Robert Tanenbaum - Fury

There were very few other people sitting on his side of the aisle, mostly those who looked as if they wished they were sitting on the other side, which was packed with spectators and the press. Louis was chatting amiably with that worm of a reporter for the New York Times, Harriman, who lorded his exalted position over his colleagues in the press with a disdainful smile as he bent his head toward Louis and laughed over some private joke.

The four plaintiffs were sitting at their table, all of them watching Karp with baleful looks. He smiled at them until they looked away.

The nest of reporters went nuts when Brooklyn DA Kristine Breman entered the courtroom, walked to the front row behind the plaintiffs' table, and took a seat. The reporters ran up to her or leaned over the other benches to ask her questions. But she demurely shook her head no. "Not at this time, please," she said, obviously enjoying the attention. "I'm just here to see that justice be done."

The press quickly lost interest when a police officer entered with a frail, frightened-looking woman with gray hair. Her eyes locked on Karp's and she looked nowhere else as she walked to her seat next to Torrisi, who took her hand and patted it between both of his. She gave Karp a thin, wavering smile.

"Thank you for taking the case, Mr. Karp," Tyler said. "I know this isn't your job."

"I wouldn't say that…but you're welcome. And please, call me Butch. How are you doing with all this?" he asked, waving at the crowd of press who hovered on the other side of the aisle, hoping to catch her attention.

"Okay," she replied. "I just want this to be over with…again. My nightmares have grown worse; my psychologist says it's the stress."

Karp was the consummate prosecutor. And one of his strengths was that he could put aside the emotional aspects of a case and concentrate on what he would need to convince a jury. However, this case had his stomach tied in knots. He knew that it was a load of crock, and he was reasonably sure he could persuade the jury to see it that way. However, the two things he needed to make it a lock were still missing. He knew that Kaminsky sent a letter to Breman impeaching Villalobos that had then been handed on to Klinger. But he couldn't prove it, didn't have a copy of the letter, and Kaminsky had disappeared.

He would also have liked to find Hannah Little. Louis was sure to attack the confessions as coerced-big, bad racist cops browbeating poor little black teenagers. Hannah's testimony that Kwasama Jones told her he'd held Liz Tyler down while Sykes and Davis raped her would put the nail in the coffin. Jones was certainly not under any duress from cops when he talked to her on the telephone.

"Oyez, oyez, all rise, U.S. District Court Judge Marci Klinger presiding." As the crowd rose to its feet, Klinger swept into the courtroom. She hardly bothered to sit down before she fixed Karp with a fierce glare. "Before we begin, Mr. Karp, I want to repeat my opinion that your appointment to this case smacks of theatrics and politics. If I so much as sniff such I'll-"

"I assure you that there will be no such sniffing necessary," Karp said. "Certainly nothing to equal the daily circus of news briefings my opponent conducts regarding this case, despite your gag order."

"I object to this characterization," Louis said, rising to his feet. "I cannot be held responsible if the members of the journalism profession approach me in public places and ask questions."

Karp started to reply, but Klinger slammed her gavel down. "That's enough," she said. "Mr. Karp, I will decide what does or does not meet with the spirit of my ruling regarding a gag order. And now, since I will assume that nothing more need be said on this matter, I will ask that the jury be brought in."

The members of the jury filed in quietly and took their seats as Louis stood, smiled, and nodded to every one as if each was a long-lost friend. Sykes also smiled at the jurors and nudged his coplaintiffs to do the same.

The jurors, most of them, smiled back at him. It made him laugh inside at how gullible people were. He'd been fooling them all of his life. Teachers had loved him. The mothers of his friends adored him and told their sons to be more like him. The mothers of his girlfriends hoped they'd marry him-not that women really attracted him like that; he liked to rape them and make them cry out in pain. Only once-because of those assistant DA bitches sitting across the aisle near that bitch he raped and beat the shit out of-had his streak of people liking him been broken. That other jury didn't like him, that other jury sent him…brilliant, personable, whole-life-in-front-of-him Jayshon Sykes…to that horrible place for the rest of his life. Well, when this is over, he thought, I'm going to pay a little visit to them bitches, and after I've done every filthy fucking thing I can think of to them, they won't live to tell no one about it.

When they were seated, Klinger invited Louis to give his opening statement. He rose slowly, carefully, from his chair as if lost in deep thought. Patting at his forehead, he began to speak, his shoulders slumped as if he carried a great weight.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury…friends…I come before you today with a heavy heart. Heavy because I am a firm believer in our justice system. Despite its failures in the past to protect people of color, I still believed that it was the black man's best hope for this country to live up to that last line in the Pledge of Allegiance, 'and justice for all.'"

Louis sighed. "But years ago, justice was manipulated, and in a rush to judgment, four young black men were convicted of a crime they did not commit. That system-represented by two assistant district attorneys for Kings County, as well as police officers and detectives of the New York Police Department-conspired, yes, conspired to steal, as surely as someone putting a gun to their heads and pulling the trigger, the flowers of these young men's youth."

Suddenly, the big man whirled and pointed a finger at Karp. "Oh, I'm sure the defendants in this case will point out that these were not totally 'innocent' young men. And yes, they were teenagers who did stupid teenage things, like fighting with people on the boardwalk at Coney Island. Pranks for the most part, until one elderly man decided to fight back and threatened to harm one of my clients, Mr. Jayshon Sykes-who, afraid, lashed out. Unfortunately, Jayshon was a strong young man and the elderly man was frail and should not have been so belligerent. It was a tragic accident, something Jayshon has regretted every moment since, and you did not hear him or his companions complain about doing their time in prison for that infraction. And I don't need to remind you about what hideous dens of depravity our prisons have become."

Louis walked over to his table and took a sip of water before turning back to the jury. "I ask each of you, could you cast that first stone? Are you without sin? These boys, now men, committed a sin, surely. But a much greater sin was about to be committed. Because early that next morning, long after these boys had finally gone home to bed…a sin so monstrous that it grieves my heart to even think of it…was committed when a lovely young woman was brutally raped and nearly killed by a vile and despicable man named Enrique Villalobos. You will hear, my friends, from Mr. Villalobos, who, with nothing to gain for himself by this confession, will tell you that he and he alone committed this horrible sin."

Karp listened to Louis drone on about the horrors of prison and the abused, poor, neglected backgrounds of his clients until he felt somewhat nauseous. As expected, Louis launched into a long diatribe about how his clients were "beaten down by The Man" and confessed out of fear and exhaustion. "And being told that they could fry for this one, go to the electric chair…suffer a million, a billion, volts of painful electricity boiling their organs in their own blood and their brains into mush." It was the plaintiffs' turn, as well as some of the audience, to turn green.