Read Online A Bright and Guilty Place: Murder, Corruption, and L.A.'s Scandalous Coming of Age by Richard Rayner - Free Book Online
Authors: Richard Rayner
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“Yes.”
Clark: “You heard the shots?”
Marco: “Yes.”
Clark: “Where were you at the time?”
Marco: “I can’t remember.”
Clark: “Many witnesses have testified that you did indeed fire the shots. You took aim and shot Dominick Conterno in the back.”
Marco: “I didn’t fire those shots. But if the jury believes I did I want them to know I was acting in self-defense.”
Evidence was reprised, closing statements made. The new jury went out, and though expected to remain out for at least a day, returned within hours, finding Albert Marco guilty on all counts, whereupon, Gene Coughlin reported in the News , Marco’s “wry smile turned to a sneer.”
Marco’s attorneys sought a new trial, but Judge Doran refused it and found himself facing death threats. So did Dave Clark. Undeterred, Clark pressed for the maximum sentence and a week later Doran handed Marco fourteen to twenty years in San Quentin.
“BIG PAPA SENT TO PEN!” said the headline in the News .
It all ended in such a hurry that Leslie White missed the moment when the jury delivered its verdict. He’d been struck most of all by the sheer theatricality of the trial, and how different it had been from those he’d seen in Ventura County. “Here in Los Angeles nobody spoke of the truth—they spoke of testimony and evidence. If a witness tried to tell a straightforward story, he was heckled by both the defense and the prosecution until he was too bewildered and confused to remember anything,” he wrote. He recorded, too, further impressions of Dave Clark. “A big city attorney. Young, standing upright. Brave, with a real military bearing.”
Dave Clark felt the heat of fame. His picture appeared in the papers and he showed that he knew how to milk the moment. “Marco went to extreme measures to try to ensure his freedom,” he said. “But the jury came back with the only verdict twelve intelligent people could return. This serves notice on gangland—Los Angeles won’t tolerate racketeers big or little.”
“The blue-eyed prosecutor did his job courageously and honestly,” reported Gene Coughlin, whose path would one day cross Clark’s again in very different circumstances. “The people of this city should congratulate the gangbusting lawyer and handsome poloist.”
Dave Clark wasn’t Earl Rogers yet, but this was more than a beginning. He was the lawyer with guts enough to take on the underworld and brains enough to win.
6
Oil, Law, and Scandal
A lbert Marco had worked with, and for, Charlie Crawford, the “kingpin politician” of whose murder Dave Clark would be accused in 1931. Yet, throughout the entire course of the Marco trials, and in all the reporting of those trials, Crawford’s name was never mentioned. He occupied a higher rung than Marco on the ladder of the L.A. System, but for the moment remained where he wanted to be—in the background, in the shadows, known only to those by whom he wished to be known, or those who wouldn’t or didn’t dare to mention his name. Crawford’s power lay behind the scenes, and relied on secrecy. This would change, much to Crawford’s dismay. The brazen corruption of which he was a part would soon be flushed out into the open. Leslie White had arrived in L.A. at the time when crime and the integrity of those who should have been enforcing the law had become a major issue. Forces of reform were fighting back. “Albert Marco has finally discovered that his money, his power, his more or less respectable political contacts, his threats, his promises and his pleas are unavailing in the face of simple honesty and unassuming integrity and courage. The lesson he has learned will not be confined to himself; it will permeate the entire realm of criminal thought and activity here,” claimed the L.A. Times, sounding a hopeful if pompous note. “Had he been able through the unlimited fund at his command to set aside the just disposition of his case he would have afforded to those of his
Clark: “You heard the shots?”
Marco: “Yes.”
Clark: “Where were you at the time?”
Marco: “I can’t remember.”
Clark: “Many witnesses have testified that you did indeed fire the shots. You took aim and shot Dominick Conterno in the back.”
Marco: “I didn’t fire those shots. But if the jury believes I did I want them to know I was acting in self-defense.”
Evidence was reprised, closing statements made. The new jury went out, and though expected to remain out for at least a day, returned within hours, finding Albert Marco guilty on all counts, whereupon, Gene Coughlin reported in the News , Marco’s “wry smile turned to a sneer.”
Marco’s attorneys sought a new trial, but Judge Doran refused it and found himself facing death threats. So did Dave Clark. Undeterred, Clark pressed for the maximum sentence and a week later Doran handed Marco fourteen to twenty years in San Quentin.
“BIG PAPA SENT TO PEN!” said the headline in the News .
It all ended in such a hurry that Leslie White missed the moment when the jury delivered its verdict. He’d been struck most of all by the sheer theatricality of the trial, and how different it had been from those he’d seen in Ventura County. “Here in Los Angeles nobody spoke of the truth—they spoke of testimony and evidence. If a witness tried to tell a straightforward story, he was heckled by both the defense and the prosecution until he was too bewildered and confused to remember anything,” he wrote. He recorded, too, further impressions of Dave Clark. “A big city attorney. Young, standing upright. Brave, with a real military bearing.”
Dave Clark felt the heat of fame. His picture appeared in the papers and he showed that he knew how to milk the moment. “Marco went to extreme measures to try to ensure his freedom,” he said. “But the jury came back with the only verdict twelve intelligent people could return. This serves notice on gangland—Los Angeles won’t tolerate racketeers big or little.”
“The blue-eyed prosecutor did his job courageously and honestly,” reported Gene Coughlin, whose path would one day cross Clark’s again in very different circumstances. “The people of this city should congratulate the gangbusting lawyer and handsome poloist.”
Dave Clark wasn’t Earl Rogers yet, but this was more than a beginning. He was the lawyer with guts enough to take on the underworld and brains enough to win.
6
Oil, Law, and Scandal
A lbert Marco had worked with, and for, Charlie Crawford, the “kingpin politician” of whose murder Dave Clark would be accused in 1931. Yet, throughout the entire course of the Marco trials, and in all the reporting of those trials, Crawford’s name was never mentioned. He occupied a higher rung than Marco on the ladder of the L.A. System, but for the moment remained where he wanted to be—in the background, in the shadows, known only to those by whom he wished to be known, or those who wouldn’t or didn’t dare to mention his name. Crawford’s power lay behind the scenes, and relied on secrecy. This would change, much to Crawford’s dismay. The brazen corruption of which he was a part would soon be flushed out into the open. Leslie White had arrived in L.A. at the time when crime and the integrity of those who should have been enforcing the law had become a major issue. Forces of reform were fighting back. “Albert Marco has finally discovered that his money, his power, his more or less respectable political contacts, his threats, his promises and his pleas are unavailing in the face of simple honesty and unassuming integrity and courage. The lesson he has learned will not be confined to himself; it will permeate the entire realm of criminal thought and activity here,” claimed the L.A. Times, sounding a hopeful if pompous note. “Had he been able through the unlimited fund at his command to set aside the just disposition of his case he would have afforded to those of his
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