Bronx Justice

by Joseph Teller

  Darren's family, however well they might testify, would be regarded with a certain amount of skepticism by the jury, simply because they were family. So Jaywalker de cided to move them to the middle of his order. He would lead off with the post-office employees, in order to prove Darren's alibi for the morning of September 17th. That was the morning Eleanor Cerami had seen her attacker again, she'd said with certainty. If she could be wrong about that, she could be wrong about everything.

  To Jaywalker, a trial has always been something of an emotional roller-coaster ride, punctuated by a series of long climbs and gut-wrenching dives. There's the climb that an ticipates jury selection and culminates in addressing the jurors. There's the climb during the prosecutor's opening statement, which leads to the defense's opening. Then there's the long, drawn-out climb of the prosecution's evi dence, which suddenly gives way to the defense case.

  The thing of it is, Jaywalker has always hated the roller coaster with every fiber of his being. To this day, he holds on to the safety bar with both hands, his knuckles bonewhite. He grits his teeth, closes his eyes and screams at the top of his lungs at every dive.

  But he always gets back on.

  It was well past midnight when he hung up from his last phone call, assured that each of his witnesses knew exactly where to be and when to be there. And it was after two when he finally drifted off to a troubled sleep, dreaming of the Cyclone, that mother of all roller coasters, at the Coney Island of his youth.

  14

  FAMILY AND FRIENDS

  The first defense witness Jaywalker called was Andrew Emmons. Mr. Emmons, a black man, testified that he'd worked at the same branch of the post office since 1965, and had known Darren Kingston since he'd been assigned there a couple years back. Although the two worked dif ferent shifts, their schedules were set up so they over lapped by several hours.

  JAYWALKER: And what branch is it that both you and Mr. Kingston work at?

  EMMONS: That's the Gracie Station branch.

  JAYWALKER: Where is that located?

  EMMONS: In Manhattan, at East Eighty-fifth Street.

  Jaywalker drew from Mr. Emmons that Darren ap peared no thinner now than he had back in August. In fact, the witness explained, the workers would occasionally step onto the large parcel scales to weigh themselves. Darren's weight had always been right around 150 to 153 pounds.

  Next Jaywalker asked Mr. Emmons about Darren's coming back to work following his arrest. Although he didn't remember the date, he did recall Darren's arriving one morning "off his shift"—in other words, not at his regular starting time—after having been absent about a week. The two had had a brief conversation, during which Darren had explained that he'd been arrested. Then Darren had gone in to speak with his union delegate, a man named George Riley. The time, according to Mr. Emmons, had been 9:00 in the morning.

  Pope's cross-examination was brief. He questioned whether the employees really weighed themselves, but Mr. Emmons assured him that they did. Asked if he'd ever been convicted of a crime, Mr. Emmons replied that he hadn't been. Pope was fishing there. Because the postoffice employees weren't testifying to Darren's where abouts at the time of any of the crimes, they weren't alibi witnesses in the strict sense of the term. Therefore Jay walker hadn't been required to turn over their names in advance. With no chance to check Mr. Emmons out, Pope took a cast anyway and came up empty.

  Next Jaywalker called George Riley, a white man. A number of Darren's fellow workers had offered to testify, and Jaywalker had been able to pick from among them. His choice of a biracial sample was no accident. Justice may be color-blind, but the same isn't necessarily true of jurors.

  Mr. Riley testified that he'd been working at Gracie Station for twelve years and also served as a shop steward active in union matters. He'd known Darren since Darren had begun working at the post office, and their shifts over lapped. He first learned of the case when Darren came in one morning to see him. Darren explained that he'd been arrested about a week earlier and wanted to know the proper procedure for explaining his absence. Mr. Riley told him to see Mr. Hamilton, the supervisor, and explain exactly what had happened. Shortly thereafter, Darren had indeed gone in to see Mr. Hamilton. According to Mr. Riley, the time was somewhere between 9:00 and 10:00 a.m.

  Pope, on cross-examination, tried to cast doubt on whether Darren had actually gone to see Mr. Hamilton. But Mr. Riley stated that he himself had spoken to Mr. Hamilton and told him that Darren was coming in.

  In his next line of questioning, however, Pope scored heavily. He drew an admission from Mr. Riley that he was unaware of Darren's stutter. It was a blow, and one that Jaywalker could do nothing about.

  Jaywalker called P. G. Hamilton. Asked to spell his first name and last, Mr. Hamilton gave up P-H-I-L-B-E-R-T with obvious reluctance.As for the G., it remains a mystery to this day. Mr. Hamilton made an impressive physical ap pearance. A bearded and distinguished-looking white man, he could easily have been mistaken for a college professor or a psychiatrist. He testified that he'd been with the post office since 1944, and a supervisor since 1953. He identi fied Darren as one of his employees. He described him as "slightly built," appearing the same in court as he had back in August.

  Jaywalker asked Mr. Hamilton if there'd come a time when he'd learned that Darren had been arrested. He stated that he had, though offhand he couldn't recall the date. But P. G. Hamilton had brought with him something far more persuasive than his own memory. In summoning him to court, Jaywalker had served upon him a subpoena duces tecum, ordering him to produce all records the post office had regarding Darren Kingston and the date September 17,

  1979. Now, as Mr. Hamilton sat in the witness box, he withdrew from his jacket pocket a piece of paper and unfolded it.

  JAYWALKER: And what is that?

  HAMILTON: This is a form, an official government form, called a 3971. This is made out by an em ployee for any type of leave whatsoever—sick leave, annual leave, even jury duty. The employee must make this out for any leave.

  Mr. Hamilton related in detail how one morning in Sep tember—the 17th, according to the document—Darren Kingston had come into his office to see him, to tell him he'd been arrested, and to discuss the time he'd missed from work. Mr. Hamilton had directed Darren to fill out a Form 3971, to cover emergency leave from September 12th—the date of Darren's arrest and the first day he'd missed work—through September 18th, the following day. That added up to one calendar week, the equivalent of five working days. Mr. Hamilton recalled specifically that in filling out the form, Darren had misunderstood the in structions and dated it September 18, instead of Septem ber 17. Mr. Hamilton had caught the error and corrected it. Then he'd approved the form by signing it and dating it himself, and forwarded it to the computer processing unit.

  Jaywalker offered the form into evidence. Pope re quested a voir dire examination to challenge its admis sibility, and Justice Davidoff permitted him to interrupt Jaywalker's examination and ask a series of questions about the document. Pope tried his best to dispute Mr. Hamilton's account, but this time his best wasn't good enough. When he saw that the judge was about to admit the item, he withdrew his objection. Then he completed his about-face by pretending that the exhibit—which only moments earlier he'd fought so hard to keep out of evidence—was insignificant. When Jaywalker asked Jus tice Davidoff's permission to pass the form among the jurors so that they might decide for themselves, Pope crossed the line for the first time in the trial, committing prosecutorial misconduct by injecting his own opinion into the issue.

  POPE: We'll let the jury look at it for what it's worth. I don't think it really makes much difference whether they see it or not.

  JAYWALKER: Your Honor, if I may, I'm going to pass this among the jury. Even though Mr. Pope doesn't think it's important.

  THE COURT: That remark was uncalled for.

  Which only goes to show that at trial, as in sports, it's usually the player who commits the second foul who gets caught.

/>   On cross-examination, Pope stayed away from Form

  3971. Instead, he tried to use Mr. Hamilton, as he had so successfully used the previous witness, George Riley, to cast doubt on Darren's stutter. Pope was evidently banking on the fact that none of the post-office witnesses had come to court expecting to be asked about the stutter. And he was right; Jaywalker had completely overlooked the matter in interviewing and preparing them. Furthermore, Pope was aware that they'd gone right from Mr. Riley's testimony to Mr. Hamilton's, providing Jaywalker no opportunity to alert Mr. Hamilton at the last moment.

  POPE: What was Darren Kingston's manner of speaking? Describe his voice for us.

  HAMILTON: Mr. Kingston's voice is high.

  POPE: Well, would you say he's loud when he speaks to you?

  HAMILTON: No, Mr. Kingston is usually very soft-spoken.

  Pope had scored a point, and he knew it. Sensing his advantage, he couldn't resist the urge to press on.

  POPE: Very soft-spoken?

  HAMILTON: Yes.

  Another point. Jaywalker wondered if Pope would have the good sense to quit while he was ahead, at a point where he could later argue to the jury that Mr. Hamilton's failure to mention anything else unusual about Darren's speech spoke volumes. Jaywalker could tell from Pope's pause that he was wrestling with the idea. But then greed got the better of him.

  POPE: Does he stutter at all when he talks to you?

  HAMILTON: Once in a while, I would call it. What we would normally call a stutter, once in a while, a word or two. Sometimes he would come on a word and repeat a syllable one or two or three times. Not on all words. Not what I would call normal stutter ing.

  Bingo. By asking one question too many, Pope had elicited a classic definition of stuttering: occasionally re peating a syllable once or twice, or even three times. What was more, he'd elicited it from a witness who obviously hadn't been coached to say it. With no further questions for Mr. Hamilton, Pope sat down heavily. Jaywalker thought he heard him curse under his breath, but he couldn't be sure.

  As Jaywalker watched P. G. Hamilton make his way out of the courtroom, he couldn't help but feel buoyed by his testimony. Here was a man who'd given nearly four decades of his life to the post office. He'd come in, armed with official paperwork, to establish that at the moment Eleanor Cerami was seeing her rapist in the Bronx, Darren Kingston was at East 85th Street in Manhattan. On top of that, he'd corroborated Darren's stutter.

  Jaywalker would only learn much later on that, in one of the many ironic footnotes to the case, Mr. Hamilton had already been reprimanded by his own superior for permit ting Darren to return to work without any disciplinary action being taken against him for being absent without authoriza tion.

  As the old saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished.

  In order to complete the September 17th "alibi," Jay walker called Darren's cousin, Delroid Kingston, to the stand. Delroid was a witness about whom Jaywalker had great reservations. He was unemployed, separated from his wife and definitely not the sharpest tack in the toolbox. There was no way he was going to be a match for Jacob Pope's cross-examination skills. Yet Jaywalker felt he had little choice in the matter. When Darren had been released on bail, Jaywalker had instructed the family to have some one with him at all times. He'd wanted to be able to have somebody to account for Darren's whereabouts, in case the real rapist were to strike again. Responding to Jaywalker's request, the family had mobilized its personnel. Darren, Charlene and their son had moved back in with Darren's parents, as had Delroid, who was out of work and having trouble making ends meet. Since Marlin and Inez had to work—there was the cost of the bail bond to absorb, as well as Jaywalker's fee and other expenses related to the case—that left only Delroid to shadow Darren. So on the morning of September 17th, when Darren had gone to the post office to explain his recent absence from work, Delroid had gone with him.

  JAYWALKER: How did you go there with him?

  DELROID: We took the train from his house.

  JAYWALKER: And was that the first time Darren went back to work after he came out of jail?

  DELROID: I think it was. Yes.

  JAYWALKER: Once you got to the post office, did you go upstairs with him?

  DELROID: No, I didn't. The only ones that were allowed upstairs were the people that worked there.

  JAYWALKER: All right. About what time did you get there? Do you remember?

  DELROID: We got there approximately about a quarter to nine, something around that vicinity.

  JAYWALKER: And when Darren went upstairs, what did you do?

  DELROID: I remained downstairs in the lobby.

  JAYWALKER: Do you recall when the next time you saw Darren was?

  DELROID: Approximately about two and a half hours later.

  JAYWALKER: Two and a half hours later?

  DELROID: That's when he came back downstairs.

  JAYWALKER: And what did the two of you do then?

  DELROID: From there we went back to the train station and took the train back uptown.

  JAYWALKER: Back uptown to where?

  DELROID: To his parents' house.

  JAYWALKER: Do you recall what time you got back there?

  DELROID: Well, one-fifteen, one-thirty, some where around that.

  JAYWALKER: And do you know if Darren went out again until dinnertime?

  DELROID: He did not.

  Jaywalker concluded by establishing that "home" was not only a lengthy ride from the post office, but also a good mile from the Castle Hill area.

  On cross-examination, Pope demonstrated that he'd done his homework. He brought out the fact that Delroid's parents, Darren's aunt and uncle, lived on Olmstead Avenue, which was considerably closer to Castle Hill. But Delroid stated that Darren was at most an infrequent visitor there, and that in fact Delroid had never once seen him there.

  Pope next tried to attack Delroid's claim of being able to account for Darren's whereabouts following his cous in's release on bail. But Delroid was firm in his testimony that he'd been with Darren since then, every day, practi cally all day long. Had the expression "twenty-four/seven" been coined back then, no doubt Delroid would have used it.

  From there, Pope went into an incident that had oc curred toward the end of September. Darren had an aunt by marriage by the name of Yvette Monroe. Several weeks after Darren's arrest and release, Yvette had been in the Castle Hill area when she'd spotted a young man who re sembled Darren so much that at first she'd thought it was him. When she'd realized her mistake, it had occurred to her that the encounter might have significance. She'd im mediately phoned the Kingstons, who'd hastily organized a "search party" to rush over to the area. Delroid had been a member of the search party. But by the time they reached Castle Hill, the young man had disappeared.

  Jaywalker had told Pope about the incident, in the hope of convincing him that not only was Darren innocent, but also that the real rapist was still at large in the Castle Hill area. Why Pope was now choosing to go into the incident puzzled Jaywalker. Perhaps he anticipated that Jaywalker himself would, and was making a preemptive move to blunt the impact. Actually, Jaywalker had thought about going into it, but doubted that the rules of evidence would permit him to do so. But now, by "opening the door" to the subject, Pope was inadvertently giving Jaywalker an opportunity to explore it in detail. Jaywalker scribbled himself a note to get in touch with Yvette Monroe as soon as he could.

  Whatever Pope's true interest in the matter had been, he succeeded in making little of it. He asked Delroid a few questions about it and got nowhere. With that, he gave up. As Delroid stepped down from the witness stand, Jay walker had to suppress an urge to rush over to him and hug him. This out-of-work man, literally dependent upon others for the food on his plate and a roof over his head, who'd caused Jaywalker such great concern, had come through with flying colors.