(no subject)
Closing Statement
A full transcript of the defence's closing statement at the trial of Norman DeJesus for the rape and murder of Lisa Thibaudeau.
You've been presented with a momentous opportunity today. You have been given a one-in-a-billion chance, ladies and men, to change this world, and I envy you. I don't want to exaggerate the situation, or pompously and idiotically inflate the facts at hand or the choice that faces you. I don't want your perception of anything to be distorted. In fact, that's why it's so important that I have this last word with you, before you retire to make your decision.
You've been told by the prosecution that the defendant, my client and humble and esteemed cleaning man, Norman DeJesus-a man who tirelessly works Sundays, a faithful janitor at my own offices, who stands before you like any other decent human being you or I know-did last fall brutally assault, rape, and murder Ms. Eveline Thibaudeau at a former workplace of his. They, the prosecutors, have told you that Ms. Thibaudeau's blood was found on a pair of handcuffs discovered hidden underneath Norman's mattress, that her blood was found staining the blade of a knife found with the handcuffs, that his semen and saliva were discovered on several places on her body, that skin cells belonging to him were found underneath her torn fingernails-in short, without troubling you with the gory details, you've been told that microscopic DNA evidence indicates almost incontrovertibly that my client must be found guilty. This is what you've been told: that you must convict him.
You must? Who says that you must? Who assumes you will act like robots of the state, obeying the directives of its professional "expert witnesses." Who says that the skin cells underneath Ms. Thibaudeau's fingernails were anything but dandruff? I'm sure you've all heard how notoriously unreliable the tests are that these so-called experts perform, though the experts themselves invariably pretend their results are unimpeachable. Can any of you recall a month in the last decade that passed without some allegedly incontrovertible piece of "scientific evidence" being cast into serious doubt? Are not the prisons and death rows of this country swollen-overflowing-with innocents, whose only mistake was believing, when they still had a choice, that they could trust "the system" to serve them faithfully?
Who keeps bloodied handcuffs under their mattress, you are surely asking, as the defense has told you to ask. Does any one of us freely discuss the most intimate details of his personal life? Should anyone be able to force us to, simply by pinning malicious accusations on us, accusations that turn our lives inside out and spill them onto the courtroom floor, before our families and friends, before the media, before our fellow man? We all have secrets, I'm sure, and that's not a crime. So Norman DeJesus liked to use handcuffs, sometimes. Must we act so naïve, so scandalized? And handcuffs, real handcuffs-if that's what you're into-can pinch, can scratch, and can even draw blood. Is this really as shocking as the expert witnesses seem to think, or are these scientists simply . . . unfamiliar with any kind of experimentation that doesn't increase their personal prestige, and bring them continued business from the state?
Whether any of the blood cells found on the handcuffs were Ms. Thibaudeau's is another question entirely, one the prosecution would draw your attention from by quoting meaningless statistics about "accuracy" and "significance." But I'm sure you all remember what a certain great writer had to say about "lies, damn lies, and statistics." If statistics were reliable enough to trust with life and death, no one would ever win the lottery. There are fathers in the world who can't even tell whether their children are biological their own, even after caring for them for twenty, thirty, forty years. Yet we're to believe some beaker-jockey can spend ten minutes looking at tiny flakes of dried blood through an assembly line of fantastic machines, and know exactly who bled them? And if you think the labs where these things take place are anything but conviction farms, growing evidence for disgraceful trials like this one, I dare you to look up the recorded outcome of trials in which these labs were involved. When the state wants a conviction, it knows exactly who to go to.
What about the knife? Why hide the knife under the mattress? This is the next-most important question these clipboard-carrying clowns have created. Yes, there was blood on the knife-we can never honestly know whose, of course-but there was blood on it, and that is somewhat unusual. But isn't it also unusual that you, the jury in whose hands Norman DeJesus's fate rests, were not shown a single photograph of the so-called weapon in question. The prosecution has an explanation for this! Of course! They have one for everything! They say the knife was "contaminated" after the relevant data had been extracted, that as the result of some magical lab accident, all visible signs of blood were erased from it, so that if the prosecution were to show you a picture of the knife, it would appear-and here's the crazy part-no different from any other household knife!
An he hid it-of course he hid it! Ask yourselves if you really know what you might do if you were afraid the police were coming to arrest you on some horrifying, trumped-up charge. Perhaps, you say, you would have caught your breath, forced yourself to be calm and reasonable, and perhaps you would have been luckier than those poor innocents languishing in jail right now for crimes they didn't commit. But maybe you would have panicked. Does the prosecution consider anything as . . . human as that? Do you think, if you heard on the radio that a woman had been murdered with a knife, if you had a knife in your kitchen with blood on it because you'd cut yourself, and you heard police-car sirens approaching and saw red and blue flashing down the street, do you think you might act irrationally for a moment, might dash to hide the innocent knife-futile, of course, but would that stop you? Would you try, out of sheer, deseperate, unthinking, fear? And in the split-second you'd have to make a decision, however irrational it may be, where would you think to hide it? Why, the same place you stash your other harmless but somehow incriminating secret, under your mattress, where you've always kept the handcuffs. I'm not saying that's exactly what happened, only that we don't really know, we can't ever be sure at all, unless of course we happen to be paid to produce convictions.
And his semen, so they say, was found on her. They've made this pretty clear, haven't they? They've really pulled out all the stops, made sure we heard it as many different ways as possible. Endlessly, different "experts," different voices, different faces, all sung the same chorus, day after day until the words lost all meaning. Semen in and around the vagina and anus, on her torn stocking and the underside of her skirt, on the floor of the closet where the rape and murder took place, traces of it on her sleeves and hands indicating, along with her chipped nails, that she had been struggling and fighting her rapist the whole time-impressive considering she was allegedly handcuffed. It's upsetting to hear, isn't it? So, hoping to distract you from the unreliability of their methods, to coerce you into taking their word for it, they stretched those horrific details into a three-day-long refrain.
No one denies that something horrible took place. But ask yourself if the prosecution is trying to inform your judgement with fact, or sway it by provoking a gut response with their singsong catalog of obscenities? It happened. All of those things happened to poor Eveline Thibaudeau. They don't need to keep telling us. Their time would have been better spent presenting at least one solid piece of evidence that Norman DeJesus was any more responsible for those monstrous acts than you, or I.
Did anyone see Norman in the building? In the area? On that day? In that month? The only witness who has ever had any actual contact with Norman is an ex-employer. More specifically, he is a disgruntled former boss with offices in the building where Ms. Thibaudeau was murdered, who didn't even come forward with testimony at first, even after the police questioned him. He told them he had no idea who could have been responsible. Then, suddenly, he knew, a full month after the murder, when the case was growing cold. Why the change? That's a question he's been evading throughout this state-run ordeal. Something "told him so," he had a feeling, it "occurred" to him. Maybe he was becoming afraid of the police and wanted to tell them something-anything-to satisfy them. Maybe he wanted to be a regular hero. Maybe he was just having a paranoid episode. Then he remembered my client, who'd worked for him once and who had quit on bad terms, and decided to sic the dogs on poor Norman.
Had he seen Norman in some suspicious situation? No. Had anyone? Certainly not. The prosecution hasn't been able to find a single eyewitness to place my client anywhere near the scene of the crime at anytime near to when it was committed. Not one shopkeeper, no secretary or cab driver, no waiter, no one who saw a person looking like Norman DeJesus in the time before the murder. Because Norman DeJesus is an invisible man, it seems. Perhaps to the justice system, but can you see him, sitting there, awaiting judgement at the hands of his peers?
The deepest tragedy of the crime that took place last October is that it has now claimed two victims: the one who was raped and killed by an animal who now walks free without fear of being caught, and the one who was dragged off the street and scapegoated by a cabal of people in police uniforms, in white labcoats, and in business suits-politicians whose reputation improves when apparent criminals are apparently caught, and lawyers. Lawyers aren't incorruptible, we aren't immune to making mistakes, despite the overconfidence my colleague the prosecutor has shown. I hope now to correct his overconfidence, and prevent us, all of us here, from allowing an egregious miscarriage of justice. I ask your help in that.
Help me, and help Norman DeJesus, and help a society that's been dragged through the beguiling woods of half-truths and foggy credentials for so long it can't remember what it's like to walk in the open. Help turn the tide against these white-coated "experts" who tell you who to blame, as if they really know, as if they have no stake in the outcome. You are not simply determining, today, whether or not to let them damn Norman DeJesus. You have the chance now, if you will take it, to rule not only in his favor, but against the scientific puppeteers who have run this trial and many others from behind the scenes, pulling strings, waving hands, and twisting facts. Science put Norman DeJesus on trial, but now you can reverse the balance of justice, put science in the hot seat and see how well it holds up.
With your verdict, you can do more than just send a message to these glorified rumor-mill operators. Judge not only that Norman DeJesus is not guilty of any wrongdoing, but also that science, the party that victimized Norman, the only guilty party we can still find, is culpable. Have the courage to convict the labcoat mafia of crimes against society, to remove them from society before they cause any more harm to the good citizens of this country. It will not be easy. You will not find your judgement goes unquestioned. But if you stand by it, you will see that it is the right judgement. And here I remind you that conviction has more than one meaning.
Do what is right. My client has taken the stand, alone, to defend himself. Now take a stand with him, against the inhumanity of his arbitrary accusers. Defend him, and yourselves, and every one of us, from the depredations of these vultures in doves' clothing. Tell them they cannot nest in their ivory tower any longer, swooping down on the blameless when it pleases them. Make the first swing of the sledgehammer, to demolish their monumental arrogance. Cast the deciding vote, flip the switch, cut off the power to their blinding, clinical spotlights, and restore this country to the magnificent darkness in which it was made! The time to act is now, ladies and men. I urge you, one last time, to take the daring plunge on behalf of the nation and Mr. DeJesus, and I thank you in advance for having done so.
That is all.
What the hell is wrong with people? Have you seen this article about the trial? How about this one? Good god.
They did convict him, however.
A full transcript of the defence's closing statement at the trial of Norman DeJesus for the rape and murder of Lisa Thibaudeau.
You've been presented with a momentous opportunity today. You have been given a one-in-a-billion chance, ladies and men, to change this world, and I envy you. I don't want to exaggerate the situation, or pompously and idiotically inflate the facts at hand or the choice that faces you. I don't want your perception of anything to be distorted. In fact, that's why it's so important that I have this last word with you, before you retire to make your decision.
You've been told by the prosecution that the defendant, my client and humble and esteemed cleaning man, Norman DeJesus-a man who tirelessly works Sundays, a faithful janitor at my own offices, who stands before you like any other decent human being you or I know-did last fall brutally assault, rape, and murder Ms. Eveline Thibaudeau at a former workplace of his. They, the prosecutors, have told you that Ms. Thibaudeau's blood was found on a pair of handcuffs discovered hidden underneath Norman's mattress, that her blood was found staining the blade of a knife found with the handcuffs, that his semen and saliva were discovered on several places on her body, that skin cells belonging to him were found underneath her torn fingernails-in short, without troubling you with the gory details, you've been told that microscopic DNA evidence indicates almost incontrovertibly that my client must be found guilty. This is what you've been told: that you must convict him.
You must? Who says that you must? Who assumes you will act like robots of the state, obeying the directives of its professional "expert witnesses." Who says that the skin cells underneath Ms. Thibaudeau's fingernails were anything but dandruff? I'm sure you've all heard how notoriously unreliable the tests are that these so-called experts perform, though the experts themselves invariably pretend their results are unimpeachable. Can any of you recall a month in the last decade that passed without some allegedly incontrovertible piece of "scientific evidence" being cast into serious doubt? Are not the prisons and death rows of this country swollen-overflowing-with innocents, whose only mistake was believing, when they still had a choice, that they could trust "the system" to serve them faithfully?
Who keeps bloodied handcuffs under their mattress, you are surely asking, as the defense has told you to ask. Does any one of us freely discuss the most intimate details of his personal life? Should anyone be able to force us to, simply by pinning malicious accusations on us, accusations that turn our lives inside out and spill them onto the courtroom floor, before our families and friends, before the media, before our fellow man? We all have secrets, I'm sure, and that's not a crime. So Norman DeJesus liked to use handcuffs, sometimes. Must we act so naïve, so scandalized? And handcuffs, real handcuffs-if that's what you're into-can pinch, can scratch, and can even draw blood. Is this really as shocking as the expert witnesses seem to think, or are these scientists simply . . . unfamiliar with any kind of experimentation that doesn't increase their personal prestige, and bring them continued business from the state?
Whether any of the blood cells found on the handcuffs were Ms. Thibaudeau's is another question entirely, one the prosecution would draw your attention from by quoting meaningless statistics about "accuracy" and "significance." But I'm sure you all remember what a certain great writer had to say about "lies, damn lies, and statistics." If statistics were reliable enough to trust with life and death, no one would ever win the lottery. There are fathers in the world who can't even tell whether their children are biological their own, even after caring for them for twenty, thirty, forty years. Yet we're to believe some beaker-jockey can spend ten minutes looking at tiny flakes of dried blood through an assembly line of fantastic machines, and know exactly who bled them? And if you think the labs where these things take place are anything but conviction farms, growing evidence for disgraceful trials like this one, I dare you to look up the recorded outcome of trials in which these labs were involved. When the state wants a conviction, it knows exactly who to go to.
What about the knife? Why hide the knife under the mattress? This is the next-most important question these clipboard-carrying clowns have created. Yes, there was blood on the knife-we can never honestly know whose, of course-but there was blood on it, and that is somewhat unusual. But isn't it also unusual that you, the jury in whose hands Norman DeJesus's fate rests, were not shown a single photograph of the so-called weapon in question. The prosecution has an explanation for this! Of course! They have one for everything! They say the knife was "contaminated" after the relevant data had been extracted, that as the result of some magical lab accident, all visible signs of blood were erased from it, so that if the prosecution were to show you a picture of the knife, it would appear-and here's the crazy part-no different from any other household knife!
An he hid it-of course he hid it! Ask yourselves if you really know what you might do if you were afraid the police were coming to arrest you on some horrifying, trumped-up charge. Perhaps, you say, you would have caught your breath, forced yourself to be calm and reasonable, and perhaps you would have been luckier than those poor innocents languishing in jail right now for crimes they didn't commit. But maybe you would have panicked. Does the prosecution consider anything as . . . human as that? Do you think, if you heard on the radio that a woman had been murdered with a knife, if you had a knife in your kitchen with blood on it because you'd cut yourself, and you heard police-car sirens approaching and saw red and blue flashing down the street, do you think you might act irrationally for a moment, might dash to hide the innocent knife-futile, of course, but would that stop you? Would you try, out of sheer, deseperate, unthinking, fear? And in the split-second you'd have to make a decision, however irrational it may be, where would you think to hide it? Why, the same place you stash your other harmless but somehow incriminating secret, under your mattress, where you've always kept the handcuffs. I'm not saying that's exactly what happened, only that we don't really know, we can't ever be sure at all, unless of course we happen to be paid to produce convictions.
And his semen, so they say, was found on her. They've made this pretty clear, haven't they? They've really pulled out all the stops, made sure we heard it as many different ways as possible. Endlessly, different "experts," different voices, different faces, all sung the same chorus, day after day until the words lost all meaning. Semen in and around the vagina and anus, on her torn stocking and the underside of her skirt, on the floor of the closet where the rape and murder took place, traces of it on her sleeves and hands indicating, along with her chipped nails, that she had been struggling and fighting her rapist the whole time-impressive considering she was allegedly handcuffed. It's upsetting to hear, isn't it? So, hoping to distract you from the unreliability of their methods, to coerce you into taking their word for it, they stretched those horrific details into a three-day-long refrain.
No one denies that something horrible took place. But ask yourself if the prosecution is trying to inform your judgement with fact, or sway it by provoking a gut response with their singsong catalog of obscenities? It happened. All of those things happened to poor Eveline Thibaudeau. They don't need to keep telling us. Their time would have been better spent presenting at least one solid piece of evidence that Norman DeJesus was any more responsible for those monstrous acts than you, or I.
Did anyone see Norman in the building? In the area? On that day? In that month? The only witness who has ever had any actual contact with Norman is an ex-employer. More specifically, he is a disgruntled former boss with offices in the building where Ms. Thibaudeau was murdered, who didn't even come forward with testimony at first, even after the police questioned him. He told them he had no idea who could have been responsible. Then, suddenly, he knew, a full month after the murder, when the case was growing cold. Why the change? That's a question he's been evading throughout this state-run ordeal. Something "told him so," he had a feeling, it "occurred" to him. Maybe he was becoming afraid of the police and wanted to tell them something-anything-to satisfy them. Maybe he wanted to be a regular hero. Maybe he was just having a paranoid episode. Then he remembered my client, who'd worked for him once and who had quit on bad terms, and decided to sic the dogs on poor Norman.
Had he seen Norman in some suspicious situation? No. Had anyone? Certainly not. The prosecution hasn't been able to find a single eyewitness to place my client anywhere near the scene of the crime at anytime near to when it was committed. Not one shopkeeper, no secretary or cab driver, no waiter, no one who saw a person looking like Norman DeJesus in the time before the murder. Because Norman DeJesus is an invisible man, it seems. Perhaps to the justice system, but can you see him, sitting there, awaiting judgement at the hands of his peers?
The deepest tragedy of the crime that took place last October is that it has now claimed two victims: the one who was raped and killed by an animal who now walks free without fear of being caught, and the one who was dragged off the street and scapegoated by a cabal of people in police uniforms, in white labcoats, and in business suits-politicians whose reputation improves when apparent criminals are apparently caught, and lawyers. Lawyers aren't incorruptible, we aren't immune to making mistakes, despite the overconfidence my colleague the prosecutor has shown. I hope now to correct his overconfidence, and prevent us, all of us here, from allowing an egregious miscarriage of justice. I ask your help in that.
Help me, and help Norman DeJesus, and help a society that's been dragged through the beguiling woods of half-truths and foggy credentials for so long it can't remember what it's like to walk in the open. Help turn the tide against these white-coated "experts" who tell you who to blame, as if they really know, as if they have no stake in the outcome. You are not simply determining, today, whether or not to let them damn Norman DeJesus. You have the chance now, if you will take it, to rule not only in his favor, but against the scientific puppeteers who have run this trial and many others from behind the scenes, pulling strings, waving hands, and twisting facts. Science put Norman DeJesus on trial, but now you can reverse the balance of justice, put science in the hot seat and see how well it holds up.
With your verdict, you can do more than just send a message to these glorified rumor-mill operators. Judge not only that Norman DeJesus is not guilty of any wrongdoing, but also that science, the party that victimized Norman, the only guilty party we can still find, is culpable. Have the courage to convict the labcoat mafia of crimes against society, to remove them from society before they cause any more harm to the good citizens of this country. It will not be easy. You will not find your judgement goes unquestioned. But if you stand by it, you will see that it is the right judgement. And here I remind you that conviction has more than one meaning.
Do what is right. My client has taken the stand, alone, to defend himself. Now take a stand with him, against the inhumanity of his arbitrary accusers. Defend him, and yourselves, and every one of us, from the depredations of these vultures in doves' clothing. Tell them they cannot nest in their ivory tower any longer, swooping down on the blameless when it pleases them. Make the first swing of the sledgehammer, to demolish their monumental arrogance. Cast the deciding vote, flip the switch, cut off the power to their blinding, clinical spotlights, and restore this country to the magnificent darkness in which it was made! The time to act is now, ladies and men. I urge you, one last time, to take the daring plunge on behalf of the nation and Mr. DeJesus, and I thank you in advance for having done so.
That is all.
What the hell is wrong with people? Have you seen this article about the trial? How about this one? Good god.
They did convict him, however.