Authors: James Grippando
“What did you expect? That I would pull you aside at trial and say, ‘Oh, Jack, promise me one thing: If I don’t get out of prison, please make sure that Brian is well taken care of?’ That’s fairy tales. I want you to have everything riding on winning.”
“You’re using your own son as a carrot on a stick.”
“I’m doing everything I possibly can to make sure the mother who loves him will be there to raise him. What’s so terrible about that?”
“This isn’t what’s best for Brian. It’s what’s best for you.”
“Like you said before. I don’t see the distinction between the two.”
“It’s not going to make me win your case.”
“No. But it might keep you from losing it.”
“It also might keep me from being your lawyer.”
“What are you going to do, quit?”
“Yeah,” said Jack, rising. “I quit.”
“Wait a minute. You can’t quit. Once the case starts, a criminal lawyer needs the judge’s permission to quit.”
“But as you so happily pointed out earlier, you have two lawyers now. That means the judge will let one of us quit whenever we want. You still have a lawyer, so it won’t delay the case.”
Her expression fell. Jack walked toward the door.
“Jack, please.”
“No, you’ve made your decision. I’m outta here.” He pushed the button near the door, and a buzzer sounded for the guard.
“Wait!” she said, her voice shaking. “I’ll make a deal with you. You can make all the strategy decisions you want. The Cuban soldier as witness, all that stuff. It’s your bailiwick.”
“What about Brian?”
“We agree to do what’s best for him.”
“Which means what?”
“This is how I see it. Brian shouldn’t meet you when I say so. He shouldn’t meet you when you say so. I’d like him to meet you when he
asks to see his biological father. I can’t think of a better way to know when he’s ready.”
“You told him he was adopted?”
“Yes. I told him. Before I was arrested.”
Jack didn’t say anything.
She said, “That would be the ideal way to handle it, don’t you think?”
“A murder trial is hardly an ideal situation. What if I need to talk to him before then?”
“I’ll take you at your word. If Sofia can do as good a job as you can, you’ll let Sofia interview him. Only if you think it’s absolutely necessary to talk to him directly do you have any direct contact with Brian.”
Jack considered it. The restriction seemed silly, almost pointless, except that it was just enough to let her feel as though she was standing her ground and saving a little dignity—which went a long way in prison. “All right,” said Jack. “You have my word on that.”
“Thank you. I’ll tell Sofia the same thing, so she knows what we agreed to.”
“I’ll tell her,” said Jack.
The guard was at the door. Before Jack pushed the buzzer again to open it, Lindsey looked at Jack and said, “In case you’re wondering, finding out that he was adopted…it didn’t ease the pain of losing his father. Not a bit.”
In another tone of voice, it could have sounded harsh, but there wasn’t an ounce of malice in Lindsey’s delivery. It was just a statement of fact, perhaps a not-so-subtle reminder that Jack shouldn’t expect too much out of his first meeting with Brian.
“I’d still like to meet him some day. Under better circumstances, I mean.”
“That’s kind of up to you, isn’t it, Counselor?”
Jack was about to punch the door buzzer, then stopped. He turned and gave Lindsey a serious look. “Tell me one more thing.”
“What?”
“The forensic report. It says your fingerprints were found on the murder weapon.”
“Does that surprise you?”
“Only if you don’t have a good explanation.”
She shrugged, as if it were nothing. “Of course my prints were on
it. The gun was in our house. Do you think I was going to have a gun in my home and not know how to use it?”
“So you handled the gun before?”
“Oscar and I shot it together. Many times.”
“He didn’t clean it?”
“Of course he cleaned it. But I guess he missed a print or two.”
Jack nodded. It would have been difficult to script a better answer. And perhaps that was what concerned him.
Jack pushed the button, the buzzer sounded, and the door opened. He said good-bye to his client, then headed down the corridor with the guard, the sound of shoe leather on concrete echoing off the prison walls. It hadn’t been exactly the meeting he’d hoped for, but it had turned out all right, he supposed. Still, he was worried. Worried about Brian. Worried about future outbursts from Lindsey.
And somewhere, in the deepest corners of his mind, he was worried about whose number Lindsey might be dialing at that very moment on her magic cell phone.
O
n Friday morning, Jack was in court. The prosecutor wasn’t happy to be there, and Jack probably would have preferred to soak his feet in kerosene and walk across flaming embers. But at some point he was going to have to bring it to the court’s attention that the star witness for the defense might well be a Cuban soldier. Today was the day.
“All rise!” said the bailiff as the judge entered the courtroom.
Jack and Sofia rose. So did the prosecutors. There was no one else. The hearing was closed to the public because it involved a “sensitive” matter, not quite on the level of national security, but something akin thereto. Not even Jack’s client was allowed in the courtroom. By court order, Jack’s motion would be argued
in camera
, for the eyes and ears of the lawyers only.
“Good morning,” said the judge as he settled into his chair. Judge Garcia was one of the oldest federal judges in south Florida, a Reagan appointee whose confirmation had slipped through the U.S. Senate while his would-be opponents were obsessed with keeping the
less
conservative Robert Bork off the Supreme Court. Miami was one of those strange places where drawing an Hispanic judge was more often than not the kiss of death for any lawyer advancing the traditional agenda of Hispanic Democrats. Jack was just glad he wasn’t here on an affirmative-action case.
The lawyers greeted him and announced their appearances. Hector Torres, as U.S. attorney, staked out his position as lead trial counsel.
With him was a lawyer from the Justice Department. A Washington connection—no surprise there.
The judge cleared his throat and said, “I’ve read the papers that the defense filed under seal. The transcript of this hearing will also be kept under seal. And I’m issuing a gag order that prevents anyone from discussing this hearing outside of this courtroom. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Your Honor,” the lawyers replied.
“Good. Now, let me turn to the merits.” He removed his reading glasses, as if to look Jack straight in the eye. “Mr. Swyteck, I have to tell you. When I reached the part of your motion where you claim that Fidel Castro is willing to send one of his soldiers into this courtroom to testify on your client’s behalf—well, I nearly lost my lunch.”
Loast my loanch.
When he got angry or excited, the accent kicked in.
“Sorry, Your Honor, but—”
“Let me finish. Either this is the most surprising witness to a homicide in the history of Miami jurisprudence, or your motion is the most incendiary work of fiction I’ve read in my twenty-plus years on the bench.”
“I assure you, it’s not fiction.”
Torres rose and said, “Judge, not to point out the obvious, but simply because a colonel in the Cuban army told Mr. Swyteck that a Cuban soldier can offer exculpatory testimony does not mean that any such witness actually exists. I’m not questioning the fact that he may have told this story to defense counsel, but this is so far from being established as truth that it hardly belongs in a courtroom. It’s hearsay, and it’s probably the worst kind of hearsay, since the source is a representative of a hostile government that has lied about the United States for over four decades.”
“I understand your point, Counsel. And frankly, I couldn’t have said it better.”
This was exactly the reaction Jack had feared. “Judge, this is precisely the reason for our motion. Before we build up any expectations at trial, and before we run the risk of prejudicing a jury against us for calling a Cuban soldier as a witness, we want to get to the bottom of this as a pretrial matter. We want the opportunity to take a videotaped deposition of the Cuban soldier before trial. The government will have the right to cross-examine.”
The judge chuckled, obviously skeptical. “And just how do you propose to get the Cuban government to submit one of its soldiers to a videotaped deposition?”
“It would be voluntary on their part, of course. But I believe we have made enough of a showing to ask this court to give us the time we need to at least attempt to arrange for the deposition.”
“How much time do you want?” asked the judge.
“This is a complicated process. It could be six or seven weeks, easily.”
Torres groaned and said, “Now we see what this is all about, Judge. Delay.”
“It’s not about delay,” said Jack. “This is a crucial witness.”
“Nonsense,” said Torres. “This is so transparent. It’s the same old story every time the U.S. attorney’s office pursues a high-profile case. The defense does everything it can to delay the trial, speedy trial be damned, all in the hope that the hoopla will die down before its client stands trial. What’s next, Mr. Swyteck? A motion for change of venue?”
“Actually, if we are able to secure the testimony of a Cuban soldier, we may ask that the case be moved to Jacksonville or Tampa.”
“See, Judge?” said Torres. “It’s going to be one game after another.”
“I assure you,” said Jack, “this is no game. My client is sitting in jail.”
“I understand that,” the judge said. “But Mr. Torres has a point. I don’t want delays.”
Torres took a half step toward the bench, as if to underscore his plea. “Your Honor, I’ve been holding my tongue so far, but the problem with Mr. Swyteck’s motion isn’t just delay. This is outrageous, plain and simple. The victim in this case is the son of Alejandro Pintado. Mr. Pintado is a prominent Cuban exile, an outspoken critic of the Castro regime. We all know how Castro feels about Mr. Pintado. Judge, you must resist any invitation to allow Fidel Castro to manipulate this trial and thereby exonerate the woman who murdered Mr. Pintado’s son.”
“I take serious offense at that,” said Jack.
“Then you shouldn’t have brought the motion,” said the judge.
Jack was taken aback. “Excuse me?”
The judge looked down sternly. “If you take offense at being accused of allowing Castro to manipulate you, then you should not have brought the motion.”
“Sorry you feel that way, Judge.”
“Well, I
do
feel that way. To say the least, I am completely unamused by your attempt to leverage Fidel Castro’s political propaganda into a legal entitlement to depose a Cuban soldier who may or may not have seen anything. Indeed, we don’t even have his name, so we don’t even know if he exists. The motion of the defense to postpone the trial date until it can secure the deposition of this unspecified Cuban witness is denied. Trial is set to commence three weeks from today. We’re adjourned,” he said with a bang of his gavel.
The lawyers rose and watched in silence as he disappeared through a side door to his chambers. After a disaster like this, Jack felt the need to get out of the courtroom as quickly as possible. He packed his trial bag and started for the exit.
“See you around, Jack,” said Hector Torres. The prosecutor was glowing.
“Yeah. Take care.”
Sofia caught up with him, but Jack only walked faster. She kept pace, as if determined to make him say something. He refused, having learned not to talk when he was boiling mad.
The elevator came, and they entered together. It was still just the two of them. Jack watched the lighted numbers over the closed doors.
“How did I delude myself into thinking that a man like Judge Garcia would give this motion a fair shot?”
Sofia said, “We’re still in the first inning. It’s just one motion.”
“No, it’s deeper than that. If a federal judge has that visceral a reaction against a Cuban soldier as a witness for the defense, imagine how it’s going to play to the jury. How’s it going to play to someone whose husband spent twenty-six years in one of Castro’s political prisons for criticizing the government? Or to some guy who brought his family to this country on a rubber raft, only to have his daughter drown on the way over?”
“They can still be fair.”
“Yeah, sure. Whatever fair is.”
The elevator doors opened. Jack stepped out. Sofia paused for a moment, then hurried to catch up as they crossed the main lobby and headed for the exit.
“What do we do now?”
“Damage control.”
“That should be minimal. It was a closed hearing. There’s a gag
order. There shouldn’t be too much backlash from the me—” She stopped as they reached the revolving doors. “—media,” she said, finishing her thought.
Jack froze. On the other side of the glass doors, the media were waiting in throngs—camera crews, reporters with microphones, and the general sense of confusion that seemed to follow the media wherever they went. Most of the station logos were from Spanish-language radio and television.
“Señor Swyteck!”
They’d spotted him, so there was no turning back. Jack continued through the revolving door and met the mob head-on at the top of the granite steps near the courthouse entrance. An assortment of microphones was suddenly thrust toward his face. Jack tried to keep walking, but he could manage only baby steps. One of the crewmen on the fringe lowered a boom with a dangling microphone that clobbered him atop the head. He shoved it aside and forged his way forward.
A reporter asked, “Is it true that your client will be calling a Cuban soldier to the witness stand?”
The question nearly knocked Jack over. So much for the closed hearing. Courthouses weren’t quite the sieves that police stations were, but someone had tipped off the press already. The same question was coming from everywhere. Scores of reporters, each one wanting the scoop on the Cuban soldier.
“Is it true, Mr. Swyteck?”
Jack hated to respond with “no comment,” but he was still under a gag order, and the judge was mad enough at the defense as it was. He didn’t dare push it. “I’m sorry, but I can’t answer any of your questions at this time.”
His refusal to answer seemed only to feed the growing frenzy. The questions kept coming, dozens at a time, each one somewhere between a bark and an angry shout.
“What’s his name?
“What will he say?”
“Will he defect?”
“
Es usted comunista?
Jack shot a look—
Am I a communist?—
and the camera flashed in his face. That last question had been purely a plant, designed to get him to look at the camera. It was like trying to wade through the muck
of the Everglades, but Jack was slowly making his way down the steps, and the media went with him. Someone had taken hold of his jacket to keep him from moving too fast. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Sofia several steps behind, well within the mob’s nucleus. Finally, they reached the sidewalk, and with one last surge they pushed beyond the curb and squeezed into the backseat of a cab. Jack went first. Sofia jumped in after him, slamming the door behind her.
“Coral Gables,” Jack told the driver.
The many faces of the media were sliding across the passenger-side windows as the car pulled away. Sofia brushed her tangled hair out of her eyes. Jack straightened his jacket. It was as if they’d run through the gauntlet.
“No media backlash, huh?” said Jack as the car started down Miami Avenue.
“It’ll blow over,” said Sofia in a breathless voice.
“Yeah, sure.”
In about a hundred years.