Overkill

she’d begun. It was an effective, if understated, opening.

Jaywalker’s would be different.

“It is May,” he began.

Years ago, he’d decided to dispense with the traditional “May it please the court.” And not too long after that, he’d gotten rid of “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury.” The last to go had been “Good morning” and “Good afternoon.” By the time Jeremy Estrada’s trial came around, Jaywalker had settled on launching directly into what had happened from his client’s perspective. What he liked to think of as the narrative opening.

The story.

He began the telling of it with those three little words, “It is May,” speaking them so softly that the jurors were not only forced into immediate and total silence, but were literally compelled to lean forward in their seats in order to hear him. And by standing directly in front of them, without so much as an index card in his hands, he demanded their visual attention, as well. Katherine Darcy had delivered her opening statement behind a lectern, a podium with a slanted top, perfect for placing documents or concealing notes. She’d ventured out from behind it once or twice, but had each time quickly retreated to its safety.

Jaywalker’s distaste for tradition was matched by his disdain of safety. He was about to tell the jurors a story, a story that he knew so well by then that he could have recited it backwards, had he been called upon to do so. He needed no notes, and he wanted no barrier.

Perhaps it was his ego at work, but Jaywalker was convinced that he could tell Jeremy’s story better even than Jeremy himself could. Jeremy’s turn would come, but it wouldn’t come for the better part of two weeks, after all the other witnesses for both sides had had their say. And when it came, it would come in Jeremy’s halting, hesitant way, constantly interrupted by objections and exceptions, sidebar conferences, rulings and recesses. Jaywalker simply couldn’t afford to wait that long for what might prove to be a fractured, fragmented account of the events. He’d decided instead to tell the story from start to finish now, in his own voice. That way, when the jurors eventually heard Jeremy’s account, they would not only have a framework, an overview of what had happened, they’d even be able to fill in the blanks Jeremy would invariably leave with details Jaywalker had already provided them.

“It is May. Perhaps it is even two years ago to this very day. Jeremy Estrada wakes up and gets ready for school. He’s all of seventeen years old. Seventeen. He’s a student, though not a very good one. Part of that is because Jeremy has learning disabilities, and things don’t come easily to him. And part of it is because he also works several part-time jobs after school and on weekends, as he has since the age of fourteen, in order to help out his mother and his sister. There is no father in the home.

“It’s a bright, sun-drenched morning as Jeremy walks down the avenue, his book bag slung over one shoulder. The stores on the avenue are just beginning to open for business. As he passes one of them, a flower shop, some slight movement off to his right catches his attention, and he glances inside. There he sees a young lady, a girl, really, also seventeen years old. And in that moment, in that split second, their eyes meet. And this case begins.”

Right at that point, Jaywalker suddenly and unexpectedly felt the full impact of the case come crashing down on him. For the first time he could feel-truly feel, way down deep in his gut-the terrible, undeserved plight of this boy, this child, sitting behind him in a huge courtroom built for and filled up with grown- ups. A boy whose only sin had been the unpardonable act of falling in love.

Jaywalker’s voice had cracked on the second syllable of the word begins, and his lower lip had begun to quiver uncontrollably. He knew better than to continue, realizing that whatever he might try to say next would bring him to tears. Even as he turned away from the jury to hide his embarrassment from them, he knew they couldn’t have missed it; he’d made it impossible for them to miss anything. Yet all he could do was to stand there, his back to the jurors, and breathe in and out deeply, deliberately. Once, twice, a third time. He was a wuss by nature, Jaywalker was, a grown man easily brought to tears by a bad movie or a good commercial. But never before had anything quite like this happened to him in front of a jury.

After what seemed to him like minutes but was no doubt only seconds, he forced himself to turn back to the jury box, telling himself he could continue, telling himself he had to continue. And somehow he managed. Each word he spoke got him to the next one, and to the one after that, and gradually he regained control. And as he did, he became aware that something had changed. If possible, the jurors were paying even more attention now. It was as if his succumbing to his emotions, and his obvious embarrassment at doing so, had opened a window for them, a window into just how deeply Jeremy’s story had come to affect him.

One of the most valuable assets a successful trial lawyer can possess is his credibility in the eyes of the jury. Believe me, he urges them in a thousand tiny ways, and it follows from there that you’ll believe what I believe. Now, by the pure accident of having being blindsided by the sudden recognition of his own feelings, Jaywalker had stumbled upon an equally authentic corollary to that proposition. Trust me, his meltdown had invited the jurors, and it follows from there that you’ll come to feel as I feel. And though he hadn’t meant for the incident to occur in the first place, he now fully intended to take advantage of it.

By the time he sat down, he’d been on his feet for exactly an hour, making the opening statement his longest ever. Hell, he’d summed up in less time than that in plenty of cases. And during that hour, not once had he lost his train of thought or looked at a note. Although he’d planned on spending the entire time standing directly in front of the jurors, he hadn’t. Several times, as he’d described Jeremy’s torment at the hands of the Raiders, he’d made his way over to the defense table. There he’d taken up a position directly behind his seated client, placed his hands on Jeremy’s shoulders and continued to face the jurors as he spoke. These are my words, he’d been telling them, but this is what this young man actually lived through.

He’d described for them the fateful events that had left Victor Quinones dead and Jeremy himself thinking he’d been shot, as well. He’d told them about Jeremy’s fear of retaliation at the hands of Sandro and his gang, his panic that they could reach out and get him even in prison, especially in prison. He’d described Jeremy’s flight from the scene to his home, from his home to the Bronx, and from the Bronx all the way to the hills of Puerto Rico.

He’d paused, much as Jeremy must have paused at the notion of staying in those hills forever. But he’d chosen not to stay there, Jaywalker had told them. He’d made the conscious, deliberate decision to come back and face whatever awaited him.

“The day after his return to New York, he walks into the police station. He holds out his wrists so that handcuffs may be placed around them and locked shut. He goes to jail. He learns to call Rikers Island his home, and to surrender his name for a ten-digit inmate number. He’s brought to this building, where he listens as he’s charged with murder. He speaks the words Not guilty and asks for a trial, a trial in front of twelve ordinary men and women plucked from all walks of life. Twelve men and women who’ve set aside their jobs, their families-indeed, their very lives. Twelve men and women who’ve promised to be fair, to be impartial, to be open- minded. And all he asks of them is that they to listen to his story.

“Because this isn’t my story or Ms. Darcy’s story or Judge Wexler’s story. This isn’t even Victor Quinones’s story. Yes, he’s the victim. But as much as we mourn for him and feel for his family, and we do, this story isn’t really about him or his family.

“This is Jeremy’s story.”

With that, he’d turned from them, walked to the defense table and sat down. Just as he’d forgone opening pleasantries when he’d begun speaking to the jurors, so did he bypass thanking them for their attention or asking them-as Ms. Darcy had made a point of doing-to deliver a particular verdict at the end of the trial.

Harold Wexler immediately declared a recess.

To be sure, they were by that time two hours into the morning session, and judges tend to be mindful of jurors’ limited attention spans and bladders. But Jaywalker strongly suspected that Wexler’s real interest was in breaking the spell that Jaywalker had created. For in the sixty minutes he’d been on his feet, he’d succeeded in turning the trial completely on its head, taking Jeremy Estrada from a prohibitive long shot to an odds-on favorite. And as Jaywalker sat at the defense table watching the jurors file out of the courtroom, he knew that he’d never been better and might never be. And he knew also that there was only one thing that could possibly undo the magic he’d just performed.

Unfortunately, that one thing was the evidence, and it would begin as soon as the recess ended.