Key Witness (60 page)

A marshal stuck his head in the door. “The courtroom’s open. You can come up anytime now,” he said.

Except for a couple of deputies checking to see that everything was in order, the large, classically styled courtroom was empty. Wyatt stood in the aisle between the defense and prosecution tables, soaking up atmosphere.

The trial had been playing in his head for weeks. Sometimes he would close his eyes and watch it unfold, as if viewing a movie. Witnesses, exhibits, examinations, cross-examinations, a swirl of images alternately coalescing and diverging, in constant flux. Sometimes these daydreams would take on a surreal quality, faces interchanging, his witnesses becoming adversarial, prosecution witnesses becoming his allies. He would hear his opening argument filling every inch of space in the room, the sound of his voice spreading to the ceiling and out the windows. There were times when he was so focused, so in the zone, that it was as if a shaft of light from above came down and shone upon him, spotlighting him in an almost spiritual, protective sheath.

As if in a time-release moment, the courtroom suddenly came to life. Marvin hadn’t been brought in yet, and Judge Grant had not taken the bench. But there, not ten feet away, sat Helena Abramowitz, looking over some notes, talking to her cocounsel, Norman Windsor. Sitting alongside them was their team of jury consultants, a man and a woman.

Freida Berman sat next to him, Josephine next to her. On his other arm there was an empty chair for Marvin. Sitting behind him in the gallery were Darryl and Marvin’s family and a few friends: Jonnie Rae, his sisters and brother, Dexter, Richard, and Louis. Other than them, the room was empty.

He walked over to the railing and leaned in close to Jonnie Rae. “How are you doing?” he asked.

She shrugged and gave a half smile. “Okay, I guess.”

“Jury selection is going to take days, weeks. It’ll be boring. You don’t have to be here for this part.”

“I need to be here for him,” she said, nodding toward the empty chair.

She had kicked her son out of the house for slacking, lying, and thieving. Now she was standing foursquare behind him. This is a good woman, he thought. This kid is lucky to have her.

“Okay,” he said. “That’s good. It’ll make a good impression.” He glanced over at Dexter, nodded a greeting. Dexter, looking grim, nodded back.

Marvin was brought in. He was dressed nicely, in sports coat, white shirt, and tie, and he had a fresh haircut. A handsome young man, Wyatt thought, as Marvin stood compliantly while his handcuffs were removed. In appearance, at least, he posed no threat to the prospective jurors.

Marvin leaned over the rail and hugged his mother. The deputy in charge gave them a few seconds before tapping Marvin on the shoulder and shaking his head.

“You okay?” Wyatt asked.

Marvin nodded.

“Stay calm and look people in the eye, but not threateningly. Don’t make any unnecessary gestures, and for sure don’t make signs of disapproval, even if you don’t like what’s being said or done. Some of these people will wind up sitting on the jury, and the first impression they get of you will be an important one. If you need to tell me something whisper in my ear, as quietly and unobtrusively as possible. Okay?”

Again, a nod.

He patted Marvin on the thigh. “We’re going to get through this. Trust me.”

Marvin turned to him. “I do.”

They all rose as Judge Grant entered the chambers, then sat down again. Grant opened his jury portfolio. “Is the prosecution ready to proceed?”

Abramowitz rose, nervously smoothing her skirt. “We are, Your Honor.”

Grant to Wyatt: “Is the defense ready?”

Wyatt stood up. With one hand on Marvin’s shoulder, he said, “Yes, Your Honor.”

“Bring them in,” the judge directed his bailiff.

Two hundred members of the jury pool filed in and were seated in the courtroom. Judge Grant made a brief speech, explaining the selection process, how important serving on this jury would be, and thanking them in advance for their cooperation and participation. That someone was willing to serve, or even strongly wanted to, was not cause for selection. Many critical criteria had to be met. If they were disqualified they shouldn’t take it personally—most of them would be, for all kinds of reasons that they might not understand but that were legitimate.

Each prospective juror had been assigned a number. All the numbers were put into a glass bowl. The bailiff blindly drew the first twelve and called them out. Those twelve people whose numbers had been selected got up from their seats and entered the jury box. A few of them glanced over at Marvin as they passed through the swinging gate.

After they completed the initial voir dire the individual selections were done privately in the jury room, adjacent to the courtroom. Joining Judge Grant were Wyatt, Marvin, and Freida for the defense, and Helena, Windsor, and their jury experts for the prosecution. Both sides had requested that their jury experts be allowed in the room as each prospective juror was individually questioned, and Grant had allowed it. The experts’ active participation would make the process go slower than normal, but he wanted to guard against either side later bitching that they hadn’t been able to present their case to the best of their ability. William Grant had almost never been reversed at the appellate level; he definitely wasn’t going to be this time.

Each prospective juror was brought into the chamber in the order in which his or her number had been drawn. Grant did the questioning; if either Wyatt or Helena wanted to ask a question they would tell him. Most of the time they didn’t have to, because before they got to a particular situation the juror had already been disqualified for cause by Grant.

His first question eliminated twenty-five percent of the prospects. “This is a capital case in which the death penalty is an option if the defendant is found guilty. Do you have any problems—morally, religiously, philosophically, whatever—in handing down a death sentence if the findings in the trial warrant it?”

One in four people couldn’t hand down a penalty of death. They were automatically dismissed.

Marvin gulped hard the first time Grant made that statement. Wyatt put a calming hand on his shoulder and kept it there. After it had been repeated half a dozen times, each time with the same neutral inflection, Marvin was able to bear it without openly flinching.

Wyatt had thought about arguing against this blanket dismissal policy, even filing a formal brief. To only qualify people who could vote for a death penalty was prejudicial against a defendant, in his opinion. But at the end of the day, he backed off. He’d researched the case law, talked with Walcott, Darryl, and other criminal-defense lawyers, and concluded that he wouldn’t have a prayer of winning and could prejudice Grant against him, so he let it slide.

Out of the first group of twelve, two were accepted, both women. Wyatt and Berman conferred at length before agreeing to the inclusion of one of them, a middle-aged white female postal worker who was a regular churchgoer from a Pentecostal sect. After a lengthy, careful discussion they decided not to fight her. A lot of Pentecostal churches were integrated, and as a postal worker she was in daily contact with hundreds of black people, fellow members of the civil service and customers. She shouldn’t have a knee-jerk antiblack attitude. And she’d never been raped, nor did she personally know any woman who had.

The proceedings moved glacially, each prospective juror taking up to an hour to be questioned. There was considerable consulting with experts on both sides. Anyone Wyatt liked Helena opposed, and vice versa. By the time the lunch break was called they’d only gotten through the initial group of twelve.

The first indication there was going to be trouble came midway through the afternoon session. The first black male jury prospect, number seventeen, a twenty-eight-year-old construction worker, ambled into the room. He laser-beamed Marvin with a badass stare while folding himself into the oak captain’s chair, facing Judge Grant.

Definitely copping an attitude, Wyatt thought, quickly sizing him up. He looked at the man’s questionnaire. Frieda had put him in the top twenty percent. This one was someone to fight for.

In answer to Grant’s death-penalty question, the prospect answered in a streetwise voice: “Absolutely. You do the deed, you pay the price.” Looking again at Marvin: “Not saying the brother here did it. I don’t know one way or the other.”

Grant turned to his list of questions, the same basic questions he asked every prospect, but before he could get the first question out of his mouth Helena, having been whispered to by one of her jury specialists, raised an objection. “Request dismissal for cause,” she said forcefully.

Wyatt’s head whipped around.

“On what grounds?” the judge asked.

“This man has a criminal record,” she stated. “He did six months in the Iowa reformatory for breaking and entering.”

On his feet immediately, Wyatt responded, “So what? That was in a youth-detention center, when he was a juvenile. He didn’t try to conceal it, he admitted it on his questionnaire. That isn’t grounds for dismissal, Your Honor. If counsel wants this man disqualified she’ll have to use a challenge.”

“In this case there are grounds, Your Honor,” Helena shot back. “There is ample case law backing up our position.”

“There’s as much case law opposing it,” Wyatt retaliated. He knew; he’d researched this issue carefully. “Having been arrested is not automatic grounds for dismissal from serving on a jury, Your Honor. If that were the case almost half the black men under forty in this country would be disqualified from sitting on a jury. If my client is denied this segment of the jury pool he won’t have anyone resembling a peer sitting in judgment on him. That’s blatantly unfair.”

Grant thought for a moment. “ ‘Peer’ is a broad term, Counselor.”

“You know what I’m talking about, Your Honor.”

Grant turned to juror number seventeen. “Wait outside for a moment, please.”

The man cast a baleful eye upon them all and exited.

“This would be letting the fox into the henhouse,” Helena stated vehemently, as soon as the door was closed. “This man has absolute contempt for the criminal-justice system.”

“Who endowed you with mind-reading powers?” Wyatt shot back. He turned to Grant. “He fulfills all the criteria for serving on a jury. He wouldn’t be in here if he didn’t—unless being young, masculine in gender, and black is ipso facto disqualification.”

He looked over at Marvin. His client was sitting rock still. So, he noticed, was Deputy Prosecutor Windsor.

Grant leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling as if asking for divine guidance. “I’m inclined to go with Ms. Abramowitz’s motion,” he said finally.

“What is the basis for this ruling, Your Honor?” Wyatt asked. If this was the beginning of a trend, it was very disturbing.

“Because his record indicates he will be prejudicial.” Grant sat up straight. “This is not to be taken as a blanket endorsement,” he said to Helena.

“So he’s out?” Wyatt asked, his voice rising in indignation.

“He’s out,” Grant answered gruffly. To his bailiff: “Call the next in line.” He turned to Wyatt again. “This is my courtroom, Mr. Matthews. I make the decisions. Don’t question them.”

A
T THE END OF
the day they had three jurors: the two women from the morning session and a man, a retired accountant. Two whites—the postal worker and the accountant—and one black woman, who was elderly and (at least on paper) fit the profile of a law-and-order type. She had a son in the air force, a major, and liked how he looked in his uniform. On the other hand, she did volunteer work in inner-city school remedial programs. Wyatt thought hard about excluding both her and the retired accountant, but he had already used four of his preemptory challenges and didn’t want to run out before some totally unacceptable candidates came up.

Grant adjourned the proceedings at the stroke of four. They’d start in tomorrow at nine o’clock.

While none of the three selections had been in his top one-third group of desirables, they hadn’t been at the bottom of the list, either. Not a great beginning, but not a disaster. None of the other young black men in the jury pool had come up for consideration, so that issue was still in the air.

But not for long. It came up again the following morning. The third prospect brought in was a black man in his thirties. Neat and tidy in appearance, he was a parts manager for a local Buick dealership. A high school graduate, two years of college, had never been arrested. He glanced passively at Marvin as he sat down, looked with curiosity at Assistant DA Windsor, and turned his attention to Judge Grant.

In response to Grant’s initial query regarding the death penalty the man replied that it should be used very carefully, because it was the ultimate price someone paid, and if later on it turned out a mistake had been made it couldn’t be fixed; but he wasn’t against it in any absolute way. There could be situations that would warrant it.

Wyatt really wanted this man. He had him rated in the top ten of his preferences. Abramowitz could try to find some excuse other than race to use one of her preemptories on him, but there was no substantial reason to, and she would risk alienating her black cocounsel. And he knew she was far too smart to overtly risk a constitutional violation regarding race.

Grant asked a few questions. The man answered them precisely and carefully.

“Have you ever been stopped or otherwise detained by the police for a reason you felt was wrong or unfair?” Grant asked. He was about to wrap the questioning up and add a fourth juror to the list.

“One time I was,” the man answered after a moment’s deliberation.

Helena had been taking notes. She looked up; simultaneously, her male jury expert whispered in her ear.

“Could you tell us what that was about?” Grant asked.

“My cousin is Michael Towles.”

There was no reaction from Grant.

“He used to play linebacker for the Denver Broncos,” the man explained.

Wyatt remembered Michael Towles. He’d played in the late eighties. Not a star, but a good, heady team player.