Homicide - A Year On The Killing Streets Part 48

The standard prosecutorial lament, heard a thousand times a day by a thousand police officers in a thousand distant courthouses.

"You've got witnesses," counters Garvey. "Romaine Jackson, Sharon Henson, Vincent Booker ..."

At the mention of Booker's name, Doan gives the detective another look.

"Well," says Garvey, shrugging, "he's definitely a witness ..."

"We've been through this, G.o.ddammit," says Doan, growing irritated. "I do not want to put Vincent Booker on the witness stand. That's the last thing I want to do."

"Okay," says Garvey, shrugging. "But I think you're making a mistake."

"Yeah," says Doan, "I know you do. And I'm sure when we lose this case you'll be the first one to say I told you so."

"I sure as s.h.i.+t will be," says Garvey.

The prosecutor rubs his temples, then looks down at the pile of paper on his desk that represents the state's case against Robert Frazier in the murder of Lena Lucas. For the sake of giving Garvey grief, he has overstated the matter just a bit: The case against Frazier is solid and he does indeed have witnesses. But it is nonetheless a circ.u.mstantial prosecution, and therefore-as prosecutors enjoy pointing out-it is subject to circ.u.mstances beyond control. Without an eyeball witness or the murder weapon, without a full confession or an obvious motive, the web that connects Frazier to the death of his lover will be thin. To Garvey, who has built the case, Vincent Booker is part of that web; to avoid his testimony as a trial tactic is to weaken the case. But to Doan, Vincent Booker is a loose cannon rolling around on the deck of the s.h.i.+p, a witness who might be seen as an alternate suspect by the jurors.

After all, Vincent did sell Frazier's cocaine. He knew Lena Lucas and already admitted to his knowledge of the events that preceded his father's murder. Garvey himself believed that Vincent was probably present when Frazier demanded that old man Booker return the drugs he had taken from his son's room. Vincent probably stood there dumbstruck as Frazier used that knife to cut his father repeatedly in the face, demanding to know where the package was. He could still have been standing there when Frazier finally used the gun. Given those probable truths, no one could say where Vincent's trial testimony might lead.

No, thinks Doan again, the risks of Vincent Booker's testimony are greater than the benefits, though trying to argue the point with Garvey is futile. The detective is convinced that Frazier's attorney, Paul Polansky, will use Vincent Booker as an alternate suspect in any event. In Garvey's view, keeping Booker in the background will only play into the opposition's strategy.

That difference of opinion, coupled with the usual concerns about all the logistics involving evidence and witnesses, is enough to ruin whatever quiet reflection Doan had hoped for before this morning's arguments. Instead, a detective and his prosecutor begin the day in each other's faces.

Doan smiles, then waves his tormentor out of the cubicle for a few moments of silence. A veteran of the Baltimore courthouse, Larry Doan is short and stocky, with dark hair, pale skin, wire-rims, and an eye that wanders just enough to deny his face symmetry. In the courtroom, Doan's appearance and demeanor often suggest a near-permanent state of woe; at times he seems to embody every stereotype about the underpaid, overworked big-city prosecutor, his briefcase crammed with motions, answers to motions and stipulations, his values crowded by the rising tide of human despair. If the Baltimore state's attorney's office ever needed a poster boy, Doan would be the odds-on favorite.

Among the other lawyers in the trial division, Doan's reputation is reasonably good. He is said to be fair, reasoned and methodical with both evidence and witnesses. He preps hard for trials and his closing arguments are always competent, often skillful, though sometimes not nearly as strong or emotional as some think they could be. But in one respect, he is a rare prize for any homicide detective who happens to care about a case: Doan will fight. a.s.sured that a defendant is guilty and that no reasonable plea can be taken, Doan isn't afraid to take a borderline or marginal case to a jury. Like any trial lawyer, he hates to lose, but he is willing to lose if the only alternative is a stet or dismissal.

Garvey is counting on this: He knows Doan will fight, just as he knows that the evidence against Robert Frazier is sufficient but not overwhelming. Kidding aside, he's glad to have Doan for this one.

Leaving the prosecutor's cubicle, the detective walks down the side stairwell to the third-floor hallway outside Cliff Gordy's courtroom. There are two benches in the hall and a third in the carpeted anteroom just outside Gordy's court. Because he is a sequestered witness, Garvey will make the three benches his office for the next week, as a prosecution that he worked hard to prepare unfolds without him.

For Garvey, the relegation to prosecutor's a.s.sistant is always hard to accept. Doan isn't one of those lawyers who wants a cop to be seen and not heard; he's willing to take advice. On the other hand, he's going to listen to that advice, evaluate it, and then try the case his way. Garvey, who knows the Lena Lucas case better than any man, is not exactly known for his abundant tact; in fact, he's never met an opinion he'd be unwilling to venture. Yet Doan must walk through Judge Gordy's double doors and try the case on the merits; Garvey must sit outside and play shepherd to the state's evidence and witnesses. The morning banter in Doan's office suggests the change in status: In February, it was Garvey who was sweating this case, scratching for every available piece of evidence. Now Garvey has the time to joke and tease. Now he can pretend not to know whether Wilson from the crime lab is going to show up for trial. Now he can criticize the trial strategy and demand victory. Now it's Larry Doan's turn to carry the weight.

Yet Garvey wants very much to win this case. For one thing, he has never lost a case that has gone to a jury trial and he'd like to keep that admirable record intact. For another, he would like to see Lena Lucas avenged. She was using cocaine and helping Frazier to deal; still, she was a good enough mother to her daughters and she never hurt anyone but herself. Both of Lena's daughters and her sister are scheduled as state's witnesses, and all three are waiting with Garvey. The rest of the family is already inside the court, but earlier that morning, they greeted Garvey in the corridor as if he were Moses down from Sinai. Good people, thinks Garvey, settling in on the bench. They deserve to win this.

The man of the hour, Robert Frazier, is already inside the courtroom and behind the defense table, sitting next to his lawyer with a hardbound copy of the New Testament in front of him, a cardboard marker pressed inside the Book of Luke. Frazier is wearing a well-tailored dark suit and a crisp white s.h.i.+rt, but somehow there's no mistaking his line of work. Just before the jury files in, Frazier stretches his tall frame, pushes his chair back and yawns like a man at ease in courtrooms. He turns to look at the members of the Lucas family in the back row, stares for a moment, then turns away.

The motions hearings were yesterday morning, with Doan successfully fighting off some routine efforts by Paul Polansky, who tried to have the identification of his client by Romaine Jackson-the young girl who saw Frazier enter Lena's building from her third-floor window-ruled inadmissible. Polansky argued that Frazier's photo had been given greater prominence in the photo array shown to the girl because it was in the upper left corner and because the other men seemed younger and less thin. Gordy denied the motion, as well as one that challenged a search warrant that Garvey and Donald Kincaid had written for Frazier's Chrysler after the arrest. Live .38 ammunition had been found in the trunk.

The rest of the day was spent on the selection of a jury-voir dire-the elaborate process by which potential jurors are screened for bias by the court. Voir dire is, in itself, an essential part of the trial strategy, with prosecutors using their limited number of "strikes" to keep out those potential jurors who have been beaten by police, have relatives in the prison system, or generally regard the criminal courts of the United States as a sham perpetrated by running dog capitalist jackals. At the same time, the defense attorney endeavors to use his strikes to remove all who are related to a law enforcement officer, who were ever the victims of a crime, or who truly believe that if the man seated at the defense table is accused of the crime, he must be guilty. Because the population of Baltimore generally holds members.h.i.+p in one or more categories, voir dire in the Lucas case took quite a while-at least until the lawyers exhausted the allowable strikes.

From his seat at the trial table, Doan now watches the product of yesterday's effort walk in from the jury room. A typical Baltimore jury-predominantly black, predominantly female. Polansky didn't exactly go out of his way to find white jurors willing to sit in judgment on his black client; nor, for that matter, did Larry Doan strike any white strays from the jury box. Still, watching the jurors file in, Doan is generally satisfied. Most are working people, but with the sole exception of the girl in the front row, all seem sharp and attentive, which matters for a case such as this one. The girl in the front row, however, is trouble. Doan watches her slump into her seat, arms crossed, staring at the floor. She's bored already; G.o.d knows what she'll be like after four days of testimony.

Judge Clifton Gordy calls the court to order and begins his preamble, explaining the legal arena to the jurors. Tall, quiet, serious, Gordy cuts quite a figure on the bench. His language is precise, his humor is sharp, and his manner often seems, to lawyers at least, well suited to tyranny. Attorneys who fail to rise when stating their objections in Gordy's court generally find themselves ignored. Gordy knows his law and he knows his lawyers; Doan, for example, worked for Gordy when the judge was heading the trial division. One other thing about the judge suits Doan in this case: Cliff Gordy is black, and that takes some of the edge off the fact that two white Jewish guys will be arguing the question of a black man's freedom. It will certainly help the black jurors to believe that the criminal justice system actually represents them.

As Gordy finishes his introduction and Doan rises to begin his opening, Garvey sits in the anteroom, struggling with the morning Sun Sun crossword. crossword.

"British gun," says Garvey. "Four letters."

"S-T-E-N," says Dave Brown from the other end of the bench, where he waits in case the trial testimony turns to the Purnell Booker case. "A British gun is always Sten in crosswords."

"You're right," says Garvey.

Lost to them is Doan's greeting to the jury, his warning that this is a murder case, a nasty, ugly, gruesome murder case that involves the willful taking of human life. That accomplished, Doan begins the long, labored process by which jurors are shorn of preconceptions.

"This is not television," he a.s.sures the jury. "Unlike TV shows, motive is not an element of the crime of first-degree murder. You don't know exactly why it happened. It's something you would like to know, it's something the person trying the case would like to know, but it's not necessary to know it to prove the crime."

And then, following a standard script, Doan pulls out the jigsaw puzzle, the courtroom metaphor used by nearly every American prosecutor to earn his pay. You see, Doan tells the jury, this case is like a jigsaw puzzle. And like a puzzle that's been around the house for a while, some of the pieces might be missing. "But, ladies and gentlemen, even with the missing pieces, when you a.s.semble that jigsaw puzzle, you can still determine what the puzzle is about and what it shows."

Doan launches into the story of Charlene Lucas. He touches all of the essentials: her relations.h.i.+p with Robert Frazier, her involvement in drugs, the crime scene itself and the investigation that followed. Doan tells the jurors about Romaine Jackson, who identified Frazier as the man who came home with Lena the night of the murder; he talks about Frazier's initial interview with Garvey in which the defendant offered an alibi and promised to come in with his own .38; he tells them about Sharon Denise Henson, "Nee-Cee," who failed to corroborate Frazier's alibi. He tells them about the nested clothes and the victim's nudity and the lack of forced entry-indications that Lena was murdered by someone she knew intimately.

"Give Mr. Frazier his fair day in court," Doan tells the jury. "Give him his trial and give Charlene Lucas her fair day in court and her family, who are here today, their day in court. And after you put it all together and you finish the puzzle, you are going to see a picture and that picture is going to be the defendant killing Charlene Lucas. Thank you."

The prosecutor does not mention the murder of Purnell Booker and that the ballistics report links that murder to the Lucas killing. He does not mention Vincent Booker, who admitted to supplying Frazier with .38 wadcutter reloads before both murders and told the detectives that his father was killed for taking Frazier's drugs. By the court's ruling on a pretrial motion, the Booker murder is prejudicial and not to be mentioned in the jury's presence-a ruling that appeals to both attorneys. Because just as Doan knows that Vincent Booker is a risk, so does Polansky. A good lawyer never asks any question without knowing the answer, and with Vincent Booker, Polansky can't be sure what the answers might be. As Frazier's attorney, he needs to raise the specter of Vincent Booker just enough to suggest an alternate suspect to the jury. But he, too, has decided not to risk calling Booker as a court witness. Loose cannons roll both ways.

During his opening, Polansky a.s.sures the jurors that Robert Frazier "has been fighting in the Baltimore City Jail for the last eight months to come here and tell you his story of Lena's death, to tell you that because of perhaps a poorly run police investigation they have the wrong man, to tell you that he is in no way, no shape, no form, guilty of this crime."

My client is not a saint, Polansky tells the jury. Drugs? Yes, he sold drugs. A .38-caliber handgun. Yes, he had a gun. You will hear good things and bad things about Robert Frazier, Polansky declares, but does any of that make him guilty of the murder?

"On a number of occasions in this case," says Polansky, "there is a man named Vincent Booker who is involved with Charlene Lucas and has access to her apartment ... Well, this is not Perry Mason Perry Mason and people will not jump up in court and confess to murder. But the story that Robert Frazier is here to tell you will indicate that Vincent Booker committed this crime." and people will not jump up in court and confess to murder. But the story that Robert Frazier is here to tell you will indicate that Vincent Booker committed this crime."

Polansky continues his reb.u.t.tal, explaining that Frazier cooperated in the police investigation, that he voluntarily came forward, but that it soon became clear that the detectives were focusing on him as a suspect to the exclusion of everything else. He didn't bring in the weapon, true; he was fearful of a handgun charge and these detectives were obviously trying to put the murder on him. And they were doing this after he tried to help them find Lena's killer.

"Mr. Doan told you about a puzzle and he is right," says Polansky, finding common ground. "You can tell a picture without seeing all of the pieces, if you're missing three, or four, or five pieces. But if you're missing too many pieces ..."

In the anteroom, Garvey is vexed by puzzles of a different sort. When the court breaks for lunch, he is deep into the Evening Sun Evening Sun crossword, having battled the morning paper's puzzle to a draw. Dave Brown is asleep sitting up, the Booker case file in his lap. crossword, having battled the morning paper's puzzle to a draw. Dave Brown is asleep sitting up, the Booker case file in his lap.

Justice pauses for lunch. The detectives leave, they eat, they return to the bench to watch a steady parade of state's witnesses going in and out of the afternoon session: Lena Lucas's older daughter, to testify about Frazier's relations.h.i.+p with her mother and to shoot down the notion that Vincent Booker had access to the apartment; the upstairs neighbor at 17 North Gilmor, to testify to his discovery of the body and place the time of death; the first officer from the Western District, to testify to the preservation of the scene and the recovery of evidence; Wilson, from the crime lab, to bring the scene photos and testify to the attempt to lift fingerprints; Purvis, from the trace section, to testify about the comparison of latent prints and the inability to match any of the lifts from Gilmor Street to anyone other than Charlene Lucas.

When the bailiff finally comes for Garvey, he's just about done with the Evening Sun Evening Sun, having been stumped by some five-letter French river. Leaving the paper on the bench, Garvey moves toward the witness stand clothed in dark blue pinstripes, the power suit according him the required confidence. The Republican tie, the eyegla.s.ses-ladies and gentlemen of the jury, meet the police department's vice president for sales and marketing.

"Good afternoon," says Doan in a stage voice. "How long have you been with the Baltimore City Police Department?"

"Over thirteen years," says Garvey, straightening his tie.

"Of that thirteen years, how long have you been with the homicide unit?"

"The last three and a half."

"And would you care to tell the ladies and gentlemen of the jury how many murder cases you've handled during that period of time."

"I've been a.s.signed personally to slightly over fifty cases."

"And," says Doan, leading, "I a.s.sume you have been involved in one way or another in parts of other cases."

"Numerous investigations," says Garvey.

Slowly, Doan begins to take the detective through the crime scene at 17 North Gilmor. Garvey describes the apartment, giving special attention to the security features, including the burglar alarm that had been turned off. He provides a detailed description of the scene, and the jury again hears about the lack of forced entry, the nested pile of clothes, the scratches on the headboard suggesting that she was stabbed while lying in bed. Then, at Doan's direction, Garvey walks over to the jury box, where Doan takes him through the crime scene photos already admitted to evidence.

The photos themselves are always the source of considerable courtroom conflict, with defense attorneys arguing that the depiction of the bloodied victim is unnecessarily prejudicial and prosecutors arguing that the photos have probative value for a jury. Prosecutors usually win the argument, as Doan has in this case. Thus Lena Lucas and her wounds are displayed for the jurors in glossy splendor from a variety of camera angles over Polansky's continuing objection. The jurors seem impressed.

Garvey is at the jury box for ten minutes before returning to the witness stand, where Doan takes him through the search of the crime scene and the interviews with neighbors. The prosecutor makes a point of asking about street lighting outside the Gilmor Street rowhouse and Garvey describes the sodium vapor light in the middle of the block-an essential foundation for the coming testimony from Romaine Jackson.

"At this time, I have no further questions of Detective Garvey," says Doan after twenty-five minutes of testimony. "However, I wish to recall him later."

"You may," says Gordy. "Cross-examination, Mr. Polansky."

"For the same reasons, I will restrict my cross-examination to the testimony elicited on direct."

Fine with me, thinks Garvey, calm and collected on the stand. With just the boilerplate of the crime scene to worry about, he reasons, there won't be much in the way of controversy this afternoon.

Polansky goes into some detail on the pattern of wounds, prompting the detective to agree that the stab wounds came before the gunshot wound to the head; the defense wounds to the hands prove as much. The defense attorney also spends some time dealing with the empty purse, the broken bag of rice and the empty gelatin capsules on the bedroom floor. "So it would appear, would it not, sir, that whatever a.s.sailants attacked and killed Ms. Lucas probably took whatever drugs she had in that pocketbook?"

"Objection," says Doan.

The judge agrees that the defense attorney's question is too speculative, but the image of Vincent Booker hovers over the courtroom. Why, after all, would Frazier murder someone to take drugs that were already his? No reason unless, of course, he wanted to make the killing seem like a drug robbery.

Polansky moves forward, chronicling the drug paraphernalia scattered around the crime scene in an effort to make his point another way. He brings Garvey back to the nested clothes. The apartment was very tidy, was it not? Very neat, Garvey agrees.

"The kind of individual who would not take off her clothes and throw them on the floor but would take them off, fold them up and put them away. Would you agree?"

Oh my, thinks Garvey, you tricky b.a.s.t.a.r.d, you. "No," says the detective. "I would not agree."

Polansky leaves that seeming contradiction with the jury and moves on to state's exhibit 2U, a photograph of the bedroom floor after the bed had been lifted. The defense attorney points out a soft pack of Newport cigarettes visible on the floor.

"And there is an ashtray?" he adds.

"Yes, sir," says Garvey.

"Did you ever determine Ms. Lucas was a smoker?"

Aw s.h.i.+t, thinks Garvey. He's going to run wild with this c.r.a.p. "I can't recall if I did or not."

"Do you think that might have been of some significance?"

"I'm sure the question came up during the investigation," says Garvey, trying to tiptoe around the minefield. "Obviously, the answer didn't have any significance."

"Did you ask her daughters or anyone close to her whether she was a smoker?"

"I don't recall specifically doing that."

"If she wasn't a smoker, do you agree that finding a pack of cigarettes would have been worth looking into?"

"I would agree the cigarette pack would have been," says Garvey, his voice clipped.

"To find out who was close to her and was a smoker," Polansky continues. "Because you a.s.sumed someone close to her was in there because there was no forced entry, correct?"

"That is correct," says Garvey.

"So it might be significant to find out if anyone close to her or any of the possible suspects which we'll talk about at some later time may have been a smoker and specifically a smoker of Newports."

"Objection," says Doan, trying for a broken field tackle. "Is there a question?"

"Yes," says Polansky. "Would you agree it is significant?"

"No," says Garvey, regrouping. "Because we don't know when the cigarette pack was placed there. It was beneath the bed. It certainly would have been something to look into, but it would have been something I wouldn't base an investigation on."

"Well," says Polansky, "except for the fact, sir, wouldn't you agree that Ms. Lucas was a very neat person and not likely to have left a pack of cigarettes on the floor for some long period of time?"

"Objection," says Doan.

"Isn't it much more likely the pack was left there the night of the murder?"

"Objection."

Gordy intervenes. "Can you answer that question to a reasonable degree of certainty? Yes or no?"

From the prosecution table, Doan is staring at the detective, his head moving back and forth in a slight, barely discernible shaking motion. Take the out, he wants to say. Take the out.

"I can answer," says Garvey.

"Overruled," says Gordy.

"Underneath the bed there appeared to be a fair amount of debris. The overall visible areas in the house were neat and tidy, but underneath the bed I would not characterize it as being neat and tidy."

"Was the phone under the bed?" asks Polansky.

"Yes," says Garvey, looking at the photo. "We moved that back to take the photograph."

"It is fair to say the phone wasn't lying there a long period of time?"

"I don't know when the phone was placed there," says Garvey.

A partial save by a veteran detective. Polansky counts his winnings and moves on, asking about the human hairs that were recovered from the sheet by the lab tech and sent to the trace section. Were they ever compared to anyone?

"You can't tell from a hair who it belongs to," says Garvey, now on his guard.

"They can't tell you anything more than that about hair. There is no scientific test that is at all helpful in a homicide investigation?"

"There is no way they can tell you that a particular hair can come from a particular person."

"Can they narrow it down to a white man's or black man's?" asks Polansky.

Garvey grants the point: "But they can't go too much farther."

The detective and defense attorney circle each other for several more questions until Polansky's point is clear: The hair recovered at the scene was never compared to anyone else's hair. Even though such a comparison would be pointless, Polansky leaves the impression that Garvey's investigation was less than thorough.

So far Polansky has earned his money. Garvey proves as much at the end of the cross-examination, when the defense attorney asks him about time-of-death.