A Young Lawyer's story

by John Ellsworth

  "We would also want to buy information on certain members of the U.S. Attorney's Office. Certain personnel files."

  "Why?"

  "We might wish to gain leverage with those certain people."

  "You mean you wish to get something on people and blackmail them?"

  The man looked over from his picture-taking. It was the first time their eyes met.

  "Now that's characterizing our work as something base. It's not. We just want to offer similar opportunities to others in your office who might be amenable to enriching themselves."

  "Mister," said Thaddeus, "you just said the same thing twice but with different words. You're telling me you might want to blackmail my colleagues. That is a definite no. That is something I wouldn't do, give you information on colleagues."

  The man smacked his lips. "That would have to be part of our arrangement, Mr. Murfee."

  "Then you've got the wrong guy."

  A silence settled over the two men. Thaddeus had just broken ranks; his handlers were going to be furious if he didn't strike a deal.

  "I'm in, if all I'm selling is investigatory files. I'm not in if you want information about people in my office. I won't do that."

  "Then we don't have anything else to talk about, Mr. Murfee. The personnel information is part of our bargain."

  "I wouldn't have access to such data anyway."

  "You would figure out how. We would help you."

  "Can't do it, mister. Sorry."

  "Your loss, Mr. Murfee."

  With that, Hoa got up and began walking away. Thaddeus had the strong sense that he had just blown it up. He had been commissioned to make contact and strike a deal. But he had refused and now he was in no hurry to explain what just happened to McGrant, who most likely had just listened to everything that was said.

  And he was right. She was furious. Back at the U.S. Attorney's office she was waiting for him in his office. When he walked in, he knew it wasn't going to be good: McGrant was seated in his chair behind his desk.

  "I blew it. I just couldn't agree."

  "You had no permission to blow it. We would have provided disinformation on our employees. It meant nothing, Thaddeus."

  Agent Ranski came breezing in then and took a seat next to Thaddeus. She was shaking her head and exhaling sharply before she spoke.

  "Well your spying career just came to a screeching halt. You really let us down, Murfee. We're going to terminate you."

  Thaddeus looked up at McGrant, who only nodded.

  "You're done here, Thaddeus. Clean out your desk. You'll receive two weeks’ severance."

  He drew a deep breath. McGrant and Ranski left him to clear out and leave.

  Sitting back in his chair, he knew what he had to do. He had known it all along.

  He dialed Nikki's number.

  "Hello?"

  "Thaddeus here, Nikki. Has your father retained a lawyer yet?"

  "No, why?"

  "Because he has one now."

  "Who?"

  "Thaddeus Murfee."

  20

  Aloysius M. Barnaby looked up from the motion and glared down at Thaddeus. Thaddeus hadn't been around enough to know that here sat one of the most inappropriately judgmental judges in the D.C. circuit. It wasn't that his actual judging was faulty. Rather, his personal judgments about defendants and their lawyers was demeaning and ethically questionable.

  That day in January Judge Barnaby had sitting before him Thaddeus and Franklin J. Broyles, on one side, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Oliver Anderson on the prosecution side. Thaddeus--from his work at the U.S. Attorney's office--knew Oliver as "Ollie" and knew the prosecutor as someone who loathed criminal defendants. Ollie's having his ex-boss, Franklin Broyles, in his gunsights was a pleasure and an unexpected joy because it satisfied Ollie's bloodlust and need to be seen around town as a high-profile litigator. In short, he was loving seeing Broyles demeaned by Judge Barnaby and watching Thaddeus knocked to the ground again and again. That Thaddeus kept getting right back up and dusting himself off and plunging ahead with his defense of Broyles was off-putting, but Anderson knew it would eventually wear the young lawyer down to the point of total intimidation. Then maybe he would sit the hell down and keep his eager mouth shut.

  It was nine-thirty a.m. The jury was all picked--six men and six women, seven blacks and five whites. Press was crowding the courtroom and, with the boldness of people used to interrupting others, there was an unwelcome buzz in the courtroom as reporters whispered back and forth. TV crews noisily broadcast the proceedings nationwide. It was a headline case. The anchors and their henchmen were leaving no stone unturned. It wasn't every day that a sitting U.S. Attorney was arrested and charged with selling state secrets. The penalty could be death because the federal government always sought the death penalty for treason and espionage and so the air inside the courtroom was electric. Every word counted and the audience was missing none of it.

  At long last the judge, having read Thaddeus' motion to dismiss the charges against his client, was visibly unimpressed. His round face glowed red and he tugged repeatedly at his necktie as if trying to inhale more air.

  "Mr. Murfee," he finally said, laying the motion aside, "your motion is all over the road."

  Thaddeus stood. "Sir?" he replied, not knowing how else to respond.

  "Your pleading is confused and, I believe, purposely misleading. You argue that I should dismiss the government's case because Mr. Broyles was in fact a double-agent. I assume you can prove this?"

  "We can, Your Honor. We will call--"

  The judge instantly raised his hand and pointed a finger at Thaddeus.

  "Please, sir, it's not who you call and what they say, it's whether you can convince me, at this time and place, that your client has been wrongly accused. There is no evidence before me and to ask that I dismiss these charges without evidence is--well, it's preposterous. Let me ask you sir, have you ever even appeared in federal court before?"

  "No, Your Honor," Thaddeus said in his best voice. He was determined to sound strong and unflinching. He had no idea if he sounded strong and unflinching. Worse, he had no idea if he even was those things. "It's my first time in the barrel," he had told Nikki that morning. "Say a prayer."

  The judge's eyes narrowed.

  "Well, let's dig a little deeper. Have you ever appeared in any court before?"

  "No, Your Honor."

  "Well, Mr. Murfee, my inclination is to delay the beginning of these proceedings in order to allow your client to secure experienced trial counsel. It is unheard of for a first-time lawyer to defend a capital crime. Your client is facing the death penalty and, quite frankly, sir, I don't believe you have what it takes to adequately defend him."

  "Your Honor, it might surprise you to know this, but both my client and I agree with what you just said. My client's family agrees with what you just said. And they have tried to secure more experienced counsel for their loved one."

  "Well?"

  "The truth is, no attorney will touch this case."

  "Why is that, Mr. Murfee?"

  "We believe it's because every lawyer in this town relies on the government for their income in some way or other. No one wants to give up their hold on the government in order to defend a man accused of treason. It's a very unpopular crime, Your Honor."

  Judge Barnaby smirked and put his hands together, moving them as if washing.

  "Well, Mr. Murfee, let me just say this. I have never tried a treason case either. Ordinarily there's a plea and someone goes to jail for a very long time. But in this case the new U.S. Attorney has taken the position that there will be no plea. In papers he has filed with the court he has made it clear that he is seeking the death penalty. So it's a first time for me; however, unlike you, I have been to court lots of times and I'm immensely competent to preside over this case. You, however, have yet to prove your competence. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to direct the clerk to call Homer X. Matheson and get him in court im
mediately. Do you know who Mr. Matheson is, Mr. Murfee?"

  Thaddeus shrugged. "Only that he's a lawyer. I've heard the name."

  "Mr. Matheson is the greatest criminal lawyer we've ever had in Washington. He's defended senators, congressmen, politicians, military personnel, and just about everything else. He is going to come here and assist you in the trial of this case. And do you know why I'm doing this, Mr. Murfee?"

  "Because you're afraid of a claim on appeal that my client's counsel was ineffective? That I blew it?"

  "Bingo! I am going to quell any such argument by having you mentored in my courtroom, Mr. Murfee. That way we might avoid some of the ridiculously stupid mistakes and errors in judgment that young lawyers like you are prone to make. Are you following me, Mr. Murfee?"

  "I am hearing what you say, Your Honor. But I think you'll find my defense lacking the ridiculously stupid mistakes and errors in judgment you're used to. In fact, I project that by the time this case is over and I have obtained a verdict of acquittal you're going to want to shake my hand and congratulate me on a job well done."

  The courtroom fell deathly silent. A line had been crossed by the young lawyer and everyone there knew it. Judge Barnaby's reputation was known far and wide among the Washington criminal bar. The kid was doomed; any other practitioner would have said. He had just slit his own throat.

  "Mr. Murfee, that is very naive. Which only further confirms your lack of experience."

  Just then the clerk returned to the courtroom and took up her position at the side of the judge's throne. She looked up at the judge and nodded.

  "He's on his way over, Your Honor," the clerk said meekly.

  "Very well. Mr. Murfee, I'm going to take a thirty-minute recess. You are ordered to meet with Mr. Matheson during our recess and prepare your defense. We stand in recess."

  21

  Four months before trial began, Thaddeus had met with Franklin Broyles. Broyles was still in jail; they met in an attorney conference room on the first floor, on the east side of the jail in southeast D.C. It was a bare room furnished with a five-by-five metal table bolted to the cement floor, with a metal chair on each side. The chairs were also bolted to the floor. Presumably, Thaddeus reasoned, so a chair couldn't be used to make a break for it. Broyles was brought by two guards to the meeting. He was wearing an orange jumpsuit that said in stenciled letters across the back CDF (Central Detention Facility) and wearing flip-flops though the interior of the building was air conditioned and uncomfortably cold.

  "Can you get me some wool socks?" was the first thing Broyles asked him, which established Thaddeus in the environment in which Broyles existed. He had never seen the inside of a jail before. Fear and claustrophobia were his immediate visceral response to what he saw there.

  "I can try to get you socks," he said to Broyles.

  "You are my lawyer, evidently," said the ex-U.S. Attorney. "Jeannette said last night on the phone that no one else would touch the case. Why do you think they won't, Thaddeus?"

  "Fear, I imagine. No one wants to taunt the government with an aggressive defense of an indicted U.S. Attorney. Every lawyer in D.C. gets government money some way or another. No one will risk losing that.”

  "Then I'm in hell. Look, I appreciate you stepping up for me, but you are really useless. You have no experience, have never attended even a hearing in a federal court, know nothing about jury selection and probably even less about the crime of treason. I don't mean to make you feel bad, but there you are. You're basically helpless, which makes me hopeless. The trouble is, I have nowhere else to turn except to defend myself. Which never works, so I’m left with you. You’re hired, which scares the living hell out of me.

  “Me too.”

  “ But one thing, Thaddeus: we'll go down together. I won't desert you if you'll make the same promise to me."

  "I promise," said the young lawyer. "I'll be with you to the bitter end. Or the happy miracle, should Providence intervene."

  Broyles had hung his head at that point, his chin on his chest, and wrung his hands together in total frustration.

  "One thing, Mr. Broyles--"

  "Frank. We're on first names now, Thaddeus."

  "All right--Frank. One thing, are you guilty of treason?"

  Broyles shook his head violently. "No, not at all."

  "How can you say that? I personally witnessed you passing a briefcase to a stranger at the reservoir."

  "I was a double agent, Thaddeus."

  "I don't know for certain what that means."

  "I was working for the government of the United States while appearing to be a thief of government secrets who was selling them to the Chinese."

  Thaddeus was stunned. He sat several minutes without saying anything while Broyles repeatedly flexed his hands. The man was obviously in psychic pain. He drew Thaddeus in with his helplessness. The young lawyer's heart went out to the guy. He committed himself to doing whatever it took to have him found not guilty.

  "How do we prove you were a double agent?"

  "There's proof on the computers at the U.S. Attorney's office. I know it's there, hidden on our servers."

  "You know it's there?"

  Broyles smiled for the first time. "I put it there myself. On our servers. They'll never find it. I had help from a man who works at Geek Squad. He told me how to hide it."

  "Why would you do that?"

  "I didn't trust the government. It is a tradition among double agents to hide artifacts that can prove their innocence. I was only protecting myself in case the eagle one day turned on me. Now it has, but the evidence which can exonerate me is in there. Now if we can only figure out how to access it. You see, my passwords and back doors into the data have all been removed. The data might as well be on the moon for all the good it does me here today. I'm guilty without it. There’s a second set of records that I do have. They would be banking records.”

  “Wait. Why would the government come after you? That's what I don't understand."

  "Because I came into secrets about the Hong Kong bank known as HSBC. Those are the banking records. I came into possession of a hundred thousand names of U.S. Citizens who kept numbered accounts there in order to avoid paying taxes. Thousands of politicians, bankers, and lobbyists in Washington were among those names. This would include people in the DOJ."

  "How are you sure?"

  "How do I know DOJ officials are hiding money offshore? I know because I looked. The data was contained in a database that made mining very simple. Because I had it, and because the DOJ became aware of what I had, the government turned on me. They came after me in order to shut me up."

  "Are you able to access the banking records?"

  Broyles had smiled broadly at that point. "I am."

  "How?"

  "It's all on the hard drive of Nikki's computer. The laptop she keeps at school. I put it there."

  "Oh my God. Does that put her at risk?"

  "I would never put my daughter at risk. No, no one has any idea it's stored there. I made sure of that before I presented her with the computer as a Christmas present last year. The database is disguised as a system file by using a system extension. Pretty damn clever, aren't I?"

  "Does the government know you have them?”

  “They think that by cutting me off from their servers they have secured them from me. They have no idea I have the banking records apart from there."

  "So how do we use these records?"

  "We don't. I do."

  "How?"

  "Imagine how much these account holders would be willing to pay me in return for my guaranteeing that I would dump their data?"

  "Unbelievable. So you would use the banking records to extort money from the owners?"

  "I don't look at it quite like that, Thaddeus. The money is money they've stolen from the government by not paying it out in taxes. I'm just my own version of Robin Hood."

  “And the records that prove you were working for the government—do you have those hid
den on her computer too?”

  “No, those were all newer. I never had a chance to place them outside the government servers. Damn that luck!”

  They had gone on from there for another hour, talking into the late afternoon about the defense against the charge of treason and espionage. It came out that Broyles had been given phony Department of Defense documents to pass to the Chinese. In return he got the banking records. In the milieu of traitors and spies, it was called disinformation, what Broyles turned over. But the banking records from HSBC bank that Broyles was given in exchange were real.

  The two men ended the visit with the first glimmer of hope since the world came crashing down. Vows of loyalty were made again and they broke off at four-thirty on a boiling hot August afternoon.

  Thaddeus had come away wondering how on earth they would ever access the government computers and retrieve the proof that Broyles was working for the government. That was going to be the true test.

  For now, he didn’t possess that answer. Like Broyles, he only had hopes.

  He knew he would have to do better. Hope never won a criminal trial.

  Only evidence could do that.

  The kind that was stored on the government’s computers.

  22

  Thaddeus met Homer X. Matheson for the first time in the hallway outside Judge Barnaby's courtroom. There were twenty minutes remaining in the thirty-minute recess when they disappeared into the attorney conference room. Twenty minutes to decide on a defense and plan their cross-examination of FBI agent Naomi Ranski.

  Ranski was the agent who, along with McGrant, had approached Thaddeus in the cafeteria at the U.S. Attorney’s Office and solicited his help in feeding disinformation to the Chinese. She would be called to provide the government's twenty-thousand-foot view of the case. Prosecutors always lead off with the lead investigator in criminal cases, and that's how it would happen with the Franklin Broyles prosecution.

  Matheson was black with the physique of a hundred-meter dash man. His face was the face of a much younger man than his actual fifty years. Black frame glasses gave him a studious look and, Thaddeus quickly learned, the look was a valid one. Because here was a man who knew criminal law forward and backward, a man who'd tried over a hundred criminal cases to verdict in the D.C. federal court and was lead appellate counsel on an equal number. He had large hands which moved frequently as he spoke, as did his very expressive face. He cited case law to Thaddeus and tested him on the kinds of evidentiary objections he could expect to be making as the trial progressed. When their time was up, Thaddeus knew he had just been handed a dozen years of experience in twenty minutes. It was a welcome relief just knowing Matheson was there for questions.