Paul Levine - To speak for the dead

Abe Socolow huddled in the corridor with his witness, instructing him, no doubt, to downplay his karate skills and to stay away from the stack of tiles. Jennifer Logan neatly refilled her research in color-coded folders. The bailiff brought the jury in, and I started earning my retainer.

I asked Sergio about his training and his trophies, his black belt and his favorite dojang.

"First place in Florida sports karate, we don't hurt nobody," he said, obviously adhering to Socolow's advice. "Second in Atlanta, regional competition. Training for fifteen years."

I had him tell the jury about his weightlifting, Chinese boxing, judo, and aikido.

"You're a pretty physical guy?" I asked.

"I'm okay."

Ever so humble.

"Pretty good at karate?"

"If you say so."

Evasive.

"See this stack of tiles, think you can break them all with one blow?"

"Who knows?"

"Well, on this videotape from the Florida championships, you break a stack of boards like they were toothpicks, should we take a look?"

Socolow leapt up, objecting again.

Judge Crane, more dolorous than usual, peered down at 332 us, unhappy we needed his intervention. He looked toward the press gallery, but no one told him how to rule, so he took a stab at it himself. "Mr. Socolow, this is a capital case, and I will not unduly limit the defense. But Mr. Lassiter, get to the point. Objection overruled."

I raised my voice. "The fact is, you're not good enough to break twenty tiles with one blow, are you?"

"Huh?" Sergio looked puzzled. It did not seem to be an expression entirely foreign to him.

"Maybe Shigeru Funakoshi could do it," I suggested. "Didn't he beat you in Atlanta?"

"Home cooking. Two Japs and a Korean for judges."

"But you really couldn't break all twenty of these, could you?"

"You kidding? With my hand, my foot, or my head. Kid's stuff."

Adieu, humility. Socolow was grimacing, sitting on the edge of his chair, itching to pop up.

I said, "Let's see you do it. Mess them up. Isn't that what you said you could do to Dr. Salisbury, mess him up?"

Socolow was up again. "Your Honor. He's badgering the witness. As Your Honor said, an unwilling witness cannot be forced to take part in a demonstration. Miss Logan has handed me several cases on courtroom demonstrations that I wish to present on this issue. If the court please, in Mills v. State…"

Socolow approached the bench but I stayed close to the witness stand. The judge was going to set me down. I took a risk. It might get me another broken nose, maybe straighten out the one I had. It might get me some harsh words from the judge, nothing novel there. Or it might get me an acquittal.

I leaned over and murmured in Sergio's ear, "Stick around, Shorty. I'm gonna play a videotape of you and your friends. No wonder that bitch needs three guys. You not only have the brains of a flea, you've got the pinga of one, too."

Socolow was still at it, quoting the Florida Supreme Court. He couldn't hear the guttural growl that stirred in Sergio's throat. The Karate King rocked in the chair, his hands gripping the rail, his knuckles bleaching out. But he didn't get up. I leaned even closer, my mouth inches from his ear. Improvisation.

"Big pecs," I whispered, "pero pinga chiquita, no pinga grande."

It's important to be bilingual in Miami.

Sergio's cruel little eyes opened as wide as his brain would let them. Incredulous that I would mock him, enraged that I could do it from a vantage point half a foot higher than he'd be in elevator heels. But I needed more, something that would cut deep into the tender meat of his machismo, something to inflame a guy who spends hours posing his bicep curls in front of a gym mirror.

"What surprises me," I breathed into his ear, "is that you're a switch hitter. A fruit. Roger tells me he could never bend over with you behind him."

He erupted. A primeval roar. Socolow turned, eyes wide, frozen. Sergio stood in the box and tore oif his coat, throwing it to the floor. Short sleeves underneath, arms exploding against the fabric. He bounded out of the box toward me. I backpedaled like a cornerback on third and long. I wanted the stack of tiles between the two of us.

He looked at me. He looked at the tiles. He would have it all.

"Shuto!" He brought the sword handstrike down on the tiles. A thunderbolt, a thousand broken pieces, dust rising from the floor, an echo bouncing off the walls. A six on the Richter scale.

He barely paused. Two more steps and we were face-to-face. Blood streamed from his right hand, impaled by a ceramic sliver. I backed up until I was at the bar. He kept coming. Too fast. If he was ever to get good at hand-to-hand combat, he'd have to learn to control his emotions.

It would be better for Roger Salisbury if I let Sergio hit me. Just as Granny had said, let him show his mean streak. And I will do a lot for a client. I will stay up three nights in a row preparing witnesses or writing a brief. I will cajole and flatter judges with two-digit IQs. I will even cry in closing argument to win sympathy from the jury. But I will not let my head be split like a cataloupe by a tattooed, muscle-bound, hopped-up steroid freak.

He telegraphed a roundhouse kick, and as I ducked to the right, a whirling foot breezed by my ear, a rush of air like a train through the station. He tried hitting me in the chest with a flurry of fast punches with the left fist. Later, Charlie Riggs would tell me this was the Dan-zuki. I deflected some of them but caught a good one in the ribs. I would feel it for a week. He liked going for the body and used a lunge punch to get one into my gut. I felt it and dropped my guard. Somebody in the gallery screamed.

He tried to come high with a looping roundhouse right. Mawashi-zuki, Charlie would explain. He had plenty of hip behind it, but I had figured he'd go for the head. I leaned to my right and the punch glanced off my ear, burning it, but not connecting.

Then I ducked inside and brought my forearm up under his chin, hard. There was a lot of shoulder in it and a good explosion from the legs. The forearm caught some neck and some jaw and lifted him off the floor. It would have been good for fifteen yards, unnecessary roughness, clotheslining a guy. The shot straightened Sergio up, made him gasp for breath that wouldn't come. Then I brought the left hook around, aiming for the chin. It took a while to get there, my timing was rusty, but that was okay. He wasn't going anywhere. The punch landed and tossed him backward onto the clerk's table, which crumbled into splinters, trial exhibits flying. State-issued furniture.

The judge was banging his gavel. I hadn't heard it during the ruckus. But there he was, banging away. And in his other hand was the . 357 Magnum from under the bench. Then dead quiet. The judge looked at the gavel and then at the gun. Sheepishly. Then his eyes darted from Channel 10's video camera to the Herald's still camera, whirring and clicking away. Preserving the sight for eternity, or at least until the next election.

Straining to appear judicial, he turned toward the jury box. "The jurors shall disregard the last… uh… colloquy between the witness and defense counsel."

Might as well ask the residents of Pompeii to ignore the volcano.

Then, eyeballing me, Judge Randolph Crane did a slow burn. "The Court, sua sponte, grants a mistrial. The jury is excused. Mr. Socolow, I assume the state wishes to retry this defendant. If so, a new trial date will be set upon subsequent motion and notice of hearing. Mr. Lassiter…"

He paused. He thought. His perpetual glumness was replaced with anger. It seemed real, not just a pose for the editorial boards.

"Mr. Lassiter, I have never seen such a display in a courtroom. I don't know what you did to provoke that witness, but I do know you committed battery upon his person."