Joseph Wambaugh - Echoes in the Darkness

“I handled fifteen Vietnam veterans, the Agent Orange cases, to get these individuals their medical examinations and get them their proper discharges. I worked with a large number of Hispanics who couldn’t speak English.

“I taught a class for inmates called ‘How to Get a Job,’ showing them how to make out applications and construct résumés and keep files.

“I worked a lot in the church activities, not that I’m an expert on it. I was more of an organizer. I was president of the God Squad for three years. When there was no minister I handled all the church activity at the prison. I would bring in ministers and set up the ceremony. I handled the Bible study.

“I did my regular prison job. I handled the dayroom, handled all the books and papers, kept it clean.

“I’ve worked for over four years on a criminal justice dictionary. That was my main writing activity.”

“How does the request for two back issues of Penthouse tie in with that?”

“I’ve found that Black’s Law Dictionary and Ballentine’s do not cover criminal justice definitions very well. I had inmates bring up words that they know, then I went through about fifty or sixty sociology and criminology textbooks and began writing definitions in the criminal justice dictionary.

“There’s nothing in Black’s Law Dictionary about the Muslims. In prison the Black Muslims and the Muslim faith have grown tremendously. You have a great deal of trouble in the criminal justice system finding out about corrections, especially halfway houses, furloughs, leaves of absence. Most lawyers do not know very much about corrections.”

“It’s in that category, corrections …”

“The Penthouse . Let me answer how I got to the Penthouse . I found over the past five or six years a number of crimes involving battered wives and child abuse.

“If you look at those issues, you’ll find that they have Yoko and John Lennon in there. John Lennon beat up Yoko. I was considering her as an example of a battered wife because John Lennon is known throughout the world.

“Also John Lennon in the article kicked his child, Sean. Yoko thought he was going to kill him. This was a child abuse item.”

“Did your having possession of those two Penthouse magazines have anything to do with Charles Montione?”

“Nothing whatever.”

He looked as banal as Adolf Eichmann. He’d just been convicted of murdering a woman and two children, and he was now describing to the jury how he was writing dictionary definitions of child abuse, as emotional as a grapefruit.

Then he went on to describe how he’d helped Charles Montione and Raymond Martray, who’d betrayed him with their false testimony. And just so he didn’t disappoint anyone by failing to offer a sexual innuendo, he gave the jury a news flash: one of the witnesses against him was homosexual, even though Dr. Jay had always tried to “talk him out of it.”

Bill Costopoulos asked, “Mister Smith, since your arrest for the death of Susan Reinert and the disappearance of her children what have your living conditions been?”

“I’ve been kept in the hole ever since.”

“Explain to the jury what that means.”

“I’m not allowed any communication or calls. I’m not allowed to visit with my relatives except one time every two weeks when they’re behind a screen. I get no religious activity whatever. It’s the only place in the United States where you’re not permitted to have any church services.”

“Did you want to testify before this jury during this trial?”

“Yes. It was my feeling to testify because I felt the jury was entitled to hear my side. You said if I didn’t testify it couldn’t work against me. I mentioned to you I didn’t think they could bring up the previous conviciton. That shows you how much of a jailhouse lawyer I am.”

“Mister Smith, if this jury would spare your life, are you aware that you will spend the rest of your natural life in the prison system of this commonwealth?”

“I don’t think there’s any doubt about that.”

“If this jury would spare you your life, what would you do within the prison system until your natural death?”

“I don’t see any major changes. I would go on as I am, trying to help people when I could, trying to work as closely as possible with my family so they can get over the disgrace. Finish the criminal justice dictionary and work in the church.

“I guess I would complete the Agent Orange lawsuits against Dow Chemical. Probably I’d start teaching again. I volunteered to teach English and reading. I’m not permitted to teach subjects where they have a hired position although that’s what I could really do best.”

“Mister Smith, are you asking this jury to spare your life?”

“Absolutely. Of course.”

After Bill Costopoulos sat down, Rick Guida’s first question was “Where are the bodies of Karen and Michael Reinert?”

“I do not know,” said Jay Smith.

“You do not know?”

“I do not know.”

“Where did you kill Susan Reinert?”

“I did not kill Susan Reinert or her children. I had nothing to do with Susan Reinert.”

“In other words, what you’re telling this jury is that they made a terrible mistake, isn’t that right?”

“All my life I’ve lived in the American system. I think they’ve made their decision honestly on the basis of what they were given. We accept their judgment. They say I’m guilty; I’m guilty. You asked me if I think I really did it? I didn’t do it. I respect their judgment.”

“I didn’t ask you if you think you did it. Did you do it or didn’t you?”

“I said I did not.”

“It’s not a thinking process. You know you didn’t do it and these people made a horrible mistake, but it’s just the American system. Is that right?”

Costopoulos stood and said, “I object! He’s arguing!”

“Yes,” Judge Lipsitt said. “I don’t think you should argue with him. You just ask him the questions and don’t argue the point.”

“Let me ask you this,” Guida continued. “Are you telling us that you are not upset even though you’ve been unjustly convicted of three counts of murder in the first degree?”

“Yeah, I’m upset,” Jay Smith said. “But I’m not the kind who falls apart. I’ve had enough military training. I can take whatever happens to me.”

“Where were you during the weekend of June twenty-second, 1979, between ten o’clock at night and noontime on June twenty-fourth, 1979?”

“Your Honor, I’m going to object!” Bill Costopoulos said.

“I agree,” said the judge. “You can’t go back into the case.”

“He’s accepted the verdict!” said Costopoulos.

Guida was relentless. In all these years it was his first and last shot at the prince of darkness. He said, “Your Honor, may I explore who he was with during that time period?”

“I think I’ve sustained the objection. You have a jury verdict.”

The prosecutor turned to Penthouse magazine.

“Mister Smith, on direct examination you indicated that you wanted issues of Penthouse so that you could write a legal dictionary, is that correct?”

“I am writing a legal dictionary, yes.”

“What specific word did you define in your dictionary using the Yoko Ono article?”

“ ‘Battered wives.’ I’m not saying that I completed the total entry. ‘Child abuse’ and ‘battered wives’ are the two terms I was going after.”

“How long an entry in your dictionary did you plan for ‘battered wives’?”

“I would say twenty-five words.”

“In order to get twenty-five words for the dictionary to define the term ‘battered wives,’ you ordered two copies of Penthouse , is that right?”