The Bomb Maker's Son

by Robert Rotstein

  “I don’t follow the serious news,” Joey says. “No gossip or talk radio, either. Bad Karma.”

  The judge conducts a scathing cross-examination, asking whether Joey knows who the president is (of course he does, but he didn’t vote, all politicians are the same); whether he’s heard of 9/11 (horrific, he was in the ninth grade, and his school in Salinas, California, was closed for a week); and whether he’s aware that there were wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (that’s why I don’t listen to the news, all that stuff is such a downer). He avers three times over that he could weigh the evidence objectively and apply the law (that’s what it’s all about, Judge, right?).

  “I like this guy,” Lovely whispers.

  “Not me,” I say. I don’t believe he hasn’t heard about this case. I think he’s trying to look unsullied so he can wheedle his way onto the jury. People who do that have an agenda, and Joey’s might be to convict a terrorist and sell his story to the tabloids.

  Judge Gibson lets Joey remain in the box and moves on, asking the others what they know about the case. He excuses several jurors for cause. One persistent woman says she’ll hold it against Holzner if he doesn’t take the witness stand, even though that’s his right. Two others say they already know that Holzner is guilty. One guy proclaims that Holzner is a worse terrorist than Osama bin Laden.

  After exhausting the subjects of Playa Delta and Ian Holzner, the judge says, “How many of you know that defense counsel Parker Stern used to be Parky Gerald?” Almost everyone raises a hand, including Joey.

  After four hours of voir dire, the judge’s scalp is blotched and beaded with sweat, and he’s continually rubbing his eyes.

  Because this is a death-penalty case, each side has twenty peremptory challenges—the right to get rid of a prospective juror without cause. Marilee Reddick uses her challenges to excuse a college history professor who ran for office on the left-wing Peace & Freedom Party ticket, numerous others who oppose the death penalty, and four people who appear to be of Middle Eastern descent. Lovely reminds me that it’s illegal to excuse prospective jurors solely based on their ethnic background. But I don’t object, because I’m not beyond a bit of stereotyping myself. I worry that jurors who might be the victims of government profiling will want to convict Holzner as a way of affirming their loyalty to America.

  We use our peremptory challenges to excuse an arrogant woman with a law degree who gave up her practice to raise her children but boasts about rising to leadership positions in five different school organizations. I ding seven people whom Judge Gibson should’ve excluded because of hardship, but didn’t—not because I feel sorry for them but because they’re more likely to want to convict quickly so they can get back to their normal lives. I excuse a scowling retired police officer who never once stopped glaring at our side of the table. I eliminate a number of others who say they’re active in their church or whose looks I simply don’t like. Jury selection brings out the worst in lawyers, forces them to evaluate people based on gross stereotypes. It’s a dark business that’s essential to justice.

  I have one peremptory challenge left, and I intend to use it on Joey the animator when I hear the clinking of chains. I lean back so Holzner can whisper in my ear. I’m not pleased that the prospective jurors will believe he has control, but it would be worse to ignore him in front of the jury.

  “You’ll be stuck with whoever they put in that box next,” Holzner says. “We could do worse.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “He’s a crap shoot, I know,” he says. “But this whole trial is a crap shoot. Worse. Let’s go with him. I feel it’s right.”

  Harmon Cherry once advised me that when I’m in a court of law the only instinct that matters is my own, but I stand and say, “The defense accepts the jury as now constituted.”

  So we have a jury. There’s a grad student who’s pursuing a PhD in comparative literature at UCLA; a retired mechanical engineer who enlisted in the naval reserve to avoid being drafted and sent to Vietnam but who ended up being stationed at the Da Nang air base; a recent college graduate and former fraternity president who’s interning at a stock brokerage house; a woman in her late thirties who heads up a law-firm marketing department; a middle-aged man who works as a checker at Costco; the flower-shop owner and the elderly man whose wife has dementia, both of whom wanted off the jury but both of whom seem fair-minded; a voice-over artist who serves as a volunteer cantor at his synagogue; a showroom designer for an upscale furniture store; a housewife from the San Fernando Valley; a driver for Federal Express; and Joey the animator. There are five women and seven men, three Hispanics, two Jews, two African Americans, and one person of Persian descent. A jury of Ian Holzner’s peers? Decidedly not. The only way Holzner could get a true jury of his peers would be if all the newly sworn jurors had misspent their formative years bombing government buildings.

  The judge asks the jurors to stand and raise their right hands, and the clerk has them swear that they’ll “true deliverance make” between the United States and Ian Holzner and “a true verdict render.” Judge Gibson, all warmth and smiles now, welcomes the jurors to his courtroom. As he’s instructing the jury not to discuss the case among themselves or with third parties, there’s a clanking of chains, and I experience maybe a dozen tachycardial heartbeats when I sense Holzner standing behind me. Lovely draws in an audible breath. When I glance back, it seems as if he’s about to speak, but instead he respectfully clasps his hand in front of him and waits for the jury to stand, and then we all rise and watch as the jurors file out.

  Judge Gibson nods. “Counsel, be ready to give your opening statements after the lunch break.” He pushes himself out of his chair and dodders off the bench and into chambers.

  All morning, I’ve avoided looking at the gallery—Holzner’s advice to focus on the task. So far, along with the drugs, it’s staved off the stage fright. But now habit takes over, and I turn and watch the spectators file out. There’s no Moses Dworsky. He announced he wasn’t showing up before I had to tell him not to. There’s Lou Frantz, my advisor who hasn’t advised at all. The last person to file out is Mariko Heim, who before she leaves the courtroom looks over her shoulder, scowls at me, dons her sunglasses while still looking my way, and only then walks out the door.

  One person who doesn’t file out is Emily Lansing. She stays in her seat in the front row, and thankfully her Free Ian tattoo is covered by a conservative cotton dress shirt that makes her look like a future candidate for an MBA.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Marilee Reddick hasn’t sat down since Judge Gibson recalled the jury, and when the judge nods at her, she brushes back her short gray hair, pulls at the hem of her black woolen jacket, and brushes imaginary lint off her black skirt. If it looks like she’s dressed for a funeral it’s because she is. She goes to the lectern. I spoke last so, she has to lower the microphone to lip level. Like the best advocates, she doesn’t use notes.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, December seventeenth, nineteen seventy-five, was a beautiful day in Playa Delta, California. At least, it started out that way. The temperature was seventy degrees. The sun was shining, the sparrows and blackbirds were singing. There were some puffy white clouds in the sky. One of those wonderful Southern California winter days when you can go outside in short sleeves. A day very much like today. That morning, Elaine Smith kissed her husband Jack good-bye—it was his day off from the car dealership—and escorted her eight-year-old, Julia, and six-year-old, Talia, onto the school bus. It was Elaine’s thirtieth birthday, and later that night they planned to go out to dinner. Perelli’s Restaurant, a real treat, because they didn’t eat out much, couldn’t afford it, especially not a fancy steakhouse. Afterward, they were going to stop at the lot on Ballona Boulevard and buy their Christmas tree. Before they left for the bus, little Talia, as small children often are, was fussy. She said she didn’t want to go to school, begged Elaine to skip work so the family could celebrate her birthday early. How do we know this? B
ecause Jack remembers this, and so does Julia and so does Talia despite her young age at the time. They remember it to this day because it was the last morning of Elaine Smith’s short life.”

  “Elaine worked at the Playa Delta branch of the Veterans Administration, the federal agency that takes care of those who have served in our country’s military. At three twenty-nine in the afternoon, just after Elaine and her coworkers gathered in a conference room for a combined staff meeting/birthday celebration, a massive explosion sent shockwaves throughout Playa City. People in homes six blocks away felt the blast. At first, they thought it was an earthquake. But it was a lethal bomb that killed Elaine Smith, along with Russell Breen, a devoted husband and father and Little League umpire who loved children; and Floyd Corwin, a grandfather and World War Two veteran; and Lucille Gomez, a forty-two-year-old single mother of three children under the age of fifteen. The only reason these people died was because of hatred. Ian Holzner, an avowed antigovernment radical, hated the United States government so much that he took innocent lives to further his perverse objective, which was to foment revolution that would bring down the American government.

  “What did Holzner do after he perpetrated this cowardly, heinous crime, ladies and gentlemen? He ran like a coward. And he lived as a normal citizen for forty years, enjoying the benefits of freedom that the Constitution of the United States guarantees, while the families of the Playa Delta dead grieved, while those families knew that justice hadn’t been served.”

  Opening statements are supposed to foreshadow what the evidence at trial will show. But good openings tell a story, and Reddick is telling a marvelous one. I could object to her comment about justice not being served—it’s argument, not evidence—but that would only underscore how powerful her words have been so far.

  She talks about Holzner’s stable background and nurturing and devoted parents who, despite limited income, gave him not only everything he needed but also everything he wanted. He had a nice home in Playa Delta’s top-flight school district; Little League and gymnastics to develop his athletic skills; piano and guitar lessons; even magician’s lessons when he showed an interest and aptitude for prestidigitation—that’s actually the word Reddick uses. He excelled at all academic subjects, but particularly science. “That’s how he learned at a young age to blow things up,” she says.

  She knows more about my father than I do.

  Keeping her left hand in contact with the lectern so she can technically abide by the rule that a lawyer can’t leave the podium, she walks toward the jury and almost blocks my view. “As a high-school senior Ian Holzner developed an abiding hatred of the United States government. His excuse was that his older brother, Jerry, was drafted into the army, served in Vietnam, and came back with post-traumatic stress disorder. Unfortunately, many Vietnam vets returned that way, but their families didn’t turn to violence.” She recounts Holzner’s transformation from potential Olympic gymnast to antiwar demonstrator to radical bomber. “The defendant went to the University of California, Berkeley, on a scholarship. It was there he began building his radical network. There’s an irony in that, ladies and gentleman. UC Berkeley was then, as it is today, a public institution. So the defendant developed his dangerous radical theories and his terrorist tactics while enjoying the largesse of the very government he despised.”

  She goes on to describe the genesis of the Holzner-O’Brien Gang, lists the many bombings the gang took credit for, and reads from some of their most inflammatory communiqués: The pigs are our enemies, but we will find their soft, fat underbellies; we will combat American genocide with guns and bombs and rocks and bottles and feet and hands—if we must, with our lives; America’s genocide won’t end until its streets are bathed in blood; with an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life, we shall avenge the state-sponsored murders of innocents and revolutionary heroes if it takes fifty years. And then the most damning: Our bombs will reduce our bourgeois-diseased hometowns to rubble.

  “Playa Delta, California, was Ian Holzner’s hometown,” Reddick says. “On December seventeenth, nineteen seventy-five, he essentially reduced his hometown to rubble. The bomb exploded in a second-floor lavatory. It was built to kill and maim the maximum number of humans. It was timed to explode during working hours when a crowd of people would be in the building. The amount of explosives exceeded that in any other bomb that went off during the volatile nineteen sixties. The bomb, constructed out of pipe, was packed with ball bearings inside and three-and-a-half-inch carpenter nails taped to the outside. Nails and ball-bearings aren’t necessary to inflict property damage. Their only purpose was to kill and maim human beings. The forensic evidence will show that the only person capable of building a sophisticated bomb like that was Ian Holzner. The only person.”

  Over the next two hours, Reddick provides a litany of evidence against Holzner. No one else could have built the bomb. Gladdie Giddens saw him on the scene. His fingerprints were found on bomb parts seized at the gang’s apartment. Ilan Goldsmith heard him boast about the forthcoming operation. Holzner’s flight to avoid prosecution shows a guilty mind.

  “You’ll hear testimony about how Holzner compared himself to communist guerrilla fighters, to international revolutionaries spreading the gospel of Karl Marx, even to the patriots who fought against the British for American independence,” she says. “But Holzner wasn’t a soldier. A soldier doesn’t target mothers and wives and older men and civilians. Ian Holzner is a terrorist, plain and simple.” Violating the rule that she has to stay at the lectern, she maneuvers herself next to me and to the side of Holzner and points an accusing finger at the back of his head. “Members of the jury, the evidence will show that this man planned the crime that took so many lives, that this man assembled the bomb that killed and injured so many, that this man planted the bomb that caused such horrible death and destruction. The evidence will show that this man is guilty of multiple murders.” Each time she says the words this man, she jabs her tiny index finger at him. Using the silence that seems to hold the courtroom in a bear hug, she stands and looks at the jury, undoubtedly making eye contact with each one. Finally, she concludes by saying, “When all the evidence is in, we will have proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant, Ian Holzner, is guilty of murder in the first degree.” She sits down.

  I fear that the judge will call a recess that will permanently etch Reddick’s words in the minds of the jurors, but to his credit he says, “Counsel for the defendant.”

  I stand and expect the glossophobia to level me, but it doesn’t, and I realize it’s because suddenly, with all my being, I don’t want my father to be a terrorist, and if he is a terrorist, I don’t want him to die by lethal injection. Whoever he is, whatever he’s done, I don’t want to lose him again.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  I move behind Holzner and rest my hands on his shoulders. He recoils but then relaxes. I’m not surprised by his response. Though we’ve lived in the same place for many months, this is the first time we’ve touched.

  “This is my client, Martin Lansing. For the past forty years, he’s lived an exemplary life, working as a mechanic in an auto-repair business. He’s obeyed the law and raised a family. Marty has made a parent’s ultimate sacrifice—his son was killed in Afghanistan while serving in the United States Marines.” I almost said his only son.

  Reddick jumps out of her chair. “Objection. Irrelevant and argumentative and violates a court order.”

  She’s right. Earlier in the proceedings, the judge ruled that we couldn’t mention Dylan Lansing’s death. A ruling in limine lawyers call it. I had no intention of flouting the order until I stood up to speak.

  “Get up here now, counsel!” Judge Gibson says. He could hold me in contempt. So be it.

  Reddick and I, along with the court reporter, approach the bench. The courtroom deputy presses a button on a control panel, and white noise is transmitted over the speaker system so the jurors and spectators can’t hear what we�
�re saying. When I get close, the judge glowers at me and wipes his bald head with his palm.

  “If this wasn’t a murder trial I’d hold you in contempt in front of the jury,” he says. “But like your client, you get one gimme. Get back to the lectern and do your job right.”

  I start to retreat, but Reddick says, “Your Honor, I’d request that you instruct the jury that Mr. Stern has violated a court order.”

  “Go back to your table now, Ms. Reddick,” the judge says. “I’ve got it covered.”

  The judge instructs the jury that Dylan Lansing’s military service is irrelevant to the trial and should be disregarded. Of course, the jurors can’t do that, not really. The question is whether the fact of Dylan’s death will humanize Ian Holzner.

  When Reddick is settled in her chair, I say, “Members of the jury, four months ago, Martin Lansing walked into the office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, identified himself as Ian Holzner, and surrendered himself to law-enforcement authorities. He did this because he believed that, after all these years, he could get a fair trial in an American court of law, that a jury of his peers would judge his case fairly and justly. That’s not how a guilty man behaves. Ian Holzner—Martin Lansing—is not guilty of the crimes alleged against him, and the prosecution will be unable to prove otherwise beyond a reasonable doubt.”

  As Reddick did, I move as close to the jury as I can without losing contact with the lectern. I try to look each one in the eye, but the designer from the furniture store and Joey the animator look away, an ominous sign.

  In a candid moment, a severely bipolar former colleague of mine once told me that the transition between sanity and mania is seamless, that though some part of her rational intellect realizes what’s happening, it’s precisely that rational part that seems to be The Other, incongruous with her psychological makeup. It’s the crazy that seems perfectly natural, she says. That’s not true for me. I know that what I’m about to do is completely insane.