SUSPECT MAY TAKE STAND
Lawyer in Puppy Doe trial seeks juror opinion on cons
Lawyers for an illegal immigrant accused of the savage torture of the doomed pit bull Puppy Doe are testing the waters about Radoslaw Czerkawski possibly taking the stand in his own defense when his animalcruelty trial gets underway later this month.
Before Judge Kenneth J. Fishman impanels a jury of 14 — slated to begin Oct. 24 in Dedham Superior Court — defense attorney Larry Tipton wants him to ask prospects during their screening whether they would dismiss as untrustworthy the testimony of a witness they learned had been convicted of a crime. Tipton also wants Fishman to ask whether they would believe a defendant was “most likely to be guilty of the offense they’re being tried for” if he had been previously convicted.
Czerkawski, glumly sitting in leg irons beside a Polish interpreter yesterday at the final pre-trial conference for his 4-year-old case, was found guilty of larceny in 2015 for ripping off a bedridden Quincy seamstress for $130,000 after her grandchildren hired the Polish national to be her live-in caregiver.
Assistant Norfolk District Attorney Tracey Cusick questioned how Tipton’s tactic would work when jurors might have vastly different reactions to — for instance — a drunken-driving conviction versus a murder rap.
And besides, Cusick said, “The whole purpose of introducing a prior conviction is to impeach a person. It’s essentially telling the jury that this defendant has been convicted of a crime.”
Tipton said that if he’s going to risk putting Czerkawski on the stand, he’d rather “know now what kind of belief system” jurors are bringing to the courtroom.
Fishman took the request under advisement and told the trial teams he has not ruled out impaneling a jury from an outside county if seating one locally proves problematic because of the Puppy Doe case’s extensive pre-trial publicity.
Czerkawski electronically collected dozens of photos of puppies, of men in bed with dogs and at least one animal-cruelty image which Fishman refused to describe in open court.
He became a national lightning rod for animal lovers and activists.
Puppy Doe was euthanized after she was found in a park all skin and broken bones, burned, bruised and stabbed, with her tongue split open.