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THE NEXT DAY WAS JAM-packed for Naim as he choreographed his offensive actions. He honestly didn’t give Brandy much thought working through the morning and, most of it slipped by the same way.
By noon he was sitting in a Baker and Keefe conference room, awaiting his team. He had the biography and resume of AUSA Shai Brown in front of him. The career prosecutor had grown into a sleek, tall gentleman with an Arab’s bronzed allure, a man of high expectations and opportunity. Naim wanted to deny him any advancement, resulting from winning this case. Naim had an awareness of himself as being sharp-tongued, cynical, and keenly aware of the nature of prosecutors in general. He laughed because, Shai Brown, thought of him as an idiot. Strikingly sad and wickedly wrong.
When Margaret, Christina and Daniel filed into the room, they wore the same aloof mugs as the first day he’d met them. Naim e-mailed his team a memo of potential strategies that he wanted investigated, and he was certain that the efficient troika arrived to deliver.
“Did you all meet up before walking in here?” Naim asked, shaking their hands.
“No. Good time management. Noon means noon,” replied Daniel Watts. He was in a brown suit with brown and mustard Cole Haan wingtips.
“OK,” Naim said plainly. He didn’t like the paralegal’s tone. “Take seats and let’s get started.”
The secretary slid a folder across the table to Naim and both paralegals. “Just before I came up here, the indictment was filed on PACER. I’ve printed you all a copy of it, and it’s in the folder. Included therein is the charged statues from Title 18, for quick reference.”
“Thank you,” Naim said, watching the paralegals at work on iPads.
“One more thing,” Margaret said, her thick eyebrows rising to the sky. “Shai, presented the judge with an application for a search warrant pursuant to Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and Title 18 Section 2703(a), (b) and (c) to compel Facebook, Inc. to disclose certain records and contents of electronic communications relating to the Facebook account identified by the username: David Goliath Thurman. I’ve printed the affidavit, and there’s an emergency hearing set for two o’clock today, as they want the Facebook data to bolster the idea that Thurman should be detained without bail, so they need the info for a detention hearing,”
“Bullshit,” Christina said. “This is a cheap ploy to get data for trial to establish premeditation for the murders.”
“Couldn’t we simply waive the detention hearing or stipulated to detention at arraignment, making the warrant moot?” Naim asked.
“You could try,” Daniel said, “but that’ll be Thurman’s call. There may not be anything there, and he’d lose the opportunity for bail in the future if this case doesn’t go to trial in say two years.”
“Well, I will briefly chat with him before I lead to the hearing, so we need to speed this up,” Naim said, flipping through the indictment. “You guys correctly surmised the charges. But, I see that the indictment lacks an overt acts section. As predicted we have six counts of murder of an officer and employee of the U.S. One count of first-degree murder. Two counts of attempted murder. Two counts of discharging of firearm during a crime of violence. Are the senator’s and justice’s security details covered by Section 1114?”
“Yes, they were not department store doormen. They were deputy U.S. marshals, according to the indictment.” They’re within the ambit of federal officers covered by 1111 and 1114, according to Lucus v. United States, a D.C. Circuit case, dating back to 1977,” said Christina. “More recently, though, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in U.S. v. Torres in 1998 that when Congress enacted 1114, Congress intended to safeguard others performing federal functions as well as federal officers. Similarly in 2011, the First Circuit held that a detective with a municipal police department who had been deputized as a special federal officer was within the purview if 1111 and 1114 in U.S. v. Luna. In short, everyone is count one through six applies.”
“OK,” Naim said, “what about them proving premeditation? Why couldn’t he have want to talk or demand, and that escalated to murder. Heat of passion? I’m asking?”
Daniel scoffed, and said, “Absurd. No jury in D.C. will buy that, first of all. Second, he killed the guards before he even got to the Justice and Senator.”
“First of all,” Naim replied, “you don’t know what a jury will buy with this charming face calling it that,” causing a chuckle to escape from everyone. “Second, we have no idea if they can prove the order that he killed these people. I hate to sound so calloused, but he could have crept into the homes, killed the targets and got the guards on the way out. Or someone else killed them all. Or the agents were killed outside before he got there and he stepped over them and killed the man and woman of the house. Limitless possibilities.”
“Let’s not speculate too much here. I’ll prepare a Motion for Bill of Particulars. We will be better served with absolutes. I can absolutely tell you,” Christina began confidently, “that in establishing premeditation, the government is not required to show that Thurman deliberated for any particular length of time before perpetrating the murders. Two seconds will suffice. We have a dead Supreme Court justice, here folks.”
“Good points,” Naim said, “I absolutely know that murder is a specific intent crime. Proof that the deed was done with premeditation is necessary. This is why they’ve submitted this foolish warrant to acquire all of his FB content. They need to find something to establish premeditation. I frankly don’t believe that they have absolute proof of that or that he even killed anyone. The ATM video cannot possibly be their only piece to connect him to his crime. But what if that is it?”
Daniel said, “You’re on the right path, but don’t forget the mental health angle. Premeditation may be amply found to exist where on the day of the murders, Thurman entered the home, mounted a flight of stairs that led directly to the justice’s bedroom. Literally stalked the victims in their home. Carried a murder weapon. And upon finding the victims, coolly took his knife and carved them up. The scene had handcuffs, will they be proven to be his. This case needs a savior, and a mental health defense is your Superman because only an insane person planned and did these acts.”
Margaret added, “You have an appointment tomorrow in New York with Dr. Todd Rothman. He received his psychiatric training at St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York as a Fellow of the Columbia University College of Physicians Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. He’s a long-standing member of The American Psychiatric Association. Since 1987 to be precise.”
“I assure you,” Daniel said, smiling, “In a prosecution under 1111, testimony of several psychiatrists that Thurman, at the time of commission of these murders, was schizophrenic and had no awareness of rightness or wrongness of his act, which evidence is substantial and reasonably impressive, will place a heavy burden on the government of proving that Thurman was sane beyond a reasonable doubt at the time the crimes were committed.”
“But they’ll say he was a smart, happy-go-lucky kinda guy,” Naim said. “They’ve interacted with him at Capitol Hill and on the Supreme Court’s steps.”
“And not one iota of that will be sufficient to support a finding of sanity by a jury where there is a complete absence of evidence showing he was sane at the critical time when the killing occurred.” Daniel removed his glasses, before moving on. “We’re going to the emergency status hearing, and then, we’re headed to visit the wife at jail. Visits are over at three, so Margaret while we’re at court, we need you to contact the jail and inform them of our emergency visit.”
“You all have this all figured out, I see,” Naim said.
“We do,” replied Christina.
“Behind every good lawyer is a great paralegal,” said Daniel.
“And legal secretaries,” Margaret said, forcing smiles to spread across everyone’s face.