The Best Defense by Ellis Cose

Author:Ellis Cose
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 1998-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

9

A colleague of Mario’s was fond of comparing a high-profile trial to a championship prizefight. At the arraignment, as at the announcement of the boxing match, there was a flurry of media activity. Then press interest tapered off as the adversaries withdrew to prepare and to contemplate each other’s weaknesses. Finally, as the day of the contest approached, anticipation mounted, and the world, once again mindful of the combatants, began to scream for blood. The analogy was far from perfect, but it seemed to Mario to be a fair description of the dynamics in the Wisocki case. Certainly, as the trial date approached, interest had resurged.

He could track the public’s emotional engagement by the size of the protest demonstrations, which, in a stubborn show of resolve, the Reverend Flores continued to hold—though sporadically—throughout the fall and early winter. Flores broadened his rhetorical focus beyond Wisocki to the justice system in general—to its treatment of defendants of color and to the dearth of Latino prosecutors and judges; but as the temperature dropped and press coverage died down, he had a progressively harder time drawing a crowd.

Nonetheless, Flores persevered, even on days when so few people showed up that his assemblage looked more like a discussion group than a protest rally. But as the trial approached and the media presence increased, so did the size of Flores’s flock. And today, the first day of jury selection—with Wisocki again on the evening news and with the tabloids running banner headlines pegged to the case—Flores’s followers had come out in numbers. He no longer, however, had the stage to himself. Several black preachers and protest leaders had joined the parade and would take turns, along with Flores, leading the protesters in rhythmical chants.

Also, a group of counterprotesters had sprung up. They were, for the most part, rather shabbily dressed and virtually all were white. Marching under the banner of something calling itself Citizens for Equality in Society, they shouted slogans against welfare, affirmative action, and big government when they weren’t chanting “John Wisocki, innocent!”

Mario tried, as best he could, to ignore the circus outside. His job, he repeatedly reminded himself, was to focus on the show inside: on the elements of the case he could actually influence or control. Still, his mind wandered. He found himself wishing that it were colder. In his imagination, the spring-like January warmth that encouraged crowds and stirred emotions was swept away by a raging snowstorm that left everything frozen and pure. When he glanced outside the courtroom window, however, the sun beamed bright as a billion beacons. The possibility of a snowstorm was about as remote as the possibility of a visit from Zeus.

Mario drew comfort from the fact that he had won the last pretrial skirmish with Felicia. It was a sign, he believed, that, in the end, this case would not turn on technicalities but on the facts of the crime. The dispute concerned a search warrant that had been executed at Wisocki’s home for files from his company-furnished computer.

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