Jury of One (37 page)

The jury was taking notes. Morphew paused a moment.

“Officer Miroballi gave chase and found the defendant in the alley. Officer Miroballi told him to submit to arrest. He told the defendant to show his hands and submit. He didn’t draw his weapon, ladies and gentlemen. Didn’t pull out his gun. He wasn’t looking for a shoot-out. He told the defendant to submit.”

Morphew flapped his arms. “So what did the defendant do? He tricked Officer Miroballi. He pretended to submit. He dropped his gym bag, as the officer had instructed. He dropped the gun he had. Which meant that he had complied, right? Wrong. At that moment, the defendant pulled
another
gun from his jacket pocket and he shot Officer Raymond Miroballi in the face.”

That was far more detail than she’d heard before. This had to have come from the homeless guy, Slattery, because he was the only one who said that he saw the shooting. But he hadn’t said anything close to that to Shelly and Joel Lightner. Morphew had just explained the second gun. She had never played out this scenario in the way Morphew described it. And if it was true, it
was
smart. Alex had dropped his gun and made it look like he complied? Then he pulled out a second gun and shot him? If the person you want to kill is a cop, that’s not a bad idea at all. And at this point, as trial had begun, it didn’t matter if it was true. It mattered that it was believable.

Morphew turned to Alex again, wagging his finger with disdain. “Make no mistake. It was the defendant. You’ll hear from Officer Julio Sanchez, who will tell you that it was the defendant who ran from Officer Miroballi. You will hear evidence that traces of Officer Miroballi’s blood were found in the defendant’s hair and on his shirt. It was him.”

He strolled a step, not even peeking at the notepad he carried. “Now comes the why. Why did this happen? How did this happen?” He walked over to the blowup of Raymond Miroballi. “This was an officer who wanted to wipe out drugs on the street. He wanted to wipe out the people who made that happen. You want to catch drug dealers, you have to work with drug dealers. Sometimes they demand that you work with them confidentially. Confidential informants, you will hear, are an important part of the business of keeping the streets clean. The defendant
was one of those confidential informants. The defendant sold cocaine.”

Morphew had made sure to allow the jury access to Alex at this point. Most of them looked in his direction with less than pleasant looks on their faces. Shelly had the instant feeling that maybe she should not have held back her opening statement. It had the effect of giving her the element of surprise, but maybe she had overestimated that advantage. Morphew got to make the first impression here and she had no response.

“So Officer Miroballi used the defendant. You will hear testimony that the two of them met on a few occasions. Officer Miroballi was getting information from the defendant. Information about a particular street gang. A gang called the Columbus Street Cannibals.”

Shelly had tried to exclude any mention of this gang prior to trial. Their horrific reputation would unfairly taint her client, she had argued. All Morphew had to do, however, was point to Eddie Todavia, who had admitted his affiliation and admitted that he supplied Alex with drugs. That was more than enough, even she had to privately concede.

Morphew shrugged. “Scary stuff. Officer Miroballi patrolled the neighborhoods where the Columbus Street Cannibals worked. Venice Avenue. The Andujar housing projects. The near west side. Part of his turf. He didn’t like having gangs selling drugs on his street. He wanted to stop it. So he used someone who worked with the Cannibals.” He pointed at Alex. “He used the defendant. He was going to use the defendant to infiltrate this gang. Maybe not take down the entire operation but put a dent in it. Do
something.
”

He looked over the jurors. Morphew had an effective delivery, a flair for drama that complemented his unaffected presentation. “What’s a cop’s worst fear in this situation, folks? You’re going after a major street gang and you’re using a confidential informant. What’s the worst thing that can happen?” He wagged a finger. “The worst thing that can happen is that your confidential informant turns on you. Tells the street gang about you.”

That comment seemed to buy something with the jurors. A couple of them gave slow, knowing nods of their head. Morphew
let that simmer a moment as he slowly moved to the witness stand. He dropped a hand on the wooden railing. “I wish to God we could put Officer Miroballi in this witness stand and ask him what he was thinking. I really do. All we can know is what he told his partner. He told his partner that the defendant was being dishonest with him.”

“Judge, I have to object to the hearsay.” Shelly barely got out of her seat and kept her volume low. She didn’t want to seem discourteous and, more important, she didn’t want to lend added weight to the comment by appearing to be concerned. But she
was
concerned, and she had to make her record.

The judge looked over his glasses down at Morphew. “I suppose, when the time comes, you’ll have an argument on this point.”

“It’s offered only for state of mind, Judge.”

“Well—” The judge adjusted his glasses. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I have already told you that what you are hearing in opening statements is not evidence. It is not. We are talking here about a point of evidence, and I have not ruled on that yet. Whether these things Mr. Morphew speaks of will ever come in as evidence remains to be seen.”

“Thank you, your Honor.” The prosecutor returned to the jury. “That’s what the night of February eleventh was all about. Officer Miroballi was concerned that his confidential informant was not telling him accurate information. That he was playing games with him. He wanted to talk to him. He wanted straight answers from this defendant.”

Morphew nodded to his assistant, who hit the tape recorder again. Shelly recognized the words from the transcript. She had heard the tape, too, of Officer Raymond Miroballi calling to dispatch, out of breath:

“Dispatch, advise all units that suspect is armed. I repeat, suspect is armed.”

Morphew pointed at the tape recorder. “Officer Miroballi knew that the defendant was armed. He knew it, and yet he
still
didn’t draw his own weapon. That was probably not smart, in hindsight. But the evidence will show that he didn’t draw his weapon on this armed boy because he wanted to reason with this boy. He didn’t want to lose his informant. He needed him.”

Morphew held out five fingers. “Five feet, ladies and gentlemen. Officer Miroballi was five feet from the defendant when he was shot. You will hear expert testimony on that point. Standing as close”—Morphew paced off the steps walking backward and stopped—“as close as I am right now to you in the front row. This close, and not holding his weapon. That, folks, is a man who wanted to talk to the defendant and only talk.”

Shelly wanted to object to the argumentative nature of his comments but held back. Morphew certainly was arguing, and effectively so. He was arguing against self-defense without ever mentioning the words. That was smart. He could not be absolutely sure Shelly was ever going to argue the defense, and he didn’t want to make a mark against his own case unnecessarily. So he couldn’t come out and say the words, but he had to cover that base.

“We have people who will come into this courtroom and sit on this witness stand”—he moved to the witness railing again—“who will tell you that the defendant ran from Officer Miroballi. Who will tell you that he ran into an alley. That Officer Miroballi chased him in there but only wanted to talk. Never drew his weapon. That the defendant pretended to comply with the officer’s wishes by dropping the gym bag he was holding and by dropping the gun he was holding. That the officer then approached him, and as he did so, the defendant removed a second firearm from his jacket pocket and fired on the officer. Shot him in cold blood. And then fled the scene.” He walked over to the center of the jury panel. “We will ask you to return a verdict of guilty of murder in the first-degree. We will ask you to return a verdict of guilty for the offense of felony murder. We will ask you to deliver justice for Raymond Miroballi and his family.”

Shelly pretended to write a note on her pad. She knew a lot of this beforehand. Some of the details of the shooting were new. But that didn’t stop her from making a fresh assessment of the case, now that the words had been spoken, the reactions on the jurors’ faces seen. Morphew had done well here. He was off to a strong start.

“Is the state prepared to call its first witness?” the judge asked.

She looked at Alex. He was following her instructions as best
he could, which was to say that he remained quiet and rather void of emotion. But his face was ashen. Hearing someone say such things about you could be devastating. If they weren’t true—and he had steadfastly denied that he was Miroballi’s informant—then it would be utterly terrifying. But what bothered him the most, she assumed, was what bothered her the most. Everything Morphew had said had the ring of truth. Now that it had begun, Alex Baniewicz was feeling the weight of the world in a way previously unknown to him. It was worse than the arrest. Worse than the months of confinement. Now it was happening, the legal mechanism that would determine the rest of his life. She had tried to prepare him for it. She had told him that Morphew would state matters in the most damaging way possible. It won’t get any worse than the opening statement, she had told him.

“The People call Edward Todavia,” said Morphew.

She sensed that she was about to be proven wrong.

T
HE WITNESS WAS
escorted into the courtroom by armed sheriff’s deputies. That was interesting. Shelly had thought that Morphew might ask for a recess and have the witness brought in outside the presence of the jury. Dress him up, remove the shackles and armed escorts, then bring in the jury. But Morphew didn’t ask for the jury to be excused. He let them see the deputies haul in this criminal.

Yeah, she probably would have done the same thing, now that she thought about it. What better way to taint a defendant than to show, in very real terms, that his associates are criminals?

Eddie Todavia was wearing a blue jumpsuit. She didn’t know the different colors the Department of Corrections used for inmates, but she knew that he was not placed in general population. He still had the shaved head but it looked like he’d had a few days’ growth, which made his head look dirty. Still the goatee. He wasn’t a big guy but he had a menacing stare, a flat inflection to his voice that amplified the effect. A kid like that knew how to look tough. It was part of his job description.

He said his name for the record. Morphew fronted the arrest and plea agreement, the reason Todavia was here. The questions and answers provided ample detail. He was caught selling ten grams of crack cocaine to a sixteen-year-old boy on Green Street, south of Venice Avenue. City police officers and sheriff’s deputies had converged on him. Todavia showed no hint of
remorse or hesitation in describing these things. It wasn’t pride in his actions but he probably saw something heroic in his arrest. She had seen that before in the kids she helped. There was a drama to the whole thing that captivated them. A badge of pride, to some of them.

He turned a little more reticent when he testified about the plea agreement. That, most definitely, was
not
a source of pride. Cut to the bone, this kid had gotten scared and narced.

“You’re not happy to be here, are you, sir?” Morphew asked. He was at the podium placed between the defense and prosecution tables, back just enough so that Shelly’s view of the jury was not blocked.

“Nope.”

“You understand that if you don’t tell the truth here, your plea agreement will be ripped up.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

“If you don’t tell the truth, you could go away for ten years.”

He nodded.

“You have to give an audible answer, sir. You have to answer out loud.”

He cocked his head. “Yeah, I got that.”

Morphew pointed at Alex. “Do you know the defendant, Alex Baniewicz?”

“Yeah, I know him.”

“Stipulate to identification,” Shelly called out in a bored tone. She didn’t need Alex to stand up and be singled out.

“Thank you, Counsel.” The judge wrote something down.

“How is it that you know the defendant?”

“He’s a customer of mine.” They looked at each other. “I sold him coke.”

“Cocaine.”

“Right.”

“When?”

“When,” Todavia said, as if the question annoyed him. He opened a hand. “Like, ’bout January, maybe, last year.”

“January of this year? Or of 2003?”

“2003.”

That was about right. It was just after Alex’s daughter had
been born, in late 2002, that Alex had decided to supplement his income through illicit means.

“How did this come about? How was it he came to you?”

“We go back. We went to high school together for a while.”

“What school?”

“Southside. I’s livin’ with my mom then. Now I’m on my own.” He shifted in his seat. He was slouching, going out of his way to seem unaffected, but it was hard to do so in the unforgiving wooden chair. “Alex comes to me, see. He says he needs some blow. He says he wants a hundo.”

This was not hearsay, technically, because hearsay wasn’t hearsay when it came from the mouth of the accused. State law exempted the admissions of a defendant from the hearsay rule, and that rule had been extended by the courts to apply to basically any word uttered by the defendant. In any event, she was likely to admit all of this anyway, when Alex took the stand.

“A hundred grams,” the witness elaborated at the prosecutor’s prompting.

“Did you give him a hundred?”

“No, man. Didn’t have no credit with me, know what I’m sayin’? I gave him fifty. He gave me enough for about half that and he owed me.” He nodded. “Boy paid me, though. Few months later. We started an arrangement.”

“Tell us about the arrangement?”