Defending Jacob

by William Landay

At some point as adults we cease to be our parents’ children and we become our children’s parents instead.

“That murder might be any business of the state is a relatively modern idea. For most of human history, homicide has been a purely private affair. In traditional societies, a killing was simply the occasion for a dispute between two clans. The killer’s family or tribe was expected to resolve the dispute equitably by some sort of offering to the victim’s family or tribe. The restitution varied from society to society. It might involve anything from a fine to the death of the murderer (or a stand-in). If the victim’s kin was unsatisfied, a blood feud might ensue. This pattern endured across many centuries and many societies.… Current practice notwithstanding, by long tradition murder has been strictly a family matter.” —JOSEPH EISEN, Murder: A History (1949)

A liberal, it turns out, is a conservative who’s been indicted.

He put his hand on Jacob’s back, not for Jacob’s benefit but to make a point: This boy is no monster, I am not afraid to touch him. And more: I am not simply a hired gun doing my professional duty for a distasteful client. I believe in this kid. I am his friend.

One idiot, whatever. I mean, it’s not like kids have never said anything bad about me, Dad. They do it to my face. What do you think school is? This”—he gestured with his chin toward the graffiti on the house—“this is just a different platform.”

Try as I might to penetrate her, by talking, kissing, stabbing myself into her, the best I would ever do was to know her just a little.

no one worth knowing can be quite known, no one worth possessing can be quite possessed—but

There is an ancient rule: actus non facit reum nisi mens sit rea—“the act does not create guilt unless the mind is also guilty.”

I think of it this way: if Yo-Yo Ma had a son, the kid wouldn’t be born knowing how to play the cello. He’d have to learn to play the cello just like everyone else. The most you can inherit is talent, potential.

But I knew Jacob, I knew my kid, and I loved him and I believed in him. And I still do. I’m sticking with him.”

Alt past and present tense

“Once—this was like last fall, I guess?—Jake found this dog. Just, like, a little mutt. He was lost, I guess, but he wasn’t a stray because he had a collar on. Jake had him on, like, a string? You know, instead of a leash?” “Jacob never had a dog,” I said. Derek nodded at me with that same sad expression, as if it was his duty to explain this to Jacob’s poor, clueless father. He seemed to know, finally, how oblivious parents can be, and it disappointed him.

“I saw him later and I asked him about the dog, and Jake was like, ‘I had to bury it.’ So I was like, ‘You mean, it died?’ And he wouldn’t really answer. He was just like, ‘Dude, I had to bury it.’ I didn’t see Jake for a while after that, ’cause I sort of knew, you know? Like I knew it was bad. And there were these posters. Like the family that owned the dog, they put up these posters all over the place, like stapled on phone poles and trees, you know? Like with pictures of this dog? And I never said anything about it, and finally the family stopped putting up the posters, and I just kind of tried to forget about it.”

This is an aspect of crime stories I never fully appreciated until I became one: it is so ruinously expensive to mount a defense that, innocent or guilty, the accusation is itself a devastating punishment. Every defendant pays a price.

Witness: Tell them, Neal. Go on, tell them how you knew Leonard Patz. Tell them what the jury never heard. Mr. Logiudice: Let’s move on.

Witness: Quote: “There is insufficient evidence as yet to conclude definitively whether Jacob adequately perceives the distinction between right and wrong and can adequately govern his behavior to act according to that distinction. There may be sufficient evidence, however, to support a colorable argument relying on genetic and neurological evidence based on a theory of ‘irresistible impulse.’ ” Unquote.

Witness: Quote: “Jacob exhibits behavior and expresses thoughts and inclinations, both in private session and in his history outside direct clinical observation, that would support any or all of the following diagnoses in isolation or in combination: reactive attachment disorder, narcissistic personality disorder”—look, if you’re asking me to comment on a psychiatrist’s clinical diagnosis—

Witness: Quote: “The best way to summarize this entire constellation of observations—lack of empathy, difficulties with impulse control, occasional cruelty—is to say that Jacob resembles the Grinch of Dr. Seuss: ‘His heart is two sizes too small.’ ” Unquote.

No. Have you ever heard of confirmation bias? Confirmation bias is the tendency to see things in your environment that confirm your preconceived ideas and not see things that conflict with what you already believe. I think maybe something like that happens with kids. You see what you want to see.

“I have in mind an experiment. Take an infant—regardless of ancestry, race, talent, or predilection, so long as he is essentially healthy—and I will make of him whatever you like. I will produce an artist, soldier, doctor, lawyer, priest; or I will raise him to be a thief. You may decide. The infant is equally capable of all these things. All that is required is training, time, and a properly controlled environment.” —JOHN F. WATKINS, Principles of Behaviorism (1913)

I have an idea that this is what enduring love really means. Your memories of a girl at seventeen become as real and vivid as the middle-aged woman sitting in front of you. It is a happy sort of double vision, this seeing and remembering. To be seen this way is to be known.

when Neal Logiudice was in high school struggling to maintain a busy schedule of A.P. classes, band, and compulsive masturbation. (I am speculating. I cannot say for sure that he was in the band.) Nils

“I want to know how the kid’s trial is going.” “What do you care?” “He’s my grandson. I want to know.”

“Yeah, your name came up. See, even sitting in prison, you’re still screwing your family over.” “Oh, junior, don’t be such a pisser. The kid’s gonna get off.” “You think so? You figure you’re a pretty good lawyer, Mister Life-Without-Parole?” “I know a few things.” “You know a few things. Pff. Do me a favor, Clarence Darrow: don’t call here and tell me my business. I’ve already got a lawyer.”

“Everybody needs a father, everybody needs a father. You need me now more than ever. How else are you gonna prove that ‘irresistible impulse’ thing?”

“Listen to me, junior, I don’t need no cake with a file in it, all right? You know why? I’ll tell you why. ’Cause I’m not in prison.” “No. Did they let you out?” “They don’t have to let me out.” “They don’t? Let me give you a tip, crazy old man. That big building with the bars? The one they never let you out of? That’s called a prison, and you are definitely in it.”

“No. See, now you’re the one that doesn’t get it, junior. All they got locked up in this hole is my body. That’s all they got, my body, not me. I’m everywhere, see? Everywhere you look, junior, everywhere you go. Okay? Now, you just keep my grandkid out of this place. You got that, junior?”

“Why don’t you do it? You’re ...

“Maybe I will. Maybe I’ll fly rig...

This is the best thing about men’s friendships: most any awkwardness can be ignored by mutual agreement and, true connection being unimaginable, you can get on with the easier business of parallel living.

Logiudice had a case with him when he was in the Child Abuse Unit. It was a rape. Logiudice broke it down to indecent A&B and pleaded it out.”

Before I got into bed twenty minutes later, I raised the bedroom shade to peek out at the street. The black cruiser was still there, as I knew it would be.

But her confidence must have faltered, because only a few seconds later, as she lay on her side facing me, she whispered, “What if he went to Buenos Aires and killed someone there?”

“Andy, what if we’re the ones who are wrong? What if he gets off and then, God forbid, he does it again? Don’t we have some responsibility?”

“What? Who confessed?” “Patz.”

“Hung himself.”

Jacob had actually been proven innocent.

Logiudice filed a nol pros—a nolle prosequi, which announced the government’s decision to drop the charges.

Go without day. The awkward legal formulation that is the defendant’s ticket out. It means, You may go without any more court days scheduled—go and not come back.

“Friend of your father’s. He asked me to look out for you.”

“Tell your old man I said hello, all right?” Father O’Leary said. “Jesus, I could tell you stories about him.” “Don’t. Please.”

In fact, homeschooling might have suited him best from the start. It gave him the best part of school, the “content” (his word), without the myriad complications of girls, sex, sports, bullies, peer pressure, cliques—the complication of other kids, basically.

Damage hardens us all. It will harden you too, when it finds you—and it will find you.

It is the policeman’s dilemma: sometimes you can’t prove the case without a confession, but you can’t get a confession unless you already have proof.

He resigned from the DA’s office soon after. He is a defense lawyer in Boston now.

He said there’d been an accident. Laurie and Jacob were in the car, on the pike, and it went off the road. He said Jacob was dead. Laurie was banged up pretty bad but she would make it.