John Wayne Gacy (32 page)

For the first time, Garippo raised his voice, and with a final bang of his gavel, he commanded, “Ladies and gentlemen, please, may we have order in the court while I confer with counsel!”

The room immediately quieted. Bergquist stood flushed and glaring at Gacy and at Bob and me, surrounded by wary bailiffs.

It’s always the most patriotic asshole in the room that has absolutely no concept of what patriotism actually means. By the look of him, I was willing to bet green money that he had an American flag plastered somewhere on the back of his rickety old pickup.

The mood of room changed from momentary chaos to a buzzing calm. People whispered excitedly to one another without making any noise.

The prosecution team, the defense team, and the court reporter huddled at the side of the bench with the judge, out of earshot of the jury.

Motta was screaming a whisper through his teeth. “Judge, this juror has contaminated the entire venire!” Bob had his hands on the corner of the bench and was leaning forward toward the judge, insisting that a new panel be chosen.

I continued on the theme. “I ask the court to discharge the entire venire.”

I believe it was Kunkle who leaned in close to the judge, trying to express his urgency in a whisper that could only be heard by the judge, the lawyers, and the court reporter. A sidebar is an art form in and of itself. You have to learn to yell your argument, while whispering.

“Your Honor, you should simply admonish the prospective jurors to disregard the comments of Mr. Bergquist. It isn’t necessary to discharge this venire. Simply excuse Mr. Bergquist, and instruct the jurors.” The prosecutor may have had more to say, but he was being upstaged by Motta’s feisty presence.

“That won’t do,” Motta hissed. “The comments were so inflammatory the jury will not forget or disregard them. They are poisoned!” Bob was adamant, as usual. He stepped it up a notch. “And further, I request that all voir dire of jurors concerning the death penalty be conducted individually out of the presence of the other prospective jurors.”

These requests by Bob and me were perfectly reasonable from our perspective and had precedent in other cases where the death penalty was at issue. The court must take every precaution to ensure that one juror is not significantly influenced by the words of another and thereby tainted. However, a judge has a great amount of leeway in these matters. He can use admonitions to guard against undue influence of jurors. Plus, Judge Garippo had no intention of requiring the entire cadre of court personnel, the lawyers and their staff, and all others involved in the case to take up residence in beautiful downtown Rockford for a month or more, which were the logistical ramifications of such requests.

“Motion for individual voir dire will be denied,” Garippo calmly said. “I will admonish the jury to disregard the comments of Mr. Bergquist and excuse him from duty.”

“Objection,” I strenuously interjected. “Our client is prejudiced by this prospective juror. The court has just begun voir dire. It would not unduly delay the trial to impanel a new venire. If the court refuses to impanel a new venire, the defense is compelled to request a mistrial at this early juncture.”

Garippo was unmoved by my brilliant argument and unimpressed that I was demanding a mistrial. I wasn’t exactly surprised, but I had made my record. I had barely gotten the words out of my mouth when he cut in.

“Objection denied. Motion for a mistrial denied.”

The players returned to their respective places, and all was returned to normal. The tenor of the trial had been set, however. The barroom brawl of the night before at the Clock Tower Inn, now a distant memory, would seem insignificant and paltry, and pale in comparison to what was to come.

Judge Garippo focused his attention on Mr. Bergquist.

He explained to this nincompoop that we had a constitution in the United States of America, maybe he had heard of it? That it was this very document that guaranteed his right to stand up in a
courtroom and make an absolute fool of himself, screaming and yelling his silly opinions about not having a trial. That in many countries, he would be on his way to jail right now, or worse. However, because of the document that he sought to usurp, he was simply going to be excused from jury duty and sent on his way.

The judge didn’t say it quite that way. I said it that way. Garippo was much more diplomatic, but his message was the same.

Mr. Bergquist slithered from the courtroom, escorted by an enormous sheriff’s bailiff.

Four days later, twelve members and four alternates had been selected as jurors to sit in the matter of
People v. John Wayne Gacy.
The judge explained some of the logistics regarding transportation and lodging during what would prove to be a six-week sequestration. He gave them a couple days to make their arrangements and pack. He scheduled the trial date and told everyone that he would see them all back in Chicago.

After a year of toil sweat, and arduous and meticulous preparation by all parties, the trial of Mr. John Wayne Gacy had, at long last, begun.

27

T
HE
C
RIMINAL
C
OURTS
Building at 26th Street and California Avenue in the city of Chicago, Illinois, had been a place of legend long before the trial of John Gacy. It has a rich and storied history. Many famous, high-profile attorneys have argued many famous, high-profile cases in its hallowed courtrooms. However, there is no question that the
Gacy
case was the trial of the century of its day.

Judge Garippo’s courtroom on the sixth floor of the old building could have been the set of a Hollywood movie, an aesthetic mix of dark hardwoods and smooth marbles, built by proud craftsmen and intended to stand forever. One enters through heavy eight-foot oak doors that open into a cavernous room with twenty-five-foot ceilings trimmed by ornately carved crown moldings high above. Rows of churchlike pews serve as seating and end abruptly at the bar between the gallery and the well of the court, where long tables for the defense and prosecution are clearly marked and positioned before an imposing bench where the judge presides high above all others. Eight-foot windows, cut into the stone on the room’s south wall, reveal streams of morning sunlight that streak the room in the early hours. A green desk lamp sits next to a brass nameplate on the bench, which proclaims that the courtroom belongs to and is presided over by just one man. This was Garippo’s room, his court.

For several weeks prior to the trial date, workmen had been busy making minor alterations to accommodate a trial of this nature and scope. The jury box was expanded to allow seating for the twelve jurors and the four alternate jurors who would sit and hear all the evidence, in case they were needed. Sections of bulletproof plate glass were erected to separate much of the gallery from the well of the court. Other minor changes were made so as to accommodate press coverage. No cameras would be allowed inside the courtroom, but reporters would be positioned and able to report on the proceedings without disruption or distraction to the court.

Outside the courthouse, areas were set aside for press and cameras, and the streets surrounding the courthouse were dotted with the cumbersome white trucks crammed with the equipment that would immediately beam the news of the trial to the world, each of which had the call letters and logos of their respective television networks emblazoned on the side, advertising their presence.

Electricity filled the air for miles around. If you read the papers or watched TV, you would think that nothing else was happening in Chicago or the world. All that was needed were a few balloons and a few barkers, and we would truly have had us a circus.

The lawyers met with the judge in the days prior to the actual start of the trial to work out preliminary matters and actual logistics for the trial. It was decided that we would all work six days a week with full days on Saturdays. Garippo fully intended to plow through the truckloads of evidence and exhibits and the unending lists of witnesses that may or may not be called, depending on the particular twists and turns of the trial, in a timely manner. He had no intention of dragging out what we all knew would be a protracted trail any longer than was absolutely necessary.

We fought long and hard over whether the State should be allowed to use certain exhibits. They had prepared a huge easel on which the pictures of twenty-two identified victims and eleven question marks appeared and were easily removable from the slots
that held them to use during testimony. Bob and I argued that having the easel in plain view of the jury throughout the whole trial would be inflammatory and prejudicial. The judge ruled that it could remain in the courtroom, out of the way, unless the State was referring to a specific victim. The upshot of this resulted in our having to sit with the State’s gallery of grief, sometimes with all of these pictures on this huge board, behind us in the courtroom day after day during the entire trial.

There was also an argument over the State’s plan to bring into the courtroom a huge chunk of the flooring from Gacy’s house, which included the trapdoor that was the access to the crawl space. Essentially, they were bringing the damned crawl space right into the goddamned courtroom. I had to admit to myself that if I were prosecuting this case, I would want to do the exact same thing. Of course, I never said that to anyone, not even to Bob, and we forcefully argued against it. However, the judge ruled that it was simply demonstrative evidence and would be allowed in for that purpose.

After two days of preliminary fighting and informational meetings, we all looked at one another and agreed. We were ready.

On Wednesday, February 6, 1980, opening statements began in the case entitled
People v. John Wayne Gacy.

The courtroom was packed to capacity, and then some. People sat and stood and crammed into every available space. Judge Garippo swore in the members of the jury, and the entire courtroom fell into utter silence.

Bob Egan, who had been chosen by the team to give the opening statement for the prosecution, stood and walked before the jurors. The long-awaited moment had arrived.

__________________

“M
AY IT PLEASE
the court, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I want you to picture, if you will: A young boy. He is fifteen years old, he is a sophomore in highschool, he is a gymnast at the high school, and
in the evening he works at a pharmacy,” Egan began. “He works at a pharmacy because he is fifteen and he wants to buy a car when he is sixteen, so he is saving his money. His name is Robert Piest.

“I want to take you back fourteen months to a place called Nisson Pharmacy. Nisson Pharmacy is in the suburb of Des Plaines, Illinois, a suburb northwest of Chicago. You passed it on your way in as you came in on the toll road.”

Egan slowly and methodically told a story about a cold December evening, just over a year previous, when a local contractor kept an appointment to give a quote to the owners of that now-famous pharmacy in Des Plaines, Illinois. He covered every gruesome detail that the State felt they could prove—the chance meeting between Rob Piest and John Gacy, the ride to Gacy’s house, the murder of young Rob, the disposal of the body, all of it.

Bob listened as Egan stood in front of the jury and set forth the State’s case in a sometimes-dry, sometimes-emotional dialogue, a “We will prove this and we will prove that” kind of dissertation of the facts spun exclusively in the manner in which the prosecution viewed the evidence. That was his job. He did it well. This was an opening statement and not an argument, although most lawyers attempt to stretch the definitional bounds of such a mission. Attorneys rarely miss a chance to argue, even when their antics are subject to objection by their opponents. It has happened that a lawyer will break into crocodile tears, sobbing out his or her version of the facts and evidence, and when the opposing counsel finally stands to rightfully object, it’s all apologies and earnest assertions of how greatly affected he or she actually was by this particular case. That assertion is itself, by any definition, an argument; but it gets by many judges, simply because of the waterworks.

Motta was not interested in such theatrics or distractions, and he respected Egan for his lawyerly presentation and professional manner. Egan did, however, refer to Gacy as “the most evil man that ever walked the face of the earth,” thus setting up a theme that the
prosecution was expected to use, good and evil or, better stated, good versus evil. They would paint Gacy as evil—and, therefore, not insane.

When Egan finished, the judge broke for lunch, and the courtroom emptied. Motta stayed back. He couldn’t eat anyway. He sat alone at the defense table with his notes and his thoughts. He flipped through pages without really reading the words; then he stood up and approached the jury box. He had been here many times before; standing solo below the twenty-five-foot ceilings in front of the assembled ladies and gentlemen of the jury, looking at their somber faces, and pleading a case was nothing new to him. However, there was no denying it—this was different; this was, after all, the trial of the century.

Unlike me, Bob was publicly against the death penalty. He had a deep philosophical aversion to the whole concept. I didn’t. I was fine with the concept; but he had always thought it barbaric, wrong on so many levels. Although this was a capital case, the death penalty was being sought; he knew he had to stay clear of any such argument. That was not our defense. He had to steer clear of his deep-seated personal feelings and stick to the specifics of the case.

He thought of the hundreds and hundreds of hours that he had spent with the man on trial. A review of that cumulative experience made it simple for him. If he could convey to this jury what he knew about John Wayne Gacy, he believed that a “not guilty by reason of insanity” verdict was a foregone conclusion. Nobody on the planet was surer than Bob was that his client, our nut job of a client, was damaged. He had a damaged, defective mind; he had been miswired. Gacy had killed, yes, but his actions were as a result of an overwhelming compulsion over which he had no control.