On Friday, June 7, the prosecution called two rebuttal witnesses. Tony Minutello, Add Armstead’s employer, was the first. For more than a year the wrecking yard owner had resisted a role in the proceedings. As a white man doing business in a black neighborhood, he needed both police protection and the goodwill of area residents to survive. Involvement in the case could only hurt him.
Demakos had sensed Minutello’s reluctance to testify and decided against calling him as a witness during the prosecution’s main case. But Evseroff had repeatedly driven home the point that Armstead had no business being on the streets at five o’clock in the morning, and some rebuttal was necessary.
“Mr. Minutello,” Demakos asked after the wrecking yard owner had taken the stand. “Do you know Add Armstead?”
“Yes, he works for me.”
“What type of job does he have?”
“He’s an auto wrecker, cutting cars.”
“What are his hours of work?”
“Seven to five.”
“And the days of the week that he works?”
“Five and a half,” Minutello answered. “Half a day Saturday.”
“Do you recall a conversation with Mr. Armstead with respect to his day’s work for Saturday, April 28, 1973?”
“Right; he was supposed to get in early because we were going to ship a load of motors.”
Demakos paused so the jurors would focus on the answer, then forged ahead. “Did Clifford Glover ever come to work with Add Armstead?”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell us how many Saturdays Clifford Glover came to work each month?”
“Three, maybe four.”
“And how often would he come to work after school?”
“Three or four times a week.”
“Did you pay him?”
“I threw him a couple of dollars. He used to be my errand boy.”
Alan Parente, who had assisted Gaudelli in presenting the case to the grand jury, followed Minutello to the stand. He recounted being present at the May 18, 1973, meeting attended by Gaudelli, Anthony Buffalano, and Walter Scott. and denied that any threats had been made.
“What did you hear at that meeting?” Demakos asked. Parente answered without hesitation.
“Mr. Gaudelli told Officer Scott and Mr. Buffalano that we thought Officer Scott was lying, that his story was not believable, and that we wanted the truth.”
“What did Scott or Mr. Buffalano say to that?”
“I don’t remember Mr. Buffalano saying very much at all,” Parente answered. “Patrolman Scott said, ‘That’s my story, and I’m not going to change it.’ That was the end of the meeting.”
“Did Mr. Gaudelli threaten Scott with an indictment?”
“No, he did not. No threats were made.”
By mid-morning the People’s case was complete. All totaled, the prosecution had called forty-nine witnesses; the defense, fifty-seven.
“It’s the damnedest thing I ever saw,” Court Clerk James Higgins told a reporter. “Usually, in a murder case, you have a pretty good idea of which way the jury will go. Right now, I don’t have the foggiest notion what will happen.”
In truth, the outcome was likely to hinge on the attorneys’ summations. Jurors are used to watching Perry Mason on television. They have been weaned on courtroom dramas in which everything is neatly and fully explained at the end of trial. In the real world, pieces seldom fall so easily into place. The job of an attorney on summation is to convince the jury that, even though some loose ends remain, the cause he has championed is just. He must weave the evidence into a scenario the jurors will accept.
Shortly after 1:00 P.M. on the afternoon of Monday, June 10, Jack Evseroff rose to face the eleven men and one woman who would decide the fate of Thomas Shea. As counsel for the defendant, he was required to sum up first. The prosecuting attorney would have the advantage of speaking last.
Inside the courtroom the atmosphere was stifling. Unable to meet the demand for power brought on by an unseasonably warm burst of ninety-five-degree weather, the Consolidated Edison Company had ordered a city-wide voltage cutback. Immediately thereafter, the courtroom air conditioners had gone dead, pushing temperatures inside the windowless chamber well above ninety degrees.
“If Your Honor please,” Evseroff observed, “Con Edison has decided to cut back our electricity, and it is a little warm in here. I wonder if I might remove my jacket while I sum up to the jury.”
“Being comfortable is never an offense,” Dubin answered. “If anyone wants to take off their jacket, they have the court’s permission.”
The attorney removed his coat, then strode to a point directly in front of the jury and began.
“Your Honor, Mr. Demakos, Mr. Gaudelli, Mr. Foreman, Madam and Gentlemen of the Jury. This is the portion of the trial known as the summation. It is my last opportunity to speak to you in connection with the case of The People versus Thomas Shea. Initially, I should like to apologize if, in the course of this case, I offended anybody. If I have argued a little too vociferously or yelled a little too loud, please forgive me. This is something that happens in the course of battle. If I yelled a little too loud, it was only in the interest of protecting my client’s rights.”
Having begun his summation with a touch of humility, Evseroff next sought to achieve a veneer of impartiality.
“Now a summation, Madam and Gentlemen, is the time in a trial when the lawyers for both sides speak to you and try to persuade you of the merit in their particular point of view. It is argument by counsel, not evidence. Please do one thing. However you decide this case, decide it as you promised you would, solely, completely, and exclusively upon the evidence.”
It takes a big ego to be a successful trial lawyer, and Jack Evseroff had one. “Where else,” he once asked a fellow attorney, “can you get twelve people and maybe even a judge and assistant district attorney to listen to your every word?” Now Evseroff was onstage and loving every minute of it.
“Madam and Gentlemen, you have sat here and listened carefully for four weeks, and you have heard an aggregate of one hundred six witnesses. I want you to come and reason with me, to make a qualitative analysis. Let’s look at the witnesses. Let’s look at who and what they are.
“Patrolman Shea took the stand in his own defense. He testified on direct and cross-examination. He told you what happened on that fateful morning of April 28, 1973. He told you that he never knew Clifford Glover was ten years old until after this was all over. He said he was involved in a chase. He said he identified himself as a police officer with his shield and his ID card, and that Glover said, ‘Fuck you, you won’t take me,’ and took off into the lot and zigzagged back and forth. When Patrolman Shea saw a gun coming out, he fired, and he then saw Glover hand the gun to Armstead. He answered clearly, concisely, and truthfully.
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” Evseroff boomed, his voice suddenly bouncing off the courtroom walls, “in listening to the testimony of any witness, you can tell, you can feel, you can sense what he is. You can tell what Thomas Shea is from the way he testifies. Is he an animal? Is he depraved? Is he a wanton killer? No! He is a policeman who was doing his job, a cop who was out on the streets of New York working to fight crime.
“I don’t think there’s any issue in this case between the prosecution and the defense that at 5:00 A.M. on April 28, 1973, Patrolman Thomas Shea was working, that Patrolman Thomas Shea was in a car with Patrolman Walter Scott, and they were on the job. There’s no allegation that Patrolman Shea or Patrolman Scott was drunk or disorderly. There is no allegation that they were acting outside the scope of their authority when they appeared on New York Boulevard. They were policemen working, doing a tour of duty. There had been an alarm that a taxi had been stuck up in another area of Queens, and there came a time when Patrolman Scott told Patrolman Shea that he thought he saw the perpetrators. Thomas Shea got out of his police car in the furtherance of his duty, not to go into a gin mill to have a drink, not to shake down the local bookmaker, but to enforce the law.
“What should a policeman do under those circumstances?” Evseroff roared. “What duty is thrust upon a man in blue? Do you think a policeman who gets out of his car is required to make an in-depth inquiry with respect to a birth certificate, or is he required to make a split-second judgment to enforce the law?”
Suddenly Evseroff’s voice softened. “The question of whether the guilt of Patrolman Shea has been established beyond a reasonable doubt has to be determined free from any passion. Let’s face it. There was a ten-year-old child killed in connection with this case. And when a ten-year-old child is killed, this is tragic. But notwithstanding the fact that the deceased was ten years old, the question is whether or not the prosecution has established the guilt of Thomas Shea beyond a reasonable doubt. It is the position of the defense in this case that the defendant acted justifiably and that, tragically, a ten-year-old was killed. The District Attorney will make for you the big argument, ‘Where is the gun?’ Mr. Demakos will ask you, ‘If Armstead had a gun, where is it?’ That’s true. They found no gun, but let’s look at the facts. The ten-thirteen alarm was sent out about 5:00 A.M.. The police responded at 5:05. There were five minutes in between that Armstead had to dispose of the gun.”
And then, his voice growing louder, Evseroff came to Armstead.
“Add Armstead testified here. Add Armstead is a convicted rapist, a hoodlum, a gangster, a man who keeps a gun in his place of business and takes it home on occasion. Add Armstead, this fifty-one-year-old man who says to you, ‘We were walking along on New York Boulevard, my step-son and I, my son, my son and I.’ How many times did we hear him refer to that boy as his son?
“It’s not his son,” Evseroff shrieked. “It’s a paramour’s child, the woman with whom he lives, her child. And if there is any significant factor in this case by which you can gauge the kind of person Add Armstead is, look at his conduct. He ran! He split and he ran. He had no more concern for Clifford Glover than the man in the moon. He never looked back and never cared.
“Add Armstead is not stupid. Add Armstead is anything other than what he professes to be on that witness stand. He’s not a sad, pathetic fifty-one-year-old worker. He is a clever, clever man, who takes ten-year-old boys out with him at five in the morning to do whatever he knows should be done. Add Armstead, this convicted rapist, would have you believe that a car pulled up, that a man exited, and that the man said, ‘You black son of a bitch,’ and started firing. That’s what he testified to here. Do you think that Armstead really believed the men who were pursuing him were there to stick him up? You be the judges of that—two white men at 5:00 A.M. in South Jamaica. Or rather do you believe that Add Armstead knew that these men were policemen and that he had reason to run?
“Why did he run?” Evseroff thundered. “I don’t know. But I know that people who run usually have a reason for running, something with respect to guilt. I don’t know if he was ripping off cars. I don’t know if he was doing burglaries. I don’t know what he was doing. Only Armstead knows what he was doing with that little boy at five in the morning.”
Dripping with perspiration, Evseroff again moderated his tone.
“What are we all doing here? Does it make sense to you that Patrolman Shea would get out of that car and not identify himself as a police officer? What possible reason would a police officer have for getting out of a car and not identifying himself? Is that the act of a police officer? Is that the act of a man who is thirty-seven years old with two daughters? Is that the act of a man with thirteen years on the force, who has participated in seven hundred arrests, who himself has made some three hundred?
“Where is the evidence? We have been here for four weeks. And in four weeks, we have heard Add Armstead, eight woodwork witnesses, and a parade of testimony about how the area was searched and there was no gun. The prosecution insults your intelligence by presenting the type of witnesses it did. They put a poor elderly woman by the name of Katie Robinson on the stand. You saw her, a pathetic senile lady. They brought a woman before you by the name of Jane Boolds. Can you imagine the District Attorney bringing for your edification a woman whose brother has been arrested for killing a cop and asking you to accept as gospel her testimony in order to convict one of New York City’s finest? Come on! We don’t live in the Middle Ages. That witness was here for one reason and one reason alone—to get even with every cop that walks the streets because her brother is locked up and is a cop killer. If that isn’t a woodwork witness, I don’t know what is. You decide whether testimony of that ilk satisfies you beyond a reasonable doubt of the guilt of Thomas Shea.”
His voice choked with emotion, Evseroff pointed toward his client. “This policeman here is the kind of man who is on the street; not in an office, not pounding a typewriter, not operating a radio at the communications bureau. This is the cop on the street. This is the policeman who stands between you and me and crime. Of course, he gets involved; of course, he has to use his gun. Does that make him an animal? Does that make him vicious? Does that show that he is dangerous? No! It shows he does his job, that he is out there working.
“Forty-seven people got on this witness stand and attested to Thomas Shea’s good character and reputation for truth, honesty, and peaceableness. Sure, most of those people were policemen. Who should a policeman know? Supreme Court judges? Big shots in Washington? He knows the policemen he works with and the neighbors with whom he lives. This is the measure of a man. Thomas Shea’s crime is that he was doing his job. He was a policeman out there doing what he was paid to do, enforce the law and make arrests.
“Madam and Gentlemen, I speak to you for every man in blue. I speak to you for Thomas Shea. There is no murder here, only a tragedy. Go back, deliberate, and, for the sake of Thomas Shea and every policeman who walks the streets of New York, give us a verdict that speaks truth, law and order, and justice. Thank you.”
It had been a virtuoso performance. Like most trial lawyers, Evseroff believed that “guilt” and “innocence” are often of secondary importance to a jury. Most cases are decided by whether or not the jurors believe the defendant deserves to be punished. It was now up to Thomas Demakos to convince the jury that, in Shea’s case, the answer was “yes.”
Following Evseroff’s summation, Justice Dubin called for a brief recess. Then, shortly before 3:30 P.M., Demakos rose and faced the jurors.
“Justice Dubin, Mr. Evseroff, Mr. Cahill, Lady and Gentlemen of the Jury. The first stage of the trial you heard was what we called the voir dire. And after the selection of the jury, you heard the opening statements. Then there was the third stage, the taking of testimony. We have now reached the summation.”
One by one, in workmanlike fashion, Demakos reviewed the testimony of various witnesses. Only when he reached the testimony of Thomas Shea did his emotions come to the surface.
“Shea tells you that the two individuals ran zigzag. They went southwest, northwest, southwest, northwest, and he was behind them all the time. Can you really believe that, a police officer chasing a kid in circles? And you know, I will tell you why he testified that they went zigzag. Because when Captain Flanagan said to him, ‘It doesn’t sound right that Scott could come over to 112th Road, run into the lot, and see what he said he saw,’ Shea told him, ‘No, they weren’t really running into the lot straight; they went into the lot in a circle.’ Shea then tells you that the boy reached in his pocket and came up with a gun, and he fired three times, after which the boy staggered and passed the gun to his father. But Shea also said the gun was tossed. And another time he said Armstead bent over to take it.”
Then, pulling the Fox map of the shooting site into full view, Demakos tore into Walter Scott with a savagery he had never before mustered.
“What did Scott tell you? After the boy says, ‘Fuck you, you’re not taking me,’ Scott gets out of the car, gets back in the car, drives down New York Boulevard, makes a right turn, and parks his car on 112th Road. He then tells you he gets out of the car, runs into the lot, and sees the shooting.
“Scott never got out of his car on 112th Road,” Demakos roared. “Scott drove all the way to Dillon. That’s where he went into the lot. He was nowhere near when Shea shot that boy. Listen to his testimony. Walter Scott, twenty-six years of age, chasing a fifty-one-year-old man. What did Scott say? He was twenty feet behind Armstead when Armstead pegged a shot. Twenty feet behind him, and what does Scott do? He runs back to his car! He runs back to his car, a distance of over two hundred feet, to drive around and chase Armstead, a fifty-one-year-old man who was only twenty feet away. Incredible! And you people heard the tape. Clear across that tape comes one thing—‘Die, you little fuck.’
“You are not here to judge the moral character of Add Armstead,” Demakos continued. “You are here to judge whether or not he told you the truth; not whether he is a coward, not whether he is living in sin. And his testimony is corroborated by all the police officers who got to the scene. Patrolmen Panico and Alvy say they came down Dillon and spotted Armstead. Armstead was flagging them down. Patrolman Farrell and Patrolman Tom Scott came north on Dillon and saw Armstead. Armstead was flagging them down. Armstead flags down Panico and Alvy. Armstead flags down Scott and Farrell. All of them in patrol cars. Can you really believe Armstead was having a duel with another cop and was out there flagging down police cars.”
His voice cutting through the stifling air, Demakos went on.
“Now, there has been a lot of talk around here about community pressure being exerted on the Police Department to arrest Shea for murder. It wasn’t community pressure. The Police Department themselves, listening to the incredible story of this defendant and Scott, decided to launch an investigation. That’s what started the investigation, not community pressure. And it wasn’t community pressure that placed Shea under arrest. He was arrested by the Police Department, his own peers. They placed him under arrest because they couldn’t believe his incredible story.
“And you heard the searchers. You heard the police officers from the Emergency Services Division. They conducted a search of the whole area with rakes and shovels. Pardon the expression, but those police officers busted their chops looking for that gun Armstead was supposed to have had. They busted their chops for three days, and what did they come up with? A starter’s pistol in the sewer, a toy gun, and the gun Armstead had in the shop.
“Let’s get to that starter’s pistol. No fingerprints; nobody knows how long it was in the sewer. It only fires blanks. You’d have to be a maniac to duel a cop with a blank gun. Then you have Armstead’s gun—the weapon he had at his place of business on New York Boulevard and 115th Road. That gun was silver, not black. And it would have been impossible for Armstead to go all the way to his place of business and get back to Mathias and Dillon before being picked up by Farrell and Tom Scott.
“And, you know,” Demakos went on, his voice suddenly dripping with sarcasm, “it’s the strangest thing. All the police officers talked to Armstead. Not one police officer asked Armstead, ‘What did you do with the gun?’ Don’t you think that would have been a perfectly logical question for a police officer to ask: ‘What did you do with the gun?’ But nobody asked it. Do you know why? Because there wasn’t a single police officer who believed Shea’s incredible story.
“I can’t help but feel indignation at the colossal gall, the colossal arrogance of this defendant in concocting the incredible preposterous story of a ten-year-old boy, soaking wet ninety-eight pounds, turning around to take a shot at him and then, after he is shot, passing the gun to his fifty-one-year-old father. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about this case. That boy never turned around with a gun in his hand. He was shot square in the back. The bullet went in almost dead center. That boy never turned around. He just kept running and running and running with his back to the defendant. He ran and he ran and he ran for his dear life until he was struck down by a bullet in the back. I ask that you return a verdict of guilty.”
In the wake of Demakos’s summation, there was absolute silence. Finally, Justice Dubin spoke.
“Lady and Gentlemen of the Jury. Now that we are at the end of trial, it is more important than ever that you not read any newspapers or talk to anyone about this case. Don’t go to the scene. Don’t watch the news on television. When you are through with this case, you can read all the back newspapers you want. But from now until after your deliberations, I don’t want anything to interfere with your verdict. We will start here tomorrow morning at ten o’clock. There is nothing more important in your whole life than that which you are going to do tomorrow. Nothing!”