Have You Seen Luis Velez?(73)

“I mean, ladies and gentlemen, there are accidents, and then there are accidents. If she had dropped the gun and it had gone off, that would be a pure accident. But she pulled that trigger. Six times. A voluntary act every time. And she was wrong. I’m sorry, but when you fire six bullets at a fellow New Yorker, you can’t be wrong. He has to have meant you harm. Or you at least have to be able to point to some very real evidence that made you think he meant you harm. Otherwise it’s voluntary manslaughter.

“Sure, we all want to live in a safer city. We all want to live in a safer world. But Luis Velez was not the one making us less safe. A woman with a handgun she was far too quick to use, she was the one who made our streets even more dangerous. She’s the one who brought this instance of gunfire onto our streets, and she killed an innocent man. And there has to be a price to pay for that. What is a life worth? You tell me.”

He walked back to his table.

Raymond waited. Everybody waited. The attorney never said, “Thank you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury.” He never said the equivalent of “That is all.”

He just sat down.

“Well, all right,” the defense attorney said, and struggled to his feet. “My turn, I guess. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you’re reasonable people. You look at my client, and you know in your heart she’s not a killer.”

Raymond typed a few notes about that. Because it seemed like an odd thing to say. How can you kill someone and not be a killer?

“She’s a mother of two grown children. She plays bridge every Thursday. She goes to church. Now I ask you, what justice is served by putting this good woman in jail? Even for thirty or sixty or ninety days? Look at her. Does she look like the kind of person who belongs in a jail cell to you?”

In the space of silence that followed, Raymond’s fingers flew over his keyboard, noting personal observations.

“Defense seems to be suggesting there is a ‘kind’ of person who belongs in jail and another ‘kind’ who doesn’t,” he typed. “Based on what? It’s supposed to be based on their criminal actions, but you can’t see those. What are we supposed to be seeing here?”

“Of course not,” the defense attorney bellowed, his voice too loud. “You put a person in jail because they’re a danger to society. My client is no danger to society, and you know it as well as I do. She’s never going to hurt anyone again. This was an accident, my friends. A terrible accident. Why would you choose to punish her for that? Isn’t she being punished enough already? She’s been put on trial like a common criminal. Forced to fear for her freedom. She has to wake up every morning regretting that terrible mistake. Why would you want to make it even harder for her?

“She could so easily be you. Think about that. How would you want somebody to treat you if you were in her shoes? You stick with that little bit of the Golden Rule in the jury room, and I just know we’ll be okay. I’m trusting you to do the right thing.”

And, with that, the trial they had waited so long to attend, pinned so many hopes on, was over.

Just that quickly, Raymond was thrust into a post-trial world for which he did not feel properly prepared.



“You folks should get up and walk around,” the prosecuting attorney said. He was leaning over the railing, addressing them directly. “It could be hours.”

“The only thing is,” Raymond said, “my friend here. Mrs. Gutermann. She can’t walk around for hours.”

“And I just gave birth day before yesterday,” Isabel added.

“They could be out for a long time, though. I mean, we don’t even know that they’ll come back with a verdict today. At least maybe go down to the cafeteria and get a cup of coffee. I promise I’ll come down and get you if the jury is about to come back.”



“Doesn’t it seem weird to you?” Raymond asked. “I mean, that it’s over?”

He and Mrs. G were drinking tea with milk and sugar at a table in the empty cafeteria. Isabel was sipping distractedly at a bottle of mineral water. The baby lay fast asleep against her shoulder.

“I feel like . . . ,” he continued. Then he had to stop and assess what he felt like. Or at least find a way to frame it in words. “Like I spent all this time getting ready for the trial, but I forgot to get ready for what my life would be on the other side of it.”

Mrs. G nodded with surprising vigor. “That’s very well put, Raymond, and I know just exactly what you mean.”

“I think it went well, though,” he said. “Don’t you?”

It was the first time any of them had dared to go there. It was clear they were all three eaten up with thoughts of the verdict. But Raymond hadn’t been sure if it was a good idea to speculate about it.

“I think so,” Isabel said. “I think the prosecutor did a good job. Nobody could listen to what he said and then let that woman off.” A long pause fell. Several seconds. Then she added, with less confidence and less volume, “Could they?”

“I don’t know,” Raymond and Mrs. G said, more or less at the same time.

Isabel stared at them both, first one and then the other.

“You don’t feel good about it?” Isabel asked.

“No, I do,” Mrs. G said. “The prosecutor was very good. If life is fair, we’ll get a good, satisfying verdict.”