“Hernandez told us about committing a burglary on the morning of July third in El Barrio. Well, maybe he did. He also said he pawned some of the things he burglarized. Maybe he did that too. But the time when he left that last pawnshop, according to his own admission and witnesses, was about two o’clock, perhaps a couple of minutes later. Now, Hernandez himself made Angel Belmonte the keystone of his alibi, for Hernandez said that he went to buy some drugs from Belmonte after he was in the pawnshops. He said he was with Angel Belmonte at two thirty, the very time when Patrolman Lauria was killed.
“Remember, those pawnshops Hernandez mentioned were only a few short blocks from Stanton Street, and even if Hernandez did everything else he told us he did, he could still have gone home and gone onto the roof with Alvarado. And the patrolman could have come, and he and Alvarado could have killed him. Unless, of course, he was actually someplace else buying heroin from Angel Belmonte.
“Let’s look at that last crucial piece of evidence in Hernandez’s alibi, the only crucial piece of evidence in it. We didn’t even know Angel Belmonte existed until Hernandez dropped his name here at the trial. I know Mr. Luca likes to believe in conspiracies, but this isn’t someone the police planted, someone we planned on as a witness. Hernandez himself brought him up. And we found Belmonte and brought him here. No lawyer for the defense went to see Angel Belmonte, the keystone of Hernandez’s alibi. Oh sure, the defense brought the smoke screen, the people who saw Hernandez in the morning in El Barrio, the people in the pawnshops, the names, the lists of pledges, the estimated times of going to the bank, of going to lunch. I urge you to accept all of that as true. And still Hernandez admitted having time to get back to Stanton Street, to invade the Soto apartment, and to aid in killing the patrolman—unless he was actually with Angel Belmonte.
“What does Angel Belmonte say? He says he was not with Hernandez on July third. He says not only that, but he says also that later, in the Tombs, Hernandez solicited him to lie, to say that Hernandez had been with him at two thirty on that afternoon of July third. Belmonte, Hernandez’s own alibi key, says Hernandez asked him to perjure himself. Because that was the only way Hernandez’s alibi could hold together.
“You may say: How can we believe Belmonte? Just look at him, look at what he is. But this is the defendant’s friend, this is the man he named, the type that he associated with.
“Mr. Luca has suggested that as part of this conspiracy we arranged some sort of deal with Belmonte. But Belmonte is a citizen, not a criminal, a distinction that has been made so eloquently clear for you. He has no charges pending against him. He can’t benefit from any deal.
“And Belmonte, on whom Hernandez depended so heavily, has branded Hernandez’s alibi an unmitigated lie. Hernandez has not, cannot, account for himself at the time Patrolman Lauria was killed. And why not? Because Hernandez was there, he was at the scene, just as he described it to Detective Mullaly. Is that an unreasonable interpretation of the facts?”
If the jury’s attention had wandered as Sandro’s had during Siakos’s summation, there was no question that Ellis had brought it back.
“What about Alvarado’s alibi? I’d be insulting your intelligence, as well as those good citizens who came here to testify, if I were to say that all those plain, ordinary people were lying. But I don’t say that. I don’t have to invent a conspiracy. What time was it that Alvarado changed that hundred-dollar bill? What time was it that he ate? Mrs. Cooper said it was about one fifteen on July third when she changed the bill. Mr. Gruberger, the assistant store manager, agreed with her, although he said he didn’t even see Alvarado. I urge you to accept all of that as true also. There was still plenty of time for Alvarado to get to Manhattan. Remember, Williamsburg in Brooklyn is just a bridgespan away from the Delancey area, and Stanton Street is just three or four short blocks from that bridge.
“So at one fifteen in the afternoon, Alvarado was just a few scant minutes from the building where Patrolman Lauria met his death. Pablo Torres, who worked in the restaurant, said he served Alvarado food on that afternoon. He didn’t know exactly what time it was except that the lunch crowd had thinned out, and it must have been somewhere around one forty-five. Well, that’s not an exact time, but even if it were, at one forty-five, forty-five minutes before the time when Patrolman Lauria was killed, Alvarado was only minutes away in Brooklyn. I think it’s reasonable to say that Alvarado’s alibi really depends on the barber Moreno. The others are leading up to Moreno, but they do not exclude the possibility that Alvarado could have done all the things they described and still have had more than enough time to come to Manhattan, go to the roof on Stanton Street, take the patrolman’s revolver, and shoot him five times in the back.
“If you look at the keystone of Alvarado’s alibi as Alvarado testified to it, you’ll find that it’s not stone at all. It’s mush, it’s chicanery, it’s false, it’s a lie, and it brands Alvarado as the cold-blooded murderer that he is.”
Sandro’s face was becalmed, but he felt Ellis’s emotionless hammer blows.
“Well, the barber, Moreno, said that he knew that Alvarado came into the store about two twenty-five or two thirty. He said he knew what time it was because his friend, Julio Maldonado, came into the shop. He said Julio usually came in later, but this day he was early, and they kidded about it, and that’s how Moreno knew what time it was.
“We didn’t mention Julio. We didn’t even know his name. He was another witness the defense brought into this. Now, Moreno didn’t look at a watch or a clock on the wall. He said he looked at Julio’s watch.
“But Julio testified he didn’t leave work until after three thirty on July third. That’s what he said. It was after three thirty that he left work, and he worked several blocks from the barber shop. That would mean that Julio did not get to the barber shop until about four o’clock, not two o’clock.
“And if Julio didn’t get to the barber shop until four o’clock, and Moreno is basing the time of Alvarado’s arrival on Julio’s arrival, then maybe Alvarado arrived in that barber shop about four twenty-five or four thirty, and not, as Alvarado would like you to believe, at two twenty-five or two thirty.
“That would mean that the pictures from ABC are correct. We don’t have to find some motive for the ABC witnesses to have lied. Alvarado did have a haircut, he did have his moustache trimmed on July third. But in between the time he ate and the time he was trying to establish his alibi by getting a haircut in his own neighborhood, Alvarado snuffed out the life of a New York City patrolman by shooting him five times in the back.”
The eyes of the jurors showed all too clearly that they were by now sure of nothing.
“Is it unreasonable to suggest to you that a man who killed a patrolman might try to establish an alibi for himself?
“Oh, I’m sure some of you are thinking that Mr. Luca managed to shake Julio a bit with his questions. Not with the answers, mind you—with the questions. Julio insisted that he left his job at three thirty. Now, Mr. Luca would have you believe that Julio was goofing off and left early that day. But Mr. Luca’s questions are not evidence, and Mr. Luca would be the first to point that out. Julio didn’t leave the job until three thirty.
“Well, if that’s so, we see the other alibi crumble, shattered as an absolute lie by this slip of paper. The time card Julio made out is here, and it is marked very plainly. He checked out at three thirty P.M. on July third.” Ellis raised the time card in one hand. Every juror’s eyes studied it.
“Now, I’m not saying any of those alibi witnesses were lying, and yet the alibis are gone. They’ve evaporated into the nothingness they were and are. The defendants are lying here, the defendants want to lie about the time to convince you they were not at the scene of the crime. But their own words, their own alibis have backfired. Angel Belmonte brands Hernandez a liar. Julio brands Alvarado a liar. I don’t have to invent a monstrous conspiracy. I don’t have to smear every one of those independent witnesses as liars, accuse them of
all sorts of insidious acts in order to destroy the alibis. The alibis destroy themselves. Does it now abuse your common sense to look more carefully at the other evidence?
“The people presented Mrs. Santos. It seems ages now since she was here, but you recall her and the manner in which she testified, the kind of person she was. And she said she saw the defendants, both of them, in the car outside, and Hernandez in the building on the stairs, and Alvarado on the fire escape.
“Now, what motive, what possible motive would that woman have for coming here and testifying falsely? She may not have had much education, but what reason would she have for testifying falsely?
“Mr. Luca argues that she is not telling the truth because she didn’t tell the police anything when she was first questioned. Now, ladies and gentlemen, here again is where I ask you to use your common sense. Does the fact that Mrs. Santos, in her pregnancy, concerned about her unborn child, did not rush to disclose what she saw to the police—does that brand her a liar? What possible motive would she have to come into this court and expose herself to the blistering cross-examination that she was subjected to for two days?
“Is there any indication that she has anything against these defendants? The ridiculous argument was advanced that she has a grudge against the defendants, that in some unexplained—and unexplainable—manner she blames them for having caused her miscarriage.
“Now, if this were all a part of a monstrous conspiracy on the part of Detective Mullaly and the other detectives, as the defendants want you to believe, I submit the detectives could have done a much better job in framing the defendants. Mrs. Santos did not accuse either defendant of doing anything. All she said was that she saw them in the car, saw Hernandez on the stairs, saw Alvarado on the fire escape. If this is a frame-up, why did Mrs. Santos stop there?
“And there was Mrs. Salerno, who testified that she saw the defendant Alvarado on the fire escape, bending down, near the window. And you were shown photographs that supposedly prove she couldn’t have seen the face of the man on the fire escape. Do you think that you would have difficulty seeing a face at a distance the engineer Loughlin described as thirty feet? You were in that rear yard. You saw how near that was.
“And what possible motive would Mrs. Salerno have to come into this courtroom and testify falsely? It has been not too subtly suggested that Detective Mullaly, the archconspirator, and the other policemen were putting pressure on Mrs. Salerno because her husband is an addict and she is on relief.
“You know, it’s staggering when you consider the charges and accusations that have been leveled against these detectives. The defendants would have you believe that these detectives are so depraved, so conscienceless, that they would stoop to anything to frame two innocent men.
“But you heard the frightening cross-examination that Mrs. Santos and Mrs. Salerno endured. Do you think there is any pleasure for two women like these to be pulled away from their normal household routines, to be brought down here to court, and be subjected to the kind of cross-examination and abuse you witnessed? Is there any wonder then that citizens, knowing what goes on at these trials, the way a witness is attacked and cross-examined, is it any wonder that they are reluctant to come forward and speak to the police, to be witnesses at a trial to the commission of a crime?
“Mrs. Salerno said she saw Alvarado on the fire escape, not doing anything particular. She did not accuse him of anything. She just saw him up there, and a short time later Patrolman Lauria was shot. If this were that monstrous conspiracy the defendants are trying to convince you of, I’m sure Detective Mullaly could have done a much better job with Mrs. Salerno too. He could have had her testify to something far more incriminating. But no, these witnesses, plain women, uneducated women, just came here and testified to what they saw. Nothing technical, nothing fancy. Just the faces of two men they saw a few minutes before the patrolman was shot.
“And then Detective Mullaly testified. You have seen the detectives in this case, and you have seen the defendants. I ask you to use your common sense in evaluating their conflicting testimony, compare their demeanor, their possible self-interest in the outcome, the manner of testifying. Who was the more credible, who had more of a motive to lie? Remember, you have no alibi to save the defendants now! I ask you, are my thoughts and ideas unreasonable, insulting to your intelligence? Or do they begin to ring true for you?
“The defendants want you to believe that the name of a Negro was beaten out of Hernandez. Didn’t Mrs. Ramirez come here, the woman Mr. Luca called a people’s witness, didn’t she come here originally and tell you that she told the police about the man running down the stairs? And didn’t Alvarado confess to that?
“Simply, Detective Mullaly became suspicious when Hernandez gave all sorts of untrue, evasive answers about the double-parked car. They were suspicious, and you don’t have to be a trained detective to find them suspicious. So Hernandez was brought to the station house, where he continued to lie about the car, and about driving the car that day. That is, until his friend who he said had the car was brought in, and Hernandez was again shown to be a liar because his friend was at work all day. And then, trapped, he said, okay, I’ll tell you where I was today, I met a friend.
“Isn’t it reasonable that Hernandez, realizing he was trapped, knowing that he didn’t actually shoot and kill the patrolman, understood that he’d be better off telling the police everything he knew?
“There’s been a great deal made of the fact that the defendants were questioned in the third-floor locker room. All I can say is that you heard the detectives. The police station was a madhouse, police personnel, brass, reporters everywhere. Certainly, when a police officer is killed, there is an intensive effort to find the perpetrator. But does it necessarily follow that in their anxiety to find the killer or killers, the police would get hold of an innocent man and beat him into such a state of submission that he would implicate himself and another innocent man?
“Does it abuse your common sense to say that the defendants are making a desperate attempt to escape their responsibility for the death of Patrolman Lauria? They have had nothing else to do in the Tombs except think about this case, and they had plenty of time to concoct what I call a vicious tissue of lies. But is it so difficult to see it as a desperate attempt to escape the consequences of a brutal and vicious crime? Surely, lies are as nothing to a man who has already shot a fellow human being five times in the back.
“You’ve been told about all the time it took before going over to Brooklyn to look for Alvarado, and you’ve been told that was a sure sign Hernandez was being beaten. Well, what were the police to do without an identification of Alvarado, without a picture? Were they to hold the defendant Hernandez in Brooklyn for hours, waiting in a hallway in case Alvarado came back? Or should the policemen who were left there on a stakeout go running out of the building every time a man went past or came into the building, because they didn’t know who they were looking for? Isn’t it reasonable to think that the police might wait until they knew who they were looking for, until they had a picture?
“I say, ladies and gentlemen, that this is typical of the confusion, the smoke screens, that were thrown at you during this trial to keep you from learning the truth. These fine police officers, who did their job, have also had to bear the brunt of some vicious accusations here.
“The police asked Alvarado where he was, and he said in the movies. Although to hear him tell it, he didn’t get a chance to move before he was being beaten. Who would you believe, the defendants or the police? Who has reason to lie? Who has a motive to lie? Who has already lied about the alibi?
“And when Alvarado started in with this story about being in the movies, Detective Mullaly brought up Hernandez, and Hernandez accused Alvarado. The thieves fell apart, and they went for each other’s throats.
“And Hernandez was taken away, and Alvarado started talking about the movies again. And Hernandez was brought back a second time, and they started cursing and
lunging at each other again. Oh, I know there was something about the detectives not speaking Spanish, so how did they know they were cursing? Does it abuse your common sense to think that these detectives, working where they do in a Spanish-speaking neighborhood, would have some knowledge of the language of the street? And Hernandez was taken away the second time, and then Alvarado knew the jig was up. And he said, okay, I’ll tell you where I was.
“Now, does it abuse your common sense to accept that version of the events which occurred as Detective Mullaly described Alvarado’s confession? Is there anything that violates your sense of logic there?
“Of course, by the time the district attorney arrived, Alvarado—and you saw him here, not a stupid man, uneducated but clever—realized he had to get out of this somehow. So he started pulling away from the statement he made to the police. But I’ll hold that for a moment.
“While we’re on the subject of this frame-up, if these detectives were in desperation to frame these defendants, does it abuse your common sense to suggest that the detectives could have really done a job on them? They could have concocted a far better story for the witnesses to lie about. And they had all the opportunity in the world to get hold of both these defendants and plaster their fingerprints all over the TV set and all over the radio, and make sure they got the ideal conditions that the expert on fingerprints described for us here. If these policemen are the type that the defendants would have you believe, that would have been easy, and that would have been the best, the strongest evidence in the world. They wouldn’t have to be bothered questioning these defendants at all. They wouldn’t have to bother with confessions that a smart defense lawyer could say were beaten out. If they were setting out to frame this defendant Alvarado, they allegedly had Alvarado completely at their mercy. Why bother with his statements? Just wrap his hands in the correct fashion around that gun and obtain identifiable fingerprints, and the rest of this case would be over. If the detectives were out to do what they were accused of trying to do here, does it abuse your common sense to say they would have done a far, far better job?
PART 35 Page 57
