PART 35 (72 page)

“Alvarado allegedly confessed, early on the morning of July fourth, that he had jimmied open the Soto apartment door. But the door was not jimmied open, the police lab men reported. Three or four days after the formal statement was made to the D.A., on paper, the cops found out that their theory of the break-in was wrong. But it was too late then. Too late. And you're being asked to accept a man's confession to jimmying open a door that in fact
wasn't
jimmied.

“Is this convincing you beyond a reasonable doubt? Doesn't it give you a moment of pause? How could there be a valid confession by the man who was there that he jimmied open a door when the door wasn't jimmied? Remember, I said I'd just go over the facts, and you decide. Well, these are facts, not my facts. Police laboratory facts.

“Let's go further then. The district attorney brought Mrs. Ramirez here to testify. And she testified that a man in a gray suit ran past her holding something in his hand. That was to bolster the alleged confession that Alvarado ran past a woman and child. What was that?” Sandro whispered. “
A gray suit?
Not a yellow jacket and black pants? But Mrs. Salerno said the fellow had a yellow jacket and black pants.

“Aha, this fellow Alvarado is tricky. As he was running across the roofs, he changed clothes just to fool people. Like Clark Kent turning into Superman, he changed from his yellow jacket into his gray suit as he ran down the stairs.

“But listen to this. Even better. Mrs. Ramirez, the people's own witness, the woman who was to bolster the alleged confession, came back here and told you that Alvarado
is definitely not the man she saw running down the stairs
. She can't describe the man who ran past her exactly, can't tell you what he did look like. But she knows that Alvarado
isn't
the man.

“Do you think that could mean that Alvarado was
not the man who was there?
”

Sandro felt a soaring sensation. His voice, his words, his movements embraced, caressed the jury. Their eyes followed his every gesture. The weeks and months of investigation and trial were caught up in these moments. Everything was together now.

“And this fellow, who is running and changing his clothes as he runs, does something to top it all off. He changes his face so that Mrs. Ramirez sees a man completely different from Alvarado.

“Now,” Sandro asked, looking directly at the Italian insurance salesman, juror number six. “Wasn't that a good trick?” Sandro addressed Clarence Noble, number ten. “Aren't you maybe, just maybe, a bit confused? Doubtful? You're not alone.

“You know this would be a joke if a man's life weren't at stake.”

“Your Honor,” Ellis said, rising from his chair to take the bait. “I hate to object, but this reference to life or death is improper.”

“All right, Your Honor. I withdraw that last remark. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Alvarado's life is not at stake here.”

“Your Honor, this is totally improper.”

“Yes, Mr. Luca, please refrain from that.”

Sandro paced slowly before the jury box; sixteen pairs of eyes followed him as if he were a swaying cobra preparing to strike.

“Are we being insulted here? Is this one of the guys from the office playing a trick on us?

“
Alvarado confessed? He wasn't beaten?
Well, let's see what he said to the D.A. And, remember, this is the first person he spoke to other than the police.
‘They're going to break my ass over here.' I said those things, but they're lies.' I told them because I was afraid.' ‘You don't know what happens with those kind of people there.'
Terror, ladies and gentlemen, sheer, undisguised terror leaps off the pages.” Sandro held up the question-and-answer statement. 'I put this in evidence so you could read it. I had to put their confession into evidence. Just as I had to put in their lab reports, their fingerprint reports. Facts. That's what we're after. And the truth is going to set Alvarado free.

“He said he was afraid. He said he couldn't hold his chest any more. And he said that his wrist was cut from the handcuffs. And he showed it to the district attorney! Of course, the district attorney never saw anything on this wrist. Not until we demanded,
we demanded
, the additional color photographs that hadn't been given to defense counsel. And, lo and behold, the scar that never was appeared. Another impossible thing accomplished by the extraordinary Alvarado. A picture showing a scar that didn't exist. This Alvarado can even play games with the police cameras. Or at least that's what you would have to believe in order to convict him.

“Now, there were other people who came here,” Sandro said, matter-of-factly, “who said that Alvarado couldn't have been the man because he was in Brooklyn at the very time Lauria met his death in Manhattan. People like Annie Mae Cooper and Phil Gruberger and Pablo Torres and Francisco Moreno.

“Do you think it's possible to get much closer physically to a person than a barber gets when giving a haircut or trimming a moustache. That's closer than eighty feet away, or two stories away, isn't it?

“And the barber Moreno says Alvarado was in his shop getting a haircut and moustache trim at the very time,
the very time
the officer was being killed in Manhattan. And the pictures, taken by ABC, show Alvarado as he appeared early on the morning of July fourth, moustache and haircut perfect.
Perfect.
And Annie Mae Cooper tells you Alvarado was in Brooklyn changing a hundred-dollar bill; and Phil Gruberger supports that story. But the police will have you believe Alvarado needed money for a fix. And there was Pablo Torres, who also tells you that Alvarado was in Brooklyn.

“Can you dismiss these people? Did Mr. Ellis discredit them in the least on cross-examination? Well, I know that Moreno was once fined two dollars for shooting dice. A wonder he wasn't hanged for such a crime. But other than that, did Mr. Ellis show that these witnesses were unworthy of belief?

“Doesn't that testimony create some doubt in your mind? Maybe Mrs. Santos and Mrs. Salerno are wrong. Maybe Moreno is correct. Maybe. That is reasonable, isn't it? There are reasons to support such belief. Well, that's all I'm asking you to think about. Reasonable doubt.”

Sandro stood still before the center of the jury box.

“Now the district attorney might tell you that Julio, the barber's friend, is the key to Alvarado's alibi, that Julio didn't get to the barber shop until after four
P.M.
and not two
P.M.
, and therefore Alvarado wasn't there at two twenty-five. Well, you saw Julio here, and you heard him testify on the public record that if he had signed out early on July third and put down a false time he would be fired, fired by the City of New York, the same city for which the police work, the same city that pays the bills around this courtroom. Do you think he was going to admit here that he left the job early on July third?

“Nobody checked Julio out that day, no clock punched his time out. He just wrote something down in pencil and left. It was July third. The next day was a holiday. People were leaving early, preparing to go away for the weekend. I'm not saying Julio is a liar and a cheat. He's just a normal person, doing something that is repeated in thousands of places of work on every holiday weekend. You get out a little early so you don't get caught up in the crowd.

“With all the evidence in this trial—the medical evidence, the testimony of Mrs. Hernandez, the doctors, the witnesses who saw Alvarado in Brooklyn at the time the policeman was killed—all that evidence pointing to Alvarado's innocence, is that going to be outweighed by Julio's protesting that he didn't sign his time card out early on July third?”

Sandro was starting to move up toward the foreman again. He was starting to speed the tempo again. The jurors were tuned perfectly.

“Are all the inconsistencies—the jimmy that never was, the yellow jacket and black pants, the gray suit, the face that Mrs. Salerno didn't see, then did see, the face Mrs. Ramirez said was definitely not Alvarado's, Mrs. Santos seeing face-to-face level, which turned out not to be anything like face-to-face level, Mrs. Santos seeing impossible things in that hallway, testifying to the double-parked car on the wrong side of the street—are all these inconsistencies, taken with the proof in Alvarado's favor, going to be outweighed because Julio couldn't possibly have signed out early on July third?

“How many of you have wanted to leave early on a holiday weekend? How many of you
have
actually left your job early on a holiday weekend? Is it so unusual for a fellow to think of, to do, when no one else is around? The job is finished for the day, and you have nothing to do except wait for the clock to move around so you can check out.

“Are Alvarado's own activities on that night when he was captured to be outweighed by Julio's denial? Did Alvarado ever,
ever
, except for what the police say occurred behind the closed doors of that third-floor locker room, did Alvarado ever once do anything that would be the act of a guilty man? Think about it!”

Sandro stood still, searching the eyes of the jurors.

“If Alvarado were guilty, why did he go back to that rooming house in Brooklyn? If Alvarado were guilty, once he did get there unnoticed, why didn't he run away when the super told him the cops were waiting there? And if he were guilty, why didn't he fight, try to get away, give a false name?

“And if he were guilty, when he was here in court, why did he reject that statement he supposedly made to the D.A.? The statement where the terror leaps from the pages? Wouldn't a guilty man grab that to his bosom, wouldn't he hold on to that repudiation for dear life?

“But, no! Alvarado says he didn't make such a statement. He denies the denial. Would a guilty man do that? Is this the act of a guilty man? I ask you again, has Alvarado ever once in this case acted as a guilty man might, other than what the police say happened in that third-floor locker room? I ask only that you use your senses. That's all your oath calls for.”

Sandro had moved back a couple of steps now.

“Now, the death of Fortune Lauria was a crime—indeed, a heinous crime. And no one is saying it didn't happen. The question you have to answer is, are you convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that it was Alvarado who did it? Because the crime was committed doesn't mean that Alvarado was there. Because some of the elements of the crime exist doesn't mean that Alvarado was responsible for them.

“We are here for justice, for truth—not vengeance.
Vengeance is mine
, saith the Lord. I
shall revenge.
He doesn't need you to help Him.

“There's something that bothers me,” Sandro's eyes were searching out each of the jurors intently. “Perhaps it shouldn't, but it does. It bothers me when people in the street, people on television, newspaper accounts, even law-enforcement officials—people who should know better—it bothers me when I hear them say that the rights of the ordinary citizens are being stepped upon, that the courts are letting criminals get away with murder.

“When the rights of a defendant, a man on trial, are being protected, the rights of citizens
are
being protected. For criminals are citizens before they are criminals. And if we decide, arbitrarily, that the only rights to be protected are the rights of those who are
not
arrested, and anyone who is arrested be damned, then what happens in a case where an innocent man is arrested? What happens the night, God forbid, when you are coming home from the movies, a newspaper under your arm, and you find yourself looking into the business end of a .38 caliber Police Special. You are innocent, but you are arrested nonetheless. Would you want to lose your rights at the moment you are arrested? Should you? And if
you
shouldn't, why should anyone else?

“Didn't all of you say that you understood a man to be innocent until proven guilty? Well, if that is so—and it is—then the Supreme Court of the United States is not coddling criminals when it provides protection for accused citizens who must stand trial. Until convicted, Luis Alvarado and all defendants on trial are citizens presumed innocent of crime. To protect them is to protect citizens. To protect Luis Alvarado is to protect yourself.”

Sandro still hadn't moved a muscle in his body except for his hands, which occasionally gave full shape to his words.

“Oh, yes, you might think that you are different from Alvarado, that you could never be where he is today. Let me tell you just how close you,
you
, came to being the defendant in this case, gentlemen. How far, really are most of us removed from where Alvarado stands? Supposing it was a white man with red hair who had been seen on the fire escape, and the police badgered and burdened Hernandez until he gave them the name of a white man with red hair instead of the name Luis Alvarado. Then someone else would be on trial here, not because he was any more guilty or innocent than Luis Alvarado, but because he fit the new description as Luis Alvarado fitted the old. Didn't Hernandez say Alvarado was the first Negro he could think of, and he gave this name because he thought they'd kill him in that station house if he didn't give them any?

“And if a white man with black hair had been described to Hernandez, someone else would be here today.

“And suppose Hernandez worked with you, had delivered something to your home, saw you in a store somewhere, and as punches were being rained upon his head, as he was being beaten and badgered, prodded, shoved, a name was demanded of him, and suppose he said, as a vision came before his mind, the repairman who came around to my house the other day is the white man with red hair, the man in the store on Sixty-eighth Street and Second Avenue is the white man with black hair, the letter carrier from around the corner is the colored guy you're looking for.

“And that person he named turned out to be you. Think about it for a moment. He mentioned you. Just think that somewhere in this city right now someone may be giving your name to the authorities. And just suppose when you go home, you are told there are policemen waiting for you, and you go to see them, because you have nothing to fear or hide, because you are innocent. Then see how different you are from Luis Alvarado.