The Third Trial

Downtown Buffalo, Erie County

September 24 - November 26, 2001

While the first two trials were disappointing, the third trial took observers past the point of dismay to something almost too subtle and yet too destructive to be named. Trial onlookers -- schooled in watching the first two trials, a dozen or more pre-trial hearings -- could smell something "not right." But the evidence was compelling, the prosecutors were now experienced in dealing with the unusual aggression of the defense attorney. The evidence had gone to the jury smoothly and clearly in the second trial. The two hung juries could be explained by the makeup of those juries. Much had been learned.

Acrimonious outbursts erupted frequently -- often without apparent warning, although later patterns could be discerned. The defense strategy was clear. Control, intimidation, obfuscation were conscious tactics. Thus, the defense attorney was never embarrassed by his behavior. Instead, the opposition was off-kilter. To counterbalance the defense attorney, they and the judge seemed to shrink. As the weeks passed, the trial became more and more about the defense attorney -- less and less about whether this defendant murdered John Montstream. One day, dozens of students entered the courtroom, taking every available seat. They were dressed for court -- no blue jeans, no cellphones, no clanking bracelets. Quietly, they wrestled notepads out of purses, uncapped pens, looked toward the bench, the jury box, the defendant and his attorney with his boxes toward the front, the prosecutors with their evidence carts and boxes at their table behind the defense.

Subi reviews her trial assignment after court

The students began drawing diagrams of the courtroom. They noted the wood-paneled walls lined with Supreme Court judges' portraits, the polished railings around the jury box and separating spectators from the well of the court, the tall narrow windows flanking the bench -- sunlight outside in early November, leaves still yellow on the trees. The jurors were listening or not -- in their armchairs. A White man in the second row was asleep. The trial had been on for more than a month, a grinding through minute details. They had to listen.

Suddenly the defense attorney erupted. The judge asked the jurors to leave the courtroom. The students remained and continued taking notes. In their 20 minutes in the ceremonial courtroom, Part 6, at Erie County Hall, November 1, 2001, some of the students captured the essence of the third trial of People v. Michael Northrup:

Subi's Courtroom Diagram School Assignment

Subi's Trial Notes for School Assignment