Joseph Teller - Guilty As Sin

“Because…” He struggled to answer the judge again. “Because I’m a lunatic, okay? Tilting at windmills? That’s what I do for a living. Fighting against impossible odds? That happens to be my job description.”

Any other judge would have turned sarcastic on him, agreeing with the lunatic part and ridiculing the rest of his little speech. Not Shirley Levine. Shaking her head sadly from side to side, she said, “God bless you, Mr. Jaywalker.” She said it in a voice so soft that the words had to have been meant for only him to hear. And in the often strange and lonely world that Jaywalker inhabited, those words fell on his ears like pure music.

Thursday’s witnesses were members of the backup team, the task force officers who’d conducted surveillance during the buys and arrested Alonzo Barnett. First up was a veteran DEA agent by the name of Angel Cruz. Cruz was a short, medium-complexioned Hispanic. Today, he’d be a Latino. In his younger days he’d done his share of undercover work, and Jaywalker had cross-examined him some years back in a federal trial down in Foley Square. That one had turned out well for Cruz and the government. For Jaywalker and his client, not so well.

Miki Shaughnessey wasted little time with preliminaries. Jaywalker had half expected her to begin with the time period prior to Agent St. James’s entry into the case, back when the surveillance team watching the defendant had had no luck in observing anything resembling a narcotics transaction. But apparently Shaughnessey had decided to leave that time period to Jaywalker, preferring instead to get right to the sales themselves. And it was a smart decision on her part, Jaywalker had to admit. By zeroing in on the charges in the indictment, Shaughnessey would come off as focused and relevant in the eyes of the jury. Jaywalker, if he chose to backtrack into the period before the first sale took place-as he’d done already to some extent with St. James-would run the risk of looking as though he was trying to divert the jurors’ attention and, worse yet, waste their time.

As a result, Agent Cruz’s direct testimony took less than an hour. He described a team meeting conducted prior to the first buy, at which Agent St. James had been supplied with prerecorded bills. Then, keeping back a discreet distance, two teams of officers in unmarked cars had followed St. James and his Cadillac. At 125th Street they’d seen him meet a short, stocky, black man known at that time only as John Doe “Stump.” Stump had joined St. James in the Cadillac, and together they’d driven to 562 St. Nicholas Avenue, known from earlier surveillance to be the building in which Alonzo Barnett, also known as John Doe “Gramps,” lived. Both men had gotten out of the car then, although in cop-speak that came out as “At that particular location and point in time, I did surreptitiously observe Agent St. James and John Doe ‘Stump’ proceed to exit from the official government vehicle in which they had previously been present.”

SHAUGHNESSEY: What, if anything, did you see?

CRUZ: I observed Stump walk over to another black male who was sitting on the stoop and engage him in conversation.

SHAUGHNESSEY: Do you know that man’s name?

CRUZ: Yes. I’ve since learned his name is Alonzo Barnett.

SHAUGHNESSEY: Do you think you would recognize that man if you were to see him today?

CRUZ: Yes. That’s him sitting right over there.

Jaywalker conceded that sitting right over there was the defendant. Shaughnessey asked her witness what had happened next.

CRUZ: After a minute or so, Stump motioned Agent St. James over and appeared to introduce him to Mr. Barnett. Then Stump walked away, out of my sight. After speaking together for a minute or so, Agent St. James and Mr. Barnett walked to the Cadillac and got in, Agent St. James behind the wheel and Mr. Barnett in the front passenger seat.

SHAUGHNESSEY: What happened next?

CRUZ: They started moving, and I followed them, a few cars back.

The Cadillac had continued to the corner of 127th Street and Broadway. There Barnett had gotten out and walked around the corner and out of sight, while Agent St. James had remained behind the wheel.

SHAUGHNESSEY: What did you do?

CRUZ: I remained in my vehicle and continued to watch the Cadillac.

SHAUGHNESSEY: Why did you do that?

Jaywalker knew the answer by heart from his DEA days, could have recited it in his sleep if called upon to do so.

CRUZ: Because the safety of the undercover agent is always my paramount concern.

Well, that and the money, Jaywalker knew. Although that particular consideration didn’t seem to get mentioned quite as often in court. In any event, Agent Cruz explained that another officer had gotten out of the vehicle and followed Barnett on foot.

About twenty minutes later, Barnett reappeared and got back into the Cadillac. Five minutes passed, and then Barnett got out again and, as before, walked around the corner, while Agent St. James stayed behind the wheel.

Another twenty minutes went by. Funny how that happened, noted Jaywalker. Again Barnett appeared, walked to the Cadillac and got back in. Agent St. James pulled away from the curb and drove back to 562 St. Nicholas Avenue. There he dropped Barnett off and drove away.

The members of the team met up at the same location as before. There Agent St. James produced a small glass vial. A field test for the presence of opiates proved positive, indicating that the white powder inside it was heroin. Agent Cruz took custody of the evidence and later delivered it to the United States Chemist for a more sophisticated analysis.

The second and third buys pretty much followed the same script, according to Agent Cruz’s observations and testimony. Again, Agent St. James had waited in his Cadillac while Alonzo Barnett had gotten out and walked around the corner. It wasn’t until the third and final transaction that Agent Cruz and five other members of the backup team had intercepted Barnett and arrested him as he was walking back to the Cadillac.

SHAUGHNESSEY: Was a search conducted of Mr. Barnett at that point?

CRUZ: Yes, it was.

SHAUGHNESSEY: By whom?

CRUZ: By me, in the presence of other members of the team.

SHAUGHNESSEY: What, if anything, was recovered?

CRUZ: From Mr. Barnett’s right jacket pocket I recovered a paper bag, inside of which was a double glassine bag containing white powder. And from his right pants pocket I recovered five hundred dollars.

The white powder again field-tested positive for opiates and was delivered to the chemist. The serial numbers of the bills were compared to a photocopy of those supplied earlier that day to Agent St. James. Each of the serial numbers matched.

At that point Miki Shaughnessey produced four sealed evidence envelopes. One by one, she handed them to the witness and had him identify them from serial numbers and initials on the outside. Then she handed him scissors so he could cut the seals and open the envelopes. The first contained the small glass vial from buy number one; the second, the glassine envelope from buy number two; the third, the paper bag and double glassine envelope recovered from the defendant’s right jacket pocket during buy number three; and the fourth, the five hundred dollars recovered from Barnett’s right pants pocket.

Just as time intervals were always twenty minutes, so were pockets all right-side ones. And had there been testimony about which hand Barnett had used to give Agent St. James a package and which hand St. James had received it with, those would have both been right hands, too. Amazing how that happened.

But while Jaywalker waxed cynical, the jurors appeared to be mesmerized by the physical evidence. And while looking at four ounces of white powder may not sound like much, hearing from a federal agent that those four ounces are high-quality heroin worth five thousand dollars-or forty-five hundred, if you wanted to deduct the defendant’s cut-is bound to have an impact upon a dozen people who’ve probably never seen hard drugs in their lives. Build up to it with sealed evidence envelopes, serial numbers and initials, and then top it off by allowing the jurors to pass the items among themselves, though only under the watchful eyes of a pair of large uniformed court officers, and the overall impact is high drama. Miki Shaughnessey instinctively knew that and played it for all it was worth, but to her credit, she never overdid it. Then again, she didn’t have to.