Justice in Molasses

In early February, an evidentiary hearing was held in Ernesto Scorsone's courtroom to discuss the validity of the procedures used to identify the suspect in the crimes pertaining to my trial scheduled on June 6th.

Among the matters under consideration was that the investigating detective, Elizabeth Adams, had three times told my former attorney, David Zorin, that a lineup had not been used to identify me and that she had, in fact, only shown the victim a singular photo of my face in order to procure a positive identification.

When the issue was later raised at a district court preliminary hearing, under Judge T. Bruce Bell, the detective quickly recanted her story about using a singular photo and offered, instead, an array featuring six men of apparently African descent, alleging that she had, in fact, shown the lineup to the victim and that any allusion to the contrary must have been the result of some misunderstanding.

That is one hell of a misunderstanding.

Needless to say, Mr. Zorin was not a happy man and continued to question Adams regarding the details of her prior statement, but it was her lie and she’d be damned if she didn’t stick to it and after some uncommonly vehement discussion, the judge ruled that it wasn’t a matter to be decided by his court, either way, and summarily escorted that elephant to Scorsone, which is where this particular tale begins.

So I’m sitting in circuit court with Chad Butcher and Chris Tracy listening to Adams lie about a lineup she never used.  As I said before, it features the faces of six men including myself, of which four are dark enough and stereotypically Negroid enough so that one might genuinely mistake them for some of the original transatlantic slaves five hundred years ago.

They look like they just hopped off the boat. 

Curiously, one characteristic of the suspect in the crimes of which I am accused is, "light-skinned, possibly even Arabic." Now, I happen to think of my skin as something akin to a creamy mocha, but either way Adams cuts it, she’s either perjured herself about using a lineup altogether or she’s used an invalid one because only two of the people in it even remotely fit the complexion of the suspect in question.

She might as well have stood me beside a bunch of white dudes and told the victim to point at the nigger who did it.  The identification would have been equally valid.  As Chris Tracy so eloquently explained in his closing statement—  “It’s not a six pack," that Adams claims she used.  "It’s a two pack.”
 
When Adams’ ex-partner, William Persley, was asked whether the other men in the lineup could possibly be characterized as light complexioned, he answered a resounding, “No.”

And he's the father of the victim.

For those of you who don’t know, Elizabeth Adams tried to incarcerate me five years ago and failed miserably.  Now, she’s accusing me of having attacked and robbed her former partner’s daughter. 

What are the chances of that?

For the record, the two are partners no more because Adams has since been removed from the robbery/homicide division and now enjoys a cushy little desk job instructing other officers in the formalities of identification procedure.

I couldn’t make this stuff up.

Amongst the factors which contributed to the "job change" was that Adams was discovered to have withheld evidence, a video tape, inside her desk drawer for over a year; a fact which segues nicely, I think, into the kicker of this intriguing edition—

When questioned whether it was standard procedure to record suspect interrogations, Adams readily answered in the affirmative, then immediately added that, in the instance of my interrogation, the digital recording — which features her repeated acknowledgment that she did not use a lineup — had been rendered inaccessible by a random computer malfunction.

She claimed that all subsequent attempts to access the file had failed and that she was unaware of any way to retrieve it.  Simply, I was out of luck and to hear her tell it, she'd just stumbled into a whole pile of the shit. 

Surprise, surprise.   

It all seemed to raise enough questions, though, that Scorsone requested a second hearing to talk matters over with the alleged victim, even if I do think the convenient disappearance of the recording went rather lightly regarded.  Mr. Gullette was to be in charge of rescheduling the new date, under the presumption that it would be held as soon as possible, preferably within a week.  

That was early February.

And yet, here we sit in April, some two months removed from my trial, still wrestling with critical matters of evidence, courtesy of an inexplicably reluctant prosecutor.  I, for one, have no idea why it should take two months to reschedule a hearing when all the man has to do is bring his witness.  

If this is Justice, she must be swimming in molasses.

One can't help but wonder about the irony of the universe when the one piece of evidence which might lay this entire matter to rest suddenly and inexplicably disappears.

Anybody seen Serpico?