The Fence - Dick Lehr [151]
Everyone in the courtroom stood as the jury left at 1:22 P.M. The judge’s chief clerk led them across the hallway behind the courtroom. They entered a rectangular-shaped room with a long oak table in the middle. The jury room’s four windows had an unremarkable view of a sprawling asphalt parking lot and, beyond it, the piers and undeveloped waterfront of South Boston. A court officer was stationed outside.
Some jurors grabbed sandwiches and drinks while others used the bathrooms at the far end. Soon enough each had chosen one of the oak chairs padded with blue cushions, and, on the afternoon of December 21, with the holiday season in full swing, they took up the case. “We wanted to get out of there,” Bob McDonough said, “but we also wanted to do the right thing.” Carol Goslant was the foreperson, and before taking a vote on any of Mike’s claims, “we began by discussing the events of the night.”
Judge Young, in his instructions, had gone over the six questions the jury was to decide. “Let’s come to the first question,” he’d said. Question One involved Jimmy Burgio, Dave Williams, and Ian Daley: Did any of them use excessive force? Mike Cox “doesn’t complain about being grabbed or stopped, even if the whole thing was a mistake,” the judge explained. “What he complains about is the use of excessive force.”
Question Two involved only Burgio: Did he commit assault and battery against Mike? The question covered the accusation that Burgio kicked Mike in the face. Question Three also involved only Burgio: Did he intentionally inflict emotional distress on Mike?
Question Four involved all four—Burgio, Williams, Daley, and Kenny Conley: Were they deliberately indifferent to the use of excessive force? Question Five was for Burgio, Williams, and Daley: Were they deliberately indifferent to Mike’s medical needs?
Question Six involved just Dave Williams and Kenny Conley: “Question Six is the so-called cover-up theory,” the judge said. The legal definition for a cover-up was tricky. Federal civil rights law did not cover an attempted cover-up. It only addressed a cover-up that succeeded in blocking justice. So if the jury ruled against the officers in any of the other questions, then that meant the alleged cover-up had failed. “There’s no violation for an attempted cover-up that fails.” Question Six would be moot.
In sum, the judge advised them: “You apply your common sense to evidence in this case as you are reasonable men and women so that justice may be done.”
Now inside the jury room, Carol Goslant had the verdict slip before her. She was in charge of organizing the jury’s consideration of each question. “I was eager to get to it,” she said later. For the first time in more than two weeks, everyone was free to talk about the charges, the evidence, and the witnesses. It seemed complicated at the start—all the legal principles combined with having four defendants—but very quickly Goslant discovered everyone readily shared her view that Mike’s civil rights had been trampled during a brutal assault. The deliberations would revolve around meting out responsibility.
“I was heartened,” she said. The jury dug in and began with Question One.
Elsewhere in the courthouse, the waiting game had begun. While the jury deliberated throughout that afternoon and into Tuesday morning, the lawyers mingled in the hall, hung out in the cafeteria, called into their offices to deal with housekeeping matters for their many other cases and clients. In all his years of practice, Willie Davis never hung around during jury deliberations, but that was because the old federal courthouse was located only a few blocks from his office in Faneuil Hall. The new courthouse was too far a walk, so he stayed put. His partner Fran Robinson, meanwhile, was holed up back at the office preparing for the worst. She was