A Criminal Injustice by Richard Firstman

Author:Richard Firstman [Firstman, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-345-50967-3
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2008-12-30T05:00:00+00:00

ASIDE FROM providing a glimpse of the tensions between Seymour Tank -leff and Jerry Steuerman, Mike McClure's appearance had another purpose. He was one of several people Gottlieb put on the stand to counter the image of Marty created by the prosecution, and because the McClures spent a period of concentrated time with the Tankleffs just a month and a half before the murders, Gottlieb also called Marianne and Jennifer.

“They were a great family,” Mike said of Marty and Arlene and Seymour. Marianne recalled a moment during the July visit when she and her sister talked about how they felt about their children. “And without saying what Arlene said,” Gottlieb asked—hearsay, again—“can you please tell us what you said?” “I said that my relationship…” Marianne began, then suddenly broke into tears. “Excuse me…. My relationship with my daughter was one of the purest and most honest I've ever had. And that's how we felt about our children.”

“And that's how you felt about your children?” Gottlieb echoed, hoping the jury would properly infer that Arlene felt the same way about Marty as Marianne felt about Jennifer.

“Yeah,” Marianne said, still sniffling.

The McClures testified to Marty's devotion to family. Jennifer talked about how attentive her cousin was during their visit, how nice a time he showed her and her younger stepsister, Christy They testified to his in-dustriousness. He was already at his job at the bagel store before they were up and they marveled at how much he did around the house—anything to help out, what with Uncle Seymour's health not being too great. They testified to Marty's contentment with his car. “We were in his car driving home,” Jennifer recounted, “and I said, ‘Don't you wish you had a smaller car?’ Because it was so big. It was like driving a boat. And he said, ‘No, because this is safer. My mom feels better with me in this car.’” Did he ever complain about his father restricting him from using the Boston Whaler?

Never, said Jennifer. In fact, “Uncle Seymour encouraged Marty to take us around on the boat.”

The car and the boat were, by necessity as much a recurring theme of the defense case as they were of the prosecution's. It was an element of the testimony by several of Marty's friends who followed the McClures to the stand. “We basically spent the whole summer together. We did everything together,” said Mark Perrone, and “since I didn't have a car, we used his car all the time, wherever we went.” How did Marty feel about his car? “He wanted to fix it up, mint it out, meaning making it perfect, you know, fixing it up totally, complete.”

“What if any complaints did Marty ever make about his car?” Gottlieb asked.

“He never made any complaints about his car,” Mark said.

Like most of Marty's peers who found themselves in the unnerving position of testifying in his murder trial, Mark was uneasy on the stand, straining to conduct himself properly. He referred to his best high

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