Joseph Teller - Guilty As Sin

JAYWALKER: I see. And there’s another goal to buying drugs undercover, isn’t there?

ST. JAMES: I’m not sure I follow you.

JAYWALKER: Have you ever heard the expression moving up the ladder?

ST. JAMES: If it’s the same as moving up the food chain, yes.

JAYWALKER: Forgive me for dating myself. What does moving up the food chain mean?

ST. JAMES: It means trying to make a case not just against the subject you’re buying from but against his connection, as well.

JAYWALKER: And his connection’s connection-

ST. JAMES: Yes.

JAYWALKER: — on up the line?

ST. JAMES: Yes.

JAYWALKER: Hence the terms up the food chain or up the ladder?

ST. JAMES: Right.

JAYWALKER: And did any of that happen in this case?

ST. JAMES: No, it didn’t.

JAYWALKER: One month, three government agencies, fourteen officers, six thousand six hundred dollars. And you didn’t move up a single rung of the ladder. Or, as you might say, a single link in the food chain. Not one, right?

ST. JAMES: Happens.

JAYWALKER: Especially if you’re not trying.

Miki Shaughnessey jumped up, asking that the comment be stricken, a request that Shirley Levine quickly granted. And although Jaywalker knew the judge never really got angry with him-they liked each other too much for that-sometimes she did a pretty good imitation, and this was one of those times. “Ask questions,” she snapped at him, right in front of the jurors. “Don’t make statements.”

He could have simply said “Sorry” and moved his questioning on to some other subject. But with his “especially if you’re not trying” comment now stricken from the record, the agent’s rather glib “Happens” would become the last word spoken on the matter, and the last to show up in the printed transcript. So Jaywalker decided to rephrase what he’d said, only in question form.

JAYWALKER: Would you agree, Agent St. James, that as a general rule, working your way higher up in the distribution chain happens only when you’re making a serious effort to make it happen?

SHAUGHNESSEY: Objection.

THE COURT: Overruled. The witness may answer.

ST. JAMES: The truth is, every once in a while you try as hard as you can, but in spite of everything you do, you just can’t make a case against a seller’s connection. At least not without jeopardizing your safety, the safety of your fellow officers, or both.

Jaywalker smiled wryly. This guy was good, he had to admit.

JAYWALKER: Was there even the remotest suggestion of violence or weapons in this particular case, at any point?

ST. JAMES: Counselor, in my line of business, violence and weapons are everyday things.

This guy was better than good. He was taking Jaywalker’s best shots and not only parrying them, but counterpunching effectively.

JAYWALKER: Which is why I asked you about this particular case. Any violence in this one?

ST. JAMES: No.

JAYWALKER: Any guns-used, threatened to be used, displayed, or even hinted at?

ST. JAMES: No.

JAYWALKER: Still, this turned out to be one of those every once in a while cases where in spite of everything you tried, you never could make it even one step up the ladder?

ST. JAMES: That’s correct, Counselor.

JAYWALKER: By the way, do you see now why we call it a ladder? You have to actually do some work in order to get yourself up to the next level.

This time he did apologize, though it didn’t stop Judge Levine from striking the comment, instructing the jury to disregard it, and wagging a this-is-your-last-warning finger in Jaywalker’s direction. But he’d made the comment because he was done and knew he couldn’t get into any more trouble, at least for the moment. Turning from the witness, he said “No more questions,” and sat down.

By that time it was quarter of five, and rather than begin with another witness, the judge broke for the day. Only when the last juror had filed out of the courtroom and the court officers had led Alonzo Barnett back into the pens did she turn her attention to the lawyers.

“Mr. Jaywalker-” she began.

Here it comes, he thought. Apparently the final warning had been the one before the finger-wagging. So even Shirley Levine had finally had enough of his antics and was about to hold him in contempt, maybe even give him a night on Rikers Island to think things over.

“-why are we trying this case?”

Which caught Jaywalker so off guard that he laughed out loud. But as relieved as he was at avoiding jail time, he knew the judge hadn’t asked her question out of idle curiosity. The truth was, there’d been a time when he’d thought about waiving a jury and opting for a bench trial. Judging from Levine’s question, he now knew what a mistake that would have been. But it was even worse than that. What Shirley Levine was implying-hell, she wasn’t implying it, she was coming right out and saying it-was that two witnesses into the case, it was already clear that there was no theory under which a rational jury could possibly acquit his client.

A lot of lawyers would have answered her by deflecting the blame onto the defendant. “What can I tell you?” they would have said with a helpless shrug of the shoulders. “My client’s an absolute psycho who refuses to take a plea.” But Jaywalker was decidedly old-school when it came to placing blame. He could still remember hearing his father tell him that a good carpenter never complains about his tools. Jaywalker had always figured that the same advice has to apply to pretty much every trade, including the one he’d ended up practicing. A good lawyer doesn’t complain about his client. You take what you’re given, and you do the best you possibly can with it. And if you lose, you lose. Not just that guy sitting next to you.

“Why are you tilting at windmills here?” the judge was asking him now. “Fighting against impossible odds?” Here he’d thought her earlier question had been nothing but a rhetorical one, a not-so-subtle suggestion that he sit down with Mr. Barnett and explain the odds to him. No, it seemed she really expected an answer from him as to why there hadn’t been a guilty plea.

“Because…” he began. But one word into his response, he realized he had absolutely no follow-up. There was no reason, when it came right down to it, except that Alonzo Barnett wanted a trial. He’d said that to his first lawyer, his second lawyer and his third. Their reactions had been simple. They’d walked away from him as quickly as they could.

Jaywalker didn’t walk away from his clients. Not even when they continued to make the same sort of self-destructive choices that had gotten them into trouble in the first place. But with Barnett, it was more than that. Here was a guy who’d defied the odds and turned everything around. It might have taken him fifty years, but look at what he’d done. Stopped not only using drugs but selling them, as well. Cut out drinking. Never missed an appointment with his parole officer. Found himself a decent job and an apartment to call his own. And the time he’d had left over after those endeavors? Had he spent it hanging out with a bunch of junkies and ex-cons? No, he’d devoted it to the two loves of his life, his daughters. In a word, here was a man who’d done nothing less than completely redeem himself. And Jaywalker, who’d be the first to tell you that he had no place in his heart for organized religion and no room in his thinking for the existence of a higher power, was nevertheless a believer in redemption.

A huge believer.

Then something had happened. Barnett’s overblown, misguided sense of loyalty had betrayed him into believing he owed someone a favor, a favor that carried with it huge personal risk for him. That favor now threatened to undo everything he’d accomplished and send him back to prison for the rest of his life. So what was Jaywalker supposed to do? Twist the poor man’s arm to the breaking point until he hollered uncle and agreed to a slightly shorter sentence before kissing his daughters goodbye for the last time? No, he couldn’t do that. Not if Barnett wanted to fight. What Jaywalker could do-in fact, the only thing he could do under the circumstances-was go to war with him and fight like an absolute madman until the last drop of fight was drained out of him.