A Past That Breathes

by Noel Obiora

  Cassandra had little hope for the motion she had prepared for the close of the prosecution’s case in chief, but she made it anyway. She argued that the state had failed to show any evidence that Paul Jackson killed Goldie Silberberg. Judge Barney acknowledged her presentation and denied the motion.

  The defense witnesses went very fast but for Dr. Ike Ogan, the defense’s forensic pathologist. Kenneth spent even more time than Amy did with Dr. Kio listing his training and education until it appeared that Dr. Ogan had replaced Dr. Kio as the most educated, experienced, or smartest witness to take the stand. Dr. Ogan insisted the police conclusion that someone suffocated Goldie Silberberg was premature at the time they reached that conclusion. He insisted the police could not have ruled out an allergic reaction or such as a cause of Goldie’s suffocation until they removed the throat organs and examined the interior of the cranium. When Amy pointed out that a subsequent examination of the removed throat and the interior of the cranium was consistent with the earlier conclusion, Dr. Ogan was not impressed. He stated that the problem with premature conclusions is that the initial conclusion might have colored the subsequent determination. He acknowledged Dr. Kio was respected in the field of pathology and did a good job, but deplored his lack of control over the pathology investigation.

  Aside from Dr. Ogan, the rest of the witnesses seemed like a mop up exercise to Amy. They added nothing new to the evidence. Yet, Cassandra saw each of them as planting seeds of doubt, one witness at a time.

  •••

  After lunch on Wednesday afternoon, Kenneth and Cassandra were sitting together in the hallway, away from their clients. Amy walked over to them.

  “Hey,” Amy said to both of them.

  “Hi,” Cassandra said to Amy with a smile and quickly added, “I’ll give you two some time alone, no hurry. We’ll hold the proceeding if we have to,” Cassandra said and walked away. She took the Jackson women into the courtroom.

  “Kate said you were sick and Cassandra knows I have been trying to find a private moment with you.”

  “Oh, does she?”

  “I realize that you don’t want to talk about personal matters, but are you well?”

  “I’m fine. Just exhaustion and lack of sleep, I guess.”

  “I’m sorry…This is almost over.”

  “Thanks, I’m glad to know you still care after everything. Neda told me I’ve been mean to you.”

  “I liked her the moment I met her. The way she ceded her evening with you to me.”

  “Oh, that wasn’t for you. She’s convinced Iranian women are women of color, so every opportunity she gets, she tries to prove it.”

  Kenneth grinned, and so did Amy.

  “I hope I never draw you in another case my whole career.”

  Amy waited a moment before answering him.

  “Me, too,” Amy said with smile, and brushed his arm, running her palm up and down it. “But let’s finish this trial before we finish this conversation.”

  •••

  Judge Barney informed the jury that the trial was closed to taking evidence and the parties were ready to make their closing arguments. He explained that the deputy district attorney Amy Wilson would make her arguments first, and Paul Jackson’s attorney would then follow. After that, the deputy district attorney might choose to speak again.

  He read some of the jury instructions regarding closing arguments and burden of proof and then turned the floor over to Amy. Kenneth tried not to look at her as she stood to address the jurors.

  Amy moved the television in the courtroom closer to the jurors but did not turn it on immediately. She thanked them for their participation and their patience. “Your timeliness and the absence of even a shred of misconduct is a testament to your commitment,” Amy told them.

  Having lauded the jurors only briefly, Amy plunged into her argument. “No one had the motive, the opportunity, and the means to commit this crime as Paul Jackson did. He was unhappy with Goldie, not because she left him,” Amy explained, then paused. Winning had suddenly taken on a different perspective. Kate was sitting behind the prosecution table watching her.

  “Paul Jackson’s anger was most palpable because he thought Goldie left him for Mr. Pare. For Paul Jackson, it was a measure of his worth in a sense, and to him it meant that he could not measure up to someone who couldn’t write the songs for Goldie, as he had, after all that he had sacrificed. Paul Jackson’s arrogance wanted to own Goldie. He saw her right to choose whom she wanted to be with as exploiting him. But the facts will show, and the records prove, that no one exploited Paul Jackson, least of all Goldie Silberberg. Rather, it was Paul who exploited Goldie. He felt incapable of winning her unless he also made her promises he could not keep. He invited her to sing his songs in his studios, perform in his nightclub. He built up false hopes for her and sought to destroy her when she realized what he was doing to her. Goldie Silberberg became successful the moment her songs reached the industry Paul Jackson had been claiming he sent the songs to. And Paul Jackson snapped.” Amy snapped her fingers simultaneously with the last word and paused.

  Amy then went through the evidence, explaining them and discarding Paul’s explanation on the stand. Amy listed all the evidence presented in the trial in bullet form on a large board. The last item on the list was Paul Jackson’s testimony. When she got to Paul Jackson’s testimony, she began to sing the first two lines of Bob Marley’s song, “War.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen, that was a song Bob Marley wrote from a speech Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia gave to the United Nations in 1963. Bob Marley simply saw that speech, liked it, and set it to music. Musicians have been doing this for ages, from the Psalms of the Bible to the speeches of heads of state, but not to save a murderous soul. Paul Jackson may be a good musician and a talented songwriter, and when he is caught in a clear lie, he tries to use that age-old practice of converting words to music to his advantage and turn his angry, hateful letter into song. He did that in his cell, where he’s had a lot of time to make up his story. He probably came up with the idea after his attorneys told him not to testify as you all were told last Friday. He needs to be sent back to the pen to think some more about what he has done.”

  Amy stopped talking, walked over to her table and picked up a transcript of Paul Jackson’s testimony. She walked over to the television and video player and turned them on.

  “What was Paul Jackson’s testimony about?” Amy asked rhetorically before Goldie Silberberg’s video appeared on the screen. She stepped away from the television to stand by the defense table. When Goldie’s image appeared on the screen, Amy pressed the mute button on the remote control, and left the television without sound. “Paul Jackson would say just about anything to save his neck because Goldie Silberberg cannot speak here to tell you the truth. So, the defendant tells you that Goldie Silberberg called him, and he says that she told him she had just returned from London. But who will speak for Goldie on all these claims?” Amy asked. “You should. Let your verdict be the voice a society gives this talented daughter, taken too soon from the brink of success by the wickedness of jealous rage now pretending to be an oppressed Black man.”

  Amy stopped after speaking these words and watched Goldie’s video without the volume. “Ladies and gentlemen, you’ve heard this wicked man sing, now hear the angel he took away,” Amy said and turned up the volume as Goldie began to sing “A Past that Breathes.”

  If you could reach into the past

  And mend a broken heart

  Changing the path

  Of a life

  Why don’t you?

  And if all that you’d have to say

  To ease someone’s pain

  Is that you’re sorry

  Honey,

  What stops you?

  You may have a past that breathes

  And it is still hurting

 
Why don’t you do something

  To ease its pain.”

  “Goldie Silberberg, ladies and gentlemen,” Amy said, “she would have been a star, but for the heinous act of the defendant.”

  She turned off the television and sat down.

  •••

  “Don’t rush,” Cassandra whispered in Kenneth’s ear as he stood up to make his own closing argument. Kenneth also thanked the jury and acknowledged it had not been an easy trial to follow, suggesting the evidence could have been clearer. He immediately started to attack inconsistencies in the police record.

  “When you think of who had the best opportunity to commit this crime, you must start your list with identifying those persons whose semen were found on Goldie’s bed. The police did not identify any of these people, and they have not explained how these people could not have been involved in the crime.”

  “Motive for committing this crime is anyone’s guess. Paul had a stronger motive for keeping Goldie alive. She was going to be a star with Paul’s music. Why would he kill her with such a motive? Paul Jackson’s songs were going to climb the charts, a vehicle he could use to get other successful acts as well. It didn’t matter who managed Goldie or whom she slept with, she was always going to be a gem to Paul. Think about it. Think about the title she gave her record, this record that was the culmination of her life’s dream—what did she call it? She called it ‘Footsie.’ You heard Mr. Pare’s testimony that there was no song on her record with that title. And you also heard Mr. Pare say that the record company tried to make her pick a different title. But she refused. She wanted to name that record like it was a child she had with Paul; in a sense, it was their offspring. So, she gave it the name that Paul gave her. What bound Goldie and Paul was far more than these officers could understand. Their relationship was far deeper than you and I could sit here and speculate about. Yes, they had disagreements, show me a relationship that doesn’t. Yes, they fought, show me passionate lovers who don’t and I will show you a passion that is false. Dredge up all you want from their past, but you will never dredge up facts that amount to Paul killing Goldie.”

  Kenneth caught the first full sight of the gallery when he turned around to place an exhibit on the easel. Nancy was sitting with Paul’s mother and Jo. Tiffany, Jed, and Anthony had also walked into the courtroom sometime during Amy’s closing. Kenneth placed the police report on the easel and highlighted the time of the report.

  “By 11:54 p.m. on the night the body was found,” Kenneth explained, “Paul Jackson was already charged, convicted, and sentenced in the minds of Officers Fritz, Gonzalez, and Tse and their colleagues. All that remained was how to sell his conviction to you. This trial for them was a formality, an inconvenience brought about by the United States Constitution. It is up to you to make it abundantly clear that the protections of the US Constitution is neither a formality nor an inconvenience, but the very foundation on which we all either stand or fall together regardless of race, creed, or class.” Kenneth noted that the medical examiner, Dr. Ebenezer Kio, had not examined the body of the deceased by the time the police concluded that Paul Jackson had killed Goldie Silberberg. Dr. Ogan, the forensic pathologist for the defense, had made it clear that the police should not have ruled out other causes of asphyxiation until they opened the skull and the throat of the Ms. Silberberg.

  “They want you to rubber stamp their rush to judgment, their reaffirmation of the worst stereotype in our society, the same old lies about Black and white in America. But they forgot one thing: due process. Today it is Paul Jackson’s due process that they arbitrarily deny, tomorrow it could be anyone, maybe yours or mine.” He began to recount to the jury his experience with a woman he fell in love with in college. “We were both kids really, but we were fully aware of the stigma our culture placed on the affection we so clearly felt. One day, in November of our last year in college, we came back from a comedy concert and, for the first time I mustered the courage to tell her how I felt about her. And she just said it wasn’t going to work. No whys…no ifs…no buts…just ‘it won’t work.’ That was how she ended it. Afterward, everything they said Paul Jackson did, I also did. I wrote letters and did not have the courage to mail them to her. I called several times, and when her answering machine came on, I hung up. I drove out to her house and parked in front of her house for a long time because I was too afraid to come in uninvited, and I just wanted to ask why or to catch a glimpse of her. Little did I know that one day everything I did would be enough evidence to charge me with murder. Was it smart of me? No, but is that alone enough for murder? Again, the answer is ‘no.’ Paul Jackson and Goldie Silberberg gave love a chance. Unlike my college friend and I, they had maturity on their side, they knew what to expect, and they knew love was worth every bit of that stigma they were going to face. What happened to Goldie was tragic, but what Goldie and Paul had was very true and special. The two events are not related. Don’t let anyone convince you that they are, or that Goldie made a mistake when she fell in love with Paul Jackson because it just does not work.”

  Next, Kenneth addressed the absence of Rachel Johnson. He told the jurors that the prosecution had the burden of proof, which included the burden of coming forward with the evidence and Rachel Johnson was clearly someone out there who could shed light on who really killed Goldie Silberberg, but the prosecutor had failed to call her. “You must ask yourselves why she is not a witness in this case,” Kenneth said and then proceeded to examine how Rachel Johnson figured into the testimonies of key witnesses Fritz, Conrad Wetstone, Ola Mohammed, and Didi Pare. He again examined the evidence of sexual activities at the scene of the crime and the fact that the police could not identify the participants. “If anyone was close enough to Goldie to identify those participants, Rachel Johnson was; in fact, Rachel Johnson got Goldie her big break because she sent Goldie’s music to Didi Pare.” Kenneth then put a diagram on the easel showing the timeline of Paul’s alleged movements on the night that Goldie died, based on the testimony of the police and various witnesses. He particularly noted that the medical examiner placed Goldie’s murder at about 3:00 a.m., but the last time Paul was seen in Santa Monica was midnight.

  “Look at the evidence. The police don’t know the person or persons who undressed Goldie Silberberg, but they have someone’s semen in her. They don’t know when Paul Jackson supposedly went to her apartment that night. They don’t know who killed Goldie Silberberg, they only want her Black boyfriend to pay for it. If you convict Paul Jackson on this evidence, you convict us all for believing in this system of justice with all the attendant protections of the United States Constitution.”

  •••

  Amy was certain Kenneth had not waited outside her apartment after the incident in Austin when she told him a relationship between them would not work. Kenneth did not even have a car in college. Perhaps he substituted coming to her house in Los Angeles for what happened in Texas. But Amy knew he had called her several times without leaving messages.

  She had not thought of what happened that November night in Austin in a long time. She was touched by the recollection. Yet the argument that Paul Jackson and Kenneth Brown could be the same people was appalling to her. She wanted to destroy it.

  On rebuttal, Amy told the jury to look again at the evidence. “There was only one person with the motive, the opportunity, and the angry propensity to kill Goldie Silberberg, and that was Paul Jackson. His footprints where all over her house, his ATM was withdrawing money around the corner from her about the time of her death, at midnight—she died at three in the morning. He had clearly had enough to drink. You heard the defendant confirm what Ms. Ola said, that he went to Goldie’s house at two p.m. When he said that, I could not believe he confirmed it and I had to go back to my table and look at my notes, because Ms. Ola also said that he left immediately after an older gentleman walked in as they were arguing. So the defendant never had the opportunity to go to the guest bedroom
and drink two bottles of beer that he never put in the trash. In fact, he forgot he left that evidence there that night because he was running for dear life after killing an innocent woman. Now, his attorneys could have cleared up the fact that he came to the house when Ms. Ola said he was there, but also left when Ms. Ola said he left. His attorneys never asked him when he got the chance to drink that beer in the guest bedroom. As you sit in that jury room, you must accept that there is no dispute in this case that it was the defendant’s fingerprints and DNA on those bottles. If he drank that beer in the afternoon when he was there, don’t you think Goldie would have at least put them in the trash? This man, Paul Jackson, lives about twenty miles away in the Valley and works another twenty miles away in Downtown, and he was in West LA, pulling money. Obviously, he was planning to stay a while.

  “And who is making this case about race? Them!” Amy said pointing at the defense table. “No one said Paul Jackson’s relationship with Goldie was wrong, but the evidence shows he could not deal with it when she moved on. His own letter to her said so. He thought he could but realized he couldn’t. Even if you buy his story that the letter was not written in a blind rage. His lackey finds the letter after he has been arrested and decides to confuse things by putting it in the mail?

  “Do not believe for one second that anyone is coming after Paul Jackson because he is Black. There is just too much of that going around this town that when we abuse the claim, we take it away from those who legitimately have a case to make for it. There’s a big difference between the woman Mr. Brown knew in college and Goldie Silberberg. There is a Grand Canyon-sized difference between the two women, and that is this: Goldie Silberberg is dead, and the woman in Mr. Brown’s story still breathes. She might one day meet Mr. Brown again and say I wish I told you why I said it wouldn’t work or if there was anything we could have done about it, but I’m here now. Paul Jackson took away any chance Goldie had to love again, even to love him in the future. That was how possessive his rage was.”