by Adam Mitzner
“It wasn’t anything either of them said. Just a feeling I got when I looked at Lauren. Maybe she rolled her eyes or something.”
“Let’s turn to the murder weapon, Lieutenant. Please tell the jury its make and model.”
“It was a Glock Nineteen.”
“Who was it registered to?”
“A former NYPD detective named Gregory Papamichael.”
“Where is Detective Papamichael now?”
“Dead. About two years now.”
“Did you or anyone under your supervision check to see if Ms. Goodwin had ever worked with Detective Papamichael?”
“We did. They worked together on a case approximately four years ago.”
“Is that fact important to this case?”
“It is. We believe that Detective Papamichael gave his service weapon, the Glock Nineteen that was used to murder Ms. Wright, to Ms. Goodwin.”
“How about Lauren Wright? Did your review of Detective Papamichael’s work history reveal whether he worked any cases with her?”
“He worked only one case with her, but that was more than fifteen years ago, which was before the Glock Nineteen was manufactured. More recently, he worked several cases in the Special Victims Bureau, and Ms. Wright was the chief of that unit. But they did not work together directly. There would have been other ADAs who worked directly with Detective Papamichael.”
I look over at the jury to get a preliminary fix on how I’m doing. There aren’t any nods of approval, but no one breaks eye contact either, which tells me that they’re at least engaged.
“How did it come about that Dana Goodwin was arrested for this murder?” I ask.
“We unlocked Lauren Wright’s phone,” Gabriel says. “Her text messages and voice mails indicated two things. First, that she and Dana had been engaged in a sexual affair over the past several months. And second, that on the night Lauren was murdered, Ms. Goodwin had texted—”
“Objection!” Burrows shouts.
Gabriel talks over him. “Lauren to meet her at the place where she was killed.”
The cat is clearly out of the bag now. So much so that most lawyers in Burrows’s shoes would stand down so as to not call more attention to Gabriel’s testimony about the text. Burrows, however, is apparently not of that school.
“Your Honor, I’ve rendered an objection and request a ruling. The question assumes facts not in evidence.”
Judge Gold scratches his cheek for a moment, like he’s Marlon Brando in The Godfather. “Counsel, please approach.”
We all join him beneath the bench, including Dana Goodwin, who Judge Gold has previously ruled is to be treated like counsel in these conferences. When we get there, the judge says, “Mr. Burrows, is this whole production because of the defense’s theory that someone other than Ms. Goodwin sent the texts at issue?”
“It is,” he says.
After a moment, but not much more than that, Judge Gold says, “Okay, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to sustain the defense’s objection, but only because the evidence at issue hasn’t been introduced yet. What I’m also going to do is explain to the jury why they’re not going to hear more about that text just now. Anybody got a problem with that?”
“No, Your Honor,” I say. The last thing I’m going to do is be the person who says she doesn’t want the jury to understand what’s going on.
“Nor does the defense,” Burrows says, because he’s not going to be that guy either, even though I’m certain he would be much happier if the judge didn’t go there.
“Excellent. Now step back,” Judge Gold says.
When we’re all situated in our usual positions, the judge turns to the jury and says, “Ladies and gentlemen, here’s what just happened in the conference at the bench. As you know from Mr. Burrows’s opening statement, it is the defense’s contention that Ms. Goodwin did not send the text that Lieutenant Velasquez just testified about. That’s why Mr. Burrows objected. I am going to sustain the objection because there’s been no evidence introduced about who sent that text. Not yet, anyway. But that might change later, because the prosecution has a lot more witnesses to call in this case.”
The judge’s focus shifts back to me. “Still your witness, Ms. Broden. You may want to tidy this up a bit.”
“Of course, Your Honor. Thank you.” To Gabriel, I say, “Lieutenant Velasquez, please explain what you meant when you said that the message was sent by Ms. Goodwin to Ms. Wright.”
Gabriel smiles at me and then turns to the jury with the same friendly expression. We’re all just trying to help here is his silent message. All except the nasty defense lawyer who’s trying to trick you.
“What I meant was that the text was sent from Ms. Goodwin’s phone to Ms. Wright’s phone. Obviously, I did not see her actually type the message into her phone. But it is my experience that when a text is sent from a phone, the owner of that phone is the sender.”
I decide to gild this lily a bit. “And to be clear, Lieutenant, you read many texts when you opened Ms. Wright’s phone, did you not?”
“Yes.”
“With respect to the texts on Ms. Wright’s phone that indicated that they came from Ms. Goodwin’s phone, did you ever see Ms. Goodwin compose any of those texts and then hit the ‘Send’ button?”
“No. I never saw Ms. Goodwin compose any texts.”
“Is that also true with regard to texts that were sent from Ms. Wright’s phone?”
“Yes. I believed that the texts that indicated that they were sent from Ms. Wright’s phone were sent by Lauren Wright. But, as I just said with regard to Ms. Goodwin, I also never saw Ms. Wright actually type out a text and press the ‘Send’ button.”
“Even though you did not actually witness these texts being typed and sent, did you draw any conclusions about the author and sender of the texts when you reviewed Ms. Wright’s phone?”
“Yes. I assumed that if the message indicated it was sent from Ms. Goodwin’s phone that she wrote the text and sent it.”
With that, I thank my boyfriend—still addressing him by his rank and surname. Then I pass the witness.
46.
DANA GOODWIN
My eyes ping-pong between LeMarcus Burrows and Gabriel Velasquez. Two very handsome men who are about the same age and very, very good at what they do for a living. Now one is an immovable object and the other an irresistible force.
I say a silent prayer that LeMarcus comes out on top. My life quite literally depends on it.
“Lieutenant Velasquez, my name is LeMarcus Burrows, and I am the lawyer representing Dana Goodwin in this trial. We’ve never met, have we, sir?”
“We have not.”
“I feel the need to get that out of the way because I don’t want the jury to think that you have a personal relationship with both the lawyers in this case.”
It’s a snarky comment meant as a dig at Ella, but LeMarcus delivers it with such charm that it provokes only a smile from Gabriel. The jurors are smiling too. I breathe a small sigh of relief with the thought that the ground Gabriel gained is going to be made up quickly by LeMarcus.
“Now, let’s start from my favorite place: the beginning. In this case, at that dinner that you and Ms. Broden had with Richard Trofino and Lauren Wright on the night Ms. Wright was killed. You said two things, in particular, that I want to focus on. First, Mr. Trofino had a lot to drink that night, didn’t he?”
It’s a clever opening gambit. By using the phrase “a lot,” LeMarcus is being intentionally vague. Either Gabriel agrees with him, in which case LeMarcus has made his point, or Gabriel will spar with him over the meaning of the term, thereby looking defensive.
“That’s correct. He had three or four scotches and a glass of wine. Maybe two.”
Ella has prepared Gabriel well. I couldn’t have crafted the answer any better. Admit the point so as not to seem argumentative, and then reduce the ambiguity. Of course, in doing so, Gabriel has acknowledged that Richard did consume quite a bit
of alcohol, which is what we needed to establish. Drunks sometimes kill people.
“So he consumed somewhere between four and seven drinks, more than half of them hard alcohol, during your, what . . . hour or so dinner?”
“Dinner was longer than an hour, but your math is correct about the amount of alcohol.”
“Thank you for your clarification. Second, when Ms. Broden was questioning you, I believe you said that you sensed marital discord during that dinner.”
“No, I didn’t say that.”
“But you did think that Richard Trofino and his wife had been fighting, correct?”
“I didn’t know if they had or they hadn’t.”
“Is that right? Did you think that theirs was the kind of marriage where the wife rolls her eyes at her husband as a matter of course in the company of someone she’d never met before socially?”
“Sometimes an eye roll is just that. I didn’t come to any conclusions regarding the state of their marriage based on it.”
“Fair enough, Lieutenant. By the way, I assume that you met with your girlfriend, the prosecutor, Ms. Broden, to prepare for your testimony. Am I correct in that assumption?”
“Yes.”
“And am I also correct that Ms. Broden told you to tell the truth.”
“Yes.”
“But, still, she practiced how to present the truth with you a little bit, right?”
I half expect Ella to object. She’s smart to hold her fire. This line of inquiry always sounds more sinister than it actually is. All lawyers prep their witnesses. Few suborn perjury, however. I’m certain that neither Ella nor Gabriel got even close to that line, but LeMarcus’s questioning puts that possibility front and center to the jury.
“We did discuss my testimony. And that included her asking me the kinds of questions that she planned to ask me on direct, and also the types of questions I could expect you to ask during cross-examination. But she didn’t suggest any answers. Those are all mine.”
“But you did share with her the answers you planned to give ahead of time, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
LeMarcus lets this sink in for the jury, but does so in the guise of not being sure what question to ask next. He walks back to the defense table, picks up a piece of paper, and then returns to the podium without once looking at me.
“You found the murder weapon, did you not?”
“We did.”
“And where was it? Near Ms. Goodwin’s home?
“No. In a sewer on Park and Seventy-Sixth Street.”
“Where does Mr. Trofino live?”
“Park and Seventy-Fourth Street.”
“So the murder weapon was found in a sewer two blocks away from his home?”
“That’s correct.”
“Where does Ms. Goodwin live?”
“Astoria, Queens.”
“I see. So not very close to where you found the murder weapon, then.”
“She lives in Queens. The gun was found in Manhattan.”
“Queens to Manhattan . . . that’s too far to walk, wouldn’t you say, Lieutenant?”
“I would say that most people don’t walk from Queens to Manhattan.”
“Did you check the footage from the toll plazas to see if there was any evidence that Ms. Goodwin came to Manhattan by car on the night of the murder?”
“We did. She was not on them. We suspect she took public transportation.”
“I see. So, I assume you checked the train platform surveillance cameras and found her image there, then. It’s the N train, isn’t it, that goes from Astoria to Manhattan?”
“We did check the platform cameras for the N train in Astoria and Manhattan.”
“Was she there? Did you see Ms. Goodwin?”
“No, though it’s easy to avoid being photographed by those cameras.”
“Is it, now? Then why’d you check if you figured it was easy to avoid them?”
“Sometimes we get lucky.”
“I see. In this case you didn’t get . . . lucky. But I think we can agree that you’re not as unlucky as Ms. Goodwin, who wasn’t on the cameras but still has the police thinking she took the N train anyway.”
Ella objects, which causes Judge Gold to raise an eyebrow at LeMarcus. It’s not on the record, but everyone knows he’s telling LeMarcus that he’s made his point and it’s now time to move on.
“Lieutenant Velasquez, you testified on direct examination that the reason Ms. Goodwin was arrested was because of what was found on Ms. Wright’s cell phone. However, you didn’t discuss much of what happened before Ms. Wright’s phone was reviewed. How many days passed between Ms. Wright’s murder and the retrieval of the texts from her iPhone?”
“Seven.”
“And during that time, is it fair to say that you were actively investigating the case?”
“Yes.”
“Full-time, correct?”
“More than full-time,” Gabriel counters. “Fifteen-hour days.”
“You were partners with Ms. Goodwin during those fifteen-hour days, were you not?”
“I was.”
“And so is it fair to say that you spent many of those hours in Ms. Goodwin’s company?”
“Yes.”
“Was there a single moment during those fifteen-hour days when you suspected that Dana Goodwin had killed Ms. Wright?”
“No, but as I said, she didn’t tell me that she was sleeping with the victim either. If she had, my view would have certainly changed.”
“Let’s stick with what you were actually thinking at the time, shall we, and not any after-the-fact rationalizations you may have developed. So my question is: at the time you were investigating, before Ms. Goodwin was arrested, who did you think killed Lauren Wright?”
“We did not have a single suspect in mind.”
“Who was in the running, then?”
In law school they teach you that direct examination requires nonleading questions, which means that the answer is not implied by the question, whereas cross-examination is all leading questions, the kind that on television portrayals of trials are punctuated with the phrase “isn’t that correct?” But more experienced questioners know that if you can sprinkle your cross with open-ended queries, it’s far more persuasive to the jury. The best way to do that is precisely how LeMarcus is doing it now. Allow open-ended questions when you know that any answer helps the defense. It doesn’t matter if Gabriel mentions that they had a hundred suspects or only one, because Richard Trofino will surely be included.
By the look in his eyes, it appears that Gabriel knows where this is going. “With the understanding that it was still preliminary, we had focused on several suspects. The husband, of course, is always someone of interest—”
LeMarcus seizes on the opening. “Why was Mr. Trofino a person of interest?”
This time Ella comes to her feet. “Objection! Your Honor, the witness has not finished his answer.”
“Is that right, Lieutenant?” LeMarcus says apologetically. “Was there more you wanted to say?”
“Yes, thank you. You asked, I believe, who we initially considered as suspects in the preliminary phases of our investigation. I needed to add that we were also looking at prior cases Ms. Wright had been involved in prosecuting, with an eye toward possible revenge motives. But also, we had some evidence early on that she was having an affair. We didn’t know with whom, but a lover is always a prime person of interest.”
Gabriel has just testified that I was also a prime suspect from the get-go, just like Richard. The only difference was that he knew Richard’s name but didn’t yet know mine. But good cross-examiners, like champion boxers, know never to show when they’ve been hurt. As a result, LeMarcus plunges straight ahead as if Gabriel hadn’t laid a glove on him.
“I assume, given that Richard Trofino was a prime suspect from the start, that you questioned him right after the murder?” LeMarcus asks, ignoring the part of Gabriel’s answer referencing other suspects.
“Mr. Trofino was questioned by the officers at the scene. Later that morning, we tried to question him further, but he was in no condition for further interrogation.”
“Oh? Why not?”
“He got sick.”
“Sick? Like he had the flu?”
“No. He threw up.”
LeMarcus pauses, pretending that’s the first time he’s heard this bit of information. His quizzical expression conveys that he finds the prospect of Richard Trofino vomiting to be very odd. His head is cocked to the side, as if he’s thinking through what it all means.
“And so . . . you just . . . sent him home?”
“Yes.”
“Really? You decided not to question the man who, I assume you would agree, would be the most likely suspect in the first few hours after the murder. Didn’t Ms. Goodwin disagree with that approach? Didn’t she say that she thought Richard Trofino was being treated differently because of his money or his relationship with the mayor?”
“That’s a lot of questions you’ve just posed. Allow me to answer your last one, because it’s the one I remember. I don’t recall Dana objecting to letting Richard go home, no. He had already been questioned by uniformed police officers at the scene, so we knew his version of events.”
“Did Mr. Trofino vomit when the uniformed officers questioned him?”
“No.”
“But there was something about the fact that you and Ms. Goodwin were questioning him that made the man sick.”
“I’m not sure I would reach the conclusion that the people questioning him were the only variable. It was hours later. Everything was sinking in for him at that time. We were in an interrogation room, which is unpleasant and somewhat musty. Lots of factors contributed. I didn’t take it personally.”
“Who’d he throw up on? You or Ms. Goodwin?”
“I don’t think he was aiming for either of us,” Gabriel says.
“My question didn’t call for you to speculate about the man’s mental calculations, Lieutenant. Who did the vomit hit—you or Ms. Goodwin?”