The Fence - Dick Lehr [149]
Most important, they took aim at the portrayal of Kenny as a brick in the blue wall of silence protecting Williams and Burgio because of their ties as fellow cops. Kenny explained that, sure, he knew Dave Williams as a classmate in the police academy, but they were not close friends; he rarely saw him outside work.
What about another son of Southie? “Have you ever asked Mr. Burgio to go out and have a couple of beers?” Willie Davis asked.
“No.”
“Has Mr. Burgio ever asked you to go out and have a couple beers?”
“No.”
“It’s fair to say Mr. Burgio is not a drinking buddy?”
“That’s right,” Kenny said.
The message was clear: Kenny was not one of them.
“I believe that’s all, your honor,” Davis said.
When their turn came, the defense lawyers called only three witnesses—municipal police officers who’d been at Woodruff Way. It was, at best, a token effort to open up the scene and suggest munies, rather than their clients, had hit Mike.
Burgio, Williams, and Daley remained silent. They were not about to testify—that would open them up to a lengthy and wide-ranging cross-examination by Mike’s lawyers. Besides, Ted Merritt was making cameo appearances in Courtroom 18, seated in the gallery scribbling notes. No way did any of the three want to risk saying something the federal prosecutor could use against them in his criminal probe. “There was a certain grim reaper quality to his presence,” said Kenny’s lawyer Fran Robinson.
Fourteen days after the trial began—and four days before Christmas—the lawyers delivered closing arguments to the jury. The defense lawyers, one by one, stood and told the jury that Mike’s circumstantial case was weak and flimsy. Tom Hoopes said Mike had nothing on Ian Daley. Daley had tried to arrest Mike, he reminded jurors, and was shocked when he realized his mistake. Didn’t that show Daley was not one of Mike’s beaters? His client, he argued, did no wrong, saw no wrong, said nothing wrong.
“The plaintiffs serve you a banquet,” Hoopes said. “They ask you to eat it and come in and deliver a verdict to them.” But time and again they called officers whose testimony was questionable and contradictory—officers like Joe Teahan, Gary Ryan, Craig Jones—and Mike himself. “Is the water a little dirty from the witnesses? Does the wine turn in your stomach a little bit from the witnesses?
“Does the apple have a worm in it? Can you trust that kind of food?”
Tom Drechsler told jurors what Jimmy Burgio would have said in his own defense had he testified—that he was too preoccupied arresting Ron “Boogie-Down” Tinsley to have either hit Mike or seen anyone beating Mike. Echoing Hoopes, the lawyer called Mike’s case a lot of “finger-pointing” and “rhetoric.” No witness had linked his client to the assault. “In the opening statement, I promised you that no one would come forward and say they ever saw James Burgio do anything, and that promise has been fulfilled.”
Dan O’Connell trashed Smut Brown. “Okay, Mr. Brown. We know your pedigree.” The lawyer recounted Smut’s lengthy criminal record. “Yeah, people can change,” O’Connell said, “but this leopard didn’t change his spots by any stretch.” Smut, he noted, had several pending drug-dealing cases to contend with after this trial ended, and that was Smut’s likely motivation for testifying against the police officers. “Do you think for any stretch he doesn’t hope to get something in nature of relief from those cases? Do you really think he doesn’t expect some assistance.”
Smut was damaged goods, he said, a liar. “This is the person they offer to you to believe, when he says David Williams hit Michael Cox. I suggest to you it’s entirely unworthy of belief.” It wasn’t even a close call choosing between Dave Williams or Mike Cox’s circumstantial case featuring Smut Brown. “Here’s a person, David Williams, I suggest, that comported himself in the best traditions of the Boston Police.