A Matter of Conviction

“No, huh? You’d be surprised.” Holmes paused. “You still haven’t convinced me that I should reassign this case.”

“Let’s simply say that the defense may concoct some yarn about the unconscious prejudice of the People’s attorney.”

“Then you don’t like Puerto Ricans?”

“I wasn’t speaking of that kind of prejudice.”

“Then what kind?”

“Ephraim, I can’t explain this to you. I want out. I want to drop the case. I’ve barely begun working on it, so there’ll be no real loss of time or energy. And I think the office will benefit by my withdrawal.”

“You think so, do you? And whom would you suggest I assign this to?”

“That’s your job, not mine.”

“Have you ever known me to snow you, Hank?”

“No.”

“All right then. When I tell you you’re the best damn prosecutor on this staff, you’ll know I’m not just making noises. This is an important case, more important than you—”

“It’s just another murder, Ephraim. We prosecute hundreds of murder cases each—”

“It’s not just another murder, and don’t you think that for a minute. It’s damn important. I want you to prosecute it, and the Boss wants you to prosecute it, and I’m not going to reassign it unless you can give me a better reason than you’ve given me so far.”

“All right,” Hank said, sighing. “I know the mother of one of the boys. Di Pace.”

“She’s a friend of yours?”

“No, not exactly. I knew her when I was a kid — before I went into the Army.”

“How well did you know her?”

“We were going steady, Ephraim.”

“Mmm. I see,” Holmes said.

“I asked her to wait for me when I went away. I got a Dear John while I was overseas. I never saw her again until this morning.”

“This all happened how long ago?”

“About fifteen years, I guess.”

“That’s a long time ago, Hank.”

“Yes, but the defense might use it, and it might weaken our case.”

“I don’t see how.”

“Suppose they put Mary on the stand? Suppose she claims she jilted me in 1943 and that petty revenge is the People’s motive in pushing for the death penalty?”

“How well did you know her, Hank?”

“I told you. We were—”

“Did you go to bed with her?”

“No. Nothing like that.”

“Might she perjure herself along those lines?”

“To save her son? She might do or say anything.”

“I still don’t think it’ll hurt us. Either way.”

“I wish I could agree with you.”

“Let me explain this case a little, Hank. You said it was just another murder, and I told you it wasn’t. Would you like to know why?”

“Yes, I would.”

“Okay. To begin with, this whole damn juvenile-delinquency thing is giving the city a fat pain in the foot. Everybody’s screaming about it, the cops, the schools, the judges, the press, the grand juries, the whole town’s suddenly full of experts who’ve just discovered that two per cent or more of the nation’s kids wind up before the courts each year. And do you know what they’re all screaming? ‘Let’s get tough! Expel the troublemakers from the schools! Fine the parents! Impose curfews! Give them stiff jail sentences! Stop the murderers! Show them we mean business!’

“God knows, they all mean business and they’re all in the same business, but they’re like a bunch of corporation vice-presidents who can’t seem to decide on the best way to sell their line. Maybe they’ll never decide, but that’s not our problem. I’m only telling you this to illustrate the first pressure being put on this office. We’re being urged in a thousand and one indirect ways to use these killers as examples. We’re being pressured to send them to the electric chair so that others will take heed of the terrible sword of justice.”

“Ephraim, this office has never buckled under to—”

“That’s number one, Hank, and only the beginning, and I think you’ll see in a minute why this is an important case requiring the best legal mind on our staff. Number two is the tolerance groups. Now, the kid who was killed was Puerto Rican. The Puerto Rican people in this city are probably the most oppressed people in the world, the new scapegoats, the new whipping posts for a neurotic society. Whenever a Puerto Rican commits a crime, the newspapers have a field day, playing on an undeniably existing prejudice to form a ready-made villain. I don’t want to go into the psychological relation of crime to minority groups. I just want to say this. This time, the victim is a Puerto Rican. And the tolerance groups have all piled on the band wagon demanding equal justice — and reasonably, I feel — for the dead Rafael Morrez. In short, we’re not only being asked to get tough, we’re being asked to get tough indiscriminately, to show that we’ll take no nonsense from any killer, white, black, brown or tan. We’re being asked to show that justice is not only terrible, it is also fair.”

“I see what you’re driving at,” Hank said. “I still think any other person on the staff—”