Life or Death in a Brooklyn Courtroom

Last week, Christopher "Marlin" Webb, 25, was led into a Brooklyn courtroom for the opening arguments of his trial. He rubbed his bald head and sat in his chair uncomfortably, like there was a snake underneath it. Webb wore a gray shirt and red tie, trying to achieve the look of the wrongly accused. Webb knows his life is on the line. And like most felons on trial, he made himself busy taking notes while a witness recounted the terrible deeds he allegedly committed.

Webb's case is on trial in Kings Supreme Criminal Term Part 5. It's the seventh capital case to take place in New York since the death penalty was restored in 1995. The judge who tried the first capital case, the Hon. Anne G. Feldman, is hearing this one as well. Of the six previous capital cases, four ended in death-penalty verdicts. Feldman is a small woman in her 70s, and is known as a no-nonsense judge. This trial promises to be speedy. By the end of this week the case will be given to the jurors, who will decide whether Webb lives or dies.

During the trial the rows filled with spectators. The event resembled an angry protracted wedding. Behind Webb were 18 black people?all friends or relatives of Webb?and about 10 whites. "The white people are all with Legal Aid," a courthouse worker explained. The victim's side had three sad-faced blacks trying to steel themselves against the trauma of hearing what had happened to their family member. The jury of eight men and four women tried to look neutral as the trial went on.

Webb's lawyers are portraying him as a hardworking fellow who's been falsely accused. Since Webb had a job and no police record, he is?by Brooklyn standards?a saint. But it may just have been his job that got him in all this trouble. In 1998, Stephanie St. Rose, now 24, was going out with a Brooklyn man named Ian "Sean" Robinson. Robinson broke off the relationship, and a few days later St. Rose found out she was pregnant with his baby. Impending fatherhood did nothing to sway Robinson, and he refused to return any phone calls from St. Rose.

But Robinson's cousin, Webb, stopped by St. Rose's Crown Heights apartment to see how she was doing. It has been alleged that Robinson sent his cousin to convince St. Rose not to hassle him if she had the baby. Webb wasn't very persuasive. But he returned to his job as a bouncer at a Brooklyn club and met two members of the Crips, whose specialty was convincing people to do as they wanted them to do. So, on June 3, 1999, while St. Rose was in her ninth month, Webb made another social call. He acted nervous. As he was leaving, St. Rose tried to close the door behind him. But Webb pushed his way back into the apartment. This time he was accompanied by the two Crips, who had been waiting outside in the hall. They grabbed St. Rose and threw her against a wall. She screamed. Her mother, Cynthia St. Rose, ran out from a back room to defend her daughter. The mother was all of 47?and she will remain so forever in the memories of her loved ones, as Webb shot her dead. Then he shot Stephanie St. Rose four times. She survived, but her baby died in the womb.

Webb's version of what happened?or rather, one of his versions of what happened?is that he was in the St. Rose apartment that night. He went to use the bathroom and heard gunshots. After he came out and saw the carnage, he ran home and cried himself to sleep. When told by a detective that that was a pretty weak story, he came up with another, and then another. All told, Webb has related five different versions of what went on in that Crown Heights apartment in the spring of 1999.

Now Webb sits alone facing the death penalty. His cousin, Ian Robinson, isn't a suspect, and no one seems to know what happened to the two Crips. As she was the sole survivor, Stephanie St. Rose has only one story. On cross-examination, Webb's Legal Aid lawyer claimed that St. Rose couldn't identify her killers, and that she picked out Webb from the lineup only because she was still in love with his cousin. St. Rose coolly replied, "I picked him out because he shot me."