Hillary Potts looked stern, as always, when I arrived. She motioned toward a chair and said, “Let me see if he’s available.” She called him on her intercom and then quietly opened one of the doors for me to enter his office, saying, “The district attorney will see you now.”
I expected to be greeted by an angry Whitaker, but the D.A. was all smiles when I entered his cavernous chamber. I gave the room a quick once-over, half expecting to see O’Brien and the police chief, but the only other person in the room was Paul Pisani.
Damn, I thought. Does this guy ever do anything else but hang out in the boss’s office?
As soon as Miss Potts shut the door behind me, Whitaker said, “Take a seat, Miss Fox, and tell us how the Rudy Hitchins prosecution is going.”
Was Whitaker playing dumb? If he was, so would I.
Trying to appear relaxed, I said, “Actually, sir, it’s going really well. I just interviewed Mary Margaret and she’ll make a great witness.”
“Good, glad to hear it. Now, what the hell is this nonsense about you not filing additional charges against Hitchins after he resisted arrest and assaulted White Plains police officers?” His smile was gone. His voice had turned ugly.
Wow, I thought, O’Brien really had pulled strings.
“Sir, I don’t believe we need these new charges to successfully prosecute Rudy Hitchins for first-degree assault.”
“Oh,” he said in a mocking voice. “Miss Dani Fox, who has never officially tried a criminal case in Westchester County, has decided that it’s perfectly okay to resist arrest and assault White Plains police officers now. She’s decided that those charges don’t matter because she’s already charged this suspect with beating up his girlfriend and that’s enough.”
Without giving me a chance to explain, Whitaker continued: “You realize the police are on our side, don’t you, Miss Fox? You understand that when a criminal resists arrest and assaults an officer, the police really don’t like that. And when a prosecutor decides to blow off those charges, it doesn’t sit well with the officers who were in danger or with the chief of police. You do understand that, right?”
He was lecturing me much like a kindergarten teacher speaking to a five-year-old. Once again, Whitaker didn’t let me answer. “Now, Miss Fox, I realize how eager you are to go to trial on this case, but let me give you a quick lesson on how justice works here in Westchester County and in every other prosecutor’s office in our glorious nation—just in case you missed this crucial bit of illumination in Albany Law School. The police charge a suspect with as many serious felonies as possible each and every time they make an arrest. A prosecutor then uses those charges as leverage to negotiate the best plea bargain for the public good. This avoids wasting taxpayers’ hard-earned money on frivolous and expensive trials and also eliminates the chances of a jury of complete fools releasing someone to the streets who needs to be locked up.” He paused, apparently to give me time for this to soak in, and then said in a ridiculing voice, “Am I making this simple enough for you, my dear?”
My dear? Who did he think he was, my mother? I really was going to have to find a coffee mug with the word PRICK printed on it. Keeping my temper in check, I replied, “Yes, you are.”
With his voice still dripping with sarcasm, Whitaker said, “Well then, Miss Fox, perhaps you can explain to me why I just got a call from a very angry White Plains chief of police telling me that you are being a real—” Whitaker caught himself midsentence and said, “How can I put this more delicately?”
He glanced at Pisani, who was clearly enjoying my dressing-down.
“Perhaps you can substitute the word ‘witch,’” Pisani volunteered.
Whitaker nodded. “Let’s just say, the chief of police feels you are showing a certain lack of esprit de corps.”
“Sir, I was standing there when they arrested Rudy Hitchins. I saw what happened.”
I hoped my reply would be enough for Whitaker to understand why I didn’t want to move forward on the extra counts. I was trying to warn him that O’Brien hadn’t told his boss the real story and that his boss hadn’t told the police chief the entire truth about what really had gone down outside O’Toole’s. I hoped my admission—that I had been there when Hitchins had been arrested—would be enough for Whitaker to read between the lines. But judging from the expression on his face, Whitaker was used to reading unlined paper.
He said, “If you were at the scene, then you realize how serious these charges are and why the White Plains police are furious and want them filed against Mr. Hitchins.”
Okay, I thought, I’m going to throw out another bone. “Sir, as I just mentioned, I was there. I saw what happened and I would not ever want to be in a position in court where our office might be embarrassed.” I paused and said, “How can I put this more delicately? Let’s just say ‘questionable criminal charges.’”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Pisani smirk. He apparently found my response entertaining.
This time Whitaker got it. Being a politician first and district attorney second, his survival instincts kicked in. He understood that I was warning him. Something had happened during the arrest that he really didn’t need to know and didn’t want to know, especially if it could come back and bite him later on the campaign trail.
The district attorney leaned back and thought about what I’d just hinted. After a moment, he said, “Miss Fox, why are you making this so difficult? It doesn’t need to be. It’s the police who will be describing what happened on the witness stand if they get called to testify. And if the defendant claims he was the victim of, let’s say, alleged police misconduct, then it would be up to a jury to decide who’s lying. It has nothing to do with you.”
His comment surprised me. “Sir, I realize the easiest thing for our office to do is to charge Rudy Hitchins with resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer. It would make the police happy and the additional charges would give us more legal pressure to apply. I’m sure we could then plea-bargain this matter. We would win. But as an officer of the court, I cannot in good conscience file those charges.”
“Your good conscience?” Whitaker howled in a condescending voice. “What the hell did they teach you at Albany Law? I don’t give a rat’s ass about your conscience. No one does. You’re a prosecutor—an assistant district attorney—not a priest. Just do your job and park your conscience outside the courtroom door. Do you think the attorney defending Rudy Hitchins has trouble sleeping at night because he knows his client is guilty of turning his girlfriend’s face into a meatball? Your job is simple here, Miss Fox. You bring bad people to justice. The cops arrest them and bring them to us. We prosecute them. If they don’t want to plea-bargain, then a judge or jury decides their fate. None of this should have anything to do with your conscience.”
“With all due respect, sir, I disagree. I believe my conscience does matter in a courtroom. It matters a great deal.”
At this point, Pisani decided to interject himself into our conversation. “Ms. Fox, I’m curious. Why do you believe your conscience matters?”
“Because my conscience is why I became a prosecutor. And I don’t plan on checking it at the door when I go in to a trial.”
Pisani, who apparently felt this was amusing, said, “Can you elaborate on that, Ms. Fox? I’d like to hear more and I’m sure District Attorney Whitaker would as well.”
He was baiting me and I realized I was going toe-to-toe with both of them. How smart was that, especially since Whitaker could fire me on the spot?
“I think of this office as a moral battleground. I believe there is a war being waged here between good and evil every day. We are the good guys. Our job is to protect the victims and make certain that the victims—not the criminals—have their day in court.”
“Interesting,” Pisani said. “A battle between good and evil. I find that very noble. And romantic. Please continue. I’m actually getting excited.”
“No one asks to be a victim,” I said. “No one
asks to be preyed upon. A woman could be going about her normal routine when bang, like a thunderbolt, a criminal wreaks havoc. She comes to us for help. That’s our job. Helping those who have been victimized. But we don’t do our jobs by getting down in the gutter and acting like the very people we are putting on trial. We do what it takes to convict them, but we do it by upholding the sanctity of the law, not with dirty tricks, fists, and billy clubs. We don’t do it by accusing people of crimes that they did not commit, no matter how horrible those criminals are.”
Pisani slowly began clapping. He was ridiculing me. “Ms. Fox, you told me that I was your mentor. So let me give you some mentoring advice. This courtroom is not a battlefield. It’s a back-alley street fight. We do not compete on a level playing field. Our glorious U.S. Supreme Court under Justice Earl Warren gave the criminal an upper hand, an unfair advantage—a knife when we must fight with only our bare hands. To counter that, we should use every advantage we have to win.”
Pisani continued, “Because of your inexperience and naïveté, there is a practical matter that you’re overlooking here. The moment Hitchins’s defense attorney discovers our office is not going to pursue these new counts against his client, he is going to wonder why. It is not unusual for our office to file additional charges after someone is arrested. But to drop charges of resisting arrest and assault on a police officer is a clear sign of dissension within the ranks. It’s a sign of weakness and he is going to exploit that fracture if he can.”
I knew Pisani had faced hundreds of defense attorneys. He’d prosecuted hundreds of scumbags like Hitchins. By contrast, I’d tried thirteen cases in night court.
“A good defense attorney,” Pisani said, “is going to accuse the cops of beating up his client. He’s going to find a way to tell jurors that you refused to file charges because you knew what the cops did was wrong. He’s going to make the police look like vigilantes with badges and he’s going to cast a shadow over this office. If you don’t file these charges, it’s possible that you’re going to hand a defense attorney and his dirt-ball client the reasonable doubt that he needs to get Rudy Hitchins off. Because unlike you, a defense attorney has no conscience. Absolutely none. In fact, it is his legal duty to prepare a logical defense and what that translates into is that a good defense attorney is going to make up any fiction that he wishes—anything, no matter how ridiculous—to sway a jury. If he believes telling jurors that aliens came down in a spaceship and little green men jumped out and beat Mary Margaret, then, by God, that’s what he’ll tell the jury. Are you prepared for that? Are you prepared to look Mary Margaret Finn in the eyes and tell her that you blew it because of your conscience? Are you willing to let Rudy Hitchins go free, when this office could have charged him with not just beating her up but a half-dozen other felony charges?”
Now that Pisani had softened me up, Whitaker moved in for the kill. “You’re creating a real shit storm here, young lady—all because of your ‘conscience.’ I’m glad that you have such a flowery view of our justice system. But it is not a moral battleground. What we have here is more of a production line. Victims come in. We’re flooded with cases. The quicker we prosecute one, the sooner we can help someone else. The more we win, the sounder the public sleeps at night because there are fewer dirtbags on the streets. Shit storms aren’t good for production lines.”
As strange as it sounds, I suddenly had newfound respect for our district attorney. He and Pisani made the choice seem incredibly simple. If I played along and did what everyone wanted me to do—if I closed my eyes to what I had seen—and filed the trumped-up charges that O’Brien had sent over, then the system would run smoothly. The production line would keep moving. Faced with assault and resisting arrest, Hitchins and his attorney would cave. They’d cut a deal. The fact that Hitchins was beaten and pistol-whipped while he was handcuffed—facts that could result in very bad press for the police—would never be mentioned and, even if the defense raised it, who would believe him?
“Look,” Pisani said, “file the extra charges and then offer to dismiss them in return for Hitchins pleading to assault. That way you’ll win without the risk of a trial and your conscience will be clean. We get what we want and Hitchins gets what he deserves. Case closed.”
It sounded so simple. But for some reason, it stuck in my throat.
“Sir,” I said firmly, addressing Whitaker. “I don’t want this turning into a shit storm and I’m not a bitch regardless of what the chief of police told you. All I want to do is my job. I want to put Rudy Hitchins on trial. But if you decide to remove me from this case and have someone else handle it, that’s your call. But I will not file additional charges just to keep the production line moving.”
Whitaker glared at me. “Miss Fox,” he said coldly, “I would have replaced you the moment that I got the call from the chief. But I’ve already given an interview to Will Harris at the White Plains newspaper about this case. I bragged about how our office was going to go after this schmuck in criminal court and how this matter had been brought to my attention by the first female assistant district attorney in our county’s history. I talked about the importance of women’s rights. So you tell me, Miss Fox, how would it look if I suddenly replaced you?”
Clearly frustrated, Whitaker made one more attempt. “If you take this case to trial, there’s a chance you’re going to lose it. Have you thought about that? How will that help anyone? But if you get Hitchins to plea-bargain, then it’s perfect. This office wins. You win. Hitchins goes to jail. The newspaper reports that our office is cracking down on abuse. The public is happy. Why can’t you just be a team player here? Why are you conjuring up this internal drama? Do you honestly believe Hitchins is the first punk slapped around a little by the police?”
I didn’t respond, and in my silence, he knew that I wasn’t going to change my mind, so like the skilled politician that he was, Whitaker offered me a way out. He gave me a chance to please everyone.
“You could withdraw from this case. Voluntarily. Then your conscience would be clear, there wouldn’t be any hard feelings between the police and this office. Mr. Pisani here could negotiate a plea bargain. We’d drop the additional charges in return for Hitchins pleading guilty to beating up Mary Margaret Finn. Justice would be served.”
“And what would I tell Will Harris at the newspaper when he calls and asks me why I dropped the case?” I countered.
Whitaker didn’t hesitate. “First of all you never—ever—talk to the press. I do. Got that?”
Pisani jumped in. “Here’s what you could tell him. You could tell him it’s a woman thing. You know, that time of the month. You’re too emotional. You didn’t feel up to handling the case. Trust me, he’d understand.”
I sat there in stone silence for nearly a minute. Whitaker and Pisani both probably thought I was pondering their suggestion. But I was actually fighting the urge to reach over and throttle Pisani. It took me a moment to get the image out of my mind of my hands around his neck and squeezing. I said, “I have no intention of resigning voluntarily from this prosecution.”
Whitaker twisted his neck as if he was trying to exorcise some pain from it. “Okay, Miss Fox, we’re going to do this your way. The hard way. But you need to grow up and ditch this misty-eyed view that you have of our criminal justice system. The hard-core reality is that we live in a dark world here, a murky world. So let this be your first lesson. If this thing blows up in our faces, especially mine, then this will be both your first official case as an assistant district attorney and your last.”
He waved his hand, dismissing me, but as I started to leave, he couldn’t resist throwing one more barb my way.
“When you go out the door, take a look at whose name is on it. It’s mine. Not yours!”
The next morning the White Plains Daily published on the front page a photograph of District Attorney Carlton Whitaker III looking stern behind his desk. The headline read: “D.A. Whitaker Champions Women’s Rights.”
My phone immediately started to ring with calls from reporters and women’s groups. I referred them all to Whitaker’s office.
11
The old observation that pet owners choose dogs and cats that resemble them applied to Rudy Hitchins’s choice in lawyers as well. Alexander Dominic was a familiar face in the White Plains courthouse and quite a sight. He could have easily hired himself out as a department-store Santa Claus without needing any extra pillows around his ample waist. He stood only five feet six but appeared taller because he wore his dyed brown hair in an Elvis pompadour. Adding to the illusion were the two-inch heels on his two-tone, square-toed, blue-and-white stacked-heel shoes. The upper lace portion of the shoe was white, the remainder was blue, and there was a white strip between the shoe’s leather and its built-up blue soles. A chain-smoker of unfiltered Camels, he preferred polyester leisure suits when he worked in his combination apartment/office that he rented above a pharmacy in one of White Plains’s rougher neighborhoods. His favorite leisure suit was lime green. He wore its light jacket over a spinach-green open-necked shirt with a four-inch-wide collar. At age fifty-five, Dominic thought of himself as the William Kunstler of White Plains, but he had none of that radical lawyer’s brilliance or his oratory skills. Dominic was exactly what he appeared to be—a low-rent bottom-feeder who would proudly defend anyone who could scrape together his forty-five-dollar-per-hour fee. It didn’t matter if the defendant was a repeat child molester, streetwalker, cop killer, or drug pusher. If you needed a lawyer, Dominic was eager to become your mouthpiece, apologist, and loyal lapdog.
Normally, a defense attorney wants to delay going to court as long as possible. There is no advantage in rushing a client to judgment, especially one as guilty as Rudy Hitchins. Delays allow the defense to plot a plausible explanation for why the accused is innocent, even though he’d been identified by a half-dozen witnesses fleeing from a convenience-store robbery or had plowed the family station wagon into a lamp pole at two a.m. so inebriated that he couldn’t say his own name coherently. Delays give both sides time to posture and rack up billable hours.
Sly Fox: A Dani Fox Novel Page 7
