By Nate Rawlings
“Hate, hate, hate,” Philip J. Smallman said as he paced the room in front of the jury. “What is hate, and how does it factor into this case?”
Smallman wasted no time getting to the point of his summation, the final argument he would have to convince the jury of his client’s innocence. Wednesday, Craig Newman tried to sway jurors from convicting his client, Hakim Scott. Thursday, it was Smallman’s turn to appeal to a different jury against convicting Keith Phoenix. The charges remained the same: second degree murder as a hate crime.
“This entire event occurred in the changing of a New York City traffic light,” Smallman told the jury.
In the time it took a traffic light to change, several events occurred. Keith Phoenix drove up to a stoplight on the corner of Bushwick Avenue and Kossuth Place on December 7, 2008. Jose and Romel Sucuzhanay were stumbling home from a bar when Scott jumped out of the car and smashed a beer bottle over Jose’s head. Phoenix followed. He took an aluminum Louisville Slugger from his car and, prosecutors say, beat Jose to death.
For two weeks, prosecutors have argued that Phoenix attacked the Sucuzhanay brothers because they are Hispanic and because Phoenix thought they were gay. Smallman concentrated his summation on arguing that hate was not a factor at all, contending that the violence was the result of a spontaneous fight.
“This is as happenstance as human behavior becomes,” Smallman said to the jurors. “This wasn’t a championship fight, not a prizefight. It was an honest city street scrape.”
Before he sat down, Smallman acknowledged that he was at a disadvantage speaking first. After Smallman, Assistant District Attorney Josh Hanshaft would have his chance to make a final argument. Smallman asked the panel to keep an open mind, but to listen to the prosecutor with skepticism. He concluded by turning once more to the theme of hatred.
“The world is filled with hate,” Smallman said. “Religious hatred, sectarian hatred. I submit to you: this is not hate.”
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“Whether because of the color of skin, the religion they practice, where they were born, or who they choose to become romantically involved with, that is hate,” Hanhaft said less than an hour later. “This is a hate crime.”
He wove the theme of hate as a motivator into a 360-degree portrait of the crime. He put up a diagram of the street where Jose Sucuzhanay died and went witness by witness, describing the scene from each point of view.
There was the cab driver at the corner of Stanhope and Bushwick Avenue who saw Phoenix hit Jose over and over until “I thought his head was going to explode.”
Kuson Nelson, returning home with friends from watching a boxing match, couldn’t see as much from his front door, but heard “the sound of bat hitting bone.”
Kimberly Taylor was asleep when she heard thumping and banging. She looked out of her street-level window from 20 feet away and saw enough to identify the bat. Weeks after the attack, she picked Phoenix out of lineup: “number three, he’s the one I saw beating someone to death outside my window.”
Hanshaft played the tape from Taylor’s frantic 911 call: “He’s knocked out! Oh my god, he’s lying supine in the street!”
But the most important witness supporting Hanshaft’s argument of hate was Romel Sucuzhanay, who survived by fleeing as Hakim Scott chased him down the street. Hanshaft quoted Romel Sucuzhanay’s testimony, how he remembered seeing the penetrating stare from Phoenix right before he heard the word “fucking Spanish.”
Hanshaft argued that to commit murder as a hate crime, there “needs to be no plan, no agenda. It happened the minute this defendant opened his window and yelled, ‘mother fucking faggots’ and went for a baseball bat.”
He pointed at Keith Phoenix one more time and tried to leave the jury questioning exactly what kind of man Phoenix is. “The kind of man who would demean and demoralize,” Hanshaft said, “and if someone didn’t take his comments lying down, to beat them to death.”
*
After the attorneys were finished, Judge Patricia Dimango had the last word. Over the course of an hour, she explained to the jury what they must consider while determining Phoenix’s guilt or innocence. As Dimango neared the end of her instructions, people began to gather in the back of the courtroom.
Craig Newman, Hakim Scott’s defense lawyer, shuffled in, set down his briefcase, and sat in the front row. After dismissing Phoenix’s jury, Dimango announced that the other jury had reached a verdict in the case of Hakim Scott.
A uniformed officer led the jury into the courtroom and the foreman calmly read the verdict.
In the charge of murder in the second degree as a hate crime–not guilty.
Phoenix’s family let out a small cheer of relief.
In the charge murder in the second degree not as a hate crime–not guilty
Another cheer from the Scott family.
In the charge of first degree assault as a hate crime–not guilty.
The family in the seats began to breath a sigh of relief. Romel and Diego Sucuzhanay huddled and clenched their faces.
In the charge of first degree manslaughter–guilty
Hakim Scott’s mother began to cry. Diego and Romel Sucuzhanay sighed, but did not look relieved.
In the end, the jury found Scott guilty of two crimes: manslaughter for contributing to Jose’s death, and attempted assault in the attack on Romel Sucuzhanay. Judge Dimango set the sentencing date for June 9, and Scott faces up to 40 years in prison.
“We plan to appeal the conviction,” Newman said to reporters after the verdict was read. “He’s upset that he was in the car with someone who committed these acts and was dragged along with him.”
Diego Sucuzhanay spoke to reporters, and said that he hopes the jury will bring justice to his brother by convicting Keith Phoenix.
“I think about my brother every day,” Diego Sucuzhanay said. “The jury will see that [Phoenix] did it with hate in his heart.”
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