by Noel Obiora
“You will now please go to the jury room and pick your foreperson.”
Everyone sitting at the counsel table stood up as the jurors filed past them to the conference room where Amy and Kenneth had met. Kenneth recalled how some of the jurors earned their living. Except for law enforcement and their wives, the jury consultant had not advised them much on how a juror’s occupation would play into their verdict. Ms. Pollock was a waitress, and one of the victims in the O. J. trial had been a waiter, Kenneth thought. Was that good or bad? Mrs. Tewson was a housewife with no law enforcement affiliation, and Mr. Lynch was the proprietor of a café. Once the jurors exited, Kenneth tried to stop thinking about them.
Judge Barney told the court that he would remain on the bench until the jurors returned from selecting their foreperson, but the court would be off the record. After the jurors left the courtroom, Judge Barney summoned the attorneys to the bench.
“I have decided on my ruling on the letter the defense wanted to exclude, which necessitated that I open the letter. I wanted to give both parties the opportunity to see the contents of the letter for themselves before my ruling tomorrow morning.”
He handed the letter to Amy, who had approached with Kate, and Amy took a deep breath that sounded like a small gasp. Kate flashed a surprised glance at her. Amy turned the letter over to Kenneth, who read it with Cassandra, neither showing any emotion.
The letter, or rather the note, in the envelope stated:
I’m losing my mind!!!!!!
I always thought I could do anything I set my mind to ______________________________________
but I can’t eat, can’t drink, can’t sleep, or get over you no matter what I try. Don’t fucking do this or I’ll lose my mind. Over you
There were several crossed out words that were no longer legible. Kenneth and Cassandra returned the letter to the judge.
“You will have my ruling by eight thirty tomorrow morning, which should give you sufficient time to incorporate it into your opening statements if necessary, when we resume by ten a.m.”
“Might we get copies after recess today?” Kenneth asked.
“That sounds fair,” Judge Barney said. “You can arrange with the clerk.”
The attorneys returned to their tables. Amy remained visibly shaken by the words on returning to the counsel table. Kate seemed happy. Neither Cassandra nor Kenneth mentioned anything to Paul when they returned to their table.
About ten minutes after the jurors left, they returned to say that they had selected their foreman.
“And who is your foreman, or woman?” Judge Barney asked.
Juror number 12, Mr. Gale, stood up and said he was the foreman. Kenneth looked back at Anthony, Tiffany, Jed, and Cassandra, all of whom had expected Mr. Rossiter or Mr. Mellinger. No one guessed Mr. Gale would be voted foreman.
Judge Barney congratulated Mr. Gale and thanked the jurors again, admonishing them to take their participation and his instructions seriously, as a man’s liberty would depend on it.
35
Opening Statements
Judge Barney’s ruling on the letter was in writing and available as he promised by 8:30 a.m., but he read the ruling to the full court when trial resumed. The letter would be admissible only if the defendant took the stand. If the defendant did not take the stand, the DA was invited to make the case that one of the exceptions to the hearsay rule should apply to allow admission of the letter but not for the truth of the matter asserted.
A chorus of hushed voices filled the room, perhaps because many in the audience did not understand what Judge Barney was saying. He banged his gavel on the bench and looked sternly at the audience; all fell silent again.
“There will be silence in the audience for the entirety of this trial or I will send people out and never let them back in again.”
“May we address the court?” Amy inquired after the courtroom quieted down.
“Yes, you may.”
“We accept the court’s ruling on this letter.”
Kenneth stood up. “We have concerns about your Honor’s ruling, whether the defendant testifies or not, the prejudice in the letter outweighs any possible exception the DA may argue to admit the letter in this trial.”
“I won’t tell you how to try your case, if you don’t tell me how to judge it, counsel,” Judge Barney said. “My ruling stands until the People seek to introduce the evidence.”
Judge Barney directed the clerk to call in the jurors. After the jurors were seated, he thanked them again and informed them that the district attorney would be making her opening statement.
•••
Amy began her opening statement and went on to speak for about forty minutes. She thanked and commended the jurors for coming to serve. “There are those who actively come to avoid jury service, but our system of justice would be nothing without the commitment of men and women like you. And because of you, it is the best in the world at guaranteeing that every man or woman gets the opportunity to be heard, when charged with a crime…Regardless of what anyone believes you should do, or what you think the judge wants you to do, our system of justice says you must do what your conscience tells you, based on the facts.
“John Adams said it best a long time ago, ‘it is not only a juror’s right, but his duty to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the instruction of the court.’
“So, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, your commitment means you must do the right thing in this case, without fear of persecution, condemnation, or judgment from anyone. To listen to the facts and hear the truth and have the courage to find the verdict according to that truth, regardless of what distractions and noise anyone might throw at you.
“Now, let me tell you about the job at hand. On January 6, 1995, the manager of an apartment complex on Armacost Boulevard in West Los Angeles went to the apartment of a young woman living there to take a look at some plumbing problems she had complained about. When he got there, he found the young woman dead on the floor of her bathroom.
“The young woman’s name was Goldie Silberberg. Her mother is the lady sitting in the first row directly behind the table where I sat, over there, and her father passed away three years ago. She was an only child and a free spirit, born to parents who were civil rights activists. Goldie saw no colors she did not like and wore scars few could see for the choices she made at a very early age. Her grandparents survived the concentration camp in Auschwitz; so her family brought her up to abhor prejudice of any type. Goldie was pure gold. She did not deserve to die; it is now up to you to see the facts and call it what it is, wickedness.”
Amy told them that Conrad was in shock after he saw the body, and when he recovered, he called the company that hired him to manage the building and then called the police. “There will be some question about when Mr. Wetstone called the police, but there will not be any question about whether the body he discovered was dead already or if he had anything to do with her death. The point, ladies and gentlemen, is that the defendant’s attorneys will try to make a mountain out of every molehill in this trial because they believe that all they have to do for their client to get away with murder is to plant seeds of doubt in your mind.”
“Objection,” Cassandra said.
“Overruled,” Judge Barney said. “But counsel should refrain from trying to characterize what the other side would do,” he continued without looking up from his file.
“Thank you, your Honor,” Amy said, and continued. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, as I was saying, your job is to find the truth and guard it selflessly. When people can’t change the truth, they try to bend it or make it seem like half-truths or make you believe there may be another competing truth out there that they just haven’t been able to discover yet. There is a Far East saying that ‘there are three things that cannot be long
hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.’ All sides in this trial know this, but one side would nonetheless try to hide the truth long enough to sow confusion.”
Amy then told them that when Goldie was found dead, she was not staying at her apartment, but had only come to that apartment because she had arranged to meet the defendant there, rather than where she lived, because she did not want him to know where she had moved. She told them the evidence from the apartment manager, the police officers, and her music agent, Mr. Pare, would confirm these facts. What these witnesses had to say about Goldie moving was important to understand because while there may be evidence of some sexual activity at the apartment, none of that evidence had anything to do with Goldie or her death.
In this manner, Amy went through all the evidence she would present to the jury, the statement by Ms. Ola that he was in the apartment earlier in the day, the ATM photographs, and the timeline of the crime juxtaposed against the timeline of Paul’s alibi. She did not go through the evidence of sexual activity.
Amy then explained what the evidence would show about Paul. She told the jury that Paul was brought up with racial hatred that never left his blood even as the times passed by. “The son of the leader of a group known as the American Congress of Black Muslims, or ACB for short, which preached so much hatred that even in African American communities their nickname was the Anti-Christ Brothers because they always preached against the ‘White Jewish Jesus.’ We already know, and research has shown, that how long you breastfeed a child has implications for his development later in life. Now, you give that child his breast milk with a theory as hateful as the Anti-Christ, and sooner or later he’s never going to forgive a white Jewish woman who leaves him for a white man after he has helped make her successful. The evidence will show that this was exactly what happened between the defendant and Ms. Silberberg.”
Then Amy, standing just three feet from the front row of the jury panel, said, “You have met the defendant Paul Jackson, ladies and gentlemen; how I wish you also met Goldie Silberberg before she was killed—take a look.” She then walked over to a corner by the calendar clerk and pulled out a cart with a television on it, which she placed in front of the jury. Kate also got up and pulled another television from beside the sheriff. Amy waited for them and turned both televisions on with one button on a remote control. A picture of Goldie smiling emerged on the screen and dissolved into scenes from a Super 8 camera of three-year-old Goldie all bundled up with ten inches of snow on the ground. This was followed by a montage of a skinny little girl in a high school play, then a young woman on campus in college still not as pretty as the woman that emerged in a music video that followed the montage. Helen Silberberg started crying again but tried to muffle the sounds. The paralegal sitting next to her quickly hushed her.
When the short video ended, Amy approached the jury stand again as though she had more to explain to them, but only added, “thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your time,” and sat down. Returning to her desk, Amy could see Alana sitting so humbled and dabbing her eyes to keep from ruining her make-up. Amy smiled reassuringly and kept her eyes on her mother until she got to her table and turned around to sit down.
Kate passed her a note: “Well done. Where did you get the ACB stuff from?” Amy panicked slightly and looked over to the defense table. Her eyes met Paul’s and strengthened her resolve. She took out her pen and wrote, “research.”
“Good job,” Kate whispered. Officer Gonzalez smiled.
Paul turned to meet Big’s icy gaze, full of conviction that someone had betrayed the clan again.
•••
Kenneth rose to give his opening statement. Nancy bowed her head, and perhaps for the first time in a long time felt Reverend Brown’s hand reach out and hold hers. They interlocked fingers. Still standing at the defense counsel table, Kenneth deliberately unbuttoned and buttoned his suit before he picked up his notebook and headed to the lectern. Omar, who was still at the counsel table with Kenneth, took a deep breath and looked back at Mallam Jackson with a smile. Paul appeared not to have recovered from Amy’s opening statement and perhaps from seeing Goldie so alive.
Kenneth also thanked the jurors and expressed his admiration for this system of justice. Then he went straight to what the evidence will show: “There were no eyewitnesses, no animosity, no criminal history, no motive—only one contrived on breast milk—and no common sense. Yes, Ms. Silberberg was pure gold, because Paul helped refine her, at least he did for her music. He gave her the stage name ‘Footsie’ because he loved the way she danced.
“Yesterday, as I was walking out of the courtroom, I heard that the record company had released one of her songs from her new record. Guess what the title of her record is? Footsie. Now, why would she want to give her record the name that this man had given her? The evidence will show it was to pay tribute to the man who made her a success. So, allow me if you will, to call her by this name with which she found success, ‘Footsie.’”
Kenneth explained how Paul left his father at fifteen and hitched a ride from Detroit to join his mother in Los Angeles. “In Los Angeles, the only license Paul Jackson could get to start his business was in a run-down part of the city. Still, he built the most respectable nightclub east of Hollywood. In this case you will hear a lot about ‘Cool Jo’s Café’ but not ‘Paul Jackson’s Café,’ because Paul Jackson prefers to give others the limelight. He named his club after his sister Jo, her full name is Josephine, who is sitting right over there with his mother. Industry scouts went to Cool Jo’s Café to look for future stars and steal them from him, but he never relented.
“When Paul met Footsie, she was nearing thirty in an industry where the target age for new artists is eighteen to twenty-five. They fell in love first, then the music happened, but the DA will tell you that when it comes to their kind of love, you can’t trust it. The violins you hear don’t mean a thing. It is the colors of their skin and the religions they were raised in that matter. If this jury were picked in the 1950s, I would be worried. I’m not worried today because I trust that you all came to your duties as jurors with open minds to judge Paul Jackson, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, ‘not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character.’ I trust that you all have come fortified with ‘dykes of courage against the flood of fear.’ A great judge in England, Lord Byron, once said that ‘love will find a way through paths where wolves fear to prey.’ The evidence will show you that the love that these two young people found did just that—one the son of a Muslim clergy who refuses to be silenced about the racial injustice in America, and the other the daughter of a Jewish family who survived the Holocaust. In many places around the world, these two would be stoned for finding each other, but in America they got their chance. Do not let anyone tell you that perhaps they shouldn’t have because it ended in tragedy. Their love and her tragedy had nothing to do with each other.”
Kenneth told the jurors that the evidence would show that while Paul had some past success with a few songs, Footsie was going to be the break of a lifetime with constant royalties as she rose in fame. “It didn’t matter who managed her career to such heights, the royalties would come to Paul, the songwriter who wrote most of her songs. The evidence will show Paul Jackson had every reason to help his muse live, and no motive to kill her. She was the inspiration of his career and the music of his life.”
Kenneth then let the jurors know that the law requires the DA to prove the allegations beyond a reasonable doubt, not just to put evidence in front of them. “When they tell you that evidence of sexual activities has nothing to do with who killed her, they have to show it beyond a reasonable doubt. How? Perhaps bring the people who were there having sex to say they had nothing to do with the crime. When they say they found Mr. Jackson’s fingerprints at the scene of the crime, they have to show beyond a reasonable doubt that the prints were not there long before she was killed. When they tell you she was killed out of
hatred, they can’t just rely on hearsay. And when they tell you that a woman who had not used her apartment for three months suddenly complained that her kitchen sink was not working, you have to ask yourselves, why would she make such a complaint on a house she was not using?
“Ladies and gentlemen, what the evidence will show is that when life gave Paul Jackson hardship, he gave himself to work, and worked even harder because he believed in the American dream. It was that belief that united him with Footsie, even when their fathers disagreed with their chosen path in music. In the rough, seedy clubs of Los Angeles, when no one else would believe in her, Paul believed in Footsie and she trusted him with her career. Together, they were moving toward great success before a beast cut their dream short.”
Kenneth thanked the jurors again and sat down. Omar turned to look at him and caught Paul’s eyes instead. “Not bad,” he whispered, “but when you had the knife in them, you should have twisted it more, and then thrust it in like Brutus.” Paul, who had seemed pleased as Kenneth sat down, nodded to Omar’s comment. “You shoulda talked more about Momma…” he said. Looking from one to the other as they spoke, Kenneth nodded, and turned to look at Cassandra.
Cassandra was happy with the opening statement, which came out differently from what she had heard or expected. She had provided Paul with a note pad to write down his comments or anything that occurred to him in the course of the examination of witnesses. Following Cassandra’s reassuring smile, Paul passed a note to Kenneth saying the reason he gave her the name had nothing to do with her dancing, but he was grateful, especially for the story, and the fiction of hitching a ride from Detroit to Los Angeles to be with his mother.
“Her dancing was a better story than what Big told me,” Kenneth said.
“I like it,” Paul said.