Free Being Oscar by Oscar Goodman

simply jot down some notes?”
    “No.”
    “No? Wouldn’t a tape recording have more accurately reflected what the witness said?”
    “No, the 302 is more accurate.”
    I just shook my head in amazement. I wondered if some of these agents really believed what they said, or if they had just been brainwashed to resort to that statement whenever they were on the witness stand.
    The 302 memo let the agent shape the witness’s statement to fit the government’s theory of the case. The witness got to review that memo before he was called to testify, so at the end of the day, everyone—the prosecutor, the investigating agent, and the witness—were on the same page.
    It may not have been the truth, but it was consistent. And unfortunately, in many cases that was all the government cared about.
    John Mitchell sat smugly puffing on his pipe while I deposed him and shamelessly acknowledged that his office had violated the requirements of the federal wiretap law. But he didn’t seem to care, and neither did anyone else.
    You could make the argument that I got more than a dozen major organized crime figures off the hook in that case. That certainly was the government’s reaction when we had everything thrown out. They said, “Oscar Goodman won on a technicality.”

    This cavalier attitude and the lack of any penalties for prosecutorial misconduct came into play again and again, but it was never more dramatically illustrated than in the case of Manny Baker.
    Manny lived in the “’hood” in Las Vegas. Everyone knew his house; it was the one with the surveillance cameras outside and a couple of Caddies parked in the driveway. Law enforcement described Manny as a kingpin heroin dealer. He might have been, but the cops still had to make the case.
    Manny’s appearance wasn’t impressive; he dressed as if he were out for a casual stroll on a sunny day. He wore brightly colored Hawaiian shirts that hung loosely over the baggy trousers that were part of his regular outfit. And he loved to wear boots, usually white boots made out of the skin of a snake or an ostrich. He was relaxed and casual, never in a hurry. If you didn’t know he was on his way to court, you’d think he was going fishing.
    He tended to mumble when he spoke, but if I listened, I was always able to understand what he was saying. You wouldn’t know it to look at him, but he was one of my savviest clients. He was street-smart. As soon as he opened his mouth, you realized that. And he was good at playing the game. He loved to go fishing, and he used his boat to thumb his nose at law enforcement, christening it “Catch Me If You Can.”
    I got involved with Manny after some state troopers down in Texarkana, Arkansas, thought they had done just that. They had staked out the airport there after getting a tip that Manny had aload of drugs come up from Mexico. They had the airport under surveillance and even knew the supposed pick-up point. They saw Manny being handed a bag and watched as he walked back to his car, which was parked by the curb. After a series of events, Manny was arrested and brought back to Las Vegas to stand trial, and that was when he hired me.
    I filed a motion to suppress the evidence seized during the search at the airport, arguing that it was the fruit of a violation of the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee against unreasonable searches and seizures. At a hearing before Judge Roger Hunt, I moved to exclude witnesses from the courtroom so that they wouldn’t hear the testimony of other witnesses. Three big redneck guys got up and went out into the hallway. The prosecutor called a fourth, just as big and with a neck just as red, to the stand, where he took the oath.
    He identified himself as a state trooper and said he had gotten a tip that a drug deal was going to go down at the airport. He said that he and the other three who had just left the courtroom went to the Texarkana Airport and approached a car that they saw parked at the curb.
    “That