The case appeared in court that Thursday, in Part 91. Part 91, located at the far end of the fifteenth floor of 10 °Centre Street, was at that time designated as the L.T.D. Part, which stood for Long Term Detainees or, as one cynic suggested, Let Them Die. Its calendars were filled with cases of jailed defendants that were not only ripe for trial, but overripe. In a system that supposedly guaranteed an accused felon a speedy trial within six months of arraignment, every defendant in Part 91 had already been locked up for a year or more. And in a business that was evaluated largely on statistics, these aging cases were negatively skewing the average arrest-to-completion time that the administrative judge desperately needed to bring down in order to demonstrate efficiency and justify budget increases. So the word had gone out to get the cases disposed of by plea or, failing that, to get them tried.
Jaywalker had a couple of other cases besides Barnetts on that Thursday, involving defendants who were out on bail. So he stopped by Part 91 early in the morning and left word with the clerk that hed be back. Back turned out to be just before eleven, and when he walked in, the judge was waiting for him.
Judges come in all shapes and sizes. Not all of them look like they were born to the bench like Learned Hand, say, whose iconic photograph-featuring his shock of white hair and bushy eyebrows, his black robe and his craggy face-has judge written all over it. Then again, its entirely possible that Justice Hand may have looked like that at birth, only in miniature, seeing as his parents had pretty much named him to the bench, too. Still, we tend to think of judges as dignified, august father figures, peering down from the bench with an overabundance of firmness and just a hint of compassion. John Marshall comes to mind, as do Oliver Wendell Holmes, Benjamin Cardozo and William O. Douglas. Giants, all.
Shirley Levine hardly fit the mold.
Barely five feet tall and a hundred pounds if she was that, Levine was not what Jaywalker would have called a beautiful woman. Somewhere in her sixties, she was either cursed with a permanent bad hair day or simply unconcerned with her physical appearance. Her voice could charitably be called squeaky. She had no use for formality, having long ago dispensed with the trappings of the standard-issue black robe that came with the job. Or perhaps shed simply been unable to locate one small enough for her. She didnt expect people to rise to their feet when she entered her courtroom, and she quickly beckoned them to sit if they insisted on doing so. She needed no gavel to bring the room to order, and so far as Jaywalker knew, shed never once raised her voice in anger.
Some judges maintain decorum through the volume of their voices or the sheer force of their personalities. Others develop a reputation from their willingness to toss troublemakers into the pens at the first hint of insubordination. A few make it their business to get even, taking out their frustrations on defendants in the rulings they make and the sentences they dispense.
Shirley Levine did none of those things.
She didnt have to.
She accomplished everything she needed to, and more, through her unfailing cheerfulness, her unquestioned fairness and her curious habit of treating people-all people-with uncommon decency. How shed ever ended up as a judge was anyones guess.
Not that she didnt have an interesting backstory. Rumor had it that in her early twenties shed been involved in some sort of special operations in the War, and had been parachuted behind enemy lines in Nazi Germany. That shed been good with a gun and better still with a knife. Jaywalker had tried to get her to open up once about the subject, offering to trade a few of his DEA stories in exchange. But shed demurred. Who can remember? Shed laughed him off. Still, the rumors persisted, and in a place like 10 °Centre Street, rumor was often as good as it got.
This would be Alonzo Barnetts trial judge, should he really insist on a trial. And though that would ensure a relatively pleasurable couple of weeks for Jaywalker, in the long run it would do absolutely nothing for Barnett. Save for the fact that after the jury had convicted him and the judge had sentenced him, her parting Good luck to him would be genuine instead of sarcastic.
Ahh, Mr. Jaywalker, she said now as she spied him making his way up the aisle. How nice to see you. And thank you for leaving us a note earlier. Then, turning to a court officer, she said, Would you please bring out Mr. Barnett.
Would you please. Mister. From a judge, mind you.
Not that anything of substance went on that first day. The assistant D.A. in the part read off a note from Daniel Pulaski. The eight-to-life sentence was still being offered on a plea to an A-2, it said. But if the defendant didnt take it this time or next, it would be withdrawn. After that, he could have fifteen to life-or worse.
How much time do you need? the judge asked Jaywalker, once his client had been brought out from the pen.
Two weeks would be good, he told her.
Two weeks it is. See you then. Are you doing all right, Mr. Barnett?
Yes, maam.
It was stuff like that that confounded Jaywalker. Try as he might, he just couldnt picture Shirley Levine jumping out of a plane in the dark of the night, a gun stuck in her belt and a knife clenched in her teeth.
Back in the pens, Jaywalker had his second sit-down interview with Barnett. This one would take on a bit more urgency than the first, if only because of the ultimatum delivered by Daniel Pulaskis note. While threats to withdraw plea offers were often no more than that-threats-Jaywalker couldnt put it past Pulaski to follow through on his. What difference would it make to him if some defendant ended up with a fifteen-year minimum instead of an eight year one? So Jaywalker didnt mince words.
If you ever want to take a plea, next time is the time to do it, he said. I dont trust this D.A. to keep the offer open past then. I really dont.
Barnett seemed to think for a moment, and Jaywalker half expected him to say, Okay, well do it next time. After all, he hadnt once said, Im not guilty or I didnt do it or anything along those lines. In fact, at their first meeting, hed made a point of admitting that the charges against him were true, every word of them. But what Jaywalker hadnt learned yet was that unlike most defendants, and for that matter most people, Alonzo Barnett was never quick to answer a question of any sort. Not that he stalled before replying or repeated the question aloud in order to buy time. No, Jaywalker would come to understand, it was simply a matter of Barnetts taking a moment to think before responding. A rare thing indeed.
To tell you the truth, he finally said, I dont intend to take a plea. If thats all right with you.
Of course its all right with me, said Jaywalker. But it brings us to another issue.
Whats that?
Well, said Jaywalker, youve been around long enough to know that the chances of beating a direct sale case arent very good. A direct sale meant one in which the buyer was an undercover cop or agent, as opposed to an observation sale, where the authorities claimed to have witnessed a transaction between a seller and a buyer, both of whom were civilians.
Barnett nodded but didnt say anything. Not only had he been around long enough to know that Jaywalker was speaking the truth, but his record of guilty pleas suggested he understood the odds.
So, continued Jaywalker, it might be a good idea if we spent a few minutes talking about the facts of your case.
Fair enough, said Barnett.
Why dont you tell me what happened. It wasnt a question on Jaywalkers part so much as an invitation. Nor was it something he always asked of a defendant, particularly in a sale case. Strange as it may sound, sometimes a lawyer and client talk about everything but the facts. There are times, for example, when they both know the defendant has done precisely what hes accused of but on the one hand doesnt want to lie to his lawyer or come right out and admit his guilt on the other. So without ever saying so, they agree to ignore it and spend their time dancing around it, the elephant in the room. Or, in this particular instance, the elephant in the cell.
Again, Barnett took his time before answering. When finally he did, he spoke only four little words. They added up to neither an admission of guilt nor a denial, but rather an explanation for his behavior. In no way did they amount to a legal defense, the way they might have had he said, for example, that hed been forced into doing what hed done, or coerced, or that hed been insane at the time, or that he hadnt realized that it had actually been heroin hed sold to the undercover agent.
Believe it or not, Jaywalker had once won a case on just such a theory. His client had been making a living by beating his customers, selling them supermarket-bought spices at marijuana prices. When the cops had examined the evidence theyd bought back at the station house, theyd realized they too had been victimized. So theyd simply sprinkled some of their own emergency stash into the ounce theyd bought, enough to convince the police chemist. But not the jury. Not once had Jaywalker insisted upon having an independent analysis conducted. The sample came back two percent cannabis, eighty percent oregano and eighteen percent basil. Highly aromatic stuff, perhaps, but hardly the kind to get high on.
No, Alonzo Barnetts four words of explanation fell far short of that standard. And when he uttered them, they initially struck Jaywalker as being not only legally worthless but pretty insignificant in terms of moral culpability, as well. Then again, he was at something of a disadvantage. For as he listened to them, he had yet to hear Alonzo Barnetts story. He had absolutely no way of knowing just how fertile with possibility the words were, or how in time they would germinate, take root, sprout and grow into a full-fledged defense, the likes of which Jaywalker would never have dared to even dream about, sitting there in the pens of 10 °Centre Street, back on that Thursday morning in May of 1986.