The Fence - Dick Lehr [152]
Mike was in the courthouse, sticking close to Roach, Sinsheimer, and Roach’s partner and law school classmate Robert Wise. Kimberly was not with Mike; she was working. “I didn’t want her there,” Mike said. He wanted to spare her the ordeal. Despite the stoic exterior, Mike wasn’t feeling particularly optimistic. He didn’t doubt the accused cops were guilty, but no one else—not Bob Peabody, not Ted Merritt—had been able to make a case against them. “No one had proven it. I didn’t expect to.”
Rob Sinsheimer, as antsy as he tended to be, resisted talking about the case. Jury speculation was a useless, wasteful exercise, “a rookie thing to do—to wonder, guess, prognosticate.” He did his best to busy himself and try not to think about the trial.
Inside the jury room, jurors had made considerable headway by Tuesday morning. They’d discarded the defense’s chaos theory as unpersuasive. It was a “smokescreen,” Carol Goslant said, that failed to obscure the wrongdoing. “We knew right away these were the officers who had been involved.” Deciding Burgio and Williams were culpable, she said, turned out to be a “fast decision.” That meant Question Six—the one about a cover-up and the one directed at Dave Williams and Kenny Conley—was moot. They barely discussed it, except to note its irrelevance based on the other findings.
The sticking points were Ian Daley and Kenny. Some jurors were convinced Daley was one of the beaters while others argued the evidence hadn’t shown that. It was a question the jury kept circling back to before deciding not to hold him liable in the beating. Kenny Conley also drew considerable attention. Most had been impressed and found him likable, but Bob McDonough was one who wasn’t sure that was enough. “The tunnel vision—I didn’t go for that.” He wondered whether Kenny was like “the nice young kid next door who’s really selling drugs.” It was a tough one to figure out.
But other jurors were unwavering about Kenny—that he’d been unfairly entangled in the scandal. “He was honest, straightforward, and his story never changed,” Sharon Schwartz said. Listening to his testimony about the foot chase and tunnel vision convinced her Kenny did not see Mike or the beating. “The way he testified solidified my point of view that he was innocent.” She couldn’t believe he’d been convicted of perjury.
“Most people felt he got a raw deal.”
Jurors went round and round—about Daley and, to a lesser extent, Kenny. By Tuesday afternoon, they’d ironed out remaining differences and reached unanimity. Through the court officer sitting outside the room, Goslant sent word to the judge. The jury then hung around waiting to be led back into the courtroom. They’d completed their work, to be sure, but a number felt a bit shortchanged, as if their hands were tied.
“I was frustrated higher-ups weren’t on trial,” Schwartz said. “I was frustrated this was a civil trial and not a criminal trial.” To her, the six questions had not gone far enough. “I would like to have ruled against the whole department.” The case, she thought, exposed a dangerous culture of lying that went beyond the four accused officers. “I would like to have said there was corruption in the Boston Police Department.”
Mike was downstairs when he heard the verdict was in. He rode the elevator and hurried down the hall to Courtroom 18. The lawyers were gathering at their tables inside the well. Mike took a seat in the gallery toward the back. The news was breaking so quickly he hadn’t called Kimberly; even if he had, she wouldn’t be able to get to the courthouse in time. The courtroom seemed empty compared to during the