The Blue Executions (21 page)

“Yeah, it went straight into the ground, two inches from my man’s head.”

“Okay, please continue.”

“Yeah, so then the DT rolls Darrin onto his stomach and handcuffs him.  After he handcuffed him, the cop starts beating on him again with his walkie talkie.”

Porter shook his head in disgust.  “Man, we from the hood, you wanna fight one on one, that’s cool man, bring it on.  We can man up.  But my man was handcuffed, hands behind his back and this cop was just beating on him.”

Bando took the
editorialism in stride.  “How many times would you say the officer struck Mr. Jackson in the head with his walkie talkie?”

“
I don’t know, but it was a lot.”

“In total, if you could give your best guess, how many times do you think Detective
Galvin struck your friend in the head?”

Again shaking his head, Porter looked down, “Man, I don’t know.  It had to be at least a dozen times.”

Bando heard the gasp of an older African American woman on the jury.  She glanced at the jurors—some shook their heads with disapproval, others didn’t give any indication of their thoughts but just sat quietly and listened.  They were a bit harder to read, thought Bando.  “Please continue, Mr. Porter.  What happened next?”

She watched as Porter seemed to be holding back tears.  His voice cracked as he began.  “My man went into convulsions.”  Porter looked down, and then buried his face into his hands.  He took a deep breath, looked at the jury and continued.  “I was
beggin the DT to do something…to help Darrin.  Then he looks at me and says ‘shut up nigger or you’ll be next’.”

Bando heard more audible gasps from the jury box.  Bando could feel the ire from many members of the jury at the mere mention of the word. 
The race card; nice touch. That was even more effective than the crocodile tears. 
That was okay she felt; he scored a few points, but now it was her turn. 

She did her best to seem sympathetic.  “Mr. Porter, can I get you a glass of water before we continue or would you like to take a short recess?”

“No ma’am.  I just want to get this over with.”

“Mr. Porter, would you please tell the members of the jury how long you have known Mr. Jackson.”

“Like forever.  He was like a brother to me.”

Bando began setting the trap.  “So you two grew up together then?”

Porter shook his head.  “Nah, I shouldn’t have said forever; it just seems like that, because we were so close.  I’ve known him for years though.”

“Thank you for the correction, Mr. Porter.  Could you please tell the members of the jury, where you first met Mr. Jackson?”

Porter didn’t immediately answer.  The soft, sympathetic look on his face eroded into a harder, more authentic look, Bando felt.  His eyes hardened and narrowed—she knew she had him.  “Mr. Porter, did you need me to repeat the question?”

“I met him in
Greenhaven.”  He said it in a quiet, yet stern voice.

“Thank you Mr. Porter.  When you say
Greenhaven, would you please tell the members of the jury what Greenhaven is?”

His jaw tightened—a vein bulged in his neck.  He answered through clenched teeth, “Prison.”

“So you met Darrin Jackson in prison.  Is that correct?”

Porter sucked his cheek against his teeth, making a smacking sound.  “What the fuck does it matter where we met
; how does that have anything to do with that cop beating my man to death!?”

“Mr. Porter, I’m going to ask you to calm down and please answer the question.”

Porter shook his head.  “Fine; I met him up north, in Greenhaven Correctional facility—a prison.  Is that what you want to hear?”

It was.  Bando just glanced at the jury as she answered.  “The only thing I want Mr. Porter is the truth.
”  She once again focused on the witness.  “So you have told the jury that you met Mr. Jackson in state prison.  Would you please now tell us why you were in prison?”

He let out a clearly intentionally loud breath of air to show his annoyance.  “They said I committed a robbery.”

“An armed robbery,” Bando corrected.

“Yeah
, an armed robbery.”  Bando noticed the beads of sweat forming on Porter’s forehead when they caught the room’s florescent lighting at the right angle.

“You stated that ‘
they
said you committed an armed robbery’ but didn’t you in fact plead guilty to robbing a gas station at gunpoint?”

Porter’s anger was clear—it had to be evident to even the most inattentive of jurors.  “Yeah
, I pled guilty.  I didn’t want to take a chance on
blowing trial
and doing twenty years, so yeah, I pled guilty.”

“Thank you.  Now you previously testified that Mr. Jackson was like a brother to you.  Would you please tell us what his street name was?”

“He ain’t got no street name,” Porter asserted.

Exactly what I hoped he would say
.

Bando had been doing a masterful job of walking the
witness into trap after trap.  His denial of Jackson having a street name opened the door for her to bring both of their arrest records into evidence in order to impeach his testimony.  “Mr. Porter, according to over half a dozen police reports, it lists his street name as C.B.S.  On two of his drug related arrests, you are listed as a co-defendant with the street name ‘Black’.  Do you deny any of this to be true?”

Bando knew he wouldn’t deny it.  The tattoo on his right forearm—Black—would be all she would need to point out to the jurors to prove him a liar.  “Yeah, alright, people be calling him C.B.S. sometimes.”

“Can you please tell us what C.B.S. stands for?”

“Can’t be stopped,” he answered in a low and defeated voice.

Bando nodded approvingly.  “Thank you for your honesty, Mr. Porter.”  She briefly paused.  “Mr. Porter, do you know why Mr. Jackson ran from Detective Galvin on the evening of May, 13?”

“Cause the dude was chasing him.  He didn’t know he was a DT.”

Bando looked directly at the jury box before speaking.  “Are you sure that’s the reason?  Maybe it had something to do with the thirty-four ziplock bags of crack cocaine found at the scene?”

Regardless of how the witness would answer the question, Bando knew she scored big with it.  She observed quite a few of the jurors begin to slowly nod as if a light bulb had just gone off in their heads.

“Nah, that’s bullshit.  Darrin didn’t sell crack.  That DT planted that there to save his ass,” Porter strongly rebutted.

“When you say Darrin didn’t sell crack, do you mean he d
idn’t sell crack since the two times you got arrested together for selling it?”

“I’m telling you
, he don’t hustle no more…neither do I.  I have a good job now.  We all make mistakes when we’re young.”

“Okay Mr. Porter, we will get back to your job but please watch your language,” Bando warned. 
“You stated that you’re employed as J.F.K. Airport as a security guard.  Is that by a private courier or by the airport security?”

“I’m employed by the airport.”

“Thank you again Mr. Porter.  I have one final question for you.”  Bando walked to her desk and retrieved a folder.  She opened the folder up, taking out a file in which a photo of the witness was clear to the jury.  She read through Porter’s rap sheet.  “Just so there is no confusion on the matter, are you employed at the airport under the name Lance Porter, Lionel Perrin, Jamel Bennett or any other names that you may have used in the past?”

Porter was clearly agitated.  His lips tightened; his nostrils flaring.  “So that’s how it is right!  Okay fine.  I work there as Lance Porter.  Is there anything else I can help you with Miss A.D.A.?”

“No, thank you Mr. Porter; the witness is excused.

*

Porter stepped down from the witness stand.  He was furious.  He wanted nothing more than to punch the ADA in the face but he knew that he couldn’t.  Instead he gave her the dirtiest look that he could muster up.  He took a mental note of the court officer walking in his direction to make sure that he didn’t attack the ADA.  He walked past the jurors and looked at them.  “This is some real bullshit they got going on here.  You can believe that.”

Porter flung the door open; slamming it against the wall as he left.  In his anger, he never noticed any of the next witnesses seated on the bench, including the head of security at J.F.K.
International Airport who was about to testify that he did not now—nor did he ever have a Lance Porter on the payroll.

Porter noticed the two detectives standing in front of the exit wh
ere he was headed.  He didn’t think anything of them, as the courts had hundreds of detectives present every day.  As he got closer to the door, they blocked his way.  He turned over his shoulder to see two court officers walking up behind him. 
Are you kidding me, now what?

The first of the detectives spoke to him.  “Mr. Porter, it seems
that you have an open warrant for possession of marijuana.  Please place your hands behind you back.”

Porter first smiled and then laughed.  He complied with the officer’s direction—it wouldn’t be the first time he was in handcuffs—probably not the last either.  The charge itself was nonsense.  He knew
that he would be out by the next morning if not later this afternoon.  Once he was handcuffed he looked at the officer.  “You guys ain’t playin on this one, huh?”

The detective’s said nothing in response but instead walked him to the waiting unmarked car to take him to the nearest precinct for processing.

*

Bando was getting ready to call the next witness.  She wondered how Porter had liked the surprise she had arranged for him.  She wished
that she could have been there to witness his arrest but knew that it would not have been prudent to do so. 
He should have paid his marijuana fine like everyone else does.

When the court officer walked back in the courtroom, he gave her a thumbs up.  She knew
that all had gone according to plan.

The presentation to the Grand Jury was going exactly as planned by Bando.  She had successfully introduced the criminal records of the defendant and the eye witness; she had proven Porter to be a liar who did not have a job and had even done a good job with Charlene Waters.  Bando was happy
that the grandmotherly witness had admitted to observing a fierce struggle and not a one-sided beating as Porter had testified to.

With the last of the eyewitness having testified, Bando decided to recall the Crime Scene detective back to the stand.  Bando had willfully omitted certain pieces of evidence from his first round on the stand.  “Detective Breen, I’d like to remind you that you are still under oath,” she began.  She handed him a
set of photographs.  “Detective, are you familiar with this picture.”

He assertively shook his head.  “Yes Ms. Bando, I am.  I took th
ese pictures of the area where the decedent’s body was and the surrounding pavement where he lay.”       

“Can you please look at the photos, including the close ups of the pavement next to
where Mr. Jackson’s head would have been.  In those photographs, or even your own independent recollection, do you see any markings that would be consistent with someone firing a handgun into the ground?”

Breen sorted through the pictures, one at a time.  “There are no markings anywhere that would indicate a firearm was fired into the ground.”

Bando looked at the jury—their collective attitude toward the case seemed to be quite different from where it was only about an hour ago when Lance Porter had played the race card.  Detective, did you recover any ballistic evidence from the scene?”

“Yes.  I recovered one nine millimeter shell casing.”

“Can you please tell the members of the jury where you recovered the spent shell casing from.”

“Sure.”  He studied his crime scene photos; he held it out to the jury so they could see and pointed to the casing in the picture.  The casing was about
fourteen inches to the right of where Mr. Jackson had been laying and slightly behind him.”

“Detective, in your experience as a crime scene investigator, have you become familiar with handguns and how they work.”

“Yes I have.”

“Great, would you mind telling the jury how a shell casing would eject from a nine millimeter Glock?”

“Of course; a Glock ejects spent shell casings slightly up and to the right.”

Bando feigned as if she were pondering this for the juries benefit.  She looked up as if she were lying on the ground—the way Jackson was—and motioned with her hand to the right.  She had learned in law school that one of the most effective things a lawyer could do is to testify through the witness.  “Detective, given the fact that Detective Galvin’s service weapon is in fact a Glock, is it safe to say that he did not fire the shot and that it was in fact Darrin Jackson who fired the shot, based on the physical evidence?”