Guilty As Sin

tried.

Jaywalker had a couple of other cases besides Barnett’s on that Thursday, involving defendants who were out on bail. So he stopped by Part 91 early in the morning and left word with the clerk that he’d be back. Back turned out to be just before eleven, and when he walked in, the judge was waiting for him.

Judges come in all shapes and sizes. Not all of them look like they were born to the bench like Learned Hand, say, whose iconic photograph-featuring his shock of white hair and bushy eyebrows, his black robe and his craggy face-has “judge” written all over it. Then again, it’s entirely possible that Justice Hand may have looked like that at birth, only in miniature, seeing as his parents had pretty much named him to the bench, too. Still, we tend to think of judges as dignified, august father figures, peering down from the bench with an overabundance of firmness and just a hint of compassion. John Marshall comes to mind, as do Oliver Wendell Holmes, Benjamin Cardozo and William O. Douglas. Giants, all.

Shirley Levine hardly fit the mold.

Barely five feet tall and a hundred pounds if she was that, Levine was not what Jaywalker would have called a beautiful woman. Somewhere in her sixties, she was either cursed with a permanent bad hair day or simply unconcerned with her physical appearance. Her voice could charitably be called squeaky. She had no use for formality, having long ago dispensed with the trappings of the standard-issue black robe that came with the job. Or perhaps she’d simply been unable to locate one small enough for her. She didn’t expect people to rise to their feet when she entered her courtroom, and she quickly beckoned them to sit if they insisted on doing so. She needed no gavel to bring the room to order, and so far as Jaywalker knew, she’d never once raised her voice in anger.

Some judges maintain decorum through the volume of their voices or the sheer force of their personalities. Others develop a reputation from their willingness to toss troublemakers into the pens at the first hint of insubordination. A few make it their business to get even, taking out their frustrations on defendants in the rulings they make and the sentences they dispense.

Shirley Levine did none of those things.

She didn’t have to.

She accomplished everything she needed to, and more, through her unfailing cheerfulness, her unquestioned fairness and her curious habit of treating people-all people-with uncommon decency. How she’d ever ended up as a judge was anyone’s guess.

Not that she didn’t have an interesting backstory. Rumor had it that in her early twenties she’d been involved in some sort of special operations in the War, and had been parachuted behind enemy lines in Nazi Germany. That she’d been good with a gun and better still with a knife. Jaywalker had tried to get her to open up once about the subject, offering to trade a few of his DEA stories in exchange. But she’d demurred. “Who can remember?” She’d laughed him off. Still, the rumors persisted, and in a place like 10 °Centre Street, rumor was often as good as it got.

This would be Alonzo Barnett’s trial judge, should he really insist on a trial. And though that would ensure a relatively pleasurable couple of weeks for Jaywalker, in the long run it would do absolutely nothing for Barnett. Save for the fact that after the jury had convicted him and the judge had sentenced him, her parting “Good luck” to him would be genuine instead of sarcastic.

“Ahh, Mr. Jaywalker,” she said now as she spied him making his way up the aisle. “How nice to see you. And thank you for leaving us a note earlier.” Then, turning to a court officer, she said, “Would you please bring out Mr. Barnett.”

Would you please. Mister. From a judge, mind you.

Not that anything of substance went on that first day. The assistant D.A. in the part read off a note from Daniel Pulaski. The eight-to-life sentence was still being offered on a plea to an A-2, it said. But if the defendant didn’t take it this time or next, it would be withdrawn. After that, he could have fifteen to life-or worse.

“How much time do you need?” the judge asked Jaywalker, once his client had been brought out from the pen.

“Two weeks would be good,” he told her.

“Two weeks it is. See you then. Are you doing all right, Mr. Barnett?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

It was stuff like that that confounded Jaywalker. Try as he might, he just couldn’t picture Shirley Levine jumping out of a plane in the dark of the night, a gun stuck in her belt and a knife clenched in her teeth.

Back in the pens, Jaywalker had his second sit-down interview with Barnett. This one would take on a bit more urgency than the first, if only because of the ultimatum delivered by Daniel Pulaski’s note. While threats to withdraw plea offers were often no more than that-threats-Jaywalker couldn’t put it past Pulaski to follow through on his. What difference would it make to him if some defendant ended up with a fifteen-year minimum instead of an eight year one? So Jaywalker didn’t mince words.

“If you ever want to take a plea, next time is the time to do it,” he said. “I don’t trust this D.A. to keep the offer open past then. I really don’t.”

Barnett seemed to think for a moment, and Jaywalker half expected him to say, “Okay, we’ll do it next time.” After all, he hadn’t once said, “I’m not guilty” or “I didn’t do it” or anything along those lines. In fact, at their first meeting, he’d made a point of admitting that the charges against him were true, every word of them. But what Jaywalker hadn’t learned yet was that unlike most defendants, and for that matter most people, Alonzo Barnett was never quick to answer a question of any sort. Not that he stalled before replying or repeated the question aloud in order to buy time. No, Jaywalker would come to understand, it was simply a matter of Barnett’s taking a moment to think before responding. A rare thing indeed.

“To tell you the truth,” he finally said, “I don’t intend to take a plea. If that’s all right with you.”

“Of course it’s all right with me,” said Jaywalker. “But it brings us to another issue.”

“What’s that?”

“Well,” said Jaywalker, “you’ve been around long enough to know that the chances of beating a direct sale case aren’t very good.” A direct sale meant one in which the buyer was an undercover cop or agent, as opposed to an observation sale, where the authorities claimed to have witnessed a transaction between a seller and a buyer, both of whom were civilians.

Barnett nodded but didn’t say anything. Not only had he been around long enough to know that Jaywalker was speaking the truth, but his record of guilty pleas suggested he understood the odds.

“So,” continued Jaywalker, “it might be a good idea if we spent a few minutes talking about the facts of your case.”

“Fair enough,” said Barnett.

“Why don’t you tell me what happened.” It wasn’t a question on Jaywalker’s part so much as an invitation. Nor was it something he always asked of a defendant, particularly in a sale case. Strange as it may sound, sometimes a lawyer and client talk about everything but the facts. There are times, for example, when they both know the defendant has done precisely what he’s accused of but on the one hand doesn’t want to lie to his lawyer or come right out and admit his guilt on the other. So without ever saying so, they agree to ignore it and spend their time dancing around it, the elephant in the room. Or, in this particular instance, the elephant in the cell.

Again, Barnett took his time before answering. When finally he did, he spoke only four little words. They added up to neither an admission of guilt nor a denial, but rather an explanation for his behavior. In no way did they amount to a legal defense, the way they might have had he said, for example, that he’d been forced into doing what he’d done, or coerced, or that he’d been insane at the time, or that he hadn’t realized that it had actually been heroin he’d sold to the undercover agent.

Believe it or not, Jaywalker had once won a case on just such a theory. His client had been making a living by “beating” his customers, selling them supermarket-bought spices at marijuana prices. When the cops had examined the evidence they’d bought back at the station house, they’d realized they too had been victimized. So they’d simply sprinkled some of their own emergency stash into the ounce they’d bought, enough to convince the police chemist. But not the jury. Not once had Jaywalker insisted upon having an independent analysis conducted. The sample came back two percent cannabis, eighty percent oregano and eighteen percent basil. Highly aromatic stuff, perhaps, but hardly the kind to get high on.