“Don’t you recognize me, Simona Davidovna?” asked the mother. “I was a representative of the city board of education at the Laptev trial when you defended him. Do you remember the case?”
At once I knew why she was so embarrassed to be in my office. My stomach knotted and my heart beat harder, but my face remained impassive.
Did I remember the Laptev case? Of course I did. It had been one of the highestvisibility cases in the city in recent years. My time, energy, and legal skills had been totally consumed by that trial. It had required so much attention and put so much pressure on me that I still felt the emotional scars. The defendant had been so young and the charges so serious.
Juvenile delinquency was a major problem in Soviet society. Robbery, rape, and the theft of government property were everyday occurrences. But the murder of a militiaman (a policeman, a member of the police force) committed in broad daylight in front of a movie theater in the center of town is far from routine. Boris Laptev, a high school student, had been charged with resisting the militia (the Soviet police force) and with the murder of a militiaman on duty. The incident had aroused strong emotions among the public on both sides and was covered extensively in the local newspaper.
I was the only person defending Laptev. Predictably, city agencies united in their position against him and launched a strident ideological campaign to culminate a guilty verdict. The secretary of the District Party Committee, together with the chairman of the city council, had organized a show trial at the local cultural center.
Show trials had become part of the court system during the purges of Stalin’s time. Highly politicized and orchestrated by the party in the thirties, they started out as political spectacles, witch-hunting the opposition in which a vengeful Stalin invented, not only the practice of scapegoating, but often the crime itself. Later incorporated into criminal law, show trials became a routine event in Soviet courts and in the life of any lawyer and was used once established by the Communist Party in accordance with its political agenda. The Laptev trial had its agenda too.
The trial’s immediate target was an audience of about several hundred students assembled to learn how to behave in a public place and how to respond when a militiaman asked for identification. However, the ultimate target was public opinion. The precedent to be set was to create an atmosphere of zero tolerance for any resistance to the militia. A new law had recently been passed providing for the death penalty in the case of murder a representative of the militia. The Laptev trial sought to forge another link in a chain of public performances designed to dehumanize the individual, who would be crushed beneath the workings of a relentless ideological machine.
The events in question were relatively simple. A nineteen-year-old militiaman, in plainclothes, had requested Laptev’s identification. The eighteen-year-old refused. A fight ensued, and during the struggle, the militiaman slipped, fell, and hit his head on the edge of the sidewalk. He had died in a hospital two days later.
I felt great sorrow for the young man who had lost his life, but I had an equal concern for Boris Laptev, who, in my opinion, bore no real responsibility for that tragedy. My defense strategy for the trial had to be clear: to show that the death was a result of an accident. The absence of intent or a motive to kill indicated that Laptev’s behavior would not be qualified as premeditated homicide. However, the charge of “resistance to the militia” made the case more complex. Resistance had taken place, but Laptev claimed that he hadn’t known that the plain-clothes interlocutor was a militiaman.
Laptev’s credibility became one of the central issues of the case. Over the course of four months, his parents submitted numerous documents showing Boris to be an honest, hardworking student known for good conduct and achievements. I asked them to provide me with additional references of his character and integrity.
The day before the trial, they came to my office—quite an odd couple, a tall, corpulent woman and a short man of average build, both aged around thirty-five to forty. Although the weather was already warm, they wore winter coats—gray and black. The woman’s face showed no traces of make-up, only misfortune, grief, and hard labor. They brought homemade pirozhki and chocolate, knowing that I was going to visit their son in prison.
“Can you take this to Borya?” asked the wife, almost pleading.
“Yes, I can take it, but I don’t know whether I’ll be able to give it all to him. It depends on the circumstances. I’ll try. Have you thought about documents or testimony to substantiate Boris’s honesty?” I asked. They didn’t answer. Some kind of confusion followed my question. The husband and wife looked at each other, hesitating to speak.
Finally the man said, “Yes, we have. And we are sorry that we didn’t tell you before . . .” He took his wife’s hand, leaned closer to her, as if in need of additional strength, then looked at me. “We are believers,” he quietly said. “We believe in God. Our whole family, including our son, Borya, strongly follows the moral commandments: ‘Thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal.’ For us, they are not just words, but our creed in life. They are part of our soul, flesh, and blood, and we are sure that Borya was telling the truth. He is not capable of lying.”
My face remained impassive. “I too have no doubt about his integrity, but I have to convince the court in the trial tomorrow.”
“Please don’t use this information without Borya’s consent. He will have the final say about how to handle this.” The husband and wife sat close to each other, sweating in their dark winter coats, yet nothing could separate them.
This confession of religious belief surprised and puzzled me. They had revealed this information only one day before the trial. Why? I had thought they trusted me.
Religious belief in the Soviet Union was officially regarded as immoral. If introduced into the trial, it would generate a negative attitude toward Boris on the part of the judges, the city authorities, and the audience. Talking in prison with Boris, I raised this subject.
“I would rather die than reveal that,” he said, indignation and anger in his green eyes. But he couldn’t fool me—in a fully grown man’s body, the soul of the child trembled. We agreed that there would be no mention of religion. Discussing our defense strategy, I, however, didn’t tell him that the District Party Committee had already held a meeting with the judge and the prosecutor, and his sentence had been predetermined. After all, in a show trial it could not be otherwise.
The law provided the court with two options: the death penalty or up to fifteen years in a labor camp. My goal was twofold: to prevent the application of the death penalty, and then to appeal to the supreme court in Moscow. I also had to try to prevent negative public opinion from influencing the trial. I could not openly fight with the city authorities or voice my opinions publicly—that amounted to professional suicide. However, using a rational, balanced performance focusing on universal morality, I hoped that I could make a difference.
In Soviet society, a defense attorney—an advocate (a defense attorney and adviser in all aspects of Soviet law. Only a very small group of lawyers are advocates; they constitute the Bar Association)—had the unique privilege of speaking to an audience without prior scrutiny. I had used that opportunity frequently, but with great care. Tomorrow, a teenage audience would occupy the cultural center. In addition, there would be two potential allies in the improvised courtroom—two people’s assessors (jurors), who were regarded as judges by Soviet law. They were, in fact, common people, sometimes even nonparty members, often more humane than the judicial bureaucrats. The audience and the people’s assessors were not aware of their power. It was my goal to motivate them to use that power.
In order to do this, I would challenge them to think—yes, to think—to wrench their minds away from imposed ideological clichés and force them to reason independently. Once I engaged them in that process, I believed they would become my allies. They could help me. I needed them to mount the only effective defense for Boris Laptev.
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