“Called by his partner, Officer Pancetti checks to make sure that Officer Kujowski has secured the defendant, then walks inside the open kitchen door, calling out to anyone who might still be inside. In the kitchen, Officer Pancetti sees that the dishwasher is running and the sink is full of water, suds, and dishes. Moving into the living room, Officer Pancetti sees the vacuum cleaner. On the coffee table he sees a can of lemon Pledge, a bottle of Windex, and some rags. By now it’s obvious to Officer Pancetti that Mr. Hanson had been trying to clean the place. Officer Pancetti searches the rest of the house. He starts with the second floor. Then he looks for the basement. The doorway is covered by a curtain of yellow glass beads. Officer Pancetti pushes the beads aside, and he sees Jennifer Yamura lying faceup on the steps. Her eyes are open. Blood has drained from the back of her head, down the steps, and pooled onto the floor.
“Officer Pancetti calls Officer Kujowski on the radio, tells him what he’s found, then calls dispatch for backup. He asks dispatch to send the detectives and the crime-scene investigation unit.
“Within thirty minutes, Detectives John Tredesco and Ed Cook arrive at the house. They make a cursory examination of the premises, being careful not to disturb it—at least not to disturb it any more than the defendant already has. Then they turn the scene over to the CSU team, take the defendant into custody, and transport him to the station house. There, the defendant does two things. First, he lies and says he was at his office all day. You’ll hear from his secretary that that isn’t true. Second, he demands to speak to his attorney and clams up until Mr. McFarland arrives.
“Fast-forward four months. The trial in this case is less than a month away. The defendant has been out on bail since the murder. A main condition of bail was that he forfeit his passport and promise not to leave the country. But the defendant is about to face you folks, and he knows it. A Learjet lands on a private airstrip outside of Mexico City. The plane’s door opens. David Hanson descends the stairs to the tarmac, takes a limo to a company known as Azoteca Comercial, where he enters the corporate vault and physically makes off with two million dollars in cash. Then he has the pilots fly him to the Cayman Islands, where he withdraws another two million dollars from his own personal offshore accounts.”
David Hanson fleeing from the scene of the murder after getting caught trying to disinfect it of every trace of himself.
David Hanson lying to the police about where he’d been at the time of Jennifer’s murder.
David Hanson preparing to flee from the jury on the eve of trial.
Damning stuff. And now that he’s grabbed the jurors’ hearts, Devlin lays it out for their minds, methodically previewing each witness he intends to present, and what each witness will say. Finally, sixty minutes after he began, Devlin concludes by lifting onto an easel a large color photograph of Jennifer Yamura. The picture depicts the young woman in her college cap and gown, standing between her proud parents.
“Jennifer Yamura had the whole world open to her that day she graduated,” Devlin says. “She could have gone anywhere to pursue her dream of becoming a journalist. She chose to come here, to Philadelphia. Our city, yours and mine. The City of Brotherly Love. The city Jennifer Yamura came to love. The city she came to fight for as a journalist, exposing crime and corruption, working for the betterment of our schools, the integrity of our government, the safety of our streets. In the short time she was with us, Jennifer never let this city down, and this city isn’t going to let her down.” Devlin pauses, takes the time to look each and every juror in the eyes, then turns and walks slowly back to his seat.
I want to give my opening right away, not allow Devlin’s speech to congeal in the jurors’ minds, but Judge Henry lets the jury take a fifteen-minute midmorning break.
When we come back, we repeat the same routine. The judge takes the bench, has Mike Holleran summon the jury to take their seats. Like Devlin, I walk slowly, pay my respects to the court, then take my place before the jury. No notes. “Good morning,” I say. I pause to see how they respond. No one smiles. A few say, “Good morning.” A few nod. Most look down, or over at Devlin.
I inhale, wait a beat, then begin. “Ladies and gentlemen, it was my privilege for twelve years to work as a Philadelphia district attorney.”
I pause and let my words sink in. I want the jury to see from the start that, like my opponent, I was the people’s servant—their servant—for many years. I want them to see me as one of the good guys. And, importantly, I want them to know that I know what I’m talking about when it comes to how the police should investigate crimes, because that’s going to be a major theme of my defense.
“As a prosecutor, I was privileged to work with some of the finest police officers ever to serve our city. And what made those officers so good, every one of them, was this: They never stopped short. They never took the easy way out of an investigation by latching on to the first possible suspect. They turned over every stone, questioned every potential witness, took the time to investigate and rule out every possible perpetrator, to make sure they didn’t bring an innocent man to trial. Didn’t destroy his reputation. Didn’t force him to suffer through the hell of living with the threat of false imprisonment hanging over his head. Didn’t—”
“Objection.” Devlin is on his feet. We both know I’ve crossed the line into improper argument, and Walker’s own opening has won him more than enough political capital with the jury to object during my opening—one of the advantages of going first. The judge sustains the objection, and I continue.
“Without belaboring the point,” I say, my voice now quiet, “the police officers I served with did exactly what the officers who investigated”—I use my fingers to make air quotes around the term—“Jennifer Yamura’s tragic death failed to do. Detective John Tredesco, the detective in charge, in particular, latched on to David Hanson to the exclusion of all other possible suspects. And the evidence will be clear that there were many very dangerous people who had reason to both hate and fear Jennifer Yamura. The prosecutor made reference to Jennifer’s work as a reporter who exposed corruption and tried to make our streets safer. And many in this city know, as you will hear witnesses testify, about Jennifer Yamura’s work as a reporter in exposing a ring of crooked police officers, men who violated their sacred duty to protect us by banding together with drug dealers to flood the city’s streets with drugs. One of those officers, Stanley Lipinski, testified before the grand jury against his fellow conspirators, publicly dared his criminal friends to come and get him, and they did, gunning him down on the street.”
I have no proof that Lipinski was killed by any of the crooked cops, and Devlin knows it. He has the right to object, but he’s holding back, not wanting to look obstreperous to the jury.