Guilty As Sin

The investigation had begun with surveillance of “Gramps.” A total of eleven men and one woman had participated. In short order, according to Lieutenant Pascarella, members of the task force succeeded in “taking the subject home.”

SHAUGHNESSEY: What do you mean by that?

PASCARELLA: I mean we established where he was living, at 562 St. Nicholas Avenue. That in turn allowed us to check telephone listings and utility records. And although it turned out the subject had no phone, we were able to identify him through Con Edison records.

SHAUGHNESSEY: Did you learn his true name?

PASCARELLA: Yes, we learned that his name was Alonzo Barnett. From that we were able to obtain a photograph of him from NYPD files.

Which normally would have had Jaywalker on his feet objecting and even moving for a mistrial. To anyone with half a brain, implicit in the witness’s answer was the fact that the defendant had a prior record, something the prosecution is normally prohibited from revealing, unless and until the defendant takes the stand.

But Jaywalker had long ago decided that this was one of those trials in which the defendant had to take the stand. Knowing that, he’d spent a good portion of jury selection laying out Barnett’s record in considerable detail, complete with his many convictions for sale and possession of drugs. So now, as Miki Shaughnessey began asking her witness about those convictions, Jaywalker kept his silence. That said, he did nod once or twice, his way of reminding the jurors that he’d told them so, and that they, for their part, had assured him they’d still be able to decide the case on the basis of the evidence.

SHAUGHNESSEY: Did you learn anything else from the NYPD records?

PASCARELLA: Yes. We learned that Mr. Barnett had a number of prior convictions for selling drugs in fairly substantial quantities.

SHAUGHNESSEY: How was your surveillance of the defendant conducted?

PASCARELLA: Several ways. By having plainclothes officers follow him on foot, and by using unmarked vehicles. Also watching him through high-powered binoculars from an outpost in a building directly across the street.

SHAUGHNESSEY: And was the surveillance successful?

PASCARELLA: Up to a point, it was. We succeeded in observing Mr. Barnett go to various places and meet with different individuals. But he was extremely wary. It was almost as if he knew he was being watched and had constructed an elaborate cover to hide his illegal activities. He’d adopted what appeared to be a very simple lifestyle, and he made it a point to conduct whatever business he was engaged in in a way that we were never able to observe an actual drug deal or anything like that.

SHAUGHNESSEY: So what, if anything, did you do?

PASCARELLA: We-I made a decision to enlist the services of an undercover officer in order to attempt to make a direct purchase of drugs from Mr. Barnett.

SHAUGHNESSEY: Whom did you select for that role?

PASCARELLA: Because Mr. Barnett had operated off and on in the area for so many years and with so many individuals, I felt it would be best if we brought in someone from another city altogether, someone who could pose as an out-of-town dealer. We selected a DEA agent stationed in Philadelphia, a man with extensive undercover skills and experience. He also happened to be a black man, like Mr. Barnett.

With that, Miki Shaughnessey announced that she had no further questions, walked to the prosecution table and sat down.

Jaywalker didn’t have a lot of cross-examination for Lieutenant Pascarella, but there were a few things he wanted to establish. He began with the September, 1984, phone conversation the witness had said he’d had with a civilian.

JAYWALKER: What was the individual’s name?

PASCARELLA: I don’t know. He refused to give it to me.

JAYWALKER: But it was a male?

PASCARELLA: It certainly sounded like a male.

JAYWALKER: Did you ever learn how he’d known to ask for you?

PASCARELLA: He hadn’t known. The call came in to our main number. A secretary routed it to me.

JAYWALKER: What did the caller tell you?

It was the kind of question most lawyers would never have asked, because it was begging for trouble. But Jaywalker wasn’t most lawyers, and he’d long ago decided to throw caution to the wind in this particular case. When you’re ahead, it’s fine to be careful and play conservatively. When you’re not, the only thing that playing conservatively guarantees you is a conviction. And Jaywalker was anything but ahead in this trial.

PASCARELLA: He told me there was this guy dealing drugs, specifically heroin, in large amounts. And that he could often be seen hanging out with a couple of young girls on the stoop of a particular address, 562 St. Nicholas Avenue, in Harlem. That he was a black male, about fifty years old, with graying hair.

JAYWALKER: That was it?

PASCARELLA: That was it.

And Jaywalker knew it was, having examined the note Pascarella had made of the conversation even while the anonymous caller had still been on the line. Though that fact didn’t stop Jaywalker from bringing out now what the caller hadn’t said then.

JAYWALKER: So he never identified himself in any way? Never told you he was a friend of the guy, for example, or a neighbor, or a customer or a competitor?

PASCARELLA: No.

JAYWALKER: Did you ask him?

PASCARELLA: I tried, but he didn’t give me time. He hung up the phone.

JAYWALKER: Were you able to trace the call, to learn the number and location it came from?

PASCARELLA: Only that it came from a pay phone.

JAYWALKER: Was the conversation taped?

PASCARELLA: Taped? No.

JAYWALKER: Why not?

PASCARELLA: Happened too fast.

JAYWALKER: I see. Can you tell us how long your team conducted surveillance of Mr. Barnett?

PASCARELLA: All told?

JAYWALKER: Yes.

PASCARELLA: I’d say a good hundred hours, maybe, spread out over a week.

JAYWALKER: And in all of that time, how many sales were the surveillance team members able to observe?

PASCARELLA: The surveillance team members?

JAYWALKER: Yes, the eleven men and one woman who conducted the surveillance on foot, in cars and through high-powered binoculars from an outpost.

PASCARELLA: None.

JAYWALKER: So these dozen surveillance officers from three different agencies spent a hundred hours over an entire week. Yet never once did even one of them see what some anonymous civilian caller had claimed to have seen with his naked eye?

Shaughnessey’s objection was sustained, and rightfully so. Technically speaking, the caller had never claimed to have seen an actual sale take place. And the question was argumentative.

JAYWALKER: But you say the surveillance officers were successful up to a point. Right?

PASCARELLA: I’d say so.

JAYWALKER: After all, they did manage to figure out that Mr. Barnett lived at the same address as the stoop he occasionally sat on?

PASCARELLA: [No response]

JAYWALKER: And that the two girls were his own daughters?

PASCARELLA: Yes.

JAYWALKER: Did they also discover, by any chance, that he worked for a living, at a legitimate job?

PASCARELLA: Yes.