury that they are the conscience of the community, whose job it is to find the facts. But then you want me to say that in applying the law to the facts, they should be guided by their own sense of justice. I’m disinclined to say that, but I’m willing to hear from you briefly.”

  “Thanks, Judge. The jury is the conscience of the community. That was the message of the famous John Peter Zenger case, even before we became a nation. In that case, the jury refused to convict a New York publisher of defamation, even though the colonial law required his conviction. In the centuries since that case, juries have continued to serve as the conscience of the community. There is no reason why they should not be told what their job is.”

  “Mr. Cox, I’m certain you disagree.”

  “I don’t disagree with Mr. Ringel’s description of what juries have done—for better or worse. Southern juries acquitted whites who murdered black civil rights workers, and other juries have refused to convict some who deserved to be acquitted. My quarrel is with the appropriateness of Your Honor explicitly telling the jury that they may engage in jury nullification. You should not be inviting them to break the law.”

  “It’s a close call,” Judge Tree said. “There are cases on both sides. I don’t like the instruction for the reasons so ably argued by Mr. Cox, especially in a case like this one, in which there was so much emotional testimony. But I do think that doubts about instructions of this sort should be resolved in favor of the defendant. I’m going to give it, not exactly as Mr. Ringel drafted it, but in substance. I will tell the jury that they should be guided by their sense of justice.”

  “Objection, Your Honor,” Cox said, with no hope of prevailing.

  “Duly noted, Mr. Cox.”

  Judge Tree then completed his instructions, and the jury began its deliberations.

  It would be a long wait for Max Menuchen, for Paul Prandus, for Abe Ringel—and for an anxious public, which continued to debate the pros and cons of Max Menuchen’s unusual means of achieving justice.

  That night the TV talk shows asked the inevitable question: “Do you think the defendant Max Menuchen did the right thing?” The experts nearly all said no. The laypeople who called in to the shows were split down the middle.

  Part VIII

  Justice?

  Chapter 54

  THE JURY DELIBERATES

  Abe watched as the jurors disappeared from view. What he wouldn’t have given to be a fly on the wall of their deliberations. He understood the reasons jurors must be free to consider the evidence behind closed doors. Still, he wished he could learn whether his arguments—his ahas—had worked.

  The twelve jurors entered the windowless jury room and moved uneasily around the large table. They did not know where to sit or how to begin their deliberations. They didn’t even know how to go about selecting a foreperson.

  Sandy Kelley was a short, feisty, warm Irishwoman in her late forties whom everyone got along with. Jim Hamilton said out loud what the other jurors were thinking: “Why don’t we make Sandy foreperson?” The others nodded in agreement.

  “Okay, so let’s start with kidnapping. They snatched him, tied him up, and made him watch those horrible videos. If that’s not kidnapping, what is?”

  “There was no ransom,” observed Janet Gold.

  “Judge said there didn’t have to be,” snapped Sandy.

  “Maybe, but he also told us to use our common sense—our sense of justice, I think was how he put it,” said Joe Parola, stretching his large arms.

  “What about murder?” Sandy asked.

  “I can’t vote to convict for murder,” said Joe Parola. “The bastard killed himself, and he got what was coming.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” interjected Faith Gramaldi. “Prandus would never have killed himself if the professor hadn’t made him watch the videos.”

  “The professor would never have made him watch the videos if Prandus hadn’t killed his whole family,” said Gold.

  “The bastard got what was coming to him,” repeated Parola.

  “No one has the right to play God,” said John Dolan.

  “What do you think we’re being asked to do?” replied Gold.

  Parola stood up, getting more agitated. “How many of you can look me in the eye and tell me you wouldn’t have done worse if that bastard killed your family?”

  “Would you please stop calling him a bastard,” Muriel Baker said. “He’s dead, and it makes me uncomfortable.”

  “Okay, but he who is without sin, let him cast the first stone.”

  “I’ll cast the first stone,” said Charles Duncan. “I know that I could never kill a man who was strapped into a chair.”

  “You mean, like in an electric chair?” Parola interrupted.

  “You know that’s not the same,” Duncan shot back.

  The oldest, Patricia McGinnity, had not yet spoken. Sandy pointed to her after she raised her hand politely.

  “I’m seventy-six years old, and I’ve lived a bit longer than the rest of you. That doesn’t make me any smarter, but it also doesn’t make me any dumber.

  “I used to think God would straighten all this out. My nephew, who is a Jesuit priest, told me something I want to share with you. He said there are two times in life you should behave like an atheist—when you should act as if there were no God. The first is when you are asked for charity. Give as if God were not there to help. The second is when you are serving on a jury. Decide the case as if there were no God and no hereafter. I’m not going to play God. I’m going to be old Patricia McGinnity, a God-fearing, churchgoing woman, who is going to decide this case as if there were no God and no hereafter.”

  There was a momentary silence, and then the discussion continued.

  While the jurors continued to deliberate, Max was allowed to remain in the courtroom. Judge Tree was extremely lenient with visitation, and he kept the courtroom open until eight o’clock at night, in the event the jury needed guidance. The only people in the courtroom were the older Max and the younger Max. Occasionally Abe would drop by, sometimes with Rendi. Emma and Jacob had begun their classes. Danielle was told to stay away, in the event that she was brought to trial.

  These days in the empty courtroom helped Max to establish a connection with his newfound nephew. The two of them would sit for hours, talking. Max was pessimistic about the outcome of the case, especially after several days passed with no verdict. Abe had told him that a quick verdict generally meant acquittal and that a slow verdict could mean trouble. But Max also felt that regardless of the outcome, he had won. Prandus’s death seemed to be helping Max to put the past behind him and had brought to light a new Menuchen. The younger Max paced. The TV pundits all predicted conviction on both counts.

  Chapter 55

  VERDICT

  On the third day of deliberations, the shouting inside the jury room became so intense that reporters were actually able to hear some of the jurors’ words. The bailiffs told Judge Tree, who called the jury back in.

  “Time for the ‘Ex-Lax charge,’ ” Judge Tree whispered to the lawyers. That was the name given to a jury instruction designed to unblock an apparently deadlocked jury. Judge Tree turned toward the jurors, none of whom were now smiling, and said: “I would like you to go back and try to reach a verdict. Whoever is holding out should listen carefully to the others. If they convince you, change your mind. If they don’t, stick to your guns.”

  “What does that mean?” Ma
x asked Abe.

  “It means the judge doesn’t want a hung jury, because a hung jury means starting all over again.”

  “We would have to go through the entire trial from the very beginning? Isn’t that double jeopardy?” Max asked despondently.

  “No. A hung jury doesn’t count as a trial. It’s like a ‘hin-doo’ in sports. A do-over. We start all over again with a brand-new jury. Judges hate a hung jury. It’s a sign of failure. It makes it seem that the first trial was a waste of time and money.”

  “What about lawyers? What would you think of a hung jury in this case?”

  “It’s like kissing your cousin. It’s a tie, though it’s a hell of a lot better than a conviction.”

  “Do you think there will be a conviction, Abe?”

  “I don’t know. It’s possible. The Ex-Lax charge has a way of coercing holdout jurors to go along with the majority. If they come back soon, it may be a bad sign.”

  As Abe was finishing his thought, the bailiff announced, “The jury has completed its deliberations.”

  “Uh-oh,” Abe said, putting an arm around Max.

  The jury filed back to their seats in the courtroom. There were looks of anger on some of their faces.

  “Have you reached a verdict on either or both counts, Madame Forelady?” Judge Tree inquired.

  There was utter silence in the courtroom.

  “We are hopelessly deadlocked on both counts,” Sandy Kelley said, throwing up her hands in exasperation. “No one will budge. We give up.”

  There was a collective groan from the spectators as both lawyers lowered their heads dejectedly.

  “Well, I guess we’ll just have to start all over again with a new jury,” the judge announced, shaking his head in frustration.

  Paul sat in shocked silence as the significance of a hung jury registered. He’d known what he was going to do in the event of a conviction. He’d known what he had dreamed of doing if the jury had acquitted. But this—a hung jury. It didn’t resolve anything. The jury had not done its job. The legal system had failed him and his father.

  As Paul listened halfheartedly to the judge and lawyers doing their increasingly irrelevant legal business, he strained to control himself.

  Judge Tree announced that he would schedule a retrial within two weeks.

  Paul watched Abe rise to respond. He saw Max whispering in his lawyer’s ear. Everything seemed to be in slow motion with the sound turned off. Paul’s brain was pounding with conflicting emotions. The Prandus within him was demanding revenge.

  Paul looked into the eyes of Abe Ringel, as the lawyer sought bail for his client. He felt nothing but hatred for his fellow lawyer. It was Ringel’s fault—this hung jury. The copout, the injustice of uncertainty. The need to undergo the emotions and humiliation of a trial once again.

  Then Paul looked at the man who had driven his father to suicide. He felt even greater hatred. After all, this was the man who had considered murdering his innocent eight-year-old son. This was the man who had tortured his father—and him—by creating that diabolical video. He remembered the face of his father laid out on the steel table of the morgue—the father he loved, but whose evil deeds he could not comprehend, the father whose death cried out for revenge. He remembered his own son’s demand for justice. Now he, Paul, must do something to balance the ledger.

  Suddenly Paul’s conflicting thoughts coalesced into action. He reached under the bench and opened up the large litigation briefcase he had brought into the courtroom. As a lawyer well-known to the security guards, he had been waved around the metal detector. He was part of the system of justice, sworn to nonviolent resolution of conflicts. The irony was not lost on Paul as he reached slowly into the briefcase. His hand found a box about the size of a milk container. Quickly he pulled it out and cradled it in his arms. Then he stood up and quickly bolted through the low swinging doors that separated spectators from participants. He had been a spectator to justice for too long. Now he was becoming a participant. He ran toward the defense table as Freddy shouted, “Don’t do it, Paul! Think of your son.”

  An overweight bailiff grabbed Paul, but the athletic younger man easily broke loose, knocking the startled bailiff to the ground. In an instant Paul was standing face-to-face with Max, looking into his eyes. It was all happening so fast.

  Max did not say a word. His expression did not ask for pity. He was, after all, looking into the eyes of a Prandus—a different Prandus, but a Prandus nonetheless. Max remembered the steel blue eyes of the man who had shot him. They looked the same.

  In one quick motion Paul opened the box, removed a strangely shaped metallic object, and thrust it toward Max.

  At the very moment Paul was reaching into his litigation bag, something else was happening at the rear of the courtroom. The old Lithuanian man in the wheelchair, who had been to court every day, reached behind him and opened the compartment that housed the chair’s motor. Quickly he pulled out the thirty-eight-caliber pistol he had secreted there that morning. The old man did not see Paul dashing through the low swinging doors as he raised his arm and took careful aim at Max Menuchen, the man who had killed his best friend. As the old man squeezed the trigger, he shouted, the Lithuanian word for “revenge.”

  The old man got off one round before Peter Vovus pounced on him, knocking the gun away and cursing at him in Lithuanian.

  The lethal bullet was aimed directly at Max’s heart. An instant earlier it would have shattered Max’s vital organs. Instead the bullet smacked against the metal object that Paul had just thrust in Max’s direction. It made an eerie clanging sound and ricocheted into the wall. Max was knocked to the floor. For a moment he thought he had been attacked by Paul Prandus. Then he realized that the metal object that had saved his life was the Marrano chalice, the same chalice that Marcelus Prandus had stolen from his family, along with their lives.

  There was pandemonium in the courtroom as bailiffs removed the old man in the wheelchair. Abe helped Max to his feet as the shaken judge gaveled for order. Two bailiffs were holding Paul Prandus.

  “The chalice belongs to your family, not to mine,” Paul said.

  Then he announced, “I do not want a retrial. No jury will convict this man, and this hung jury is better than an acquittal. No more trials. We have had enough.”

  “This man”—Cox pointed at Max—“don’t you want him brought to justice?”

  Judge Tree interrupted. “I want to know, and I want to know now,” he shouted at the court guards, “how a gun found its way past security today.”

  A sheepish guard tried to explain. “We don’t search wheelchairs, Your Honor.”

  “From now on even the pope gets searched, and I don’t care if he’s in a wheelchair. Now back to the business at hand. Mr. Prandus, we’ll deal with your behavior later. Now, complete what you were saying.”

  “If the jury had acquitted this man, I don’t know what I would have—” Paul broke off his statement, stood up tall, looked directly at Max, and spoke in a whisper:

  “The cycle of revenge must stop before it consumes even my son. We don’t need any more lawyers, judges, and jurors to sit in judgment over this case. It’s too complex for the law. It has to be resolved outside of the courtroom. I want revenge, not justice, and my religion tells me I am not entitled to revenge. The charges against Max Menuchen and Danielle Grant should be dropped.”

  The two Maxes stood speechless as they watched Paul Prandus walk away. For the first time since Ponary Woods, the older Max Menuchen understood that justice was possible even from someone whose father was capable of unmitigated evil. For the first time since he’d learned who his biological father was, the younger Max was not afraid of being part Prandus. For the first time since she was raped by her grandfather, Danielle Grant—who was sitting in the rear of the courtroom to hear the verdict delivered—saw powerful evidence that evil and goodness were personal and not inherited.

  Max was in a daze as events moved quickly around him. Erskine Cox a
nnounced that he would accede to Paul’s wishes and drop the charges. Judge Tree ordered the indictments dismissed and announced that Max and Danielle were “free to go.” Max thanked Abe and turned quickly in the direction of his nephew. Abe walked over to Freddy Burns and whispered, “Thanks for whatever you did.”

  Freddy smiled and said, “I had no idea what he was going to do. Frankly, I was scared shitless he was going to try to hurt Max—or you. Instead, he saved Max’s life from that idiot in the wheelchair.”

  “By accident,” Abe interjected.

  “If you believe in accidents,” Freddy added, looking upward. “Paul’s a conflicted man,” he continued. “His good side won out, thanks to you and a little help from upstairs.”

  “Why thanks to me? He hates me.”

  “Yes, he does. But I think your arguments eventually got to him—on some level. That was your plan all along, wasn’t it? Paul was the one juror you had to convince. That’s why you allowed him to remain in the courtroom after he finished testifying. Right?”

  “Guilty as charged,” Abe acknowledged with a wry smile.

  The two Maxes embraced tightly, tears flowing from their eyes. As the younger Max took his mother’s letter out of the letter case and kissed it, Abe Ringel thought of the talmudic saying that Haskell Levine had always kept on his office desk: “He who kills even one human being, it is as if he killed the whole world. He who saves even a single human being, it is as if he saved the whole world.” To that Abe silently added: “He or she who achieves perfect justice in relationship to even one human being, it is as if they had achieved perfect justice for the whole world.” Abe was thinking as much of Paul Prandus as Max Menuchen.