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get off his case, Mr. Spota

2004-07-07 - almost time

letter in preparation

Dear Mr. Spota,

I do have a strong desire to write to you and relate to you what I feel and how I view one of the worst crimes that Suffolk County has seen, ever. One, the senseless murders of two loved and loving parents, and second to some, but of primary importance to most of us, the crime of pinning a flimsy, full of holes murder case with no solid physical evidence against an unsuspecting boy, who lost a good portion of his own life that day as well, for various and obvious reasons.

I'm confident that as DA you have an agenda, and that you aim to get the job done well regarding the hearing for Marty, set for this coming 19th of the month.

However, knowing that you are in fact the District Attorney, and in the coming weeks you will represent the side of all of this that many of us don't support, I wouldn't sleep well at night had I not mentioned some points that I would like to pass on to you.

Have you ever listened to the tape the morning Marty found his parents and had frantically called 911 trying to save his father? Do you think it would have made more sense for Marty to "finish what he had started", and then call 911, rather than administer first aid with the help of an EMT over the phone? Had you heard the complete anguish and desperation in Marty's voice on that tape? I have, because it played constantly for days on every major station.

Have you ever told your children to respect authority? That you would never lie to them? What if one of your children had been subject to hours of relentless badgering and questioning by detectives, minutes after the horrid scene of finding you and your loved one, nearly lifeless on the floor? And then when one detective later admitted to tricking your child and telling him that you had just woken up and told the detective that it was in fact your own son that had done this to you, what do you imagine your teenaged child would think, say or do? Is it impossible to imagine that coerced confessions exist in this country?

Marty had been taught to respect authority, and to trust his father. He hadn't been taught how to discern whether a detective was trying to deceive him, in case his parents were ever beaten to death.

Years ago, one day in the summertime, when we were younger and life was still promising for most of us, I was walking to the beach. Marty was driving by and had seen me walking, and stopped to ask me if I needed a ride somewhere. I accepted, and when I got in the car, he asked me how I liked the car his Dad had gotten for him. - (the "crummy old Lincoln" his parents made him drive to school) - one of the many scattered phrases that became notorious in Marty's case, misrepresented and twisted around phrases that were used to further scapegoat him, in my estimation.

Driving to the beach that day, I told him that I did like his car, because to me, any car was likeable, and I wasn't driving yet, much less walking too far too fast. He said he loved the car too, and that he was really excited because his Dad was in the process of fixing up the car even better for him.

I'd be dishonest if I said I understood the judicial system inside and out, or even halfway through. I do know that the worst infraction I've seen Marty involved with back then was selling gumballs to the kids in school. Being an accomplished and good natured student, he peacefully complied when the school store shut his operation down, lest he put them out of business.

Marty was the kid who sat in the front row in any given class.

He was generous to friends and classmates, bringing back mementos whenever he went away with his parents on vacation. Once he brought me back a small bottle that said 'Puerto Rico' on it. It was filled with colored sand.

By the way, is the confession rate for Suffolk County still at 90%?

What was reported to have been said by Marty after being interrogated, was "Could I have blacked out and done this?" If Marty was in fact the calculating criminal he had been accused of being, do you think he would ever have chanced that phrase even once? Wouldn't he have been thinking something more along the lines of of, Well, I went ahead and did it, I may as well go ahead and deny it now? Do you think the "unemotional nature" the media said he displayed that morning could have had anything to do with unbelieveable grief or shock?

I assume you have made up your mind as to this man's guilt to undertake a job as immense as helping to see to it that he go back to Prison for the next 35 years plus. I don't know how it came to be that you deduced his part in the murders down to an 'indeed he's guilty', but I do know that nothing in this case has ever sat well with me from the day it happened, and I could hand you a growing list of many more people that feel the very same way.

Mr. Spota, while I may never meet you face to face, I would only like to leave you with one last thought: please think twice.

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