In The Plan - 7. Chapter 7

7

Damon Jenkins was happy when Ben Carleson turned up at his desk. Jenkins had been a prosecutor for over twenty years, so he wasn't inexperienced. But the office had never been as busy as it presently was, and on top of that, he'd just been assigned a case that seemed partly political.

No one wanted to prosecute a cop. There were bad ones, and they certainly deserved to be put away, or at least taken off the force. But most cops were decent, hard-working people, and if they got drunk once in a while and picked up a speeding ticket or had a little accident only involving their own cars, well, people were human. Plus, people working under the kind of stress that some cops did needed to be a bit more than human.

Still, this one hadn't just been driving a little drunk and hadn't only had an accident involving himself. This one had been extremely drunk, had a big old accident with lots of people nearby, totaled his vintage sports car, and nearly killed himself and the friend who was with him. At least, the cop was off duty.

But the accident had made the local paper - Newsday - and the local newscasts - well, not so local when you're under twenty miles from New York City. Seventeen miles from Manhattan though right across the border from Queens. If the accident happened less than a mile west, it would have been handled by the city cops.

The Nassau County police gave Jenkins advantages and disadvantages. As did the fact that time had passed. A summons was issued almost immediately after the accident - while the poor cop was still in rehab. How's that for a second kick? Then there was some dicking around: "Does he really need to stand trial?" "Can't we just kick him off the force?" "Can't we suspend him for the three-or-four months it's gonna take him to recuperate? - he's pretty broken up." Or "Can't we just fine his ass so heavily the jerk'll never walk again?"

That was unnecessarily mean, since - one month after the accident - the guy wasn't exactly dancing. Not only did he have a whole list of broken bones, but the ER doctors had sliced him open to make sure he wasn't internally bleeding. Gut-shot by a steering wheel, Jenkins thought. Or a vintage gear shift. He wasn't sure. And more gut-poked. Skewered. Spindled. Knifed.

By the time the case came to his office, it had dragged on for a year. That was good because it put the accident out of the public's mind. Meanwhile, the cop had found himself a hotshot local lawyer, and this upwardly mobile attorney had hired an expert witness just off a national trial. That expert claimed the drunk cop wasn't driving: his supposed passenger was - which was just sad. The young, drunk, possibly stupid cop had almost killed one of his close drinking buddies, and now that loyal sucker was being blamed for his own injuries. More political mayhem.

Jenkins didn't want the case, but he'd been assigned to it - a mere three weeks before it went to trial - because no one else wanted it, either.

"You have more experience," he was told. "You're good at this kind of thing."

"Well, gee, golly, thanks," he'd wanted to sass. "I always wanted to be a sacrificial lamb." But you don't get sarcastic with your superiors.

And maybe his boss was right - he was good in this kind of delicate situation. Or had been once. Even if he still believed in the law - and he did, and it was how he and his wife had raised their now-almost-grown children - still, as his parents reminded him every time it happened into conversation, "Are you ever sorry you didn't go into private practice?" They always asked with the best intentions, but Jenkins knew exactly where those led.

So when Ben Carleson sat down at Jenkins's cheap, cluttered desk, he was faced with a man about his age who had gone into private practice. Slick haircut. Tailored suit. Designer shirt and tie. Expensive shoes. And probably a sports car of his own in the parking lot - a BMW, Mercedes, or Porsche.

"How can I help you?" Jenkins asked.

"How can I help you?" Carleson volleyed right back.

Jenkins knew Carleson was the passenger's personal injury lawyer. He couldn't remember how he knew that, but it was on some piece of paper that cluttered his desk or on some digital note in his as-overflowing computer files. So he'd recognized the name immediately when it turned up as part of a message on his voice mail. "Sure," he'd said when he returned the call, "it would be good to meet you." But what could Carleson actually do for him?

To begin with, he laid out the case better than Jenkins had. Pulling up a chair, he quickly diagramed the problem on a legal pad, highlighting the goals and obstacles. The guy was precise.

To be fair, Jenkins hadn't actually started his preliminary work, so it was easy for Carleson to be better prepared. But was Jenkins a little threatened? Yeah, that, too. He also couldn't get past the fact that he had to prosecute a young, good-looking cop - and an Army vet as well. It wasn't going to play.

The one thing he didn't have to ask Carleson was, "Why are you helping me so much?" The man would have just smiled. He had good teeth, too, but almost every lawyer did, even public prosecutors.

"Because if you do your job in court," Carleson would have said, "I don't have to do mine there. You know that no reasonable insurance company is going to try a case once someone's been convicted on criminal charges."

Jenkins knew that. Though he also knew that when someone was acquitted in a criminal trial, it didn't mean the civil lawyers were screwed. They could win due to burden of proof. And they only needed to prove the cop was driving by a Preponderance of Evidence - often 51% - not unanimously. In the legal world, this was known as "slightly tilting the scales."

"So you're doing my job now," Jenkins almost joked.

Carleson merely smiled, and Jenkins wondered how much money was in play. Insurance coverage in New York ran high, and if the cop was convicted, the pay-out could easily top a million. Carleson would get a nice chunk. No wonder he was doing his job.

"There's something else," Carleson added. "I don't have the same conflicts clouding my view that you seem to - this political thing. I'm not prosecuting a police officer. I'm suing the guy who was driving the car."

Jenkins admitted that.

"And this case isn't hard," Carleson went on. "The cop was drunk. He was driving. He screwed up. The only bizarre thing is his defense - that he wasn't at the wheel."

"That is weird."

"No kidding. And that he can't remember anything - not even when he was still in the bar, when he and my client were getting ready to leave. That's so much lawyer and doctor BS. No one believes in amnesia anymore. Not as a defense. Not even in movies or on TV. It's out of Hollywood in the 30s, when psychology was new and just catching on. The next thing he'll invent is an evil twin."

Jenkins laughed. Carleson was good.

And we have credible witnesses," Carleson continued. "A ton of them. My nearly sober client. A handful of bar friends who've known the cop for years. His business partner. The bar owner and head bartender. At the crash scene: one eyewitness who saw the sandy, longish hair of the driver - which doesn't describe my client at all. Another eyewitness who saw the passenger of the car as it fish-tailed by - a much closer to a match for my client. The owner of the liquor store van the car wrecked. A handful of observant bystanders. And all the cops and paramedics who responded to the accident. Admittedly, the defense has an equal boatload of witnesses, ready to cite what they claim they saw. But so much of both sides is circumstantial. So much depends on what the jury believes. So the defense is depending on a 'national expert' to dazzle them - and you know you can pay an 'expert' to say anything you want. So what you need - as the prosecutor - is an expert who's as good - to balance their guy's opinion. That'll wipe the board clean. Then let your local witnesses do their jobs."

Jenkins tried to take all that in. "Sounds easy enough." He was kidding, but Carleson ignored that.

"It gets even better," he insisted. "My client is the nicest guy you'd ever want to meet - absolutely credible. In the year I've represented him, I haven't met one person - not one - who hasn't said he's well liked. He's their guy at work. He's their best neighbor. He volunteers at church, and the Little League, and for the Scouts - even though his sons are now grown. Plus, he remembers everything that happened in the bar. He knows both what he said and what the cop did. He has a clear memory of what happened right up to their leaving, and the things he was foggy about happening immediately before the crash are coming back. On top of that, he had this conversation with the cop - before the police report even came out and the summons was issued - where the cop accused him of driving. That's like handing someone a gun."

"It is," Jenkins acknowledged.

"Their whole idiotic defense comes down to, "I don't remember, therefore I wasn't."

"Absolutely dumb."

"Yes - yes, it is." Carleson paused to laugh. "So we just need to find a expert - an established, local one for greater credibility - to counter their ringer."

"That shouldn't be hard."

"Three weeks before a trial is way too tight. Do you have someone in mind, or do you need me to try and find somebody?"

Jenkins thought about that. It was tempting to let Carleson do all of his job. He had way too much work, was short on time, and Carleson probably had a better staff and more resources. But he couldn't let himself seem so weak - almost so inept - that Carleson would feel uncomfortable.

"Nah," Jenkins said. "We'll be fine." Besides, he was thinking, We probably couldn't afford your expert.

"You're sure?" Carleson persisted.

"Definitely. I've got a guy who does this for me all the time."

"Good," Carleson said. And they confirmed this by shaking hands. "But call me if you need anything - and I mean anything. Plus, I'll stay in touch."

"Thanks," Jenkins agreed, and he wondered if he'd said that too often.

Carleson grinned one more time, then left, seeming confident. But getting into his car, he didn't feel very good about the whole thing.