With no witnesses to offer, Attorney Francis Blake of Worcester stepped forward to present his final argument on behalf of James Halligan. By this time, it was about nine in the evening. Blake began by telling the jury that he “read in your countenances the deep and distressing anxiety” caused by the task before them. But “painful and distressing as your situation,” he said, “you will readily imagine that mine cannot be less critical and embarrassing than yours.” This was the first time, he told the men, that he had addressed a jury in Hampshire County, and the first time he had “ever spoken in the presence of an audience so numerous and so deeply interested in the event of a trial.” Moreover, he was suffering from a severe cold—“an indisposition which almost denies me the power of utterance.”
Blake noted two other severe handicaps he faced. First, “the prisoners have been tried, convicted, and condemned, in almost every barroom and barbershop, and in every other place of public resort in the county.” And, second, he confronted “the inveterate hostility against the people of that wretched country from which the prisoners have emigrated, for which the people of New England are particularly distinguished.”
With these preliminaries aside, Blake proceeded with a fierce denunciation of the evidence against Halligan. First, not a single witness could confirm with any certainty that Marcus Lyon had been killed on November 9, the only day the defendants had been in the area, rather than on the day before, or even earlier. Second, the only opportunity the defendants might have had to kill Lyon, even accepting that the murder occurred on November 9, would have been “in the broad glare of day, on a public turnpike road, where travelers were continually passing, and within a few rods of houses in every direction.” It was much more likely, he pointed out, that the attack had occurred “on the evening or night preceding, and by some midnight assassin.”
Blake reminded the jurors that the defendants’ greater speed after November 9 might have many explanations, including the common experience that men traveling on foot tended to increase their pace after the first few days, as they became more inured to the rigors of travel. Moreover, the testimony of the Commonwealth’s chief witness, Laertes Fuller, suffered at least three deficiencies: First, due to the boy’s age he was “not entitled to full and unlimited credit”; second, his testimony was “in its nature, vague and uncertain,” and, third, Fuller’s evidence was “highly improbable and inconsistent in itself.” The thirteen-year-old never identified Halligan at all, never heard a pistol shot, could not positively identify the horse they were leading, and never mentioned the incident to anyone until the next day. Moreover, according to the time frame described by the boy, Daley and Halligan would have had to ambush Lyon, murder him, dispose of his body in the Chicopee River under a sixty-five pound boulder, and return with his horse, all in the space of only fifteen minutes.
“Is it in the nature of things,” Blake asked, “is it within the scope of human probability, is it credible, is it even possible that this complicated work of robbery and murder could have been thus secretly and silently achieved in the little time allowed for the foul purposes by the testimony of this witness?”
No. The only explanation for a conviction in this case, Blake argued, would be what he termed the “national prejudice,” which would lead the jurors “to prejudge the prisoners because they are Irishmen.”
“With all our boasted philanthropy,” Blake declaimed, “which embraces every circle on the habitable globe, we have yet no mercy for a wandering and expatriated fugitive from Ireland. The name of an Irishman is, among us, but another name for a robber and assassin. Every man’s hand is lifted against him, and when a crime of unexampled atrocity is perpetrated among us, we look around for an Irishman. Because he is an outlaw, with him the benevolent maxim of our law is reversed, and the moment he is accused, he is presumed to be guilty, until his innocence appears!”
When Blake concluded, the judges afforded one of the attorneys for Dominic Daley, Thomas Gould, the opportunity to address the jury. Gould, however, only stood and stated: “The evening having so far elapsed, and the prisoners signifying their assent, I decline to address the jury.”
The result of Gould’s inexplicable waiver was that the jury heard no testimony from any defense witnesses, and not a single direct comment by any advocate for Daley on the flaws in the testimony of the prosecution’s witnesses.
After Gould’s retreat, Attorney General Sullivan submitted the prosecution’s final argument to the jury. His presentation was workmanlike, but compared with Blake’s fiery remarks, somewhat equivocal. If the Commonwealth’s witnesses were believed, he said, the jurors must conclude that Lyon “was in fact murdered, and the prisoners were in a situation where they might have committed the deed, and there is no evidence that it was committed by anyone else.” After that, the case simply rested on whether the jurors believed Laertes Fuller.
“Our state of existence is imperfect,” Sullivan said, “and our intelligence limited; yet when our duty calls upon us to act, we need not tremble for fear of doing wrong; we are candidates for another state of existence, on the introduction to which our fate will not depend upon the enquiry whether we have done right, but whether we have acted with an upright heart, and from pure motives.”
After these ambiguous remarks, Sullivan resumed his seat, and Judge Sedgwick immediately gave the jury its charge on the law. His directives steered the jury toward conviction with far more force than anything Sullivan had said. Referring to Laertes Fuller, Sedgwick stated, untruly, that the boy’s description of the events had always been consistent. Moreover—despite the fact that Fuller’s testimony, even if believed, constituted no more than circumstantial evidence against either defendant, and the fact that the boy never identified Halligan at all—Sedgwick instructed the jury that “if you believe this witness, gentlemen, you must return a verdict of conviction. When it is proved to you that Lyon was murdered, that the prisoners were on the same road, in possession of his property almost upon the very spot where the body was found, rendering no account of themselves whatever during that period, you can hardly have a reasonable doubt but they are guilty of the crime of which they are accused.”
At ten in the evening, the jurors retired to deliberate; one hour later, they informed the court officer that they had reached a unanimous decision. As Daley’s wife and mother looked on, Justus Dwight, the foreperson, read out the verdict in the silent meetinghouse: “We, the jury, being fully agreed, find Dominic Daley and James Halligan guilty of the murder of the foresaid Marcus Lyon in the indictment.”
Judge Sedwick promptly scheduled the sentencing for the next day. The trial had consumed, including breaks, a total of fourteen hours.
PART THREE
36
Assistant U.S. Attorney Lydia Gomez-Larsen stepped around counsel table into the well of the court and placed herself before the empty faces of the newly selected jury. Voir dire, the second time around, had produced a far luckier draw. In place of the Dragon Lady, Seat One held a young man bearing an expression of reasonable receptivity—not a trace, thank heaven, of the Unitarian’s overt, deadly skepticism. The season, too, had warmed up, drifted into May, and from the courtroom windows the banks of the Connecticut River were visible, with pale-green willows hanging over the water like horses drinking. There was hope.
As was her custom during openings, the AUSA carried no notes and used no podium. Her outfit was a navy business suit—skirt and jacket, white blouse—and she wore no jewelry except for her gold wedding band. Cradled against her right hip, however, was an ugly-looking automatic rifle pointed toward the courtroom’s high ceiling. After a nod from Judge Norcross, Gomez-Larsen’s mild but crisply audible voice broke the silence.
“May it please the court, Mister Foreperson, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. On October 22 of last year, at approximately eight thirty a.m., this man, Clarence Hudson …” Here, she pointed with her free hand at the defendant and
looked at him for a count of three. Moon tried to return her gaze, then shifted, and looked down at his hands. “… using an assault rifle just like this one, shot down two people in broad daylight, near the corner of Walnut and High Streets in Holyoke, ten miles north of here. In a carefully planned act of premeditated murder, that man right there, Clarence Hudson, sometimes known as Moon Hudson, shot Edgar Delgado in cold blood, firing a customized version of this Norinco SKS assault rifle through the back window of a stolen Nissan Stanza. Delgado, who used the nickname Peach, was twenty-three years old at the time.
“Hudson fired nine shots. Three hit Peach Delgado, one in the left leg, one in the belly, and a third in the upper chest, right through his heart. Delgado died almost instantly. At the same time, a few doors down the street, a stray bullet, fired by this man right here”—again, she pointed to Hudson—“struck his second victim, Ginger Daley O’Connor. As she was bending over to pet a puppy, a bullet from the assault rifle passed through Ginger O’Connor’s neck and tore open her carotid artery. That’s the big blood vessel, right along the side of your throat, right here. Mrs. O’Connor was forty-two years old, a lifelong resident of Holyoke, married and the mother of three boys, seventeen, fifteen, and eleven. Shot by this man, Ginger O’Connor bled to death on the sidewalk in front of the neighborhood clinic where she volunteered.”
Gomez-Larsen now took three steps from her position in front of the jury over to the government’s table. She passed the assault rifle to Alex Torricelli, murmuring, “Thanks, Al.” Alex propped the weapon, which had a safety strip of thick orange plastic through the magazine and barrel, against the wooden partition behind him, following Lydia’s instructions to keep it in full view.
Gomez-Larsen retraced her steps to the jury box, put her hands behind her, and gazed down at the carpet, giving the jurors plenty of time to return their attention to her. Since she used no notes, her body seemed exposed and defenseless. Her posture told the jurors that here was a woman who neither could, nor would, engage in any sort of deception. After the pause, she lifted her face and continued, in a lowered tone.
“Good morning. As you heard earlier, my name is Lydia Gomez-Larsen, and it is my privilege and honor to represent the United States of America in the case against Clarence Hudson, also known as Moon Hudson. As His Honor told you, this is the government’s opportunity to present its opening, a summary of the evidence it will offer—evidence that will convince you beyond any reasonable doubt that the defendant, Clarence ‘Moon’ Hudson, committed the four crimes he is charged with: the two murders I described, plus possession with intent to distribute marijuana, and possession with intent to distribute cocaine.”
Gomez-Larsen proceeded to serve up the government’s evidence in simple, easily digestible slices. First, that past fall, Moon Hudson had been selling drugs up at the university. A student would testify to buying substantial quantities of marijuana and high-quality, so-called “fish-scale” cocaine from him. Second, the defendant was an associate of the street gang La Bandera. Two gang members, called Flags, would confirm this. They would also testify that Hudson got his retail supply from a drug wholesaler, Carlos Arcera, the La Bandera warlord. Third, around Columbus Day, Hudson and Arcera were both having problems.
Some jurors leaned forward; others sat with their heads cocked to one side, taking it all in. The judge jotted on his yellow pad. Redpath rocked back in his chair with his arms folded against his chest. Occasionally, he whispered something to Moon and shook his head.
To illustrate her third point, the AUSA stepped over to the table, picked up a stiff square of paper, and returned to the jury, holding the object behind her back. The jurors looked intrigued. “Arcera’s problem was that people were invading La Bandera turf in Holyoke, cutting into their drug business.” She held up an eight-by-ten photograph.
“One of Arcera’s competitors was this man, Edgar Delgado, a drug dealer like Clarence Hudson, who used the street name Peach. Hudson’s problem was that his business couldn’t keep up with demand. He needed more drugs, but he had no money to pay for them. By coincidence, Hudson also had a grudge against Delgado, who’d beat him up a few years back and put him in the hospital with, among other things, a deep gash in his forearm that left a scar.”
Gomez-Larsen paused for a moment here to check off one danger avoided. After a sharp argument, Norcross had allowed her to mention the fight between Hudson and Delgado, but barred her from revealing that it had occurred while the two were in jail. The ruling still rankled, but she had cleared this pothole with no forbidden hint to the jury.
She replaced Delgado’s photo on counsel table, picked up a second document, and resumed.
“Three witnesses, Jesús Santiago, Manuel Ortiz, and most importantly Ernesto ‘Pepe’ Rivera, Arcera’s nephew”—she displayed his photograph—“will testify to being present when Arcera made his agreement with Hudson: five thousand dollars up front, plus a half kilo of cocaine to take down Delgado. With this deal, Arcera would remove an obnoxious competitor. Hudson would have his revenge on an old enemy, and he would get the money and product he needed.”
In the minutes that followed, Gomez-Larsen detailed the dramatic eyewitness testimony Pepe would be offering about Moon’s ambush; in the corner of her eye, she saw the figure of the judge bent over his pad, jotting rapidly. Several jurors were glancing up at him, clearly noticing Norcross’s interest in this portion of the evidence, underlining its importance. Excellent!
When Gomez-Larsen had exhausted this topic and was ready to move on, she paused, cleared her throat, and stepped over to the government’s table to pour herself a cup of water. She could have filled a cup ahead of time and left it on the edge of the table, but the pouring gave her a longer break. She managed the operation coolly, drank the entire cup, and returned to her spot in front of the jury.
“I’ve been going on for some time. I only need a few more minutes to finish up, so I hope you’ll be patient with me just a little longer. What I’ve told you so far is a sad, sad comment on what one particularly vicious human being, Clarence Hudson, was capable of. But the evidence in this case will show heroism as well. Because almost as soon as those shots were fired, things began to fall apart for the two men in that Nissan Stanza: Pepe Rivera and Moon Hudson.
“Rivera will tell you he drove immediately after the shooting from Holyoke toward Springfield to ditch the car. He will tell you he was very, very frightened. Near the Elm Street projects, he dropped Hudson off. Hudson ran down an alley, holding the Norinco under his sweatshirt, up against his chest like this. We will present another witness to you, a tailor named Marco Deluviani, who had a shop adjoining the alley, and who saw that man, Clarence Hudson, running down that alley, holding an object, what we now know was the assault rifle, against his chest.
“Now, here is where the heroics start. After Hudson got out of the car, Rivera looked into his rearview mirror and who did he see? He saw that man.”
She pointed to Alex Torricelli and paused. As the two of them had practiced, Alex looked at the prosecutor and then slowly turned to face the jury. The effect was heightened, as Gomez-Larsen knew it would be, by Alex’s self-conscious half smile.
“Officer Torricelli noticed the Nissan and something didn’t seem right. The rear window was broken out, and the license plate was partially covered with mud. He will testify that he saw Hudson leave the Nissan at the Elm Street projects and trot down the alley carrying the assault rifle, right where Mr. Deluviani will say he saw him. Officer Torricelli began to follow the Nissan.
“Now you’ll get this story from two sides. Because when Rivera realized that Torricelli was following him, he panicked. That’s the only way to put it. You could say he lost it.”
Gomez-Larsen noted an amused nod from the foreperson. Good. He was enjoying the story. The other jurors stayed right with her, too, as she described the apprehension of Rivera and the wounds Alex received.
“Of course, as you now know, two blocks away from where Delgado lay dead in the street, Moon Hudson’s cold-blooded crime took on a new dimension.” She selected another photograph from counsel table. “This woman, Ginger Daley O’Connor—coming to work at the clinic she had helped to found, coming to give her services for free, and bending to pet a little puppy who happened to be tied to a parking meter—Ginger O’Connor, the mother of the three young boys you see with her in this picture, was struck in the neck by a bullet deliberately fired by this man, Clarence, aka Moon, Hudson. The wound ripped her throat open, ladies and gentlemen. Ripped her throat open.”
Gomez-Larsen stopped, allowing the jury to see that she was struggling to control her disgust. Her voice resumed after a few seconds in a more matter-of-fact tone.
“There’s another piece of the puzzle I want to mention before I sit down. Remember, the type of cocaine sold by Hudson up at the university, fish-scale cocaine? Agent Swann will tell you that this type of cocaine is rare and gets its name from its shiny, scaly appearance, like the scales of a fish. It is extremely high quality, often more than ninety percent pure, and a seller has to mix in something to dilute it before sale. When the officers arrested Moon Hudson at the apartment he was sharing with his girlfriend they found, in plain sight, a large quantity of inositol, a common cocaine dilutant.”
Gomez-Larsen took another drink of water and exhaled a long breath to steady herself. A pang of disappointment rippled through her as she thought of the powerful evidence Judge Norcross had suppressed: the bagged marijuana and the cash, found right in Hudson’s closet, and the fish-scale cocaine discovered in the basement—all unavailable to her now because of the defective warrant. But she forced the thought out of her mind and concluded softly.
The Hanging Judge Page 22