Wasted by Linda Wolfe

Author:Linda Wolfe [Wolfe, Linda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780786754700
Publisher: Open Road Media

7.

Rough Sex

Jack Litman of Litman, Asche, Lupkin and Gioiella was one of the most sought-after criminal defense attorneys in New York. His very posture radiated that fact. Chest forward, shoulder blades so taut they looked starched, he stood like a man who had never known a moment of less than complete self-confidence. He’d always had that look, even back in the days when he was starting out as a lowly assistant in the Manhattan district attorney’s office. Even then he’d known he was going places. And so had most people who met him. He’d had the kind of smarts that set him off from his fellows, and few had been surprised when within four years he’d become the star of the office’s elite Homicide Squad.

By the time he was thirty-one years old, he’d struck out on his own. Gone to the other side. The place where the money was. It had been time to go. In his handful of years in the DA’s office, he’d tried close to forty cases and lost only one.

On the morning of August 27, 1986, Litman was at the height of his career. He’d been in private practice for twelve years, handled everything from securities fraud to murder, and had a string of dramatic wins. There’d been the Brooklyn policeman who’d shot the unarmed black man. Acquittal. A Bronx policeman who’d shot two unarmed Hispanics. Acquittal. A business magnate accused of insider trading. Charges dismissed. A bank robber caught only moments after he fled the teller’s counter, a clutch of stolen money and even a hand-it-over note still in his possession. Acquittal.

Litman had also had a couple of clients accused of murder for whom he’d gotten convictions on lesser charges. One had been a seventeen-year-old boy who according to the police had repeatedly bashed his girlfriend’s head with a rock. Litman persuaded the boy’s jury that his client had merely pushed the girl away from him and that in falling she’d hit her head on the rock. Another client—his most famous to date—had been Richard Herrin, a Mexican-American who won a scholarship to Yale and subsequently hammered to death Bonnie Garland, a fellow Yalie with whom he’d fallen in love. Herrin had confessed to killing Garland; he’d even told police he’d begun thinking about doing her in hours before he actually did. But Litman convinced Herrin’s jury that the young man had been suffering from extreme emotional disturbance, and got him convicted of manslaughter rather than murder.

Many people condemned Litman for his victories. Called him a soulless man. But he let the condemnation run off his back like water down a granite wall. The public didn’t understand the Constitution, he often said. The rights of the accused. Spelled out by our Founding Fathers. Those were sacred rights. Holy. He believed ardently in the Constitution and frequently spoke on panels explaining and defending it. He also believed ardently in the family. Had a secret side hidden beneath his arrogant stance and razorsharp observations. He could be

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