Even the lawyers, it seemed, had been perfectly cast for their parts. An earnest young prosecutor who'd worked his way up in one of the best offices in the country, without having checked his good nature or sense of proportion at the courtroom door. Against him, an iconoclastic, rulebreaking veteran with a reputation for being among the very best in the business, particularly when it came time to sum up. And there would be no two-day Johnnie Coch rane filibuster from him. Whatever he had to say, they knew, Jaywalker could be counted on to compact it into the morning session and then sit down. They knew it not because he'd confided in them that he would, but because he'd always kept it short. He was hardly one of their darlings, Jaywalker. He might be ten times the lawyer that some of them were, but he would never sit for an interview, tip them off to his trial strategy, or say something clever when a microphone was shoved in his face. Still, he was a winner, and the public loved winners.
Yet this time there was even more.
The media had long ago learned of Jaywalker's difficul ties with the disciplinary committee. His suspension had actually appeared in print, though only buried deep in the pages of the New York Law Journal, a daily whose circu lation, beyond actual members of the bar, ranked it right up there with such heralded publications as Klezmer Music Enthusiast, Tadpole Lovers' World and The Big Apple Alternate-Side-of-the-Street-Parking Almanac. As the be ginning of Samara's trial had drawn near, Judge Sobel had circulated a request among the media, asking them to refrain from reporting on Jaywalker's suspension and the facts underlying it, including one particular event said to have occurred in a stairwell of the very courthouse where the main drama was to be played out. The media had grudgingly complied, on the proviso that the moment the jurors were sequestered to begin their deliberations-and presumably insulated from the news-the media could run with the story in all its sordid details. So tonight's commen taries and tomorrow's articles would be assured of having yet one more enticing garnish to top them off, a juicy bit of dirt about one of the key players.
Nothing like a little human interest to give a lift to an otherwise flaccid story.
The butterflies were back.
Even before he took his seat at the defense table, a good twenty minutes before the judge took the bench, Jaywalker could feel them beginning to stir. It was almost as though they had ears and knew to begin beating their wings as soon as the clerk said, 'All rise!' or the judge announced, 'Bring in the jury.' As if on cue, they would take flight then, hun dreds of them, thousands of them. They absolutely tortured Jaywalker, causing an excruciating sensation to his mid section, filling his ears with a high-pitched ringing sound and pushing him to the very edge of nausea. But they fueled him, too, the butterflies did. And in a very real sense, they made him what he was.
Judge Sobel spent a few minutes telling the jurors what summations were. Mostly he told them what they weren't: evidence. Jaywalker wasn't overly fond of that particular instruction. Had it been up to him, he would have dis pensed with the evidence altogether and had the jurors instead decide the case purely on the basis of the summa tions. Particularly Samara's case.
Now the judge turned from the jury box to the defense table. 'Mr. Jaywalker,' he said. Nothing more, nothing less.
By the time he would sit down again, Jaywalker would have spoken to the jurors for close to two and a half hours, without a break and without glancing at his notes more than once or twice, just to make sure he hadn't left anything out. He reminded them what they'd learned as far back as jury selection, that it wasn't their job to figure out whether or not Samara had killed her husband; it was their job to decide if the prosecution had proved that she had, and had proved it beyond all reasonable doubt. He pointed out how totally different those two jobs were.
He retold Samara's life story for them, from being raped in a trailer in Prairie Creek, Indiana, to her escape to Las Vegas, to becoming Mrs. Barry Tannenbaum in New York. He posed the extreme unlikelihood that a woman of her small size and strength, even if she'd wanted to, could have plunged a knife up to the hilt into someone's chest. He pointed out the total absurdity of the notion that she would have then saved the murder weapon, still caked with her husband's blood, as some sort of souvenir for the police to find. He warned them of the terrible danger of convict ing someone on nothing but circumstantial evidence. He exalted the majesty of the presumption of innocence, the logic of placing the burden of proof upon the prosecution, and the special wisdom of a system that demanded proof beyond all reasonable doubt. He reminded them about Alan Manheim and his two hundred and twenty-seven million reasons for having wanted Barry Tannenbaum dead. But even as he did that, he cautioned them not to saddle the defense with the burden of proving Manheim's guilt, or anyone else's. The only burden of proof, he told them over and over again, was squarely upon the prosecu tion. The defense didn't have to prove or disprove anything.
He spoke from the lectern and moved around the court room, returning periodically to where Samara sat. He quoted from the testimony and used the exhibits. His voice rose and fell, and toward the very end he was reduced to a hoarse, gravelly whisper, which served only to accentuate his final words, which he used to beseech the jurors to find Samara not guilty.
Those who made it a habit to show up for Jaywalker summations-and there were literally scores who did exactly that-would afterward agree among themselves that his closing argument on behalf of Samara Tannenbaum had to rank among his very best ever, particularly if one were to consider what he'd been up against. It was crisp, dramatic, well modulated, emotional and extraordinary in every sense imaginable. In a word, it was everything it could possibly have been.
Everything, that is, but good enough.
Tom Burke delivered his summation early that same af ternoon. He began by conceding that 'Things aren't always what they seem to be. But,' he quickly added, 'sometimes they are. ' From there he led the jurors through an exhaus tive and methodical review of the evidence that firmly linked Samara to the murder. Her presence at Barry's apart ment right around the time of his death. Their heated argument. Her lies to the detectives the next day. The murder weapon and other items found in her town house, complete with Barry's blood. The life insurance policy, along with Samara's belief that it was the only way she would end up with anything from Barry. And, finally, the fourteen-year-old assault, which, Burke argued, placed Samara's unique signature on Barry Tannenbaum's murder.
Listening to the argument and looking at the jurors, Jaywalker found himself wondering how they could possibly reject Burke's analysis. There was simply no way that they could fail to convict Samara. He was reduced to fantasizing that there might be some closet weirdo on the jury, someone who would refuse to deliberate or might hold out irrationally, leading to an eleven-to-one hung jury and a mistrial. What a win that would be. He started bar gaining with the god he didn't believe in, offering up small sacrifices in exchange for that lone holdout. He would stop drinking. He would start eating three meals a day. He would file his back taxes, visit his daughter, make a dentist appointment, go for that PSA test he kept putting off.
At one point, as quietly as he could, Jaywalker reached for his briefcase. He located his jury folder, slipped his chart out of it and scanned the notes he'd scribbled almost two weeks ago. Twelve names, twelve occupations, twelve sets of notations, ratings and question marks. But, so far as he could tell, no indication of a weirdo among them.
Burke sat down after an hour and a half. As Jaywalker had long ago learned, it generally takes less time to say something than it takes to say nothing.
Judge Sobel took just under an hour to charge the jury. It was quarter of four by the time he finished ruling on the lawyers' objections, exceptions and additional requests. Turning back to the jury box, he announced, 'You may now retire to begin your deliberations.'
And the butterflies came back.
They came back because that first hour of deliberations was always a dangerous time. If there was going to be an acquittal driven purely by emotion-and by now Jaywalker knew that was the only kind of an acquittal he had a right to hope for-it had to come quickly. It had to come before the jurors had a chance to settle back and begin to analyze the evidence. On the other hand, there were juries that began by taking a preliminary vote to see where everyone stood. Jaywalker could easily imagine this jury deciding to do just that, only to realize that all twelve of them had cast their ballots for conviction.
5:00.
