Bronx Justice (26 page)

Justice Davidoff began by saying that every case disturbed him. He noted that the law allowed him to impose a sentence of as much as twenty-five years on each charge, and to run the terms consecutively. Normally, he said, he would do just that, and set a minimum term, as well as a maximum. But, having read the probation report, and having considered the defendant's background and other matters, he'd decided against doing either of those things.

The judge went on to impose an additional ten-year sentence on the remaining rape and sodomy counts, as well as a one-year term on the weapon charge. But he directed that all of the sentences run concurrently. The
result was a single ten-year sentence, with no required minimum. It was as good as Jaywalker could have hoped for, probably much better. But it was still ten years.

Downstairs, Jaywalker huddled with the Kingstons, as he had so many times before. As always, they thanked him. And they conceded that things could have turned out worse. Even Pope, Inez mentioned, had been reasonable.

“It would all have been reasonable,” Marlin observed, “if my son was guilty.”

They said their goodbyes. Jaywalker found his car, a parking ticket beneath one windshield wiper. He cursed whoever had given it to him, cursed the jury who'd made him come back to court, cursed his profession. Then, because it was still early in the day and he had nothing better to do, he drove to Castle Hill.

 

The next day, Jaywalker got a call from somebody named Ed Kirkbride. He said he was a reporter for the
Daily News
. He'd heard about the Kingston case, probably from a court officer or someone else at the courthouse, who might or might not have pocketed a twenty-dollar bill for passing along the word. Kirkbride was interested in doing
a piece for the upcoming Sunday edition. He thought some publicity might help, or so he said. Pointedly, he mentioned that his paper had the largest daily circulation in the world.

“Interested?” he asked.

For Jaywalker, this marked a first. Over the years to come, he would handle more than his share of high-profile cases, and his answer to the interview requests that came with them would always be pretty much the same: “Thanks, but we'll try our case in court.”

Then he thought of Darren, and his willingness to try anything, no matter how untraditional, expensive or personally inconvenient.

“I'm interested,” said Jaywalker.

 

Kirkbride showed up the following day to interview Darren and Jaywalker. He brought along a photographer, who took several shots of them.

The story, and one of the photos, filled all of Page 5 of June 23rd's Sunday
News
.

 

CITED IN 4 RAPES, CONVICTED
IN 2, BUT DOUBTS LINGER

 

Jaywalker read the article. It was straightforward stuff, drawn heavily from what he'd told Kirkbride about the case. He sat back, waiting for the phone to ring. Would the real rapist come forward to correct the injustice? Would one of the victims reconsider and admit her mistake? Would the photo bring leads to a look-alike?

The very next day, a woman from Bayside called to say
she'd read the story and was impressed with Jaywalker's diligence. Did he by any chance handle divorces?

Other than that, the phone didn't ring.

 

On July 10th, Jaywalker appeared in court to have papers signed for Darren's appeal bond. The surety company's agent had insisted on rewriting the bond, requiring Marlin to pay a second—sizeable—premium. By that time he'd paid Jaywalker's fee in full, the two bail-bond premiums, John McCarthy's fee, the private polygraph cost, and the fees of Herbert Spraigue and Stephen Corman. In addition to all of that, he'd put up his home and every dollar he had or could borrow as collateral for the bonds. Now he asked Jaywalker to handle Darren's appeal, explaining that he could borrow the money from his pension plan at the Transit Authority.

Jaywalker had by that time given a great deal of thought to the appeal. It would entail researching the case law even more exhaustively than he already had, putting together a written brief, preparing and defending an oral argument, and then doing it all over again if the state's highest court was interested in reviewing the case. A reasonable fee would be right up there with the five thousand dollars Marlin had already paid for the trial. And Jaywalker could certainly use the money. He had a wife and a child at home to support, a mortgage and a growing stack of overdue bills. And his obsession with Darren's case had pretty much driven the rest of his practice into the ground.

Yet there was no way Jaywalker could take more money from the Kingstons. He told Marlin he would file a notice of appeal for Darren, but that he wasn't enough of an appellate lawyer to handle the appeal himself. Before going into private practice, Jaywalker had worked for the Legal
Aid Society, and he knew they had a very good appeals division. Moreover, they were free. Now he told Marlin that he wanted them to handle it. He promised to work hand-in-hand with them on the brief, and even to argue the case orally if they would let him. But they were the experts, and Darren needed all the help he could get.

“Don't worry about the money, Jay,” said Marlin. “I can get the money. I want you to keep working for my son.”

“I'll keep working for your son,” Jaywalker assured him. He wanted to add that it wasn't just an idle promise on his part, that by this time it would be constitutionally impossible for him to
stop
working for Darren. Instead, he came up with a more rational excuse for bringing Legal Aid in.

“Suppose, after reading the trial transcript, they decide that I messed up? I'd want them to feel free to say so, and to ask for a new trial because of incompetence of counsel.”

“
Incompetence of counsel?
Like, you didn't do your job?” Marlin laughed out loud. “You know how much I love my son, Jay?”

“I think so.”

“You know how much I believe he's innocent?”

Jaywalker nodded.

“Jay,” said Marlin, “I seen you fight for my son like a tiger, and I seen you cry for him like a baby. I'd tell my son to serve every day of those ten years before I'd let anyone say you didn't do your job.”

Jaywalker was tempted to debate the issue. A lawyer could do his job and still end up providing what the courts termed
inadequate assistance of counsel.
But he knew Marlin didn't want to hear nuances, so he simply said, “Thank you,” and left it at that. But he continued to be firm about bringing in reinforcements. Jaywalker had lived
with the case for the better part of a year by now. He'd done his best, and his best hadn't been good enough. Nothing he'd done had worked—before, during or after the trial. It was time to get help.

He served and filed the notice of appeal, including in it a statement that Darren was without funds and would need counsel appointed to represent him on the appeal. And then, perhaps because his symbolic abandonment of Darren caused him to feel guilty, however irrationally, he cranked the starter on his VW and headed once more for Castle Hill.

 

Late that July, as a result of his conviction and sentence, Darren Kingston was indefinitely suspended without pay by the post office. His supervisor, P. G. Hamilton, received an official reprimand from headquarters in Washington for having permitted Darren to return to work.

Out of a job, Darren became depressed and, after a time, nearly despondent. Prior to his arrest, both he and his wife had been working, and between their two salaries, they'd been self-sufficient. They'd maintained their own apartment, supported their son, and had even been saving money in anticipation of the arrival of their second child. Following Darren's arrest, they'd moved back in with his parents. Now, with a new baby at home, Charlene had been forced to stop working, and with the loss of his job, Darren's ability to support his wife and children ended abruptly. Reluctantly, he applied for public assistance. In a family where both the men and women were accustomed to working regularly, it was one more humiliation in a neverending series. And it couldn't have been made any easier by the fact that Darren's mother worked for the same Welfare Department that would now be issuing his checks.

August 19th, 1980

More than a year had passed since the rapes. Jaywalker found himself in a fourth-floor courtroom at 100 Centre Street, the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse. He'd walked into the pen area to conduct an interview. Another lawyer was speaking with a client down at one end of the steel bars. A third prisoner urinated noisily into an open toilet.

Jaywalker muttered a greeting to the corrections officers on duty. One of them commented on the weather. Probably that it was hot.

Jaywalker can no longer recall the name of the client he interviewed that day, or what he was charged with, or what he had to say about those charges. He can recall only that at some point in the conversation he became aware that he'd tuned the man out and was listening instead to the voices coming from the other end of the pen.

“So altogether, Mr. Jackson,” the lawyer was saying, “you're charged with three rapes, as well as possession of the knife you had on you when they picked you up.”

Jaywalker moved to a spot where he could get a look at this Mr. Jackson. The man he saw was a dead ringer for Darren. A black man of medium complexion, twenty-five years old or so. Same height, but a bit heavier-looking. Multiple rape charges. Even a knife. Jaywalker felt his heart pounding wildly. Totally ignoring his own client, he listened to the rest of the conversation. Back out in the courtroom, he waited until the case had been called and adjourned. Then he checked the court calendar.

 

JACKSON, Otis (27)

Rape, Poss. Of Weapon

 

That evening, he fought the impulse to call Darren. He simply didn't have enough to go on yet, and given how depressed Darren was, he didn't want to raise his hopes only to destroy them. But that night he lay awake for hours, feeling the adrenaline pump and the hope build.

 

The adrenaline pumped and the hope built until three o'clock the following afternoon, when Jaywalker was able to steal a look at Otis Jackson's court papers. Otis was a twenty-seven-year-old black male. He stood five foot nine and weighed 175 pounds, the same weight the Castle Hill victims had estimated for their attacker. And the weapon he'd been arrested with was described as a “kitchen knife, approx. 10 inches in overall length, with a thin, shiney [
sic
] blade approx. 5 inches in length.”

But according to Otis's fingerprint sheet, he'd spent all of August of 1979, and most of September, as a guest of the House of Detention for Men on Rikers Island, awaiting disposition of a burglary charge.

 

In September, Jaywalker learned that the Legal Aid Society had in fact been appointed to represent Darren Kingston on his appeal. He phoned Will Hellerman, the head of their appeals division and the man who'd been instrumental in landing Jaywalker a job with Legal Aid four years earlier. He told Will about the case, and about how strongly he believed in Darren's innocence. He offered him whatever help he could use. Hellerman said he would see to it that one of the senior members of his staff got assigned to the case.

 

September gave way to October, and October to November. The days grew shorter and colder. It had been well
over a year now since Darren's arrest, eight months since his conviction. Jaywalker continued to comb the newspapers and follow up on any leads he spotted. He kept scanning court calendars, checking out defendants accused of rape. And still he made his trips to Castle Hill. But he knew he was only fooling himself. Too much time had passed. The real rapist had moved on or been arrested, maybe even died, or had taken up some new perversion, leaving Darren to face his prison sentence and Jaywalker to chase shadows in the Bronx.

He slowly came to realize that Darren's only hope lay in the appeal. A totally innocent man stood wrongly convicted of horrendous crimes, and now the only thing standing between him and state prison was the appellate process. But that process, Jaywalker knew, was a cold one, a bloodless one. If Darren was to be saved by it, it wouldn't be because he was the wrong man, but because of some legal technicality, some procedural error that had nothing to do with guilt or innocence.