PART 35 (71 page)

Juror number seven, the bearded music teacher, was nodding agreement. Sandro wanted them all. He was going to get them all.

“And didn't Mrs. Santos tell the police on the day of the murder and for many days thereafter that she knew nothing about the killing, had no knowledge of it whatever? She told them day after day. After that, she moved to another building. And one day, just before this trial started, someone came to her and told her they wanted her to tell her story to the jury. What story? She had told the police she didn't know anything! Who wanted, needed, this fascinating information of hers?”

Sandro moved toward the foreman of the jury slowly.

“Or was it that Mrs. Santos was an easy prey because she blames the ones responsible for the death of the policeman, somehow, for the death of the child she was carrying at the time. Someone, perhaps some policeman, in need of a witness, convinced this woman of simple memory that these were the terrible fellows who committed this crime.” Sandro pointed at the defendants. “And she believed them. Weren't they the police? Shouldn't they know?

“But we're not here to convict on what someone said to Mrs. Santos. That's not evidence. Only what Mrs. Santos said to you, what she testified to, is. And did she convince you beyond a reasonable doubt that Alvarado committed this crime?

“Let me ask it this way.” Sandro's voice grew soft. He leaned toward the jurors. “You have an important financial decision to make. You have to decide whether to invest, say, ten thousand dollars of your hard-earned money to buy a business.”

Sandro's eyes picked out the import-export executive, Magnus-son, and the textiles man, Apfel.

“And a woman came along and gave you information about that business you were going to buy. And the woman was Mrs. Santos. And she was telling you all about this marvelous business she was selling you”—his eyes caught the salesmen's—”and she described where the property was that she was selling. But you found out that the property was really across the street from where she said it was.” He looked at Hanrahan, the ex-newsman. “And then she described how some of the machinery operated. But you found that it was physically impossible for that machinery to operate the way she said.” Sandro looked straight at the young telephone repairman, Arthur Youngerman, whose attention he knew he had at this point. “And then she told you about one product and just how it looked after it was off the assembly line. And then you found out that it didn't look like that at all. Tell me, on the basis of that information, would you invest your money? Don't tell your neighbor. It's not his vote I'm talking about. It's yours.”

Sandro moved toward the middle of the jury. They knew they wouldn't sink ten thousand dollars into that business.

“Would you invest? Would you be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that this was a good risk? I'm not asking you to take a flyer.” Sandro's voice rang out now. “You have sworn to go into the business on your solemn oath
only
if you are convinced,
beyond
a reasonable doubt, that it's a good investment.”

Sandro's voice grew soft again. “Is it? Would you plunk down ten thousand of your bucks? If you wouldn't, you can't vote to convict the defendants on Mrs. Santos's information. If you had to be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt, would you even hang a dog on that testimony? Be honest. Would you?”

Sandro walked to the end of the jury box, returning the stare of the jurors. He had them thinking now.

“And then Mr. Ellis presented Mrs. Salerno to convince you beyond a reasonable doubt. Mrs. Salerno, who only lied to the police, lied to the district attorney, lied to me, and then came in here to say that she was telling
you
the truth. How do you know? I wonder. It's the same mouth that's told so many stories, that admitted she'd lied to protect herself when she said she didn't want to get involved.

“Mrs. Salerno was so worried about being involved, about being bothered by the police, that she described the entire event, even down to the clothing of the person on the fire escape. And remember that clothing, we'll come across that again in a moment. Yellow jacket and black pants, she said the fellow wore. And she told the police that
she didn't see the man's face.
And that's the way it was! She couldn't see the man's face. We brought in pictures of the same fire escape on which she said she saw the man, and she looked at the picture and said, ‘This looks like it, except
those
things
weren't on the fire escape when I was looking up.' Here's the picture,” Sandro said, holding up the photograph.

“Sure those things weren't there. Those
things
were the feet of a man standing on that fire escape, and that's how a man appears if you're beneath him and you're looking up through the slats of that fire escape. That's why she told the police that she didn't see the man's face! She couldn't!

“But, oh, now Mrs. Salerno said the man looked over the rail right down at her. He looked over the rail, saw a woman looking back up at him. Then, suddenly, she disappeared, and the burglar turned back and calmly continued to break into the apartment, without a care that the woman who had been looking up might, just might be calling the police.”

Sandro was picking up the tempo.

“But there's one thing more about that fellow leaning over the rail. He'd be in silhouette. He'd be in dark profile against the uninterrupted backdrop of sky, and Mrs. Salerno wouldn't be able to see the man, not a dark shadow of a dark Negro two stories above her.

“And did you wonder about the weather? Mrs. Salerno testified that the sun was coming out and going in all day. But that's not what the Weather Bureau says. It was raining all day, according to the United States Weather Bureau. You know why Mrs. Salerno testified to that? Well, did you ever try looking directly up into rain? What happens? Of course. Your eyes close when drops come down into them. And you can't see when your eyes are closed, can you?”

The woman in the number three jury seat, the widow of the railroad man, nodded.

“Well, we now have another witness who can see the impossible. But the impossible is not unusual here. It had better not be, for Mr. Ellis's sake. In order to convict the defendant Alvarado you're going to have to accept an awful lot of impossible things.

“Just before we leave Mrs. Salerno, that paragon of veracity, should we wonder if she was prompted to come here because she's on relief, because her husband is a junky, and he's spent about twenty of their twenty-four married months in jail? Do you think it too harsh of us to think that Mrs. Salerno might lie to protect her family, her husband?”—Sandro's eyes sought out the civil service employees from the post office and the housing authority; they were the two black jurors, and they'd know—”Do you think that such a thought could even be contemplated by such a fine lady? Well, of course it could! She already told us she lied to everyone under the sun to protect herself!

“Would you invest in that business we were talking about, not just gamble, would you be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt about every element of that business now that we've the added assurance of a woman who lied to one of your partners about that business, lied to another of your partners, told again another lie to a third partner, although she assures you that to you, to you now, because she just happens to like you, to you she's telling the absolute truth?” Sandro's voice grew soft again. “Oh, you also just happen to find out that if you buy this business, Mrs. Salerno's husband won't go to jail, they won't lose their welfare income.

“Are you convinced beyond a reasonable doubt? Remember, you can't gamble or take a chance here.

“Well, to buttress all of this marvelous testimony, you have several policemen, especially Detective Thomas Mullaly, who came here and gave you an exhibition of magic the likes of which has hardly ever been seen … outside of a circus.

“May I say that if ever you need any repairs or any carpentry done around your house, you should call Detective Thomas Mullaly.”

Sandro turned and pointed at Mullaly sitting among the spectators. Mullaly stared back coldly.

“There he is. Give him a call, because he is probably the fastest carpenter you've ever seen. Didn't he erect a fence for you, right here, in front of your eyes—a ten- or twelve-foot fence, made of heavy horizontal planking? Yes, indeed.

“Of course, Roosevelt Jackson, the superintendent in the buildings behind which the fence was supposed to stand, said there was no fence. But that's no problem for the talented Detective Mullaly. He'll whip one up for you lickety-split.”

Juror number ten, the letter carrier Clarence Noble, was smiling.

“Another impossible thing, a fence that wasn't there, and suddenly it was there. Or at least you'd have to believe it was there in order to accept the alleged confession to hiding in the yard.

“And what did the police testify to in order to remove all reasonable doubt that Alvarado committed this crime. They told you that Alvarado was brought into the station house about one thirty in the morning. I won't go into Hernandez's story, or any of the facts that relate to Hernandez. Mr. Siakos will do that for you.

“But let's go back just a little, after Hernandez allegedly named Alvarado. Where were the police between, say six and nine
P.M.
? They knew Alvarado's first name. Hernandez said he could point out the house. Did the police waste a drop of gas, a dime for the phone, to apprehend this killer in Brooklyn? No! Why not? Hernandez said he knew the house! Was it that they really hadn't finished torturing the defendant Hernandez by that time, they hadn't beaten it out of him? The police want it to seem that Hernandez's confession was voluntary, easy, fast. That's why Hernandez's chest was strapped with adhesive tape from top to bottom. All that voluntary talking wore out his chest.

“Well, when Alvarado did finally arrive home, that desperate killer, the police didn't even know he was there until he walked out of Jorge's apartment and into the street, holding a loud conversation in Spanish. He walked into their arms to face them, because, he testified, he had nothing to hide. He could have run away. They didn't know he had arrived, and he could have left still unknown to them.

“And they took him to the station house, and of course they didn't lay a finger on him. It was a very nice conversation, a social
chat
.” Sandro fired a look at Mullaly.

“Well, before you accept that alleged confession, you have to look at three things: one, the confession was totally inaccurate, a hasty concoction that could have been thrown together by high-school boys; two, Alvarado told the district attorney, the first person he saw after the police, and the newscaster, the second person he saw after the police, that he didn't do it; and, three, for a guy who wasn't beaten, Alvarado had to simulate the best unconscious seizure in medical history.

“Wait a minute,” said Sandro, whispering now, “did Dr. Maish say Alvarado was unconscious? He
was
unconscious, wasn't he?” Sandro looked to the foreman, to the ex-fighter, to the ex-GI. “Why, that would mean that Alvarado wasn't faking it, that he really had a seizure. But how did that happen?

“Let's ask the doctors, not the police, not Alvarado. Doctors. And the first doctor tells you that narcotics or the lack of them couldn't have caused the seizure. The next doctor says a beating is the most logical explanation for Alvarado's seizure.

“And did you see Mr. Ellis knocking down the door with any other explanation for the seizure. Did Mr. Ellis justify, account for that seizure? The pages of medical testimony on behalf of the people in this case are hopelessly blank.

“No suspect had ever been questioned in that third-floor locker room before. But then, this night, it was so crowded in the station house that there wasn't any room to interview Alvarado, except in that third-floor locker room. Of course, the lieutenant was alone in his office, and Hernandez was
alone
in the clerical office when Alvarado was brought in. And there wasn't room to interrogate the chief suspect and object of all the work being done in the station house? Is that what they're telling us? There wasn't room? No one ever thought of moving Hernandez. The lieutenant was too busy to move. He was working on this case. Now what more important work do you think there might be on this case than interviewing Alvarado, the accused killer? And the police tell you they didn't bring Alvarado to that third floor to work him over. Like a Greek chorus they come in, one after the other, and tell you Alvarado's interview was very calm, very voluntary.

“Of course, Detective Tracy put his foot in his mouth here a couple of times because his original reports, filed on July third and fourth, 1967, came back to haunt him. The only efficient cop here, the only one who bothered to file correct reports, wound up choking on them, because the other cops decided to change this whole story, including the alleged confession, in order to convict the defendants.

“You say that that's not possible. That the police wouldn't strip a man of his rights so brazenly? Well, what happened right here in this court, before your very eyes, when the defendant Alvarado got on the stand to testify. Was his dignity not stripped from him? Mr. Ellis didn't address the defendant Alvarado as he did everyone else—Mister so and so, Detective such and such, Officer, Doctor, Mrs. No. For Alvarado, it was Alvarado. Hey you, Alvarado. Why not just call him boy?” Sandro gave a quick glance to Roscoe Anderson to see how that sat. “And that was done inadvertently by a district attorney in this temple of justice. Just imagine how much dignity, what rights were reserved for the defendant Alvarado by the police in that third-floor locker room. Just imagine.

“In their haste to solve this crime, as Mr. Bemer told you in his opening statement, the police picked Alvarado to be the dupe. They forced upon him a confession the details of which they hadn't quite figured out, a confession their own laboratory was going to show to be a lie.