PART 35 (73 page)

“Ladies and gentlemen, what has happened here, as Mr. Bemer suggested in his opening statement, is that the police have put a patch-quilt story together. They had to fit the accused into the available facts, and they did it with no more skill than a high-school boy might have if he saw the roof and the dead patrolman, his gun missing. They patched this surmise together because someone saw a Negro on the fire escape, and someone else saw a Negro running down the stairs several buildings away.

“Why else would it be necessary, as the alleged confessions indicate, for a burglar to see the gates and the locks on the window from the inside and not
know
the windows were locked until he came down the fire escape?

“Why else would they need that fence in the rear yard?

“And don't forget that story about the jimmy.

“In their haste to fasten the blame on someone, the police patch-worked these defendants into this courtroom today.

“Have you at any point stopped to consider what story the police would have told if Hernandez were Negro? The police did not need two men. They would have accepted Hernandez's confession of the crime—if he had only been Negro. He would have fitted the available facts. And there would be only one defendant here today.

“Think about these things, ladies and gentlemen. Think about them, citizens.”

Sandro wheeled and pointed to the defendant.

“Look at yourself, citizens, sitting there, wondering how you, who might be sitting where Alvarado is sitting now, ever got here. And it's as easy as that. As easy as that. Alvarado was arrested only because he fit a description. Maybe next time, it will be your description.

“And don't tell me that you'll be able to prove with whom you were. Don't tell me, unless you constantly associate with police officials, legislators, bank presidents, financiers, priests, and the like. Don't just be in a five-and-ten, a luncheonette, a barber shop getting a haircut. Do important things, always. Because juries disregard common citizens doing common things, things that each of us, you and I, do, day in and day out. Sure, change it to a beauty shop, change it to a grocery store. Do you think that if the people who know that you were in such a shop came in here to say you were there, it would make any difference to a jury?

“Well, we'll see here. You'll give that answer.

“Or will your answer be that once you're arrested, once you're sitting at that table as Luis Alvarado is at this moment, you have no rights, you have no dignity, you are a criminal, you should be flogged, you should be cut into bits, you should be drawn and quartered, torn apart by horses?”

Some of the jurors looked frightened. Sandro started again, more quietly.

“Or should you be judged by men who accept you as a stranger who should be pronounced a criminal only after the district attorney has presented enough evidence to convince those jurors beyond all reasonable doubt about all the elements of the crime charged?

“The law, ladies and gentlemen, is the foundation stone of all culture; it is the bedrock upon which we can move freely as human beings, rather than as animals in a jungle who can be struck down at random and by whim. And the law says that Luis Alvarado is presumed to be innocent. The facts in this case show him to be innocent. But it is you who must pronounce him innocent.

“When you go into the jury room, decide the fate of Luis Alvarado as if your verdict affected you personally. Believe me, it does.

“Thank you.”

Sandro walked back to the defense table. Sam reached up and shook his hand.

“That was fabulous, kid. Fabulous.”

Sandro smiled.

“Don't smile,” Sam cautioned, ever the watchdog.

“We'll take a few minutes recess before Mr. Siakos begins his summation,” said the judge. The jury filed out of the courtroom. The attorneys went out into the corridor.

CHAPTER XXXVII

Friday, April 26th, 1968
,
P.M.

Ellis and his detectives had retired to the witness room. The defense lawyers walked into the public corridor, where a crowd of spectators milled around them, buzzing with comments and questions. Sandro smiled, nodded, continuing to walk with Sam until they got clear of the crowd.

Sandro leaned against the wall. “My mind is starting to close down for the season.”

Mike walked over to join them. He was smiling. “You got them. You really got them with that.” He grabbed Sandro in an embrace, twirling him around.

Siakos came over. He clapped Sandro on the back. “You know, Sandro, I think we may really have something here. We may have a real bombshell on our hands here with these fellows. You showed that to the jury. These men may be innocent.”

“
May
be?” asked Mike.

“Sure,” said Siakos, heading toward the men's room at the far end of the corridor.

Sandro's eyes followed Siakos.

The break lasted about ten minutes. Finally, a court officer entered the corridor.

“Case on trial,” he called out. The crowd started back in. The lawyers followed.

Now Siakos began his summation, facing the jury. Sandro watched his back. Passages, sentences, words drifted occasionally into his consciousness. Fortunately, Sam was there as the ever-vigilant guardian of the legal concepts, the objections, and the arguments. Sandro's mind floated off on thoughts of long aquamarine waves rolling “—
over Hernandez's taped chest.
” Sandro gave a start and relaxed back into the white foam, and saw the sand and colorful cabanas beneath the sun “—
of El Barrio on a rainy morning where the defendant Hernandez broke into
—” And so it went, station house, pawnshops, and medical records fusing into small, single-sail boats far off on the horizon, long strips of beach, long, firm, beautiful legs, and brief bikinis.

When Siakos had summed up the entire Hernandez case to the jury, Judge Porta declared a lunch recess.

Sandro, though tired, remembered the defendants' lunch. He bought four hot dogs at the orange-and-blue umbrellaed wagon just outside the courthouse. The defendants didn't have much appetite, however, as they awaited Ellis's summation.

Now the courtroom was filling up again, waiting for Ellis to begin. After the morning session, with its two summations, and the lunch recess, the atmosphere had become quiet, almost exhausted. Ellis sat at his counsel table looking at some papers. The defense counsel and the defendants sat waiting. The drone of the central air-conditioner could be heard vibrating in the silence. The jurors were brought out. The judge entered the courtroom. He too now seemed quiet, slow, as if ready to relax after the long, hard struggle.

“Mr. Ellis, you may begin,” the judge said.

Ellis rose and walked to the jury box. He put his notes down on the shelf and viewed the jury quietly for a moment. His stony face was emotionless.

“Your Honor, defense counsel, Mr. foreman, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. I am frank to say, after listening to the summations for the defense this morning, that when I went to my office after lunch, I had to reread the indictment to make sure the defendants—not the policemen, not the witnesses—were on trial here. Mr. Luca seems to want us all to believe that everyone who came here, including plain ordinary citizens who have nothing to do with the police, who just happen to live on the block where Patrolman Fortune Lauria met his death, were involved in some monstrous conspiracy against the defendants. Mr. Luca would have you believe that everyone who came here lied, everyone except the defendants.

“Now, as I see it, there are only two aspects of importance in this case, the alibi defense and the confessions by the defendants. I'd like to address myself to the alibis and then to the confessions, for if you apply your common sense to the facts—not to the fireworks and smoke screens we have seen here—those alibis fall apart. And when the alibis, on which the defendants lean so heavily, fall apart, these defendants are left standing nakedly and confessedly guilty before you.

“I'd like to make just a quick aside. You know, I heard Mr. Luca tell you that he wasn't going in for any emotional, fist-pounding oratory. And then he proceeded to make a totally emotional, fist-pounding oration. Do you know why? It was because he had to shout to drown out the facts that speak against the defendants.

“Let's look at some of those facts.

“Of all the alibi witnesses who have come here, we need concern ourselves with only two. The others are smoke screens to distract you. But these two are the keystones, without whom the alibis are worthless. For Hernandez, the keystone is Angel Belmonte; for Alvarado, it's Julio Maldonado.

“Hernandez told us about committing a burglary on the morning of July third in El Barrio. Well, maybe he did. He also said he pawned some of the things he burglarized. Maybe he did that too. But the time when he left that last pawnshop, according to his own admission and witnesses, was about two o'clock, perhaps a couple of minutes later. Now, Hernandez himself made Angel Belmonte the keystone of his alibi, for Hernandez said that he went to buy some drugs from Belmonte
after
he was in the pawnshops. He said he was with Angel Belmonte at two thirty, the very time when Patrolman Lauria was killed.

“Remember, those pawnshops Hernandez mentioned were only a few short blocks from Stanton Street, and even if Hernandez did everything else he told us he did, he could still have gone home and gone onto the roof with Alvarado. And the patrolman could have come, and he and Alvarado could have killed him.
Unless, of course, he was actually someplace else buying heroin from Angel Belmonte.

“Let's look at that last crucial piece of evidence in Hernandez's alibi, the only crucial piece of evidence in it. We didn't even know Angel Belmonte existed until Hernandez dropped his name here at the trial. I know Mr. Luca likes to believe in conspiracies, but this isn't someone the police planted, someone we planned on as a witness. Hernandez himself brought him up. And we found Belmonte and brought him here. No lawyer for the defense went to see Angel Belmonte, the keystone of Hernandez's alibi. Oh sure, the defense brought the smoke screen, the people who saw Hernandez in the morning in El Barrio, the people in the pawnshops, the names, the lists of pledges, the estimated times of going to the bank, of going to lunch. I urge you to accept all of that as true. And still Hernandez admitted having time to get back to Stanton Street, to invade the Soto apartment, and to aid in killing the patrolman—
unless he was actually with Angel Belmonte.

“What does Angel Belmonte say? He says he
was not
with Hernandez on July third. He says not only that, but he says also that later, in the Tombs, Hernandez solicited him to lie, to say that Hernandez
had
been with him at two thirty on that afternoon of July third. Belmonte, Hernandez's own alibi key, says Hernandez asked him to perjure himself. Because that was the only way Hernandez's alibi could hold together.

“You may say: How can we believe Belmonte? Just look at him, look at what he is. But this is the defendant's friend, this is the man
he
named, the type that
he
associated with.

“Mr. Luca has suggested that as part of this conspiracy we arranged some sort of deal with Belmonte. But Belmonte is a citizen, not a criminal, a distinction that has been made so eloquently clear for you. He has no charges pending against him. He can't benefit from any deal.

“And Belmonte, on whom Hernandez depended so heavily, has branded Hernandez's alibi an unmitigated lie. Hernandez has not, cannot, account for himself at the time Patrolman Lauria was killed. And why not? Because Hernandez was there, he was at the scene, just as he described it to Detective Mullaly. Is that an unreasonable interpretation of the facts?”

If the jury's attention had wandered as Sandro's had during Siakos's summation, there was no question that Ellis had brought it back.

“What about Alvarado's alibi? I'd be insulting your intelligence, as well as those good citizens who came here to testify, if I were to say that all those plain, ordinary people were lying. But I don't say that.
I
don't have to invent a conspiracy. What time was it that Alvarado changed that hundred-dollar bill? What time was it that he ate? Mrs. Cooper said it was about one fifteen on July third when she changed the bill. Mr. Gruberger, the assistant store manager, agreed with her, although he said he didn't even see Alvarado. I urge you to accept all of that as true also. There was still plenty of time for Alvarado to get to Manhattan. Remember, Williamsburg in Brooklyn is just a bridgespan away from the Delancey area, and Stanton Street is just three or four short blocks from that bridge.

“So at one fifteen in the afternoon, Alvarado was just a few scant minutes from the building where Patrolman Lauria met his death. Pablo Torres, who worked in the restaurant, said he served Alvarado food on that afternoon. He didn't know exactly what time it was except that the lunch crowd had thinned out, and it must have been somewhere around one forty-five. Well, that's not an exact time, but even if it were, at one forty-five, forty-five minutes before the time when Patrolman Lauria was killed, Alvarado was only minutes away in Brooklyn. I think it's reasonable to say that Alvarado's alibi really depends on the barber Moreno. The others are leading up to Moreno, but they do not exclude the possibility that Alvarado could have done all the things they described and still have had more than enough time to come to Manhattan, go to the roof on Stanton Street, take the patrolman's revolver, and shoot him five times in the back.

“If you look at the keystone of Alvarado's alibi as Alvarado testified to it, you'll find that it's not stone at all. It's mush, it's chicanery, it's false, it's a lie, and it brands Alvarado as the cold-blooded murderer that he is.”

Sandro's face was becalmed, but he felt Ellis's emotionless hammer blows.