So what? If we assume that everything Sarah Maslin said is true, my client is the quintessential sexist son of a He not only took advantage of Ms. Maslin, he demeaned her. He humiliated her. He destroyed her dignity. As a woman, I'd like to go over there and smack him in the head. But as an officer of the court, all I can do is say, "So what?" Sarah Maslin was ambitious. She wanted to get ahead and she got what she wanted by her own choice. She alone determined her fate. Sure, she may be emotionally distraught, but under the law, you hurt someone's feelings, you take out your checkbook. You do not go to jail. Give me the keys to your house, or I'll charge you with murder. I'm the DA. I can do it. Give me $10,000, or I'll tell the feds about that shipment of heroin I saw you pick up at JFK. I'm the DA. They'll listen. What would you do? I can tell you what I'll be doing for the next 10 years or so. I'll be in Attica. Because what I did is called extortion, and it's a felony. Sleep with me, or I'll tell your boss that you're under indictment for fraud. It's not true, but do you really think you'll be working next week? Sarah Maslin worked for 8 years. She was the best, the most productive associate in her firm. She had clearly earned a partnership, but the only way that she could get it was to have sex with a man who had the power to make or break her career. Sarah Maslin laid down on that couch for Mr. Talbert. But can any of us say that she really had a choice? Gun makers are among the most heavily regulated groups in this country with an army of people watching over them. But despite all that, this fell through the cracks. 15 people were killed. Now, Mr. McCoy wants you to believe there's a straight line between their shattered bodies and my client's factory. There isn't. There's just Dennis Trope. He was the one who broke the law when he bought the gun, modified it, and fired it into that crowd. Horrifyingly simple. So, why doesn't Mr. McCoy get it? Responsible gun ownership is an American tradition protected by the Constitution, but many people would like to get rid of guns. Well, we all know Cain didn't need a gun to kill his brother. As long as there are Dennis Tropes in this world, they will find a way to kill innocent people, whether it's with a gun or a few hundred pounds of fertilizer. But you can't blame the fertilizer company any more than the gun maker for that. You put the blame where it belongs. That's another American tradition. Gun ownership is not an American tradition. That's a myth, like George Washington's cherry tree. Most Americans, going back to colonial times, did not own a gun. Didn't even know how to shoot one. That's still true today. You heard expert testimony that redesigning the slide bolt of a Ralph 9 would add $27.64 to the manufacturing cost of a weapon that sells for $900. Mr. Webber knew that his gun was being bought for the purpose of being converted to an automatic weapon. His refusal to change the design is tantamount to admitting that its intended use was as an automatic weapon. Reasonable people can disagree about the Second Amendment, but this can't be what the framers of the Constitution had in mind. Of course, you must hold Dennis Trope responsible. He pulled the trigger, but remember, because of Mr. Webber's refusal to change the design of his gun, instead of firing THIS MANY BULLETS [Applause] IN THE 30 seconds that he pulled the trigger, Dennis Trope was able to fire this many. [Applause] The law says negligence and foolishness aren't willful blindness. Mr. McCoy has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt my client deliberately avoided the truth about the people he was dealing with. But my client did exactly what the money laundering act required of him. No more, no less. In our society, it's not supposed to be a crime to follow the rules. That's what my client did. He followed the rules. Following the rules does not put you above the law. Just ask the Swiss bankers who appropriated the unclaimed accounts of Holocaust victims. Following the rules does not explain how someone who runs a bank could be so incompetent, so gullible. There can be only one explanation. Mr. Radford willingly turned a blind eye to what was obviously a criminal enterprise, and the Russian mob didn't have to cut off his uncle's hands to get him to do it. All they had to do was wave a fat commission in front of him. Now, some might think that money laundering is just some white-collar crime far removed from our everyday concerns. Let me remind you what money laundering is really about. Mr. Radford made his commission on the backs of these people. This country has always been a beacon to the world for liberty and justice. That's why we keep our borders open. But we're also a beacon for another kind of people, for criminals and con men. We rely on the law to protect us from them. Sometimes, that's not enough. Do we need more law, less freedom? Do we cross out parts of the Constitution? I've learned that's not the answer. The answer is that each one of us is responsible to everyone else. Not one of us can afford to turn a blind eye. By respecting the laws we do have, by living up to the true meaning of the word citizen, we preserve our common good. Through his deliberate ignorance, Mr. Radford allowed a criminal enterprise to flourish. Innocent people to be killed. He allowed a cancer to grow. This is where it has to stop. Here in this courtroom. With you. Mr. McCoy wants you to put your brains on autopilot to blindly accept that, of course, Ken Taylor had a bad temper. Of course, Julie was breaking up with him. Of course, she landed at LaGuardia. Of course, he killed her. Dumped her body in his barn. Of course. Of course. Mr. McCoy doesn't want you to concern yourself with another perfectly reasonable theory that it was Cecilia Knowles who was jealous of Julie Gorham, who killed her, took her place on the plane, took the sail bag from the boat, and buried her in Mr. Taylor's barn. And Cecilia did this because she was obsessed with my client. She wanted to possess him, control him. Where's the proof? I wanted you to hear what she told her therapist, but Mr. McCoy had those records suppressed. >> Objection. Facts not in evidence. Mr. Garnett, you've made your point. Move on. Cecilia Knowles set out to frame my client, and it worked. She fooled Mr. McCoy. He's as much a victim of her machinations as my client. >> Your honor, it's summation, Mr. McCoy. He's allowed to argue his case. Go on. Ladies and gentlemen, this isn't the first time Mr. McCoy has been fooled by Cecilia Knowles. He doesn't want you to know, but she's done this before. >> Objection. Facts not in evidence. Sustained. Wrap it up, Mr. Garnett. >> That's not good enough. Sidebar, Your Honor. Denied. Mr. Garnett. He's bringing up facts not adduced at trial. I want Your Honor to instruct the jury to >> Sit down, Mr. McCoy. Your Honor made rulings. The people relied on them. I want a summation strictly >> from the record. >> I'll do no such thing. >> you're leaving us with no remedy if you won't uphold your own rulings. >> Be quiet, Mr. McCoy. Now, sit down. So, even if you don't believe Cecilia Knowles killed her own sister, you must admit it's possible she did. And that's reasonable doubt. Cecilia Knowles isn't here today because, as you know, she's in a coma. You haven't been told why she's in a coma. Mr. Garnett alluded to the reason. I'm going to tell you why. Objection. >> She did it in a desperate, crazed attempt Sustained. >> attention to the fact that Mr. Taylor had gotten away with the murder of her sister. >> sustained, Mr. McCoy. She was so convinced of his guilt, she was ready to put herself in jeopardy to see this vicious killer brought to trial. >> Mr. McCoy. >> And while she lies in a hospital bed, this court has seen fit to allow the defense to speculate ABOUT HER STATE OF MIND. >> THAT'S ENOUGH. >> AND HOLD HER up as a patsy for Mr. Taylor. And since this court doesn't have the guts to protect the rights of the weak and voiceless, >> You're in contempt, Mr. McCoy. >> it's for the jury to see justice done. And justice in this case is holding Ken Taylor, and only Ken Taylor, responsible for the death of Julie Gorham. >> That's it. I am declaring an immediate mistrial. >> Oh, yo, Your Honor. >> Sit down, Mr. Garnett. You opened the door for this. Ladies and gentlemen, you are dismissed with my apologies on behalf of counsel. We're adjourned. Congress shall pass no law abridging the freedom of speech. Pass no law. Mr. McCoy is trying to get around the Constitution by calling what my client said conduct. By Mr. McCoy's definition, any kind of communication involves conduct. Except maybe ESP. He claims my client commanded Mr. Harland and the others to kill Christina Osborne. Well, he must have commanded them using ESP. You have heard witness after witness testify that Mr. Willis never told them to kill or harm Ms. Osborne. All Mr. McCoy has are my client's speeches. Obnoxious, vile, racist, hate-filled speeches. And since those speeches did not cause a clear and present danger of imminent criminal action, you must, in good conscience, acquit my client. Of course, Mr. Willis never said kill Christina Osborne. Adolf Hitler never said kill this Jew or that Jew. But there's no doubting his intent, nor the result of what he did say. The defense paraphrased Supreme Court Justices Holmes and Brandeis. I think you should hear what they actually wrote in 1927. No danger flowing from speech can be deemed clear and present unless the incidence of the evil apprehended is so imminent that it may befall before there is opportunity for full discussion. If there be time to expose the evil by the processes of education, when we talk about free speech, we mean the exchange of ideas, dialogue, full discussion. Where was the opportunity for discussion in Mr. Willis's world? He handpicked unstable young people. He told them to associate only with those who thought the way they did. And then he filled their heads with suspicion, paranoia, hate, and violence. Prepare for war. Destroy traitors. Violence is necessary. Hate Jews, African Americans, gay people. Hate is your friend. Embrace it. And he expects us to believe that he didn't intend them to be violent? That he couldn't foresee somebody might get killed? Who's he kidding? The First Amendment protects words that persuade. It doesn't protect words that incite. That's what Mr. Willis did. That's why it's called murder. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered. Yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. Tom Paine wrote that in a pamphlet that helped rally Americans to the cause of liberty in those dark days of December 1776. We again face dark days. Our founding forefathers fashioned a government based on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Today, instead of life, we have a job, and sometimes two jobs. Instead of liberty, we have crushing debt. And happiness? See, we work hard, husbands and wives, 10, 12 hours a day. We work weekends, and at the end of the week, we have less. We have less real income, less benefits, less time with our kids. The American dream used to be each generation was better off than the previous one. I mean, are you better off than your parents? Will your children be better off than you? We believe that our government has been sold to global corporations that are sucking the blood and the life out of this country. I mean, it's all right there in the newspapers what they're doing. Uh NAFTA, illegal campaign contributions by foreign businessmen, the sale of foreign policy. I mean, these people don't care about us. They don't care about Americans. They They They care about their bottom line. We are not common criminals. We are We are ordinary people like you, with jobs and mortgages, who are willing to lay it all on the line because we are afraid of losing our freedom. But today, you have a chance to tell the government what you think. Seize that opportunity. We, the defendants, are not the only ones on trial here. You are on trial here. I mean, the state tells you to follow its laws. But who lends the state its power? Who can take it back? The judge? Mr. McCoy? No. You do. You are the state. You have the power. Freedom starts with a no. Will you turn to the state and say no? Okay. This country began as an experiment in freedom. The foundation of that freedom is equality before the law. Everyone whoever they are whatever they may believe must be equally accountable. Mr. Christie hopes you will ignore the evidence and nullify a power he says derives from a higher law. I agree that such a higher law exists. And each of you as members of the jury bound yourselves to it when you swore on your conscience before God and as a citizen that you would decide this case on the facts. You are asked to judge one thing. Were the defendants, whatever their reasons, whatever their beliefs, part of a criminal conspiracy to commit armed robbery? And murder. These guys did a great job of memorization. Too bad they didn't learn from it. We all remember that phrase from the Declaration of Independence about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the unalienable rights of everyone. Notice that life comes first. You can forget everything else about this case if you remember one thing. These defendants, these conspirators targeted an ordinary citizen, someone just like yourselves, a guy with a job and in the private sector with bills to pay and a family to take care of. And they took his life. They took his life. If it's okay for them to shoot him it's okay for them to shoot anyone including any one of you. Without the law there can be no freedom. And without justice there can be no law. The events following the Puerto Rican Day parade shocked and horrified us. We watched young men engage in brutal and bestial behavior. And we felt correctly that they must be punished. We in the Puerto Rican community felt this no less than anyone else. We felt a particular sense of revulsion and dread because we knew it would be held against all Puerto Ricans. We knew that our parade, our joyful expression of our culture and our pride would forever be linked to events that had nothing to do with it. Now, the prosecution has worked very hard to establish a link between those events and the crime for which the defendant is charged. They would only be too happy to turn your shock and your horror into a blind reflex of vengeance directed at the defendant. And I'm going to be quite honest with you. That's a very hard thing to resist. But it's also the very essence of your responsibility as jurors to do so. There is no question that this young man did something very wrong that day. This woman's death is a tragedy and it must be answered for. But it was not manslaughter. Nestor Salazar acted foolishly and impulsively and negligently. But he did not commit manslaughter. And your sworn oath requires that you find him not guilty of that. The defense would like you to see Nestor Salazar as a follower, a hanger-on, a timid, polite boy who was compelled to commit this horrible crime by the stronger personalities of his friends. They were the ones robbing the vendors and sexually assaulting the women, egging him on to commit an act of violence wholly uncharacteristic of him and accidental in nature. Well, there's no question that what we saw in the park that day was the behavior of a mob. Not an Hispanic mob, not a Puerto Rican mob just a mob with all the false bravado and anonymity that provides. But a mob is made up of people. And we hold people responsible for the consequences of their actions. The consequence of the defendant's action is that a woman is dead. We can dispense with the discussion of who in this group was less of a bad person or more of a bad person. We can focus, we must focus on what was done, on what he did. What happened that Sunday afternoon in Central Park in June was the suspension of civilization. This is when civilization gets restored. This is how it gets restored. Find him guilty of manslaughter. Nine years ago Leon Vorgitch heartlessly murdered five innocent people at a restaurant. Back then the legislature had a chance to make sure that it never happened again, but they failed. They failed and he escaped and he went on to kill eight more innocent people. And once again the state has failed to act. 13 innocent people slaughtered and our leaders are powerless to do anything but lock him up and hope he never escapes again? Ladies and gentlemen, the law did not protect our society from Leon Vorgitch. It couldn't even grant justice to the families of his victims. And when Robert Purcell heard that after hearing the shot that killed his daughter he went insane. Regardless of the law, regardless of the risk, regardless of the countless witnesses Robert Purcell felt compelled to make sure that Leon Vorgitch never killed again. Ladies and gentlemen, the state wouldn't take action so Robert did. Now, does that make him a murderer? That makes him a man mentally undone first by a heartless psychopath and second by an uncaring system. Ladies and gentlemen, that deserves your sympathy. And also your vote of not guilty. Vorgitch was a monster. No one disputes that the world is a better place without him. But this is not about who Robert Purcell murdered, it's about the simple fact that he is a murderer. Mr. Purcell is not insane. He does not believe himself to be a judge a jury or an executioner. And yet by killing Leon Vorgitch he chose to act as all three. He may have felt morally justified. But still he knew that what he did was wrong. So, the question before you is not did Vorgitch deserve to die? It's did Robert Purcell have the right to kill him? And the answer is no. Leon Vorgitch was a danger to our society. But so is what the defense is asking of you today. They want you to look the other way. Even though Robert Purcell ignored our system of justice took the law into his own hands and committed murder in cold blood, they want you to give him a pass. If you let Robert Purcell get away with murder just because you hate the man he shot you're telling everyone out there that it's okay to kill as long as the victim was a bad person. Judges, juries who needs them? If you want to see insanity let this murderer go. [Music] A child dies mysteriously in its crib. No cuts, no bruises, no signs of abuse. The district attorney says Emily was murdered. He says Eileen and Marty Willick were alone with her when it happened. We say there was somebody else in that apartment. God, fate, nature, call it what you will. In our attempts to understand what happened to Emily, we can only look to God. Not to the parents who loved and cherished her. The requirement for criminal liability includes the omission to perform an act where a duty of performance is imposed by law. Sounds complicated, but it's really very simple. Emily Willick was suffocated with a pillow. Did her mother hold the pillow or did her father? It doesn't really matter. Because the one who watched, who didn't rip the pillow away, who didn't fight tooth and nail for Emily's life, is equally guilty. On the freeway, a mother of four is cut off by another driver. She speeds up, swerves into the offender's lane, kills him. A businessman boards a plane to New York and brutally beats a flight attendant because she refuses his request for an upgrade. And here we have a 46-year-old family man, a man without any prior criminal record, who savagely attacks the coach of his 16-year-old son's hockey team. Road rage, airport rage, sports rage. How do we make sense of all of it? And the truth is, we can't. But just because we don't understand something doesn't mean we should dismiss it. Battered wife syndrome, post-traumatic stress disorder, each of these took years for juries to accept, during which time people who shouldn't have been convicted were. Ray Taylor didn't appreciate what he was doing that morning because at that moment he was suffering from a mental defect, a rage, which prevented him from doing so. And in our criminal justice we don't hold people responsible for conduct that they can't control, even if we don't understand it. [Applause] Road rage, airport rage, sports rage. Add to that parent rage, office rage, employee rage. It might be nice to think of all this as the result of some new mental illness, but the truth is this kind of behavior has become ordinary, and to ask you to excuse it through the fiction of a new mental illness is just that, a fiction. Because it certainly is not the law. The law says your right to rage stops at the other guy's nose. The defendant's right to be angry stopped the moment he raised his fists. It stopped the moment he struck Mr. Kreider, beat him, and left him for dead. You've just seen the video of this defendant at one of his son's hockey games, heard testimony of incidents in which the defendant allowed his anger to explode into violence. Are we to hold him responsible for none of this? Are we really prepared to create a society in which no one is responsible for controlling their anger, and teach those lessons to our children? The victim in this case worked with kids, devoted himself in his spare time to bettering their lives, while the defendant lived his vicariously through his son, and in his anger forgot a basic reality. The same reality his lawyer hopes you'll forget, that he is an adult. And we hold adults responsible for what they do, no matter how angry they get. Don't let Mr. Taylor off the hook. Don't create an excuse where there is none. [Music] [Music] [Music]