Fatal Convictions (27 page)

74

Like her counterparts on the defense side, Taj Deegan had been working late every night. She hated not seeing the kids, but it was part of the price she paid. And so, on the night before trial, when the babysitter’s number showed up on Taj’s phone screen at work, it was a welcome break. It would give her a chance to tell the kids how much she loved them before they settled in for the night.

But when she answered and heard the panic in her babysitter’s voice, Taj Deegan’s blood ran cold. For an instant, it felt like her heart had literally stopped.

“You need to come home right away.” The woman was breathless. She refused to tell Taj what was wrong. “You just need to see this. The kids are both okay.”

The fifteen minutes it took Taj to get home seemed like five hours. When she arrived, her daughter was crying. Her son, only in the fourth grade, tried to keep a stiff upper lip. The babysitter pulled Taj aside and showed her the note.

If Khalid Mobassar is convicted, there will be at least one more beheading.

“I found this on your daughter’s pillow,” the sitter told Taj.

Taj felt the rage boiling within her as she struggled to maintain her composure. The sitter had handled the note and had probably destroyed any fingerprint evidence. “Pack an overnight bag for the kids,” Taj said. “I want you to take them to my mom’s. I’ll have several police cruisers sitting outside her house tonight. I’ll be there myself by midnight.”

Taj immediately dialed Chief Stargell and told him about the threat. She made it clear that she wanted to personally work with the CSI team.

Once the call was completed, Taj slipped into mom mode. She pulled the kids together on the living room couch and tried to reassure them. She put her arms around both of them and held them close.

“I’m scared,” her daughter said. Tears rolled down her cheeks.

“There’s nothing to be scared about,” Taj said. And she meant it. “Mommy’s going to make sure this guy spends the rest of his life in jail.”

75

Alex woke up on Friday, December 3, feeling like he hadn’t really slept. When he left the office after midnight, his grandmother and Nara were still poring over Fatih Mahdi’s records. His grandmother’s endurance had been amazing to watch. Alex hoped he had half her energy when he was her age. But he knew he needed some sleep or he would be irritable and slow-witted the first day of trial.

Alex shaved and put on his one suit, gulping down two cups of coffee along the way. He already had the jitters. He was chilled, his stomach was upset, and he couldn’t sit still to think things through. It was a good thing Shannon would be in charge of picking the jury for the next few days. It would take Alex that long just to calm down.

* * *

Lawyers know to expect the unexpected on the first day of trial, so Alex tried not to be thrown when the sheriff’s deputy requested that he, Shannon, and Khalid Mobassar meet with Judge Rosenthal in his chambers.

“What’s this about?” Khalid asked.

“I don’t have the foggiest idea,” Alex admitted.

They followed the deputy through the door behind the judge’s bench. Another deputy fell in behind as they walked down the hallway and turned into Rosenthal’s chambers. The judge was sitting at his desk smoking a cigarette, the air stale and thick with smoke. He welcomed them and, in a solemn tone, asked all three to take a seat. Taj Deegan and Detective Derrick Sanderson were already in the chambers, and Alex knew that something big was about to happen.

“Where’s the court reporter?” Judge Rosenthal asked. He took another drag on the cigarette and tapped off some ashes.

“She’s on the way,” the deputy replied. The man had stationed himself right next to Khalid.

Judge Rosenthal turned his attention to some papers on his desk.

“What’s this about?” Alex asked.

Rosenthal looked up. “I’ll let you know as soon as the court reporter gets here.”

They waited for several minutes in absolute silence. Alex glanced at Shannon, who shrugged. Alex knew her stomach was probably doing somersaults just like his.

After a few minutes, the court reporter arrived and set up her stenographic machine. Rosenthal stated the case name for the record, noted the persons present, and turned the floor over to Taj Deegan.

“Last night, I received a call from my babysitter, who had found a note on my daughter’s pillow.” Taj stared at Khalid for a second. “Detective Sanderson is here to testify about the subsequent investigation. I actually have the note in a plastic bag and would like to have it marked as Exhibit A for this hearing.”

“What hearing?” Alex asked. “I wasn’t put on notice about any hearing.”

“Let her finish,” snapped Rosenthal. The venom in his voice surprised Alex.

“I’d also like to read the note into evidence,” Taj continued. She seemed unnaturally composed, her voice cold and hard. “It says, ‘If Khalid Mobassar is convicted, there will be at least one more beheading.’”

The words sucked the wind out of Alex. Shannon went pale. Khalid remained stoic, as if he hadn’t even heard what the prosecutor said.

“Detective Sanderson can fill you in on the details of his investigation,” Deegan continued. “At this point, the police have no hard leads other than the obvious connection to the defendant. My kids are under 24-7 surveillance, and they are understandably scared to death.”

Deegan paused for a moment, holding her anger in check. “It’s obvious that the defendant or someone associated with him is trying to disrupt this trial by intimidating me and my family. Who knows? He may have already made similar threats against potential jurors or witnesses. Accordingly, I’m asking that the court revoke his bond and sequester the jury.”

“What?”
The word was out before Alex even knew he had said it. He turned to Taj Deegan. “What evidence do you have that
my client
was behind this?”

“Who else do you think did this?” she shot back. “Open your eyes, Alex. You think somebody did this for a prank? Maybe I just got ‘punked’ by someone in my office?”

Rosenthal put his cigarette in an ashtray and held up his hand. “That’s enough. I don’t need you two at each other’s throat before we even pick the jury.” The judge sighed and snuffed out his cigarette. “Let’s stick to the issue at hand. Mr. Madison, what’s your response to the commonwealth’s motion to revoke bail and sequester the jury?”

“It’s ridiculous,” Alex said. “Mr. Mobassar was sitting at home last night with his disabled wife, wearing a court-ordered electronic ankle bracelet. Why would he do something like this?
How
could he? Next thing you know, Ms. Deegan’s going to march into court with a confession pasted together from cutout magazine letters and claim that she should be able to introduce it into evidence.”

“I don’t need your sarcasm,” Taj said. Her voice was as biting as Alex had ever heard it. She turned, eyes flaring, neck muscles taut. “Nobody messes with my kids. If you’re right and this is just a setup, you ought to join me in asking for Mr. Mobassar’s confinement so that nothing else gets blamed on him.”

The judge held up his hand a second time. “Okay,” he said, drawing the word out as he thought. “I’ve heard enough. Here’s what we’re going to do: As far as I’m aware, there is no specific evidence linking this note to Mr. Mobassar.” Rosenthal looked at Detective Sanderson. “Is that right?”

“Other than the reference to the case,” Detective Sanderson said.

“Yes, I get that,” Rosenthal said. “And even without the existence of a direct link, the court has wide latitude when it comes to the issue of bail. I tend to agree with Ms. Deegan that it is far better to err on the side of safety in these matters. I cannot let this case get derailed by intimidations and threats.”

The judge turned squarely toward Khalid. “If you’re behind any of this, sir, you need to know that neither the prosecutor nor this court will be intimidated.” The judge paused for a moment before continuing. “And if you’re not behind this, then revoking your bail will protect you from blame for things you didn’t do.

“Accordingly, I’m going to grant the commonwealth’s motion to revoke Mr. Mobassar’s bail during the pendency of the trial and restrict his communications to only his attorneys and family—”

“She didn’t even ask for that,” Alex interrupted.

The judge gave him a nasty look. “She doesn’t have to ask for it. I have the absolute power to impose my own terms, and that’s what I’ve just done.”

“We understand, Your Honor,” Shannon said. She apparently realized that Alex was too emotional right now to respond and would only dig himself a deeper hole if she let him. “Please note our objection.”

“So noted,” Rosenthal said. His tone had become more reasonable. “Given this occurrence, I also feel that the court has no choice but to sequester the jury.”

“We object to that as well, but we understand the court’s concern,” Shannon said quickly.

Rosenthal nodded at her. “I thought it best to conduct this hearing in my chambers so that the media didn’t catch wind of what happened and publish a story during the jury selection process. We’re going to have enough trouble picking an unbiased jury as it is. If either side objects, I’ll be happy to go into open court and state the reasons for my rulings on the record.” Rosenthal looked from Taj to Alex and back.

“We don’t want to make this any more complicated than it already is,” Taj said.

“Fine by us,” Alex said, though his tone said,
What’s the use?

Rosenthal thought about this for a moment. “I’ll have to say
something
in open court. The issue of sequestering the jury is an easy one. It’s often done in cases like this to protect the jury from the press. But I won’t tell them they’re going to be sequestered until the end of the day so that we don’t have more than the usual number trying to get off the panel.

“But with regard to the revocation of bond, my intent is to simply say that some matters have come to the court’s attention that would justify revocation of bond pending trial. I’ll probably get an FOIA request about this hearing from the press by the end of the day, but I’ll take that up if and when it’s filed.”

* * *

When Rosenthal convened court that morning, he matter-of-factly announced that some things had been brought to his attention that made it prudent for him to revoke Mr. Mobassar’s bail. He then had the deputy sheriff bring in the prospective jury members and launched into an explanation of the jury selection process. For the rest of the morning, Judge Rosenthal and the lawyers went about the business of trying to find unbiased jurors to hear the case.

The media lawyers wasted no time. By lunch, they had filed their motions to obtain a transcript of the hearing held in Rosenthal’s chambers. The judge said they could argue the motion on Monday morning, and he would rule shortly thereafter.

The rest of the day on Friday was taken up with the tedious process of questioning individual jurors about their perspectives and biases. Every one of them had heard about the beheadings. Most promised they could be unbiased despite what they had seen or read.

But several of the jurors—especially those who were self-employed, Alex noted—were more blunt about their ability to be unbiased. “It’d be hard,” one juror admitted. “My understanding is that they have a text message from his phone.” Another took a swipe at Alex and his motion to suppress. “Actually, Judge, in my gut I’d have a hard time listening to somebody who’s already challenged the Patriot Act in order to find a loophole for his client.”

In order to keep any one juror’s opinions from poisoning everyone else, much of the questioning was done with individual jurors while the others waited in the deliberation room. Shannon had a clever way of talking to the jurors so that they would lower their guards and let some of their prejudices slip out. She and Deegan would then argue at length about whether this juror should stay or that juror should go. By the end of the day, the parties had sifted through only eighteen prospective jurors and had dismissed fifteen of them for cause. Not one of the three remaining jurors was a member of the Muslim faith.

“At this rate, I won’t be giving my opening statement until Tuesday,” Alex whispered to Shannon.

“You want an unbiased jury or a lynch mob?” Shannon whispered back.

“So far, it’s hard to tell the difference.”

76

Alex practically lived at the office from the time court adjourned on Friday until court reconvened Monday morning. But no matter how early he arrived or how late he left, Shannon was there before him and stayed later.

The rest of the world was getting into the holiday spirit, but for Madison and Associates, there was not a Christmas card or decoration anywhere in the office. There was certainly no tree. Those types of things all took time—the one thing that Khalid Mobassar’s legal team did not have.

By Monday morning, there were documents scattered throughout every square inch of the office. They still needed about ten more days to prepare for the case—and ten more lawyers. And when Alex dragged his weary body out of bed Monday morning, he couldn’t remember the last time he had managed more than five hours of sleep.

Judge Rosenthal used the morning session to resolve the issue of whether to release the transcript from the hearing in his chambers. Media lawyers filed thick briefs and argued at great length. Alex and Taj Deegan both said that there was no reason to release the transcript while they were picking the jury. Judge Rosenthal ultimately decided to take the matter under advisement until the next day.

Alex smiled to himself. The judge would release the transcript, but he would wait until after the jury had been safely selected and sequestered.

By Tuesday afternoon, a jury of twelve members and two alternates was in the box, and Judge Rosenthal promptly released the transcript. Alex made his team, especially Nara, promise not to read or watch any media coverage. Things were about to get even more nasty, and they didn’t need the distraction.

The jurors were predominately white, and eight of the twelve main jurors were women. There was not a Muslim or a person of Middle Eastern descent in sight.

“You call this a jury of his peers?” Alex whispered to Shannon.

“Next time, you pick the jury,” Shannon replied.

* * *

At 10 p.m. on Tuesday, Alex gathered his team in the conference room and cleared off the table. He stood at one end while Shannon, Nara, and Ramona got comfortable in the chairs scattered around the room.

“Ladies and gentleman of the jury, it is my honor to represent Khalid Mobassar. . . .”

It took Alex twenty-five minutes to get through the first dry run of his opening statement. When he finished, the others took turns critiquing his performance. Nara loved it, and Alex could tell that Shannon wanted to roll her eyes. Ramona thought Alex should punch it up a little and give it the kind of drama he brought to his sermons. Shannon said Alex sounded too argumentative. “I don’t want the judge sustaining an objection against us right at the start of the case. I’d rather see you in storytelling mode as opposed to presenting an argument.”

Alex gave the opening a second time, and more critiques followed, sometimes contradicting the first set of critiques. Even Nara pitched in with some suggestions for improvement. Alex tried to keep all the feedback straight for round three.

By the time the clock struck midnight during his third practice session, Alex could feel himself wearing down. His critics, it seemed, were just getting warmed up. Ramona finally broke in and declared that her grandson needed to get some sleep or he might doze off during his own opening. The others agreed, and court was adjourned at 1:10 a.m.

On his way out of the office, Alex glanced at the list on the wall and allowed himself a moment to miss his grandfather. This was the kind of case that John Patrick Madison would have loved. Being the underdog. The world hoping you would lose. A client’s future in his hands. Alex wondered how his grandfather would have approached the opening.

Alex read through the list, though he knew it by heart.

Never sue a client over a fee.

Even drunk drivers deserve a lawyer; they just don’t deserve us.

Sentence number six, Alex knew, was the result of the tragic accident, caused by a drunk driver, that had killed Alex’s parents. John Patrick Madison had been a firm believer that everybody was entitled to a lawyer, but as he often said, “that doesn’t mean they’re entitled to
us
.” His grandfather took cases he could believe in. Cases like this one.

And then there was sentence number eight, the one that seemed particularly appropriate tonight:

For every case, pray like a saint, and then go fight like the devil.

Alex had certainly been saying his prayers. Tomorrow the battle would begin in earnest.