Robert Tanenbaum: Outrage

“Your Honor, I am calling Moishe Sobelman, whose experiences as a child are not just similar to those of the defendant but greatly exceed them in horror,” Karp told the court. “The defendant just gave us a sob story about how the atrocities he committed against Olivia Yancy and Beth Jenkins are somehow excusable in light of what he experienced as a child. Mr. Sobelman is an expert in his own right regarding the murder of family members by soldiers acting under the guise of military authority, as well as how someone might cope with such an experience.”

Dermondy thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. “I’m going to allow it, Mr. Karp, but let’s not overdo.”

“Thank you, Your Honor,” Karp said, and turned to the back of the courtroom, where in a moment Moishe Sobelman entered.

Carrying himself with dignity, the little man made his way to the witness stand and took the oath to tell the truth. Then, under Karp’s questioning, he told the story of Sobibor, the Nazi death camp-the deaths of his mother, sister, and father; the horror of working as a Sonderkommando — until at last he came to his days as a partisan and the capture of the three German SS officers whose car had broken down.

The old man paused to wipe at his eyes and blow his nose. “I played the part of judge, jury, and, may God forgive me, lord high executioner. With my anger raging inside, I decided that the punishment must fit the crime.”

The courtroom was absolutely still as Sobelman finished his story. But Karp had another question. “Mr. Sobelman, what did the Nazis do at Sobibor after you escaped?”

“They murdered everyone who remained and then bulldozed the place and tried to make it look like farm country,” Sobelman replied. “As if it had never happened.”

“And why do you think they did that?” Karp asked.

“I think they knew that they had gone beyond the boundaries of all civilized society,” he said. “And that they knew what their punishment would be if the world found out what they had done there.”

“And what would that punishment have been?”

Sobelman blinked and then lifted his chin. “The same as what I meted out to Hans Schultz. For some evil, there is only one answer. And that is to be cast beyond the circle of all humanity. For some evils, only death is justice.”

Karp handed the crime scene photographs to the jury foreman and stepped back. The photos depicted the brutal outrages Kadyrov had inflicted on Olivia Yancy and Beth Jenkins. Now the jurors, as well as the police officers and crime scene technicians who’d been called to view that horrible outrage, would have the visual result of the defendant’s inhumanity indelibly imprinted in their minds’ eyes.

The photographs were not admitted in the prosecution’s case-in-chief. Judge Dermondy had ruled that their prejudicial impact against Kadyrov had outweighed their probative value. But during the sentencing phase, the prosecution had more latitude. The AME’s vivid descriptions of the physical impacts, the sheer devastation of two individuals, was graphic and horrifying. Yet the photos, by any civilized measure, were emotionally appalling.

From experience, Karp knew that time would help those images fade, but he also knew that they would never go away entirely. He also believed that the administration of justice required that good people-cops, attorneys, and private citizens called to serve on juries-do their jobs thoroughly and witness evil’s work so that evil could be stopped.

“Understanding does not mean that we forgive or excuse the brutal, vicious, methodical, and inhumane horrors he perpetrated on two innocent women.” He was well into his final summation and had set the stage for asking the jury to sentence a man to death. It was not a request he took lightly, and it was one he made rarely, believing that the death penalty should be reserved only for the worst of the worst whose inhumanity and depravity demanded no lesser punishment.

Beginning with “Life was good,” Karp had led the jurors back through each brutal moment of the attacks on Olivia Yancy and Beth Jenkins, as well as the defendant’s attempts to get away with what he had done. Now it was time to bring it home and, as Moishe had stated so eloquently, cast Ahmed Kadyrov beyond the circle of humanity.

As he waited for the photographs to circulate among the jurors, Karp glanced back at the gallery, where his wife and twin boys sat behind the prosecution table. He looked at the cast on Zak’s hand and, despite the pathos of the moment, noticed that his sons were maturing from boyhood into young men.

Zak had broken his hand knocking Max Weller to the ground in defense of his brother and Esteban Gonzalez. The blow that broke his son’s hand had also busted Weller’s nose, which would have been enough to take both boys out of the playoffs even if there had been no further repercussions. But, of course, word got out to the parents and athletic director, who launched an inquiry. The result was that Weller and his cronies were kicked off the team, and more importantly, Coach Newell had been fired.

Missing their top two starting pitchers, as well as several key players, the team had been drubbed out of the playoffs, though starting shortstop Esteban Gonzalez had received an honorable mention to the all-tournament team for his play. With a new coach, the boys were already looking forward to a better run the next season.

The injury had been hard on Zak. He had to undergo two surgeries to make sure the bones in his hand set right. But he’d been assured by the surgeon that after he got the cast off, in a few more days, and went through rehab, he’d be back in time for spring training. And what he gained in both his self-respect and his brother’s adulation was impossible to quantify, but it could be seen in the way he carried himself.

Like a man who knows he made a difficult choice and did the right thing, Karp thought.

Seeing his boys in the gallery reminded Karp of his other child, and he smiled slightly. Lucy was back in New Mexico, happily preparing for her wedding in the spring. Her fiance, Ned Blanchett, had arrived in New York about a week after Kadyrov’s arrest. He couldn’t talk about where he’d been or what he’d done-though it had obviously, from the strain that was evident in his face and eyes, been a rough time. Former FBI agent and antiterrorist operative Jaxon and U.S. Marshal Jen Capers had come to Karp’s office a few days later to let him know that Amir al-Sistani, the mastermind of the attack on the New York Stock Exchange, who’d been allowed to leave the country by the State Department, had been “reacquired” and was back in federal custody.

When Lucy announced that the wedding was back on and was leaving with Blanchett for the airport, Karp had asked her, “What about your concerns that this is not the right time?”

Lucy smiled and replied, “A very wise woman told me there’s no right time for love, there’s only now. I think I should follow her advice.”

“I think you’re right,” Karp replied.

“Mr. Karp, we seem to be dead in the water; do you care to continue?” Judge Dermondy’s voice broke through the reverie.

“Yes, thank you, Your Honor,” Karp quickly replied. He looked at each juror, saw their ashen faces and the tears in their eyes. “When I began this summation, I raised the questions ‘Aren’t all murders horrible?’ and ‘Isn’t the taking of any life equally reprehensible?’ And the answer, of course, is yes. So then we come to how to differentiate between a murderer who deserves life in prison and one who deserves to be executed.”

Karp walked slowly over to the defense table and stood looking down at Kadyrov, who kept his head bowed. “As you are well aware, we just went through an exercise that establishes the legal reasons that a killer may qualify for the death penalty-the aggravating factors,” he said, turning back to the jurors. “But those are really just an attempt by civilized society to quantify how to reach such an important decision.