FIXER

Ian MacDonald is a seasoned trial lawyer in the New York County (Manhattan) District Attorneys Office. He has tried a mobster's son for the rape and murder of a young bank intern. The trial ended in a hung jury because one of the jurors has been paid to vote not guilty by a lawyer who has gone into the busing of fixing juries. That lawyer is a former Assistant District Attorney from Ian's office. He must be stopped if the constitutional right of trial by jury is to be saved.

This novel takes place in Manhattan. The protagonist is Ian MacDonald, a senior trial Assistant District Attorney in the New York County District Attorney's Office. Ian is prosecuting a mobster's son for the brutal rape and murder of a young woman, Mary Rusk. Mary is abducted as she is walking to the Staten Island Ferry after working late at her job. The trial ends with a hung jury because one of the jurors has been bought. The juror has agreed to vote not guilty in return for a large sum of money. The fixer is Barry Bradford, a former assistant district attorney who has gone into the business of fixing juries. If the jury system is to survive, Bradford must be stopped. There are three other story lines in the novel: 1. The District Attorney's Office receives a letter from an inmate/patient of a hospital for the criminally insane. The inmate claims that he wants to confess to a felony murder he committed with an accomplice. If he is telling the truth, there is a killer walking the streets. He must be found and evidence, other than the word of an insane man, must be developed in the seven year old case. 2. An interim District Attorney appointed by the governor is a disaster. He pursues his only goal, to get elected, at the cost of his office's investigations. Ian's mentor is eventually persuaded to consider the job. 3. Ian falls in love with Adele Rusk, Mary's sister and a brilliant intern at New York Presbyterian Hospital. This love affair has to be carried on surreptitiously lest the case be taken away from Ian to avoid the appearance of impropriety. Barry Bradford is planning to fix a juror selected for the re-trail. Ian and the police i eventually gather enough probable cause to install eavesdropping devices. The installers are almost caught. One of the undercover officers is shot. Bradford identifies a selected juror in the second trial whom, he is sure, will take a bribe.

After graduating from St Lawrence University and Columbia Law School, Rod went directly to work for District Attorney Frank S Hogan at the New York County District Attorney's Office. He was ultimately assigned to the Homicide Bureau where he became a seasoned trial lawyer. He tried serious murder cases until Mr Hogan made him one of his eight Bureau Chiefs. When Robert Morgenthau became the District Attorney, he put Rod in charge of the Supreme Court Bureau, then Chief of the Trial Division. In that later position, Rod was in charge of most of the trials in the office and had more than half of the Assistant District Attorneys under his direct supervision. When now Federal District Judge John F Keenan left the office to became the New York State Special State Prosecutor for the Investigation of Corruption in the New York City Criminal Justice System, he brought Rod with him as his Chief Assistant. When Keenan became a Federal Judge, Rod became the Special Prosecutor. Rod then served as Executive Director of the Liman Commission chaired by Arthur Liman, before he left government service to go into private practice. He formed the law firm of Lankler Siffert and Wohl. He is now retired but the law firm carries on. While in private practice, Rod served as Counsel to the Mayor's Advisory Committee on Police Management and Personnel Policy (the Zuccoti Committee); as a member of the Mayor's Committee on the Judiciary; as a member of the Chief Judge's Advisory Committee on Criminal Law and Procedure; as a Commissioner on the new York City Commission to Investigate Alleged Police Corruption ( the Mollen Commission); and, as first Deputy Independent Counsel to Independent Counsel Robert B. Fiske, Jr in charge of the Whitewater investigation in Washington D C and Little Rock, Arkansa. Rod is a member emeritus of the American College of Trial Lawyers. He hastens to add that he is not Ian MacDonald and Ian MacDonald is not him.