Defending Jacob(37)
When the clerk called Jacob’s case—“Indictment number oh-eight-dash-four-four-oh-seven, Commonwealth v. Jacob Michael Barber, one count of murder in the first degree”—my son was ushered in by two court officers from the lockup and made to stand in the middle of the courtroom, in front of the jury box. He scanned the crowd, saw us, and immediately dropped his eyes to the floor. Embarrassed and awkward, he began to fuss with his suit and tie, which Laurie had picked out for him and Klein had delivered. Jacob was not used to wearing a suit and he seemed to feel both dapper and straitjacketed. He had already begun to outgrow the coat. Laurie used to joke that he was growing so fast that, at night when the house was quiet, she could hear his bones stretching. Now he fidgeted to make the coat sit properly on his shoulders but it would not stretch that far. From all this fidgeting, reporters would later say that Jacob was vain, that he even enjoyed his moment in the spotlight, a slur we would hear over and over when the trial actually began. The truth was, he was an awkward boy and so thoroughly terrified that he did not know where to put his hands. The wonder was that he managed to stand there with as much composure as he did.
Jonathan passed through the swinging gate in the bar, laid his briefcase on the defense table, and took a position beside Jacob. He put his hand on Jacob’s back, not for Jacob’s benefit but to make a point: This boy is no monster, I am not afraid to touch him. And more: I am not simply a hired gun doing my professional duty for a distasteful client. I believe in this kid. I am his friend.
“Commonwealth,” Lard-Ass Rivera said, “I’ll hear you.”
Logiudice stood up at the prosecutor’s table. He ran his palm down the length of his tie then reached around to give the back hem of his coat a little tug. “Your Honor,” he began mournfully, “this is a heinous case.” He pronounced the word hay-eenus, and I understood that the actual reason courtrooms often have no windows is to prevent the parties from heaving lawyers out of them. Logiudice recited the facts of the case, already familiar to everyone from the last twenty-four hours of news reports, retold now with a minimum of embellishment for the torches-and-pitchforks mob beyond the camera. There was even a little singsong in his voice, as if we had all heard these facts often enough to be bored by them.
But when he reached his bail argument, Logiudice’s tone became somber. “Your Honor, we all know and have fond feelings for the defendant’s father, who is in the courtroom today. I personally have known this man. Respected and admired him. I have great affection for this man, and compassion, as we all do, I’m sure. Always the smartest man in the room. Things came so easily to him. But. But.”
“Objection.”
“Sustained.”
Logiudice turned to look at me, not by twisting his body but by snaking his neck around his own shoulder.
Things came so easily to him. Could he really have believed that?
“Mr. Logiudice,” Lard-Ass said, “I presume you know Andrew Barber is not accused of anything.”
Logiudice faced front again. “Yes, Your Honor.”
“Let’s get to the bail, then.”
“Your Honor, the Commonwealth is seeking a very high bail: five hundred thousand cash, five million surety. The Commonwealth would argue that, because of the unusual circumstances of his family situation, this defendant poses a particular risk of flight in light of the savagery of the crime, the overwhelming likelihood of conviction, and the unusual sophistication of this defendant, who has grown up in a home where criminal law is the family business.”
Logiudice went on with this horseshit for a few minutes. He seemed to have memorized his lines and was delivering them now without any particular feeling.
In my head the odd mention of me went right on playing like a countermelody. I have great affection for this man, and compassion. Always the smartest man in the room. Things came so easily to him. In the courtroom it seemed to have been received almost as a slip of the tongue, a sniffly little tribute blurted out on the spur of the moment. They were touched. They had watched this scene before: the disillusioned young apprentice sees his mentor revealed as an ordinary man or otherwise brought low, the scales fall from his eyes, etc., etc. Bullshit. Logiudice was not the type to make extemporaneous speeches, not with the camera running. I imagine he practiced this line before a mirror. The only question was what he expected to get out of it, how exactly he meant to sink the knife into Jacob.
In the end, Lard-Ass Rivera was unmoved by Logiudice’s bail argument. She set the bail where it had been since the day he was arrested, at a measly ten grand, a token number reflecting the fact that Jacob had nowhere to run and, after all, his family was known to the court.
Logiudice shrugged off the defeat. His bail argument was nothing but grandstanding anyway. “Your Honor,” he barreled on, “the Commonwealth would also raise an objection to the entry of an appearance by Mr. Klein as defense counsel in this case. Mr. Klein was previously engaged as attorney for another suspect in this homicide, a man whose name I will not mention in open court. To represent a second defendant in the same case creates a clear conflict of interest. Defense counsel would surely have been privy to confidential information from this other suspect that might impact the defense in this case. I can only imagine that the defendant is planting the seed for an appeal based on ineffective assistance if he is convicted.”
The suggestion of a sneaky trick pulled Jonathan to his feet. It was exceptionally rare for one lawyer to attack another so openly. Even in the scrum of a bitter trial, in court a formal, clubby politeness was always maintained. Jonathan was genuinely insulted. “Your Honor, if the Commonwealth had taken the time to ascertain the actual facts, he would never have made that accusation. The fact is, I was never retained by the other suspect in this case nor did I ever have any conversation with him about it. This was a client I represented years ago on an unrelated matter who called me out of the blue to come to the Newton police station where he was being questioned. My sole involvement with him in this case was to advise that he not answer any questions. As he was never accused, I never spoke to him again. I was not privy to any information, confidential or otherwise, now or in any previous matter, that bears on this case even remotely. There is no conflict of interest at all.”