The One-Eyed Judge

by Ponsor, Michael;

  “That part is hard to imagine, I admit. I go back and forth.” He squeezed her hand and dropped it. “But I’m like Nixon.” He held up his arms and flashed V signs. “I have a secret plan for peace with honor.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Just bravado. More pie?”

  “No thanks. I’m fine.” Was he talking about suicide? It was probably only Sid-style melodrama. She’d have to find a way to push him on that, but there was something else she needed to get out first, before she lost her nerve. “Sid, I have to tell you something. I’m kind of embarrassed by it. Truth is, wow.” She put her hand on her chest. She hadn’t realized how hard this would be. “Truth is, I called your lawyer, Linda Ames, to pass on some thoughts I had about your case. I’m afraid I stuck my nose in, where I—”

  “Really?” Sid seemed more bemused than annoyed. “What’d you do that for? I mean, you’re a sweetheart, but—” The sound of the knocker interrupted him. Sid frowned and stood up. “Oh, for God’s sake.” He strode across the room. “You know, for a guy who’s supposed to be in home confinement, it seems like every five minutes someone is banging on my …”

  Claire stayed in her seat and was surprised to overhear Sid saying, “Well, my goodness, Agent Patterson! Back again?”

  Claire could hear the deep voice of the agent. “Sorry to bother you, Professor, but we’ve got another warrant to search your house.”

  Outside, car doors were slamming.

  26

  Judge Norcross brought Chitra and Erik into court for the hearing on the motion to suppress in Cranmer. The issues were classic, he said, and the lawyers were pretty good. The show would definitely be worth the price of admission.

  Chitra appreciated the fact that the judge liked to do this. After a hearing, he would often spend half an hour with them, pointing out what had impressed him and what hadn’t—what, as he said, went “ping!” and what went “clunk.” This kind of mentoring was invaluable, of course, but it was also terrific fun.

  In the courtroom, Campanella—known affectionately to Chitra and Erik as “Campy”—led off with an oral summary of the government’s argument. The issue was whether the statements made by Professor Cranmer at his arrest were admissible against him at his trial. Campanella predicted that the evidence would show they “clearly” were. His first witness was Special Agent Mike Patterson.

  Chitra leaned back in her chair and took the scene in. She loved the courtroom. Norcross was a profile in black up on the bench, bent forward to jot a note. Linda Ames and the defendant were sitting at counsel table, Ames now and then leaning to whisper to Cranmer. At the podium, Campanella had his hands in his pockets and was putting questions to Patterson as though they were two guys having a comfy chat about some ordinary morning five months ago. It was all very measured and under control. Even the branch of the sugar maple, visible through the high courtroom windows, bobbed in the breeze as though it were conducting music.

  Chitra was suspicious of Patterson’s testimony. He was trying to make the FBI raid sound no more remarkable than a visit from the Girl Scouts during cookie season.

  “After you introduced yourself, what did you say to the defendant?”

  “I asked him if he would have a seat on the sofa.”

  “And what did he do in response to your request?”

  “He sat.”

  “What tone of voice did you use when speaking to him?”

  “Same tone I’m using now.”

  Professor Cranmer, Patterson said, was unfazed during his arrest, heard and understood his Miranda rights, and spoke freely in the comfort of his living room. No one shouted, threatened him, or brandished a firearm. Everything Professor Cranmer did, and everything he said, was entirely voluntary.

  When Campanella asked Agent Patterson whether anyone else, other than Cranmer and the search team, was on the premises at the time of the search, Patterson nodded at a young woman in the gallery wearing a dark gray skirt and white blouse.

  An Amherst College undergraduate, Elizabeth Spencer, was present, he said, at the time of the team’s entry and during the early stages of the search.

  At this point, Erik shoved a note over to Chitra. It read: An interesting morning for Ms. S.! Chitra added two exclamation marks.

  Patterson described, step-by-step, his administration of the required Miranda warnings to Cranmer, and Cranmer’s response that he understood them and that they sounded “just like TV.” This prompted a long-suffering look from Ames over at her client. Patterson’s performance began to get a little monotonous, which was probably Campanella’s goal here. It was all straightforward, no big deal.

  After Campanella finished up with Patterson, Linda Ames had her turn. She started out easy, with simple questions: the time of day, what Cranmer was wearing, what he was up to when the agents burst into his house, and how many agents were at the scene.

  Then things got interesting.

  “Now, Agent Patterson, you’ve described how you informed my client of his Miranda rights at the time you confronted him, correct?”

  “Yes, I read them to him, actually, off a card I keep in my wallet.”

  “Right, and the last question in the standard Miranda protocol is: ‘Having understood these rights, are you willing to give them up and speak to me at this time?’ Isn’t that true?”

  “Yes, that’s usually the last question.”

  “Okay, and you never asked him that question, did you?”

  “No, because I was interrupted by Agent—”

  “That’s fine.” Ames held up a hand. “And you even have a written form you use to confirm a defendant’s waiver of rights. Isn’t that true?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you had that form with you the morning of the search, isn’t that true?”

  “It was probably in my car.”

  “But you never used that form to obtain any written waiver of Miranda rights from my client, did you?”

  “No.”

  “No written or oral waiver, correct?”

  “Correct.”

  Erik pushed another piece of paper over to Chitra. Big hole in Campy’s case. Check out J.

  The judge was writing quickly on his yellow pad. Not a good sign for the government.

  After this, Ames’s voice got increasingly sharp as she moved into a new area.

  “Now, just recently, you conducted a second search of my client’s house, isn’t that true?”

  Campanella was immediately on his feet. “Objection. Irrelevant.”

  “Overruled.”

  Campanella looked stricken. “Judge, respectfully, I can’t see how this second search has any relevance to the question of whether this defendant’s statements at the first search are admissible.”

  Still writing, Norcross spoke without looking up. “Events at the second search may bear on credibility.” He put his pen down. “There’s no jury here. I can sort out what’s relevant, don’t you think?”

  Erik slipped another note to Chitra: Go, J!

  The two clerks wanted to hear about the futile second search, regardless of its relevance. They were dying to learn the identity of the mystery confidential informant whose false information had lured the government into such an embarrassing quagmire.

  Ames led Patterson through his arrival and search of Sid’s house the second time. Patterson described how the agents went room by room, looking into every nook and cranny, and found none of the alleged child porn described in the CI’s affidavit. Then the testimony took another interesting twist.

  “By the way, Agent Patterson, was there anyone else on the premises other than Professor Cranmer when you conducted your search this time?”

  “Yes.”

  “Really? And who was that?”

  “A colleague of Professor Cranmer’s from Amherst College.” Pat
terson hesitated. It may have been Chitra’s imagination, but he seemed to be working very hard not to look up at Judge Norcross. “Professor Claire Lindemann.”

  Now it was Chitra’s turn to scribble a note: Yikes!!!

  Without changing expression, Judge Norcross leaned over, took a tissue from the box under the lip of the bench, and began cleaning his glasses.

  Things got even more entertaining after this, when Linda Ames asked Patterson who the CI was whose bogus information provided probable cause for the second search. Campanella leaped up again, objecting. This time he added emphasis by slapping his yellow pad on the table. Judge Norcross was leaning partway over, retying his shoe.

  He sat up. “Objection sustained. No need to get into this now.” He nodded at Campanella. “Be aware, however, that I may reconsider this ruling prior to trial. We’ll have to see.”

  Following a short redirect by Campanella, the government rested, arguing that although the administration of the Miranda rights was truncated, Patterson wasn’t obliged to obtain the waiver since Cranmer wasn’t formally in custody at the time he made his statements. To Chitra at least, this argument was a loser. Patterson had him pinned to the sofa. They never would have let him leave freely, and they took him away in cuffs a half hour after their initial entry.

  Ames, however, wasn’t taking any chances. When the judge asked her if she would be calling any witnesses, she nodded back at the young woman in the front row of the gallery.

  “Yes, Your Honor. The defense will call Elizabeth Spencer.”

  Judge Norcross glanced over at her.

  “This is the undergraduate that Agent Patterson testified was present at the time of defendant’s arrest?”

  “Not the formal arrest, Judge, but in the time leading up to it. She will testify that my client was effectively in custody from the moment Agent Patterson entered his house. Absent a knowing waiver of his Miranda rights, any statements he made after that point are inadmissible.”

  Two days later, Patterson got a copy of Norcross’s written ruling on the motion to suppress. The statements Professor Cranmer made to the agent posing as the UPS driver were admissible at his trial. Cranmer was not in custody then, and Miranda warnings were not required. However, anything he said after Patterson entered his house was out. Based largely on Elizabeth Spencer’s testimony, Norcross ruled that the defendant was effectively in custody from the moment Patterson confronted him. The absence of a proper waiver of rights made any statements after that inadmissible.

  Patterson flung Norcross’s memo into the wastebasket and went downstairs to the marshals’ exercise room to work off his bad mood. This was just the latest in a string of problems they were encountering in Cranmer.

  The exercise room, located in the marshals’ area in the basement of the courthouse, didn’t turn out to be much of a haven. One of the deputy marshals had come in early and was on a stationary bicycle reading that morning’s Republican.

  “Hey, Mike,” he said. “Who threw the monkey wrench?” He held up the headline, which read: “Porn Prof’s Case Hits Headwind.”

  “Give me a break, okay?”

  “Says here this Spencer girl made you guys sound like the Mongol horde.” The deputy, an Asian American man named Jacob Lee, grinned over at Patterson and tapped the paper.

  “Yeah, I know,” Patterson said. “And I was Genghis Khan.” He settled himself on the weight bench to begin his daily set of presses. “Pisses me off. A diddly-squat case like this shouldn’t be such a pain in the butt.”

  “You got screwed by your informant. Happens to all of us.”

  “When I told Campanella the news about the hidden porn stash, he about jumped out of his socks. It meant our professor was violating his conditions of release, and he’d get to stick the guy back in Ludlow. I let myself get stampeded. Dumb.”

  The strain on his arms and upper body felt good. He’d move through his weight routine and do a half hour on the treadmill. Then he’d shower and get back to work.

  “Like the bumper sticker says, Mike, shit happens.”

  “Yeah, you should have been there when I told Campanella we came up dry on the second search. Guy threw a paperweight and wiped out his coffeepot.”

  Lee, pedaling furiously, broke into a delighted smile. “I love it, man.”

  “Then, after that, I had to listen to Linda Ames lecture me for half an hour over the phone about her client’s rights. Practically called me a Nazi.” He nested the weight bar and sat up. “Right after that, I got a call from my very unreliable informant, freaked out because he’s afraid the judge will release his identity.”

  Lee began to slow down, moving into the cool-off segment of his ride.

  “What do you think will happen?”

  Patterson looked around the room. “Keep this under your hat, okay? Our death-or-glory U.S. attorney has decided that Campanella needs adult supervision. He’s jumped into the case with his size sixteen galoshes. Campanella has his marching orders: Do whatever he has to do to sweep the whole dog bowl under the rug and out of the papers.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Well, at first, I thought my CI had made up the tall tale about the porn stash. I was ready to pull the kid’s head off. Now I’m wondering if someone grabbed the pictures before we got there. I’m going to head up to Amherst College. Do a little independent research.”

  27

  Patterson decided he might have the best luck approaching Elizabeth Spencer after class. That afternoon, he waited on a bench outside Converse Hall until he spotted her coming down the long steps. Even from a distance, she was a strikingly poised young woman—curvy but not flaunting it too much, with medium-length light-brown hair framing an intelligent, heart-shaped face. She was wearing a bright-red fleece and, fortunately, she was on her own. A couple of the boys hurrying into the building smiled at her as they passed. Her quick return twinkle told them she was friendly but happened to be in a hurry to get somewhere. The young lady had already mastered the art of the gracious brush-off.

  “Ms. Spencer?” He approached from the side, and she had to stop to turn and see him.

  “Uh-huh.” Her eyes, widening slightly, marked him as an enemy. She looked around to make sure there were other people in the vicinity, on her guard.

  “I’m sure you remember me. I’m Mike Patterson from the FBI.” He held out his badge. “You did a terrific job at the hearing the other day. We’re trying to straighten a few things out, and I was wondering if I could ask you a couple quick questions?”

  “I remember you. What do you want to talk about?”

  “This isn’t the best spot.” He smiled. “Maybe we could find an empty classroom.” He nodded up at the building she’d just left.

  “No, this is fine.” Her eyes narrowed, and she shifted a strap of her backpack. “I’m in kind of a hurry.”

  “Let me just get some basic information. Your family’s from Minnesota, right?”

  “You know all that. Come on.”

  “Well …”

  “Listen. I know you are doing your job, Mr. Patterson, and I don’t want to be a problem. But my uncle always told me never to speak to the police—or the FBI, or whatever—without having a lawyer. If you want to talk to me, then I want to talk to a lawyer first, and you can contact him. Or her. You’re a nice person, I guess, but I really don’t want to talk to you like this, coming up to me out of the blue and all. I’m sorry.”

  She started to turn away.

  “Fair enough. Can I just leave you my card?”

  “Sure.” She took the card and gave him a slightly apologetic smile. “Usually, I’m not such a crab.”

  “Well …”

  “Bye.”

  She walked off, increasing her speed a little and not looking back. Without suggesting panic, her posture underlined her decision to have nothing to do with
him. It was exactly the way he’d want his daughter to handle a situation like this if some cop ever approached her. The young lady had left him with absolutely no idea whether she had anything to hide.

  The attempted contact with Harlan Graves, a half hour later, produced something approaching outright fireworks. In response to Patterson’s knock, Graves opened his door halfway and peeped out at him suspiciously. The professor was wearing a threadbare olive cardigan, a pair of wrinkled khakis, and carpet slippers. As soon as Patterson mentioned that he was from the FBI, the guy practically turned purple.

  “I don’t have anything to say, and I don’t appreciate these Gestapo tactics! If you want to talk to me, make an appointment.”

  “Well, I was just in the area …”

  “What do you want to talk about, anyway?” The professor was at least curious, and Patterson hoped for a second that this might get him in the door.

  “Well, we’re checking on some things about your colleague, Professor Cranmer, and—”

  “Cranmer! He’s a twisted little peacock. Other than that, I have nothing to say.” Graves looked over his shoulder, possibly at some noise inside the house, and dropped his voice. “If you want some dirt on Cranmer from someone who would eat Sid’s liver on toast, go talk to Professor Mattoon.” His eyes glinted with malice. “You might strike oil there.”

  The indistinct voice of an elderly woman reached Patterson from somewhere in the house. Graves turned and called out, “It’s okay, Martha. It’s just a man.” He turned back to Patterson. “My wife is not well. Now go away.”

  The door shut hard, and Patterson heard the cluck of the dead bolt. Graves’s response didn’t especially bother him. It wasn’t the first time someone had shut a door in his face. But he couldn’t help wondering what this guy’s problem was. Tax evasion? Tearing the tag off a mattress?

  He wasn’t doing anything, so he decided he’d take a shot at talking to this Mattoon character. After a few inquiries, he located the professor’s office and arrived just as a student, a tall black kid—probably not an American—was leaving.