The Advocate's Devil

by Alan M. Dershowitz

Genres: General Fiction

Synopsis

When defense attorney Abe Ringel takes the case of Joe Campbell— the "White Knight" of the New York Knicks who stands accused of rape— the lawyer anticipates an easy victory to get his career on track. But when it appears that Campbell is not only guilty but dangerous, Ringel must confront the conflict between his courtroom responsibilities and his ethics as a human being.

In this astonishing and realistic story, famed legal tactician Alan Dershowitz delves into the mind and soul of a lawyer, who must ask himself a controversial legal question, “ What do you do if you are a defense attorney who suspects your client is a dangerous criminal?” The Advocate's Devil offers a rare combination of pulse-pounding courtroom drama and compelling characters, making it a work of profound resonance and power.

Release date: September 26, 2009

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 352

Sample

NEW YORK—FRIDAY, MARCH 10

“Terrific. Another weekend trashed.”

Jennifer Dowling was recalling the pain of the past year as she noticed the tall, attractive man walking in her direction
from Avenue of the Americas. A cold March rain drenched West Fifty-fifth Street, forming pools wherever there were faults
in the sidewalk. Every weekend since New Year’s had been a weather disaster, making it unbearable for Jennifer to travel to
her weekend hideaway in the Catskills. Not that she had been much in the mood for solitude during her recent legal ordeal.
Now that it was finally over, she craved the healing isolation of her simple country bungalow. Yet the prospect of driving
up alone along dark, icy roads late on a winter Friday night was not something she found comforting, so she had decided to
remain in the city again. Nor had her mood been brightened any by the notice she had received that this was the weekend the
water heater in her co-op was scheduled for maintenance—no hot water for twenty-four hours. “Make that trashed and grungy,”
she complained to herself.

The man walking toward her crossed into her path, halting her progress. She veered to the right to pass him, but he seemed
to have the same idea, so they ended up in a balletlike to and fro until they both stopped. The man was so tall that Jennifer,
who was five feet six, came up only to his chest.

“Care to dance in the rain?” His smile, punctuated by blue eyes looking down at her, was magnetic.

“This isn’t a movie; I’m drenched.”

“Dry off with a cup of coffee, then?”

“Are you crazy? This is New York. You’re obviously dangerous—”

“Or deranged,” he finished for her, and they both smiled.

The man gently took her elbow and steered her to the lobby of the skyscraper looming beside them. Oh, why not, Jennifer rationalized.
It was broad daylight. What’s the worst that could happen? Jennifer allowed the man to lead her out of the rain.

The bistro inside was crowded and noisy, but her tall companion shouldered his way to a small window table, miraculously empty.
“Do you know this place?” he asked her as he gracefully shed his black leather coat.

“I’ve never been here, though I work in the neighborhood.”

“Let me guess, public relations?”

Jennifer started to say yes but corrected herself. “Used to be, now it’s advertising. How did you know?”

“It’s a gift. I’m intuitive, intelligent, and observant.”

“And modest—a Virgo, perhaps?”

He put one huge hand over the table, and she shook it, “I’m Joe Campbell.” He waited to see her reaction; there was none.
Only her own strong handshake in response.

“I’m Jennifer Dowling,” she said as the waiter appeared.

“Cappuccino all right?”

“With skim milk.”

“Make that two,” Joe Campbell said, not taking his eyes from her face.

Thank you, God, Jennifer said to herself. And to think she had written off this weekend.

BOSTON—WEDNESDAY, MARCH 15

The evening had started with drinks in the “Quiet Lounge” of the Charles, the hotel in Cambridge where Jennifer was staying.
“It was fortuitous, you’re having to be in Boston.” He raised his mineral water in a toast and allowed his eyes to play over
the sleek, sophisticated woman seated opposite him. “As in fortunate.”

“A word lover, I see. Let me guess, Oxford University, Rhodes scholar. Degree in classic literature.”

“Totally wrong. Northeastern University, chemical engineering, 1984.”

Actually Jennifer already knew that. They had planned this date over their cup of coffee five days ago, and she had managed
to collect a lot of information about him in the meantime. He was the real item, no question about it. Everything he’d told
her about himself checked out—including the fact that he was the starting point guard for the New York Knicks. What he hadn’t
told her was how famous he was. And not being a pro basketball fan, she didn’t know that the Knicks had acquired the star
point guard from Golden State after losing the final game of the 1994 playoffs. He had been dubbed “the White Knight” by the
fickle New York fans, who were counting on him as their last hope for an NBA championship during the Patrick Ewing era.

A group of young men dressed in business suits wandered into the bar, and Jennifer could feel Joe recede. “Any minute those
guys are going to come over here and bug us,” he said quietly. “You ready for dinner?”

Jennifer nodded, getting up from her seat. He led them away from the group, and as they passed from the dimly lit lounge to
the lobby, he bent his head and adjusted his hat lower. He was really quite shy, for all his bravado, Jennifer thought to
herself.

A nice-looking man in jeans and a sport jacket politely accosted them at the hotel door just as they were leaving. “Get the
Celtics good tomorrow night, please, Joe. I’m from New York, and the Celt fans torment me.” Campbell smiled without looking
up.

The driver of the white Lexus limo had the door open before they got there, and Joe politely guided her onto the rear seat.
“Nice car. Is it white because of your nickname?” She smiled coyly. To Jennifer the idea of a “White Knight” in her life made
a good deal of sense.

“Maybe, I guess, now that you mention it.”

“Why do they call you that?”

“Well, there’s the official and the unofficial explanation. For one thing, I was the only white starter when I played for
Northeastern. And now, of course, the Knicks fans hope I can get them a championship.”

“Is that official or not?” Her voice was teasing. Joe looked slightly edgy for a moment.

“Official. The unofficial reason is because I was always the cleanest ballplayer on the team.”

“What does that mean, you didn’t tell dirty jokes?”

“I didn’t have a garbage mouth—you know, dis’ my opponent and stuff like that. It also means I didn’t use my elbows—unless
absolutely necessary.”

“And what about now? Do you roughhouse now?”

He almost was going to answer her until he realized she was teasing again. Jennifer was smart. He liked that. “Depends on
the circumstances. Seriously, it’s impossible to stay clean in the pros. Too many muscular bodies banging around in too little
space.”

The thought of Joe Campbell’s muscular torso under his suede jacket flashed pleasantly, almost electrically, through her mind.

There was always that undefined moment when Jennifer knew it was time to take a relationship to the physical. When she was
younger she wouldn’t let herself acknowledge it, though her body told her often in unmistakable ways. Now that she had turned
the corner into her thirties, her mind often took over from her body. It had been a rough year for Jennifer, what with the
legal mess she had just gotten through. There had not been much time for fun: not much inclination to be sexual. In the last
few weeks the cloud of pain had begun to lift, and she could feel herself reawakening. Her body was telling her she was responding
to Joe Campbell.

The large limo ambled through the streets of Cambridge. “I hope Italian is okay,” he said, and before she could reply he turned
away to look out the window.

The restaurant, Stellina’s, a northern Italian gourmet eatery in Watertown, was a bit off the beaten track. At dinner Joe
proved to be something of a control freak, ordering for both of them without asking, even insisting she change her mind over
the choice of salad. At first this was offputting, but as the meal went on, she began to see him as refreshingly different
from the usual wimps she tended to attract. And, in fact, Campbell turned out to be right about the delicious tricolore salad
with sun-dried tomatoes.

Back in the limo on their way to Cambridge, he made sure she was relaxed, offering her a cognac from the limo’s bar. There
was a comfortable silence between them. Jennifer had to admit the truth to herself: she was already a little bit crazy about
him.

And this was not lost on Campbell. In fact, nothing was lost on Joe. He was one of the most instinctual ballplayers in the
NBA, with a reputation for having the smartest hands in the league. He could sense from the look in an opponent’s eyes which
way he was going to pass, or whether he would drive toward the hoop. Joe’s hands were always there a split second before—deflecting,
poking, flicking. Offense might be a function of raw athletic talent, but defense was intuitive. You had to sense what your
opponent was thinking, planning, and doing in order to beat him to the move.

Joe Campbell was the master of instinct. Whenever Coach Riley showed the video of opposing teams’ games, he would freeze-frame
the action at crucial points and ask the players to guess what came next. Campbell was rarely wrong in his predictions. He
understood the flow of the game better than any player in the league.

And Joe understood women the way he understood opposing point guards. He could tell from a glimmer, a smile, or a gesture
whether his date needed coaxing—whether her “no” really meant “maybe” or her “maybe” really meant “yes”—or whether she wanted
to be taken without foreplay or game playing. Had there been video replays of dates, Joe would have been just as adept at
predicting the flow of the action. And he saw in Jennifer’s body language that she was heating up. For now his style of aloof
gentlemanliness, punctured with playfulness, was working quite well.

“For a tough guy, you ‘re very sweet, you know,” she whispered.

“Don’t tell that to the Rockets.”

The limo driver chuckled… Jennifer was put off by the intrusion and quickly recoiled, as Joe raised the glass partition.

“You must be reading my mind.”

Soon the driver stopped in front of the Charles Hotel, and just as Jennifer was thinking of a way to ask Joe upstairs without
appearing eager, he turned to her. “Listen, I can leave you here if you want or escort you up to your room. I mean, you know,
we can kick off our shoes, maybe have a drink from the minibar. I’m safe, I promise.” He flashed his famous small-town-boy
smile.

Jennifer nodded, and on some signal from Campbell, the driver jumped out and opened her door in one graceful motion. The hotel
doorman took over from there, as though escorting them into the hotel were a kind of relay. There was no way anyone in Boston
could possibly have known that Jennifer Dowling and Joe Campbell would wind up at the Charles Hotel in Cambridge that evening,
yet five or six women appeared to be waiting for him as they stepped into the lobby. They called after him by name and tried
to touch him. To Jennifer it was surprising—and a bit revolting.

“How did they know where to find you?” she asked, keeping close by his side, though not touching him.

“They don’t have to know. The groupies go to all the hotels when a game is in town, waiting for whoever might show. As soon
as someone is spotted, the word spreads.”

As they stepped through the crowd, a tall, raven-haired woman approached them.

“Hey, Joe, remember me?” she said, her voice low and insinuating. The woman s breasts were spilling over the tank top of her
red body suit. Jennifer was repulsed, but Campbell smiled and acknowledged the woman as she handed him a videocassette.

“An ‘audition’ tape. I get them all the time,” he confided. “Some of the guys think they’re funny, but I find them pathetic.”

Jennifer assessed the group of women as having a median age of twenty-five. They were beauties, dressed to kill with bodies
to die for. She could not imagine what would possess any one of these handsome young women to humiliate herself this way.
But who was she to Judge? she asked herself as she made her way through the hotel lobby with Joe Campbell. Maybe she was just
one of them in a way. Certainly her friends and colleagues in New York would wonder what she was doing, inviting a man she
hardly knew, and a jock at that, up to her hotel room.

Campbell kept his eyes down, and Jennifer felt sorry for him. He was a very gentle man, cultured, charming, and maybe even
a bit vulnerable. He really seemed nice—the kind of man she could like, both as a friend and as a lover. She thought suddenly
of her boss last year, who had not been gentle, cultured, or kind. Jennifer was glad that Joe had chosen to be with her—that
she wasn’t one of those women down there.

Now all she had to do was sweep him into her fantasy.

Once in her hotel room, Campbell absentmindedly picked up the copy of Boston magazine that had been placed in each room, quickly flipping through the pages while looking down to the street. Somewhere
below, a siren wailed. There was lots of activity on the river side of the hotel “Wonder what’s happening down there,” he
said without turning his head toward her.

Jennifer joined him at the window, pretending to share in his absorption with the scene below. “Looks like some sort of fire.”

“Uh-huh,” Campbell responded, looking out into the night.

“You seem to have lost your concentration,” Jennifer joked. “If you were dribbling that way, I’d be able to steal the ball
from you in a minute.” She playfully flicked the magazine Campbell was holding out of his hands and onto the floor.

Campbell quickly reached for the magazine. “I never lose my concentration in a ball game, but off the court I’m entitled to
daydream.” He turned toward her, and her perfect American face became a blur, blending into the black-haired girl they’d seen
downstairs, whose name, he seemed to remember, was Charlotte or maybe Cherise. They all became the same after a while. This
woman offered the chance of something different. Maybe she wouldn’t disappoint him like the last one. The crack about his
concentration had thrown him off. How could she tell so much about him so easily?

“I’m sorry, “Jennifer said. “I obviously pressed a button I shouldn’t have gone near.”

“No, no, it’s okay, sometimes I do lose my concentration in situations like this.”

Jennifer didn’t know what to make of Joe’s comment, so she left it alone.

Joe kicked off his loafers. Jennifer noticed that they had thick heels, so as to give him an extra inch or two of height.
How odd, she thought, since he was at least six feet three in his stocking feet. He then took off his jacket and hung it meticulously
on the back of a chair. He was wearing short sleeves, something her lawyer and banker friends never wore under jackets, exposing
muscular upper arms. God, he was beautiful. Then she saw a bandage around his right wrist.

“What happened?”

“I ran into Patrick during practice.”

“Tell me a little about basketball. You know, some inside stuff that I could only get from actually having a date with a bona
fide superstar. “Jennifer was kidding, actually mocking what she imagined a groupie might say. Joe uncharacteristically missed
the irony. A look of disgust crossed his face.

“Did I say something wrong?”

“No, no, it’s not that. Look, I didn’t come here to talk about basketball. I’m sure there are subjects you would rather not
discuss.” There was an edge in Campbell’s voice, and Jennifer’s paranoia kicked in—what did he know about her?

“I was just messing around.” She smiled. “The last thing I want to hear about is basketball, any more than you would want
to hear about advertising.”

“Hey, I’d love to hear about advertising. I’m fascinated by how you can sell some of that junk that they’re marketing these
days. I’m also fascinated with how women like you make it to the top in a man’s world. You must be something special.”

She felt the mood tottering in the wrong direction. “Let’s make a deal. No basketball, no advertising, no bullshit.” Then
she paused, and the next words came out of her mouth as if someone else were saying them. “I like you, I’m attracted to you,
I’d love to spend the night with you, and I hope you feel the same way.” After she uttered these words, she couldn’t believe
that she had been so bold.

He said nothing in response, just moved gently closer and put his arms around her so as to leave absolutely no doubt about
his reply.

Jennifer luxuriated in his embrace. She felt electrified by the feel of his hard body through his soft cashmere pants. She
found herself pushing him closer, hoping to feel his erection. Yet when she felt nothing, she was not surprised. This was
a guy who could get it on with a different girl every night, not some adolescent kid having sex for the first time. She would
have to use some imagination tonight.

Gently she brushed her hand down his chest toward his belt. Joe moved away from her embrace, asking whether she would like
some champagne. That was the last thing Jennifer wanted, but she said yes, thinking perhaps this was a part of his ritual.
She went to the minibar and took out the only champagne she could find—a half bottle of cheap “brut” from California. She
handed the bottle and corkscrew to Joe, then went to the bathroom and undressed, leaving on only her black silk shirt. After
inserting her diaphragm and some spermicidal jelly, she returned to the living room with the shirt unbuttoned to her waist,
exposing her well-toned breasts.

Jennifer had worked long and hard on her body, lifting weights and doing Nautilus every other day with a personal trainer
who called himself a “body sculptor.” Since the legal mess that had started at the office last year, she had thrown herself
into hardening her body. “If I keep my body hard,” she kept saying to herself, “maybe I can keep my soul from hardening.”
Now it was time to show off her new body. Joe would be the first man she’d slept with in a long time.

Jennifer had kept on her black pumps, and she forced herself to walk slowly and gracefully toward where he sat on the couch.
She relaxed herself against his body in a gesture that was not so much sexual as kittenish. “Are you comfortable here?” she
whispered. “Would you like to go into the bedroom?” Not waiting for his reply, she took him by the hand and urged him into
the adjoining room.

Now, lying beside her, Joe found himself holding back. Her eyes flicked open, and he saw so much there: wanting, hurt, need,
uncertainty, maybe even a touch of fear. When she closed her eyes again, he ran his strong fingers across her forehead gently.
This relaxed her, and he let his touch radiate from there, arranging her hair on the pillow piece by piece, taking his time,
holding back. His reticence inflamed her even more; her chest rose faster, and a small anticipatory sigh escaped her lips.
She pulled him closer to her and kissed him, tempting him first just by offering little kisses, little nips. She hesitated,
waiting for some sign of interest, but no part of Joe stirred. Still, his hand found its way idly beneath the silk shirt,
and her soft breasts welcomed his large palms.

Jennifer began to tremble, moving her hand down his body, but he stopped her. He could sense the warm, moist heat emanating
from her. They kissed deeply, and soon Jennifer arched her body upward to engulf his touch. His fingers danced in and out
as she slowly directed his face toward her belly. She moved in harmony with his caresses, spinning toward that place where
she would shortly be out of control.

Slowly, almost languidly, Joe came up for air. Jennifer took that as a cue to move her face down his body. As she did so,
he kissed her neck and whispered in her ear. At first Jennifer paid no attention to the words themselves, only the sensual
feel of his breath on her earlobe. She thought she was hearing sweet nothings, and it was the feeling that mattered. Joe’s
manner was sweet and soft.

Joe repeated the words, more insistently this time, his strong fingers squeezing her cheeks, as if to make certain that she
understood him clearly. This time Jennifer heard Joe’s tortured voice. In an instant her mood changed. She gasped and started
to speak as he grew hard and rolled on top of her….

CAMBRIDGE—THURSDAY, MARCH 16

“God, another groupie filing rape charges against an athlete to get money,” Abe Ringel couldn’t help musing to himself as
he sat reading the sports pages in the small breakfast nook nestled at the back of his Cambridge home. This must be the third
or fourth this year alone, the lawyer thought, shaking his head in disbelief. Warm morning sun filtered through a dozen places
in the house open to the sun—skylights, floor-to-ceiling windows, even apertures cut into the doors.


The house had been built by a disciple of Frank Lloyd Wright. Abe’s wife, Hannah, had fallen in love with the minimalist effusion
of bricks, the dark unexpected spaces, the curved windows that bounded the corners. The Ringel home was one of the few contemporary
houses in a neighborhood of Early American classics. Abe had insisted on solar collectors, which illuminated the artwork covering
every conceivable space—even the seductive hiding place at the bottom of the steps that beckoned one to sit and contemplate
the early Magritte watercolor that had been Hannah’s favorite. For Abe, the challenge was not finding art—it was finding wall
space.


All the light bouncing off the windows seemed to confuse the Canadian geese that passed over Cambridge each winter and early
spring. Last month one of the big black birds had become entranced by its own reflection (“Just like some of my clients,”
Abe had quipped) and dive-bombed hara-kiri style into the living room window, knocking itself unconscious. Emma, Abe’s seventeen-year-old
daughter, had been distraught about the traumatized bird and had insisted they call the Humane Society to put the poor thing
out of its misery.


But then the most amazing thing had happened: the flock had shrieked and called out for their fallen mate to wake up. While
father and daughter were standing around feeling helpless and arguing over what to do, the fallen bird had risen and flown
up to join its flock.


“There’s a lesson in this.” Abe had turned to Emma, warming up to his subject.

“I’m sure there is, Dad, and I’m even surer that you’re going to share it with me.” Emma often teased her father about his
morality lessons, which to her marked him as an old-fashioned man still stuck in the 1960s. Yet Abe had the distinct feeling
that this was the part of him she also found most appealing. These modern young women were so hard to understand!


The sound of Birkenstocks clumping on the stairs alerted Abe to his daughter’s impending entrance for her usual breakfast
of carrot juice and figs. “What kind of pants are those?” Abe asked as he inspected her outfit of blue jeans and a work shirt.
As always, Emma had distracted him from any more gentle preoccupation. “I can practically see your tush through that cutout.”


“You can tell it’s cut out, Daddy? It’s supposed to look worn out.”

“I don’t care if it looks cut or worn, Emma,” Abe declared with the tone a father uses only when confronted by his teenage
daughter’s burgeoning womanhood. “The point is your tush is showing, and you’re sending an unintentional sexual message.”


As soon as he uttered those words, Abe knew he was in for trouble. But it was too late. Emma was ahead of him, as usual. Someday
he’d like to figure out why it was that his doctorate in jurisprudence from Harvard, his nearly twenty years as an attorney,
his reputation as a raconteur, and his speaking tours around the globe—how it was that all this experience had not prepared
him ever to win an argument with Emma.


“Who said it’s unintended, Daddy?” Emma’s smile was so like Hannah’s, with the funny way her heart-shaped mouth turned slightly
down at the corners, flirting unconsciously with him. This child, who had become his sole responsibility at such a fragile
time in both their lives, had the power instantly to transport him back to another time when her mother was alive, when all
three of them shared this house and their lives together.


“I’m a woman,” Emma continued, pointing unsubtly to her breasts. “And I have a constitutional right to send whatever messages
I want to whoever I please.”


“That’s whomever.” Abe heard the supercilious tone in his voice and sensed that he was quickly losing his authority.

“Hey, Dad, it’s cool, they’re just messages. I’m still, you know—”

“Spare me the details.” Abe held up his hand.

But Emma was not to be silenced now that she had her father where she wanted him. “I don’t pet below the waist even if I do
send messages with my a—” She looked at him with those gorgeous deep brown eyes and completed her thought: “Tush….” With that,
Emma gave an exaggerated wiggle of Exhibit A.


It was all too much for Abe. Hannah’s death in an automobile accident had left him to deal with Emma’s puberty, which had
been bad enough. Now Emma’s emerging sexuality seemed to be raging out of control. Not out of Emma’s control—out of Abe’s
control. As a result, he found himself trying to figure out how Hannah would have handled these situations. Abe realized,
of course, that he would soon be spared the daily burden of overseeing Emma’s transition from girl to woman, since this was
her last year at home before she left for college. Maybe that was why he treasured and dreaded these final months of being
Emma’s live-in chaperon. By this time next year he wouldn’t even know what Emma was wearing and to whom she was transmitting
what messages.


Emma quickly sensed that it was time to change the subject. Her father was squirming in the way he always did when they had
one of these talks. And that was too bad, because if she couldn’t talk to her father about this stuff, then she’d never get
a man’s point of view—the boys in her class really didn’t count, since they were, well, boys. Thank God at least there was
Rendi, her father’s girlfriend or whatever, to talk to, though Rendi seemed to have lots of hangups about sex discussions.
What was wrong with these people, anyway? It seemed like the more experience people had with sex, the more nervous they got
about discussing sexuality. She’d have to think about this concept for a while.


Not that Abe was prudish about discussing sex in general—as long as it didn’t involve his own family. Just last week he had
helped Emma resolve a dilemma that her friend Janie Warren had imposed on her. Janie had become pregnant and had asked Emma
to help her get an abortion without her parents finding out. Emma felt strongly that Janie should tell her parents, but Janie
said she was afraid. Emma sought her father’s advice. After listening, Abe asked one question: “Does Janie know that you’re
telling me?”


“Yes, she does. I asked her permission to seek your advice, and she said, ‘Sure.’”

“Then I know what I have to do,” Abe said. “Janie understands that I have to tell Charlie and Mary now that I know. She wants me to tell them.”


Emma was worried. “But what if you’re wrong, Daddy?”

Abe responded by quoting Shakespeare, his frequent source for resolving tough ethical conundrums: “To do a great right,” Abe
said, “you sometimes have to risk doing a little wrong.”


Emma did not object as Abe walked to the phone and called his old friend Charles Warren to tell him about his daughter’s problem
and fear.


Janie was enormously relieved when her parents told her that they knew of her situation and that she could count on their
support and love. It was vintage Abe—perceptive, direct, proactive, and ri