"What?" Murrow said, showing the first spark of political sensitivity all morning. "How can you do that? How come I wasn't told?"
Karp held up his hand. "Please, Gilbert, if you'd let me get through this, it should answer your questions. But it was not my intention to keep any of you in the dark as an indication of a lack of confidence in your counsel. Most of you I've known for many years and I would trust with my life, including you, Mr. Murrow. The truth is that initially I was reluctant to choose this course and only recently reached this decision."
Murrow didn't look any happier, but he sat back in his chair and waited.
"The answer to your first question is that after Mr. Denton is sworn in, the current Corporation Counsel, Sam Lindahl, will be replaced"-Karp paused for the applause to die down, although he noticed Murrow suddenly sat up again in his chair-"and at the same time, the governor will announce that I have been appointed as special counsel for the case on behalf of the new Corporation Counsel. Harry has checked the statutes, and apparently the governor can do it as I'm not really an elected official."
"Yet," Murrow muttered.
Karp smiled at the effort his younger colleague was making to get himself back in the game. He noticed that Repass and Russell, who had not been told the purpose of the meeting, had exchanged surprised glances and were now smiling broadly at him.
"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Gilbert… Anyway, over the past couple of days, I've had the chance to review a good bit of the case files with the assistance of the inestimable Mr. Guma and Mr. Kipman." After the Friday meeting with Liz Tyler, he'd spent the weekend with Ray and Harry poring over more than sixty large, three-ring binders filled with police notes, affidavits, statements-sworn and unsworn-lab reports, and trial testimony, as well as more than two-dozen videotapes.
Karp flipped over the blank front of the chart on the easel. "Those of you more familiar with this case than I, please bear with me and feel free to point out any grievous errors or omissions, but I'll try to lay this out as best I can for everyone here."
After a night of wilding that had ended with the rape and near murder of Liz Tyler on May 19 and 20, 1992, Karp explained, the gang split up. Kevin Little and Kwasama Jones had been picked up that morning by the police as they tried to make their way out of the Brighton Beach area and they almost immediately confessed to having "hurt a woman" near Coney Island. "Hearing that his friends had been taken in by the police, Packer Wilson turned himself in voluntarily in the company of his mother. Based on the statements given by the others, Sykes and Davis were contacted the next day by police. "They attempted to run but were apprehended."
Karp flipped to another page with two items on it. "Essentially the case against the city is twofold. It begins with the premise that the confessions of the defendants were coerced by the jack-booted police and that the evil prosecutors Ms. Repass and Ms. Russell-"
"Boo, hiss," Guma said, and was promptly given the bird by both women.
"-condoned and encouraged these actions, and then used these illegitimate confessions to convict and imprison the innocent defendants. The second issue is that during the trial, the prosecution also brushed over the evidence of a sixth unknown attacker."
Karp paused to make sure everyone was up to speed. "Any questions so far? No? Moving on, I think the allegation of prosecutorial misconduct regarding the sixth attacker is laughable. Not only did Robin spend nearly ten minutes discussing the existence of this sixth man in her opening remarks, it was the prosecution, not the defense, that presented expert witnesses to go over the DNA evidence, which pointed to another perpetrator who was not among the five defendants. Pam again spent considerable time in her closing arguments acknowledging that there was a sixth, unknown attacker-even referring to him, I believe, as 'the one monster who still roams our streets.' I have no doubt that we will quickly dispose of that question."
Karp flipped to another page headlined by the bold capital letters CONFESSIONS and beneath which began a list of the defendants with numbered statements. "The issue of the confessions having been coerced is equally laughable," he said. "To begin with, prior to the last trial, there was a thorough and lengthy Huntley Hearing to determine the voluntariness and admissibility of the defendants' confessions and other evidence. The court took testimony from over twenty prosecution witnesses, including defendant-turned-witness for the prosecution Kevin Little, and heard from the defendants Sykes, Davis, Wilson, and Jones, as well as their families and friends who were present or involved in the initial encounters with the police. In the end, the court ruled that the statements were properly and legally obtained."
Karp took a sip of water. When he and the other two finished with their first pass through the files late Sunday night, he'd been so incensed that he didn't even remember the walk from 100 Centre Street back to the loft. It wasn't just the bestiality and complete lack of human compassion the defendants had shown Liz Tyler. If anything, he was angrier that Brooklyn DA Breman had rolled over so easily. She'd ignored time-honored legal procedure. Most egregiously, Breman never demanded a full evidentiary hearing before accepting Villalobos's word as reason enough to exonerate the four men. And, from everything he could tell looking at the motions that had been filed in the civil trial, Lindahl had made very little effort to defend the case and let Louis get away with every demand without fighting any of it. Karp smelled a rat and maybe more than one.
"Of significant importance with respect to the admissibility of the statements and the fairness of the process used to obtain them," he continued, "no defendant under age sixteen was questioned without a parent, relative, or guardian present, all of whom gave consent. Of the four convicted, only Sykes was over sixteen."
Flipping his chart, Karp gave his audience a rundown of some of the "highlights or lowlights, if you will" from the statements of the defendants.
"For instance, defendant Desmond Davis gave a written statement and a videotaped interview. His grandmother was present at the former, his father at the latter," Karp said. "He was contrite and sorry with his relatives present, but quite another character while waiting for them to arrive at the precinct so that questioning could begin. In fact, he and defendant Jayshon Sykes had a grand time sitting in the holding area with police and other detainees present, laughing about what a good time they'd had that night. At one point, in front of other police officers, if you can believe this crap, Desmond called out to a female police officer and asked her if she 'wanted some of what that other bitch' got. Not to be outdone, Sykes said to the same officer that he wanted to lick her 'pussy.' Hardly the behavior characteristic of frightened, vulnerable boys that Hugh Louis is now trying to make these punks out to be."
As Karp spoke and pointed to his charts, the others in the room remained quiet. They could be an irreverent bunch, even when discussing the most heinous crimes. So-called dark humor was a way of getting past the horror. But no one was in the mood for joking this time. They just sat patiently as Karp next introduced what he had labeled "incriminating admissions to investigators and third parties as corroboration of the defendants' guilt."
"That next afternoon, shortly before he turned himself in, Packer Wilson was walking on the sidewalk when he saw two school chums and warned them to stay away from him because 'the cops will be after me.' When they asked him why, he responded, 'You heard about that woman that was beat up and raped at Coney Island last night. I'm in it.'