Jonathan Klein

Jonathan Klein is Jacob Barber’s defense attorney, a seasoned lawyer whose unassuming presence becomes a source of calm for the Barber family as their son faces a first-degree murder charge. Bookish, candid, and legally astute, Klein’s method rests on a combination of trust and difficult preparation: he treats Jacob as a person rather than a spectacle, but insists that the boy’s account must survive the scrutiny of a courtroom.

Identity and Introduction

Klein first appears at the detective bureau carrying a battered lawyer’s bag. He is short and slight, with a stoop, long white hair swept back over his collar, and a white goatee; he wears a gray suit and black turtleneck. His voice is naturally soft, and people have to lean closer to hear him. The physical modesty of his entrance belies the authority Andrew Barber attributes to him: Andrew likes and respects Klein, describing him as bookish and vaguely bohemian, but also smart, truthful, and wise. Andrew’s regard is personal as well as professional; he admits to a lingering attraction to men of his father’s generation, as though some part of him still hoped to be unorphaned.

Klein greets Andrew warmly, then asks to see his client, Leonard Patz. Andrew lets him into the interview room and agrees to switch off the camera and microphone. The exchange establishes Klein’s ease with Andrew and his attention to the conditions of legal representation: he wants access to his client without the interrogation continuing to be recorded. It also shows the former colleagues’ different positions in the case. Andrew is a prosecutor at the police station; Klein arrives as defense counsel for a suspect in the investigation.

Defense of Jacob Barber

After Jacob’s arrest, Andrew and Laurie Barber promise their son that they will find the bail money and bring him home after the arraignment. Jacob asks Andrew to be his lawyer, but Andrew cannot take that role. Klein becomes the lawyer who can stand beside him. The next morning, before the family faces reporters outside the courthouse, Klein prepares Andrew and Laurie for what will happen in court, calling his explanation a catechism. Laurie is devastated by the arrest and by what Andrew has disclosed about the Barber family’s history. Klein’s touch on her sleeve and calm manner briefly comfort her amid the strain.

At the arraignment, Jacob is brought from the lockup and stands awkwardly in a suit Laurie chose and Klein delivered. Klein moves through the gate to the defense table and puts a hand on Jacob’s back. Andrew reads the gesture as a deliberate public assurance: Klein is not afraid to touch his client and is not merely fulfilling a professional duty toward someone he considers distasteful. He is showing that he believes in Jacob and is his friend. The gesture answers, without a speech, the prosecution’s effort to make the accused boy appear monstrous.

Klein’s advocacy combines support with unsparing preparation. At a later defense meeting, he begins by explaining that the prosecution’s initial package contains the indictment and some police reports, not all its evidence; the team has only a general picture of the case and must work out what the trial may look like. When he questions Jacob about the knife, he identifies the prosecution’s likely claim that Jacob bought it because he was being bullied, in contrast with Jacob’s statement that he bought it for no reason. Klein presses Jacob’s account against the practical demands of a trial, especially the possibility that Logiudice will challenge it on the stand.

That preparation becomes painful when Jacob feels Klein is making his story sound like a lie. Laurie, who has been silent through the meeting, asks Klein to stop. He accepts the rebuke and pauses the questioning, while still asking Jacob to consider how his account would sound to jurors. He points to the difficulty of reconciling Jacob’s description of finding Ben Rifkin’s body with the claimed thumbprint inside Ben’s sweatshirt and the absence of visible blood on Jacob afterward. Jacob insists that the account is true, though he corrects the details Klein has presented. The exchange captures the tension in Klein’s role: he must protect Jacob, but he cannot prepare him well without testing the story against the prosecution’s questions.

Legal Judgment and Family Boundaries

Klein also has to navigate the complicated role of Andrew, who is both Jacob’s father and a former prosecutor. At the start of trial, Klein asks the court to allow Andrew to enter an appearance for his son and second-chair the defense. He submits a motion announcing Andrew’s participation. The judge responds that the choice is not really hers, though she is unsure it is wise. The move places Andrew inside the defense team while making the family’s emotional stake part of the courtroom’s professional arrangement.

The defense’s discussion of behavioral genetics presents another boundary Klein leaves to legal judgment. Dr. Vogel tells the Barbers that the science could cut either way: the prosecution might use it to argue that Jacob is violent by nature, while the defense might consider it as mitigation if the prosecution proves he killed Ben. She says whether such material is admissible is for the lawyers to decide, and that the decision belongs to the family and defense team. Klein is the attorney to whom Vogel will submit her report. The evidence does not show him endorsing a particular genetic explanation; rather, the episode places scientific interpretation within the defense’s strategic and evidentiary decisions.

Trial Advocacy and the Mistrial Motion

In opening statements, Klein follows Logiudice, whose account gives the jury a polished prosecution story: Jacob allegedly carried a knife into Cold Spring Park and acted when bullying made his temper snap. The prosecution’s argument is built around a narrative theme, not simply a sequence of facts. Andrew sees an unresolved gap at its center: Logiudice can offer theories about what triggered the killing, including speculation about bullying and genetic predisposition, but cannot supply a firm explanation. Klein’s task is to meet that constructed story with a defense that can make room for doubt.

During the state’s case, Klein’s questioning reflects a lawyer’s awareness of how easily an open-ended question can give a witness room to damage the defense. Andrew recognizes the danger when Klein begins a question about Andrew’s own judgment and integrity, issues challenged in the trial. The judge overrules the prosecution’s objection. The moment draws the father’s conduct into the courtroom’s dispute and makes clear that the defense cannot keep Andrew’s dual role wholly separate from the case.

Klein’s most forceful procedural intervention comes after Logiudice raises the subject of William Barber, Andrew’s father. Klein tells the judge that the issue had been addressed extensively before trial and that the ruling had been explicit: the subject was so prejudicial that mentioning it would result in a mistrial. He calls it the third rail the prosecution had been instructed not to touch and moves for a mistrial. If the court will not grant one, he says, the defense will seek to expand its witness list to include Leonard Patz and William Barber. The motion turns the prosecution’s breach into a direct challenge to the fairness of the proceedings and offers a consequential alternative if the trial continues.

Character and Narrative Role

Klein is defined by a contrast between outward smallness and professional steadiness. His old briefcase, loose gray suit, and unbuttoned, rumpled appearance make him seem, at first glance, poorly equipped for a high-profile murder trial. Andrew, however, finds him reassuring: the same soft-spoken manner that quiets a police interview room gives the family a measure of calm outside the courthouse. In court, his naturalness stands against Logiudice’s calculated performance, though the contrast does not make Klein’s task easy or guarantee a result.

Through Klein, the book presents defense lawyering as both a relationship and a discipline. He offers Jacob belief and friendship, while testing the boy’s account rather than simply repeating it. He respects the limits of what the defense has received, prepares the family for the public rituals of court, and objects when the prosecution crosses a boundary set before trial. His work cannot resolve the underlying uncertainty by itself; it can insist that the case be argued within the rules and that Jacob not be reduced to the prosecution’s story of a boy who snapped.