Ian MacDonald is a senior trial assistant district attorney in the Homicide Bureau of the New York County (Manhattan) District Attorneys Office. He has been assigned a major murder trial of a mobster's son accused of abducting, raping, and strangling to death a young lady who was working as a bank intern in one of the nations largest banks headquartered in lower manhattan. Having worked late one night to finish up monthly reports she was walking to the Staten Island ferry when abducted. Her body was dumped in the middle of a vacant street in lower manhattan. After a two week trial, the case was submitted to the jury and it was soon apparent that one of the jurors would not deliberate with the others. He insisted in voting against a conviction and he refused to discuss his decision with his fellow jurors. Ultimately the trial judge had to declare a mistrial. An initial investigation discloses that the juror was paid to vote not guilty by a lawyer, whose business is to guarantee clients that there will not be a conviction because he is able to fix a juror.
If the constitutional right of trial by jury is to be preserved, Ian must find out who did this, make an arrest and assure that it doesn't happen again during the retrial of this case, or, for that matter, in any other case.
Ian's efforts are thwarted by at least four factors:
- His boss is an interim DA, appointed by governor, after the elected District Attorney dies while in office. He is a mistake. His only goal is to get himself elected. He politicizes the office and jeopardizes investigations, including Ian's by interfering and having damaging press conferences. The governor has to remedy that problem.
- During trial preparation, Ian is referred a letter form an inmate/patient of a hospital for the criminally insane who believes that, if he admits to a murder he helped commit seven years ago, he may get well. Ian finds the cold case. There are only two problems: the perpetrator is insane, and, it is clear that he had an accomplice who was never arrested and is out roaming the streets, possibly killing others.
- Ian has fallen in love with Adele, the sister of the deceased bank intern, who is a brilliant resident at a major New York Hospital. He should probably not be the trial assistant for the retrial but he is convinced of the defendant's guilt, and wants to convict him. Ian and Adele agree to try to keep their relationship a secret and to hope no one learns of it.
-the father of the deceased intern has a gun, and will kill the defendant if Ian does not convict him
About the Author: A graduate of St Lawrence University and Columbia Law School, Rod went directly to the New York County (Manhattan) District Attorneys Office which was then led by the legendary Frank S Hogan. After passing through the various junior bureaus in that office, he was assigned to the Homicide Bureau where he remained until Hogan made him Chief of the Complaint Bureau where most of the rookies in the office where trained. He then served as Chief of the Criminal Courts Bureau. After Hogan died and Robert M Morgenthau was elected the District Attorney, he was made Chief of the Supreme Court Bureau from which position he helped reorganize the office and was designated Chief of the Trial Division by Morgrenthau. As such he was in charge of most of the trials conducted by that office and supervised more than half the Assistants.
Rod left the DA's office to become Chief Assistant Special Prosecutor to Special Prosecutor John F Keenan. They were in charge of all investigations and prosecutions of corruption in the New York City Crimainal Justice System. He was appointed Special Prosecutor when Keenan was appointed a Federal district judge.
Rod left public service to form a law firm with John S Siffert and Frank S Wohl. Though he is retired, The firm continues as Lankler Siffert & Wohl. He has served on the Committee on the Judiciary for the Mayor of the City of New York, The Chief Judge's Advisory Committee on Criminal law and Procedure for the Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals of the State of New York, as a commissioner on the New York City Commission to investigate Alleged Police Corruption (the Mollen Commission). In 1994 he went to Washington D C as First Deputy Independent Counsel to Independent Counsel Robert B Fiske, Jr in charge of the Whitewater investigation. He is a member emeritus of the American College of Trial Lawyers.
Rod considers his greatest achievement to be his marriage of sixty years to his wife Barbara, who helped write FIXER, and who helped him raise four sons. They have given him four wonderful daughters-in-law and ten grandchildren.
Rod hastens to add that Ian MacDonald is not him and he is not Ian MacDonal