Authors: Jilliane Hoffman
95
The courtroom was completely quiet as Rick sat down by himself at the State’s table, which everyone could notice had a conspicuously empty seat at it. Her absence this morning had been the talk of all the papers, all the tabloids, all the talk shows, all the news programs. All morning, all over the world.
After the hush of stunned silence finally broke into excited whispers, Farley declared it was time for lunch and recessed court till 2 p.m.
Julia sat on her living-room couch chewing on what remained of her thumbnail, in her pajamas and slippers. She stared blankly at the TV as the commentators quickly took to the air to analyze what Rick Bellido had said, and what it meant, and what the jury must be thinking, and what this must mean for the defense. The consensus among all, she saw as she flipped through the channels, was that Rick had delivered a brilliant closing argument.
As she watched, one by one, the parade of well-coiffed, smiling analysts disparaged her name, seemingly disregarding everything that had transpired just last week. Rick had exacted his revenge on her. He had discredited her and her direct exam of Barakat as much as he could without discrediting his case. She was the inexperienced, naïve fool here.
She finally walked into the kitchen and made herself a pot of coffee for lunch. She opened another pack of cigarettes and sat at the kitchen table, her head buried in her hands.
And she didn’t answer the phone, no matter how many times it rang.
96
At 61 years of age, 6′2″ and 310 pounds, Mel Levenson might not be a match for Rick Bellido’s looks or his suave Spanish charm in a courtroom, but he certainly had more experience with a jury. Thirty-six years of it. And that was a hell of a lot more than what Bellido and his Cupcake of the Month had. He rose slowly from his seat and lumbered over to the jury. He could tell from the jurors’ faces – those that would look at him, anyways – that he was down a point or two. So he knew he’d better make every word count if there was any hope of keeping his client off of death row.
‘I’ve been doing this a long time, folks,’ Mel began with a smile in a friendly, conversational tone. ‘A long time. And I always like to remind the jury that whatever the prosecutor or I say in closing arguments is not evidence. No matter how we say it, no matter what we say, and no matter how convinced we may look while we’re saying it. Closing arguments are just an opportunity for the State and the defense to sum up the case, and what
they
think the evidence presented during the trial. But it’s not evidence. That’s not always easy to remember when you have someone as well-dressed and good-looking and convincing as Mr Bellido up here telling you how it is you should see things,’ he said, throwing his smile in the direction of the State’s table. The courtroom tittered and a couple of female jurors looked sheepishly down at their shoes for a moment.
‘The prosecutor has offered us a, to use his own term, “brilliant” theory of the case to consider. But it’s his theory, and it’s just that – a
theory
. It’s what
he
thinks the evidence showed, not what it did. And Mr Bellido has a very active imagination. He has concocted a far-off convoluted tale – three different tales, actually – of what he says my client
really
meant to do that night. But he’s no psychic. He’s no mindreader, folks. And none of this theory he’s expounded is grounded in any facts that we heard here during this trial. Remember that. He’s built you a huge castle out of nothing but buckets and buckets of sloppy mud, but it has no factual foundation and so it doesn’t stand up. It can’t be supported. His story doesn’t work.’
He rested his big hands casually against the railing. For such a large man, he displayed a very laid-back, down-to-earth, intimate persona. ‘The law in Florida is this, plain and simple: if, at the time he committed the crime charged, the defendant suffered from a mental infirmity or disease, and because of this condition, either he didn’t know what he was doing, or he didn’t know what he was doing was wrong, then he is legally insane. It’s really as simple as that. And,’ Mel said, holding up a finger and suspending the moment, ‘it doesn’t matter if he was sane last year or last night, or even if he is sane right now as we look at him – what only matters is if he was legally sane at the moment he committed the crime. That’s all.’ He paused for a long moment as everyone looked over at the defense table.
‘Mr Bellido doesn’t want you to believe my client is a paranoid schizophrenic. He doesn’t want you to believe he hears voices in his head, or that he has disorganized thoughts, or that he suffers from paranoid delusions. He doesn’t want you to believe that the voices – which never let up, ladies and gentlemen, as Dr Koletis and Dr Hayes both testified – that these voices told David his family was possessed by demonic spirits. He doesn’t want you to believe that these voices told him he was not killing his wife and children, but that he was saving their souls. Saving their souls from a damned eternal existence in hell. Mr Bellido doesn’t want you to believe that in David’s mind – in David’s reality – he did not know what he was doing was wrong, because in this reality, his wife and children were already dead. He wasn’t killing them – he was exorcizing the devil that possessed the shell of their dead bodies. The devil that was soon to consume his soul as well. Then no one would be left to save his family. And no matter what a prosecutor or a seasoned homicide detective or even his own attorney might tell him, David knows this was true. There is absolutely no reasoning with him, even if you could reach him, because
that is David’s reality
. And he knows he did the right thing. And, I’ll tell you this much folks, that in his reality – he
did
do the right thing!’ He slapped the railing and turned around to face the rest of the courtroom. It was as if he were addressing not just the twelve-member panel, but the world.
‘And it’s easy to not believe, isn’t it? It’s easy to question how could someone actually think these crazy things. So, folks, I want you to imagine for a moment you are in the delusion that David was living with. And then I want you to imagine it’s not a delusion. That it’s
really
happening. I want you to imagine what it’s like to constantly hear different voices chattering and screaming and whispering away in your head. Voices that sound just as real, to you, as I do or Judge Farley or Mr Bellido does. Voices that talk to you constantly, even when you’re sleeping. And you don’t know that you’re ill, folks. You can’t recognize something’s wrong because that’s part of the disease, after all. So close your eyes, if you would, and imagine the terror that David lives with every day.’
‘Objection!’ said Rick, rising to his feet as the jury members closed their eyes. ‘This is a Golden Rule violation. He’s asking the jury to place themselves in the position of the defendant!’
‘I’m asking them to step into a delusion and imagine that that is real. I’m not asking them to imagine they are the defendant.’
‘Mr Levenson is splitting hairs,’ barked Rick.
Farley raised a skeptical white eyebrow. ‘Maybe. But he makes a good argument. Overruled.’
‘The voices whispered to him – all day, all night, every day, every night – that his children were slowly being possessed by Satan,’ Mel continued. ‘He
saw
the signs of possession – the mark of the beast – in the growths on their skin and head. He
saw
the signs of the devil’s presence in the way they chewed their food, and grasped at their toys. He
saw
the signs when his wife cut her finger on a kitchen knife, but it didn’t bleed.’ Mel paused. He needed to tread cautiously, or else risk disparaging the reputation of the victim. ‘We know from the semen stain on her shirt, that Jennifer had engaged in relations with someone else,’ he said softly. ‘But to David her infidelity was twisted into a sign that his wife was sleeping with the devil himself. It was these signs that confirmed for him what the voices had been saying all along.
‘Okay, so now David knows he’s not paranoid –
he’s right
. Now the voices can truly be trusted. And these voices that have befriended him with their prophetic whispers, they tell him that his children’s souls will be consumed – forever condemned to burn in hell if they are not saved by the father who spawned them. He looks at his children from across the breakfast table and now he suddenly sees the red flash of demon eyes before they look away, or the dark yellow teeth when they smile at him. When he kisses his wife, he feels a piece of rotting skin slip off her cheeks. The devil has just shown his face to David Marquette. And the voices are right once again. Satan is in his house, he has possessed his family, and only David Marquette knows it. Only David Marquette can see it. Only he can stop it. Think about it, folks. It’s like being trapped in a horror movie, but for David, there’s no theater to run out of. No one to tell him, “Whew! It’s only a movie!” There is no escape. For him,
this is reality
.
‘I ask you, folks – no, no,’ Mel said, shaking his head, ‘I
implore
you – put yourself
into
the delusion and imagine that
that is your reality now
. This is your reality. This is what you see, and smell and taste and hear and believe. And maybe now you can imagine the frightening hell that is my client’s everyday existence. That is the disease of schizophrenia. And that is what David Marquette suffers from.
‘The law recognizes that someone who is insane is not responsible for his actions, no matter how brutal those actions might be.’ Mel looked over in Rick Bellido’s direction. ‘Sure, it would make us feel better to blame someone for the deaths of four people. It would be neater to wrap it all up and call David Marquette an evil SOB. A cold-hearted psychopath, as Mr Bellido contends, that didn’t care about his family and only wanted a carefree life to spend his newfound millions. But that’s not what the facts showed. We heard from all different witnesses, including Jennifer’s own family, who told us that David was a great father, a great husband. Yes, he had a couple of affairs over the years, but that doesn’t mean he wanted to kill his wife. It doesn’t mean he wanted to kill his children. And the State has offered no witness to testify that he did. But the prosecutor knows that by calling David Marquette a psychopath, it actually makes the whole nasty, brutal crime easier to explain to the voters of Miami.’
‘Objection!’ Rick said, jumping defiantly to his feet once again.
‘Sustained,’ Farley said, looking down over his glasses at Rick with a coy smile. He motioned for him to sit back down. ‘Try not to characterize Mr Bellido as pandering his case to the good people of Miami in hopes of getting them to vote for him in his election bid next November.’
The courtroom tittered. Rick sank back in his seat red-faced.
Mel looked back at the jury. ‘Let’s face it. It would be easier for us all to hate David if he is a psychopath. There would be no pity in that instance, only loathing. And it would be a lot less frightening than the truth – that a debilitating mental illness could actually drive a once-brilliant surgeon, a loving father, a wonderful husband to commit the crime of murder without even any provocation. It would be a lot less frightening than finding out that there is no one we can blame.’
Mel waited a moment then continued, almost thoughtfully, ‘Schizophrenics, as Dr Koletis and Dr Hayes and Dr Barakat and Dr Hindlin explained, don’t all suffer from the same delusion. They don’t all hear the same voices, and they don’t all see the same hallucinations. As it is with any mental illness, the disease manifests itself in the mind, and so it affects each victim in a horrifyingly unique way, so there is no standard universal psychiatric litmus test. There’s no rash that erupts on the skin, or wayward cell that can be examined under a microscope to identify it, to verify that what the patient is telling them is the truth. Dr Barakat, the State’s own psychiatrist, called David Marquette a malingerer. A fraud. A liar, basically. And yet we all heard Dr Barakat in this courtroom last week when he finally conceded to the Assistant State Attorney herself that he cannot say with any medical certainty that David Marquette does not suffer from schizophrenia. We all heard Mr Bellido try to object and prevent his own witness from speaking the truth. We all heard Dr Barakat then testify that
if
the delusion David reported to him was in fact accurate;
if
that was what David
saw, heard, believed, thought
, when he picked up that knife and that bat and he killed the devil and saved his family’s souls, then David Marquette is not legally responsible for his actions. He is, in fact, insane. Even the State agrees.
‘That brings us full circle, folks, to my final comment,’ Mel said, making sure he made eye contact with every jury member. Making sure they all heard him, that each was listening. ‘We have become a society of “I’ll believe it when I see it” people. Church attendance around the world has fallen off, people are suing to have “In God We Trust” removed from our dollar bills.’ He held up his hands defensively in front of him. ‘Don’t get me wrong, this is not about religion, folks. I’m only making a point. And that point is, we
know
schizophrenia is a real disease, even though we can’t “see it” on a microscope slide or in a blood test. We
know
that this disease makes people who have it suffer from horrible auditory hallucinations, terrifying paranoia, and sometimes even vivid, twisted visions that can make them legally incapable of knowing what they are doing or the consequences of their actions. That can affect their ability to distinguish right from wrong. We
know
that inside the brain of a schizophrenic, reality – as
we
all know it exists – is actually seen completely differently by one who is afflicted with this disease. We know this, even though we ourselves cannot see it. Even though we cannot hear it. In this instance, we can only close our eyes and thank God, or whoever else you want; we can only imagine.
‘My job during this trial was to prove to you that my client, David Alain Marquette, was legally insane at the time he committed those murders. I have done that. The only way Mr Bellido’s theory works – the only way that my client can be found guilty of murder – is if you do not accept that David suffers from schizophrenia.’
Mel looked over at the defense table, but his client just stared down, rolling his tongue around in his mouth. It was as if he’d been in another room with a set of earphones on, and hadn’t heard what everyone had just been saying about him. His eyes remained as ghostly gray and lifeless as they had since the first day he had stepped foot in a courtroom.
Mel shook his head sadly as he headed back to his seat. ‘The man has already been sentenced to a lifetime in hell,’ he said softly. ‘Please don’t sentence him to death.’