Brandon Lanier didn’t show up to the office on October 16, 2000 because he had jury duty. He’d been part of the jury in the case of Douglas v City of Syracuse. In summary, Leon Douglas sued the City of Syracuse accusing his local government of denying his healthcare plan as mentioned in his employment agreement. Now, for eleven people in that jury, this was a simple case. Unfortunately for Mr. Lanier, this wasn’t a case–far from it–it was a mission.
Brandon Lanier is a 34-year-old man who grew up in Boston to a loving family. He was part of the upper middle class, and his parents could afford to pay for his college education. He graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a major in computer science in 1988 when he was only twenty-two. In 1995, he resigned from Apple after they were projected to go bankrupt only a few months later. He had developed a love for politics during his tenure at Apple, so he decided to go back to school for a law degree. In the years following 1984, the year he went to college, his mother had passed away, and as a result, his father took up gambling, resulting in his becoming financially desolate. This meant Mr. Lanier had to pay off his education this time around. He took a job at city hall to fund the expensive bill after he got in at Cornell. His supervisor, Martin Thomas noted in an October 1999 issue of the local newspaper that Mr. Lanier did a “fantastic job” Y2K-proofing the systems that his local government was using. A year later, Brandon Lanier was chosen as the successor to the late Martin Thomas. It was safe to say that Mr. Lanier had a bright future.
In October 2000, Brandon Lanier was notified that he would have to appear for jury duty on the 16th. He immediately called a friend. Now, I couldn’t tell you what he said. I was on the other side of the wall, in the townhouse where we both lived. He said something like “I don’t want to lose my job,” and “they won’t pay me.” On Monday, I called a friend of mine who told me he was in the courtroom gallery. He noted how the room he was witnessing the case was a small chamber, rich wood paneling everywhere, what seemed like tacked-on fluorescent tubes in the ceiling to make up for a measly split beam of light shone through a window with it’s blinds drawn, and the finely-aged scent of old books lingering around the room. But he told me he noticed that all later. The first thing he noticed, peculiarly, was how Mr. Lanier stormed in. You could practically see the smoke coming out of his ears. My friend had no doubt in my mind that he would be taken out of the jury. Why? Because he worked in Syracuse City Hall. When the case was closed later that day (City of Syracuse was found not guilty), something seemed off. Then he noticed it: Brandon Lanier was still in the jury. The judge had not taken him off! Furthermore, my friend noted how it seemed that the energy in the jury swiftly swayed from Syracuse’s guilt to deeming the local government not guilty at the tail end of the day.
Slightly perplexed, but very tired, I drove home after finishing the call and eating an unsatisfying meal at a restaurant near my house. I was slightly offput by having to go home because Mr. Lanier was my neighbor, whom I did not know very well. After arriving home, I overheard Mr. Lanier talking to someone on the phone. I could only make out a sentence: “I’ll kill you.” It sent shivers down my spine. I couldn’t sleep, in part because I’m an insomniac, and in part because of what I overheard next door. I decided the only solution was to take a sleeping pill.
The next day, I headed to work at Saab Syracuse as usual, and when I came home, I was shocked to read this on the front of the newspaper:
LEONARD DOUGLAS DEAD
The former City Hall employee was seen leaving his private residence for his job Tuesday morning and was found dead by his coworker, Brandon Lanier after he arrived back from his lunch break at around 1:00 P.M.
The article continued on. It didn’t matter. I knew who it was. On Tuesday night at around 7 P.M., I called 9-1-1. The conversation went a little like this:
“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”
“I’m reporting a potential suspect in the murder of Leon Douglas.”
“O.K., who did you want to report, and what evidence have you collected?”
I suddenly felt like there was a knot in my throat. I was living right next to a murderer! So I ran.
Breathlessly at the corner of my street, I replied: “Brandon Lanier. I heard him on the phone last night saying ‘I’m going to kill him.’”
The operator seemed slightly amused. “We already investigated him. Thank you for trying to help, though!”
What type of response was that? “Thanks for trying to help?” Nevertheless, I felt a wave of relief come over me. My neighbor isn’t a murderer! What a crazy notion!
Wednesday was the most relaxed I’d felt since the week had started on Sunday. I did my job like I had a new lease on life. It seemed like the first time that I had walked into my Saab dealer–heck, any Saab dealer–and loved it.
That night, I went back to my house and got in bed when I heard words that seemed to come from my darkest nightmares. The wall echoed “It’s done.” I almost tried to console myself, It must have been related so something else! Then came the death of any hope I had left: “I’ve killed him.”
I am submitting this work into evidence in the case of Brandon Lanier v. State of New York. I still do not know what happened that fateful day in the jury room. I did, however, find that Mr. Lanier bribed the judge to keep him on the jury from the defense’s lawyer. It could be that Mr. Lanier had bribed the jurors as he bribed the judge, but I don’t think we’ll ever know.
As for the case of Douglas v. City of Syracuse, I understand double jeopardy, but I believe that Mr. Lanier bribed his local government to help ensure that they wouldn’t reveal his extensive criminal record to Cornell. I found that out after talking to one of Mr. Lanier’s former Apple colleagues. That employee wanted to stay anonymous, but he said to put on record that he believes Mr. Lanier needs to “shelve his plans.”
Tony Mathias,
December 15, 2000