Robert Tanenbaum: Falsely Accused

“Mr. Keegan,” Karp began, “when you served as head of the Homicide Bureau, I was one of your assistant district attorneys, was I not?”

“Yes.”

“And you had the responsibility of training me to prosecute homicides-I was your student, in a sense, and you were my teacher, weren’t you?”

“Yes.” He paused, smiled. “You were my best student.”

“Thank you.” Karp turned slightly so that his remarkable peripheral vision could take in the jury. They were lapping it up. “And part of that training was in how to work well with the medical examiner’s office, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“And as part of our work we had much to do with Dr. Selig when he was a senior assistant medical examiner there? Hundreds of cases?”

“Yes, certainly.”

“Now, as part of your teaching, did you ever warn me that Dr. Selig was hard to work with, incompetent, and lacking in any respect whatsoever?”

A longer pause. Keegan seemed to square his shoulders. He answered, “No, never.”

“And was there ever, to your knowledge, a homicide case involving Dr. Selig in which he did not carry out his duties with the very highest professional standards?”

“No, none.”

“And did any of the problems you adverted to this morning in your testimony, the missed phone calls, the so-called ‘arrogance,’ ever, to your knowledge, hinder in the slightest degree the successful prosecution of a single homicide case?”

“No. None that I can recall.”

Karp waited three beats and said, “Mr. Keegan, would it surprise you to learn that many of the young lawyers who sat at your feet during those years, being trained to be the best homicide prosecutors in the world, may have considered you yourself somewhat abrupt and arrogant?”

Keegan smiled broadly. “No, it would not surprise me in the least.”

Karp grinned back. “Thank you. No further questions.”

Keegan left the stand. Karp didn’t know whether the expression on Conrad Wharton’s face was worth a judgeship, but it was one of life’s sweet moments nonetheless.

“The defense calls Dr. James T. England,” said Gottkind.

Karp felt a sinking sensation. He grabbed his tattered yellow note sheets, looked in vain, tossed them aside, shuffled up the list of defense witnesses he had been supplied. No England. He stood. “Your Honor, this witness is not on the witness list, nor on the list of deponents.”

Craig beckoned him forward with a thin finger. He advanced, followed by Josh Gottkind. At the bench Gottkind said, “Your Honor, Dr. England came forward voluntarily. He called me yesterday and said he had important evidence relevant to the plaintiff’s character.”

“This is outrageous, Your Honor,” said Karp hotly. “Are defendants to be permitted to drag smearing witnesses out at the very last moments of the trial?”

“They did not ‘drag,’ Mr. Karp, nor pursue, it seems, if what Mr. Gottkind says is true. Is it true, Mr. Gottkind? This is a spontaneous appearance by a concerned citizen?”

“Yes, Judge,” Gottkind answered quickly. “He’s been following the case in the papers. He felt obliged to come forward.”

“I take exception, Your Honor,” said Karp formally.

“Exception noted,” said Craig. “Bring on your witness.”

“Who the fuck is this guy, Murray?” asked Karp in a whisper between clenched teeth as the witness took the stand.

“He’s a big shot on the state medical board,” Selig whispered back.

“What did you do wrong that he knows about?”

“Nothing! No, really, Butch, I got no idea why the guy is up there.”

They soon found out. Dr. England was a man in his late sixties, dressed in an old-fashioned and unseasonable brown three-piece suit and extremely shiny brown wing tips. His face was white and long, the thin silver hair combed tightly over the skull. With his wire-rimmed glasses he looked just like the antique doctor in the ads drug companies ran in glossy medical journals, the one sitting at the child’s bedside.

Dr. England testified that he had chaired the Committee on Professional Conduct of the State Board of Medicine in the revocation hearing of a Dr. Stephen Bailey. Bailey was one of the many Dr. Feelgoods who had sprung up in the seventies, dispensing various reality-altering pharmaceuticals essentially on demand to a well-heeled clientele. It was alleged that Bailey had taken to attending house parties in upstate Sullivan County bearing little bags of such meds, distributing them freely to all who asked. Dr. Selig had been called before the board as an expert on toxicology; the board had to determine whether some of the doses of diet pills and such that Bailey had administered were, in fact, dangerous.

“And did Dr. Selig think that Dr. Bailey had prescribed dangerous doses?” Gottkind asked.

“He did not,” said England with a tone and a look that showed what he thought of the opinion. “Dr. Bailey retained his license, largely as a result of Dr. Selig’s testimony.”

“And during that testimony, what, if anything, did he say regarding dosage of the drug amphetamine?”

“He said that he did not know what all the fuss was about, because he had taken massive doses of amphetamine in medical school to help with studying and it hadn’t harmed him any.” Murmurs spread briefly through the court.

“What did you think of that?”

“I thought it was gratuitous, frivolous, and unprofessional,” said England, his face glowing with righteous satisfaction.

Karp whispered to Selig, “Did you say that?”

“Oh, God, of course I didn’t say that.”

“What did you say, then?”

“Hell, Butch, how can I remember my exact words? It was nearly five years ago.”

England’s testimony ground to a halt. The defense rested. Karp checked the wall clock. He rose. “Your Honor, I have no questions at this time, but I would like to call Dr. England back first thing on Monday when court reconvenes.”

The judge’s eyes flicked at the clock too. He knew the pickle Karp was in. He also knew that it was a gorgeous spring day and that if he left now he could roll up a mess of paperwork and get in a full set of tennis before dark. And it was Friday. And the jury could use a little break; he had driven the case hard for eight weeks.

“Well, I don’t see why we can’t break now, as Mr. Karp suggests. You can do your cross Monday, Mr. Karp, and then we can begin summations. I trust that neither of you will be so long-winded as to make me regret this indulgence.” The court tittered politely. The gavel fell.

“How bad is this, Butch?” asked Selig nervously.

“How bad? It’s a disaster, Murray. It’s the end of the trial and I got no way to impeach the fucker, because the transcripts of license revocation hearings are sealed, and there’s no time to get an order to unseal them, and it’s the weekend anyway, and what’s in their minds now is you’re a junkie who let a dope pusher keep his license.”

“Cheer up, Butch, it can’t be that bad,” said Marlene soothingly. He was acting like a baby, and it was starting to get on her nerves. They were in their living room, waiting while a casserole warmed.

He groaned and began to tell her again how bad it was, but she interrupted him. “Look! Stop kvetching already! The main thing is, is Murray telling the truth?”

“Oh, crap, Marlene, how do I know? He says he didn’t say that flip stuff about speed, but you know Murray. He likes to shake up the civilians from time to time with tales from the crypt. It’s something he could have said. But that doesn’t matter. We need the transcript of that hearing to impeach England, and we don’t have it.”