Feb. 1
ALABAMA:
How the system failed William Ziegler: Perjured testimony, trashed evidence,
lying jurors
On a cold winter night in February 2000, Russell Allen Baker Jr. ended up dead
from multiple stab wounds in a wooded patch near the Peach Place Inn apartments
on Leroy Stevens Road.
Within a week, Mobile County sheriff's investigators zeroed in on William John
Ziegler as the ringleader of a group of people responsible for Baker's death
and charged him with murder.
From that point to the time the defendant moved into a cell on Alabama's death
row, the system failed Ziegler at every turn, according a Mobile County judge
who recently granted the defendant???s bid for a new trial.
Mobile County Circuit Judge Sarah Stewart???s 218-page ruling faults the
actions of investigators and prosecutors, the performance of his lawyers
before, during and after the trial, and even conduct of 2 of the jurors.
The judge wrote that Ziegler's lawyers failed to provide the most basic
defense, with one of the attorneys actually throwing away key evidence that
could have allowed them to make a compelling argument that one of his
co-defendants used his car to move Baker or his body.
"Under any analysis, this Court cannot say that Ziegler received a fair trial
and, accordingly, under our constitutional system - he is entitled to a new
trial," Stewart wrote.
The judge, who conducted an extensive hearing in the case in 2010, determined
that Ziegler deserves a new trial for a multitude of reasons related to
prosecutorial misconduct and ineffective defense lawyers. The ruling came after
Ziegler's new lawyers filed a rarely successful post-appeal challenge available
after defendants have exhausted their regular appeal options.
Stewart's decision will not stand without a fight, though. The Alabama Attorney
General's Office has indicated that it will appeal, and the Mobile County
District Attorney's Office harshly criticized it. An attorney who represented
Ziegler, now 37, also took issue with the findings.
"I strongly disagree with the order," said Mobile County Chief Assistant
District Attorney Deborah Tillman, who tried the case in 2001. "I did not and
have not ever done anything improper in not turning over evidence."
But Benjamin Nagin, a New York lawyer who took Ziegler's case for free after
the defendant lost his appeal, said the shortcomings Stewart cited in her order
are well-documented.
"It's a very detailed decision. It's very well-reasoned," he said. "I think it
is unusual. But this is an unusual case. These are not technicalities. These
are very serious errors raising very serious questions."
Evidence in the garbage?
Authorities charged 5 people in connection with Baker's death, but only Ziegler
went to trial. The rest cut deals with prosecutors, and some of them testified
against him.
Prosecutors contended at the trial that Ziegler, beat Baker in retaliation for
a racial slur and then forced him down a dirt road where he and his cousin,
Alexander Randall II, stabbed him many times.
Stewart wrote that court-appointed attorneys Habib Yazdi and Greg Hughes
largely accepted the state's allegation of their client's guilt because they
failed to adequately investigate the crime.
Hughes said he did the best job he could but cannot recall many of the details
more than a decade later. And he noted that he did not hear the testimony at
the 2010 hearing on which Stewart based her ruling.
But Hughes said the very reason that post-appeal challenges exist is to give
judges an opportunity to prevent miscarriages of justice that appellate courts
have not caught.
"She's the judge. That's what she gets paid to do," he said. "To my mind, it
shows the system works."
Stewart wrote that the lawyers' inquiry consisted of little more than hiring an
investigator who never had worked on a murder case. His previous experience
involved arsons and other lesser crimes.
The investigator worked no more than 55 hours, even though Yazdi had previously
estimated that he would need 300 hours, according to Stewart's findings. She
pointed to the investigator's testimony that he talked to only 2 people who
were not in the defendant's immediate family.
Remarkably, Stewart wrote, the attorneys did not speak to either of those
witnesses.
Yazdi testified at the 2010 hearing that he viewed it as the job of the
investigator, not the lawyers, to seek out potential witnesses.
"Think about going on trial for your life and your attorneys don't bother to
speak to any witnesses," Nagin said.
Testimony at the 2010 hearing indicated that Ziegler's lawyers failed to follow
up on a "bucket full" of evidence that investigator Gary Cohen did gather. He
testified that the defendant's aunt and legal guardian, Odella Wilson, told him
about a videotape showing a blood trail outside of the apartments at Peach
Place down the center steps. It contradicted the state???s theory that the
blood trail led down an outside stairway.
But the lawyers never watched the tape, Stewart wrote.
Wilson also testified that she gave Cohen a knife, a pair of socks discovered
in a burn pile, bloody underwear and blood-stained shoes.
The clothing, which belonged to Randall, contradicted his testimony that he was
only minimally involved in the killing and that he tossed the knives he and
Ziegler used into a nearby catfish pond.
The attorneys had retained a DNA expert but did not submit the clothing or
knives for analysis. In fact, Wilson testified, Yazdi told her that the jury
would not care about the evidence and then proceeded to throw the materials in
the garbage.
Yazdi adamantly said he never threw away materials and denied even being told
about evidence cited in the judge's ruling.
"These are a bunch of fabricated statements that the family of the defendant,
Ziegler, fabricated," he said in an interview with AL.com.
But Stewart said she found Wilson's testimony credible because Cohen
corroborated it and a memo that he wrote at the time documented the evidence
that he had collected.
Holes in the state's theory
If Hughes and Yazdi had done a more thorough investigation, Stewart wrote, they
would have found a slew of other evidence to challenge the state's theory of
the crime.
Dr. Leroy Riddick, who was the chief medical examiner in the Mobile office of
the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences at the time, testified in 2010 that
he concluded from the victim's injuries that it was unlikely he was killed in
the woods where he was found. What's more, Riddick said, it is mostly likely
that a right-handed person inflicted the fatal slashes to Baker's neck; Ziegler
is left-handed.
Riddick also disputed the state???s theory of the time of Baker's death, around
midnight on Feb. 19, 2000. The medical examiner said based on testimony that
that Baker had been drinking earlier that night, he should have had alcohol in
his system when died. He did not, indicating that the he died a later time than
the state contended.
Riddick testified that he freely would have told all of this to the defense
lawyers had they asked. But he said his only contact with the defense team was
a brief conversation with Hughes, who did not ask any of those questions.
According to testimony at the 2010 hearing, law enforcement officials who went
to the wooded spot where Baker's body was found all agreed that it had been
dumped there. That included then-Mobile County District Attorney John Tyson
Jr., then-Sheriff Jack Tillman and his chief deputy, James Mayo, as well as the
investigators on the case.
Having never discovered these critical points, the judge wrote, the defense
lawyers had no ability to conduct an effective cross-examination of Riddick
when he testified at the trial.
Hughes and Yazdi also failed to follow up on other leads that Cohen turned up,
Stewart wrote. She noted that the investigator spoke with Greg Willis, who
owned a car lot where co-defendant James Gordon Bennett II bought a 1988 Honda
Prelude that law enforcement authorities at one time believed may have been
involved in teh crime. Cohen reported that Willis told him he had found an
evidence bag in the back of the vehicle after he had repossessed it.
Cohen testified that he told the lawyers that he felt Willis was holding
something back, but the lawyers they never followed up on it. Willis testified
in 2010 that the bag contained a bloody sweatshirt and that the back of the car
was full of blood.
Hughes said he recalls that the investigator reported that Willis had found an
empty bag. He said he does not remember any mention of a bloody mess in the
car.
Yazdi took exception to the judge???s characterization of his performance. He
said he and Hughes visited the wooded area where the body was found and hired
the investigator to probe the state's evidence.
He said the case presented to him and his co-counsel was damning: The victim's
body was discovered a few hundred feet from Ziegler's home. Witnesses from the
neighborhood testified that Ziegler and Randall were walking him to the area.
The victim was the ex-boyfriend of the mother of Ziegler's child.
3 co-defendants fingered Ziegler as the killer, Yazdi recalled, and the
defendant had made several incriminating statements to detectives investigating
the case. He said he did not have access to much of the information contained
in Stewart's ruling, adding that he doubts a lot of it is true.
"Many of the facts that (the judge) relies upon, they did not exist at the
time, and we were not told about them at the time," he said. "A lot of them are
fabricated."
But Stewart wrote that attorneys in capital murder cases have a duty to believe
their client's innocence - even when he has confessed. They also have a duty to
conduct a thorough investigation to challenge the state's theory. Yazdi and
Hughes fell well short of that standard, the judge wrote.
Prosecutorial misconduct cited
While faulting the performance of Ziegler's lawyers, Stewart wrote in her order
that prosecutors and law enforcement investigators undermined their ability to
mount a vigorous defense by failing to turn over key evidence.
It began, the judge wrote, with the failure of Detective Dale Kohn to step
aside from the probe when he found out that his niece, Dawn Kohn, may have been
involved. Investigators steered away from evidence that could have implicated
her, according to the judge.
Dawn Kohn was at Ziegler's apartment on the night Baker died. Wilson, Ziegler's
aunt and legal guardian, testified that she found a letter Kohn had written to
Bennett discussing the victim's death before law enforcement authorities
discovered the body.
Kohn made 2 statements to investigators. The 1st, which she hand-wrote at her
high school, implicated Bennett but indicated that Ziegler was not involved.
She later changed her story after coming to the Sheriff's Office, according to
Stewart.
Stewart wrote that Dale Kohn's involvement in the investigation was a conflict
of interest given his niece's status as a potential witness. She also wrote
that fellow Detective Donald Lunceford attempted to obscure Detective Kohn's
involvement, testifying during a preliminary hearing and again at the trial
that he was the only law enforcement officer present during unrecorded
questioning of the defendant. This was untrue, the judge wrote.
Stewart also found that Lunceford testified falsely when he said he was in the
woods shortly after Baker's body was discovered. That was not true, either, the
judge noted.
Stewart also determined that prosecutors allowed testimony that they knew or
should have known was false. During the trial, a Bayou La Batre woman testified
that Baker, Ziegler and others were at her house in Bayou La Batre the night
before the murder and that Ziegler threatened Baker.
Vicki Bosarge's testimony that Ziegler told Baker he was a "walking dead man"
was important because it supported motive in a case that largely was
circumstantial.
But Bosarge recanted that testimony at the 2010 hearing, telling the judge that
Ziegler was not he man who made the threats. That person, she said, was a
light-skinned, dark-haired man.
"I'm so sorry," Bosarge said at the 2010 hearing, sobbing an apology as Ziegler
sat across from her in the court. "I am so deeply sorry because it wasn't him."
Bosarge testified that she was confused when talking to investigators because
both Ziegler and Randall are named William.
She said she felt badly about her testimony as soon as she gave it and told a
police officer about it when she got off the witness stand. She testified that
the officer - she did not remember his name - told her she had done the right
thing.
Stewart wrote that she found Bosarge's testimony credible because 2 other
people who were present that night ??? her son, Ricky Melton, and a woman named
Margaret Roberson -- corroborated it.
The judge made no determination about whether prosecutors intentionally
withheld evidence favorable to the defense, but she wrote that does not matter.
As Nagin, the defendant's current lawyer said: "As a legal matter, it's
irrelevant. We have never sought to deal with the question of motive."
Tillman, the prosecutor who tried the case, said nobody at the District
Attorney's Office withheld evidence or allowed false testimony
"I know that our office did not do anything improper, and I did not do anything
improper," she said.
Victim in co-defendant's car?
Stewart pointed to testimony indicating that the Sheriff's Office had evidence
well before the trial that supported the theory that Bennett killed Baker far
from the wooded spot in west Mobile - evidence that should have been given to
Ziegler's lawyers.
The Sheriff's Office had obtained a warrant to search Bennett's Honda for
evidence that the vehicle was used as a means of committing the murder. The
affidavit in support of that warrant has been lost, but Stewart noted that
investigators would have needed to show they had probable cause.
And testimony at the 2010 backed up the notion that the Honda played a role in
Baker's death. Then-Bayou La Batre police Chief John Joyner testified that his
department received a radio alert from the Sheriff's Office to be on the
lookout for Bennett's Honda and to check to see if Baker was inside.
Joiner testified that records of the radio call were destroyed by Hurricane
Katrina in 2005. But the judge wrote that Joiner's testimony indicates that it
existed and that prosecutors had a duty to alert the defense attorneys to any
possible evidence that might help their client.
The judge also pointed to testimony that the attorney for co-defendant Patricia
Renee Davis sent the prosecutor a fax before Ziegler's trial indicating that
her client remembered hearing about bag of clothes in the car.
Melton testified about a conversation with Bennett's wife, Rose Johnson, in
which she said Bennett had brought Baker back to Bayou La Batre in the trunk of
his car and was seen cleaning out the trunk with chemicals.
Faulty appeal, dishonest jurors
According to Stewart's ruling, Ziegler's appellate lawyer also failed him.
The judge wrote that attorney Arthur Madden failed to raise several important
points in his appeal - including a matter the Ziegler had specifically asked
him to pursue. The defendant wanted to appeal on grounds that a lawyer who
represented co-defendant Davis also represented him at a probation revocation
hearing.
Madden, who declined to comment for this story, did not raise the objection in
the appeal.
Stewart cited several other points that Madden should have raised in the
appeal, including:
--the fact that the trial judge, Robert Kendall, allowed improper victim impact
testimony.
--the allegations of prosecutorial misconduct.
--The fact that defense lawyers failed to object the to the racial makeup of
the jury.
Even the jurors did not escape the judge's criticism. Several lied during jury
selection, she found.
1 juror indicated that she "probably" had discussed the death penalty in the
past. In fact, Stewart wrote, that juror served on a jury in a capital murder
case in 1994, making her assertion that she "probably" had discussed the death
penalty misleading.
Another juror answered "no" on a questionnaire asking if she or a member of her
family ever had been a victim of a crime. The juror acknowledged at the 2010
hearing, though, that both her brother-in-law and cousin had been murdered
prior to Ziegler's trial.
Hughes testified that he would have struck both women from the jury had he
known the truth.
If Stewart's ruling survives appeal, prosecutors said, they will put Ziegler on
trial again. But Tillman acknowledged that prosecuting an old case will be
challenging.
"The case was tried 12 years ago," she said. "It puts us in a difficult
position," she said.
Nagin, the current defense lawyer, said the state's problem in not the passage
of time but the evidence, itself.
"Witness after witness, including the state's own forensic expert, contradicted
the theory of that case, contradicted the evidence," he said. "It was never
right, and it's not going to be right 10 years later."
(source: Al.com)
OHIO:
Akron jury recommends death penalty for 2011 double murder
A Summit County jury has recommended the death penalty for an Akron man
convicted in the fatal shootings of 2 people and a related shooting on Grant
Street that left a man paralyzed.
The decision came Thursday morning after the sequestered panel deliberated for
about 7 hours over parts of 2 days.
Dawud El Spaulding, 30, of East Buchtel Avenue, is scheduled to be sentenced
Feb. 15 by Common Pleas Judge Paul Gallagher.
Under Ohio law, the judge has the authority to lower the sentence to life in
prison with no chance of parole or to approve the jury's recommendation.
Spaulding previously was convicted of two counts of aggravated murder, one
count of felonious assault and other crimes in the slayings of Ernest "Ernie"
Thomas and Erica Singleton, the mother of Spaulding's 7-year-old son and
2-year-old daughter.
Summit County Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh called the crime "a brutal,
calculated shooting spree that left 2 people dead and a 3rd near death." She
said it "illustrates the seriousness of domestic violence."
Walsh thanked the jury, her domestic violence prosecutors and "everyone who
worked on this very difficult case" for ensuring that justice was done for the
victims.
Patrick Griffin was the 1st victim. He was shot in the early hours of Dec. 15,
2011, and fell in a doorway leading to a side driveway of the home on Grant
Street. The 2 a.m. shooting left him paralyzed.
Some 6 hours later, trial testimony showed, Spaulding returned to the home and
fatally shot Singleton and Thomas moments after they left the steps of the
home's front porch.
Ernest Thomas Sr., the father of Ernie Thomas and the grandfather of Griffin,
called the nature of the shootings a product of "jealousy" and lashed out at
the senseless gunplay on city streets.
He attended Thursday's court hearing with his ex-wife, Helen Thomas, and many
other relatives and friends of the victims.
"We're not saying our son was an angel," Thomas said. "He didn't deserve this,
and my grandson, Patrick, didn't deserve it either.
"But these kids who run around here with these guns," he said, "don't have any
understanding of what life is about. Everything is a game to them, and life is
not a game because it's so short.
"These kids need to wake up."
Singleton, who was with Ernie Thomas in the hours before the shootings, had a
protection order against Spaulding and was trying to hide when she was killed,
prosecutors said at the jury trial.
Helen Thomas said her son "got caught up in a situation that he knew nothing
about. He didn't know anything about the young lady that he was with, or what
kind of relationship she had with the killer."
Not only was her son in the wrong place at the wrong time, she said, but he
also was "with the wrong person."
Helen Thomas said she was "very pleased" with the jury's findings after the
panel began deliberations at about 1:45 p.m. Wednesday.
"The punishment fit the crime, and I thank God for it," she said.
Ernest Thomas Sr. said he plans to address the court at Spaulding's sentencing.
Jason Wells, one of Spaulding's lawyers, said he hopes Gallagher "goes in his
own direction and goes against what the jury decided."
He said Spaulding is looking forward to his appeal on evidentiary issues. Wells
also said Spaulding played sports in high school, graduated and would serve
other inmates well, telling of his life's experiences, in prison counseling and
educational programs.
The Grant Street slayings occurred during a period veteran Akron police
investigators described as one of the most violent in the city's history. 9
people were shot, 6 fatally, during a 6-day span.
(source: Akron Beacon Journal)
*********************************
Inman doesn't take stand in murder trial
The prosecution and the defense rested their cases this afternoon in William A.
"Bill" Inman's murder trial without Inman taking the stand.
Jurors are scheduled to hear closing statements on Monday at 9 a.m. and then
begin deliberations. Hocking County Common Pleas Court Judge John T. Wallace
told jurors to bring their suitcases in case he must sequester them overnight
during the deliberations.
Inman, 48, could receive the death penalty if he is convicted of aggravated
murder and other crimes in the abduction, strangulation and corpse abuse of his
daughter-in-law Summer D. Inman on March 22, 2011.
Inman's son, William A. "Will" Inman II, and wife, Sandra K. Inman, are in
prison after being convicted of murder and other crimes related to Summer
Inman's death.
Today, Wallace rejected 2 attempts made by defense lawyers Andrew Stevenson and
K. Robert Toy to introduce as evidence in Bill Inman's trial statements that
his son was the killer.
Wallace ruled that he would not allow the jury to hear a portion of Hocking
County Prosecutor Laina Fetherolf's opening statement in the Will Inman trial
last year in which she told jurors that Will Inman pulled the zip tie around
his wife's neck so tightly that it left imprints on her skin.
At the same time, however, Wallace said from the bench, he will not allow
Fetherolf and her co-prosecutor, assistant attorney general Paul Scarsella, to
tell this jury in their closing argument that only Bill Inman pulled the zip
tie.
Wallace said the prosecutors may argue instead that Bill Inman helped his son
kill Summer Inman as a principal offender, or alternatively, that the senior
Inman used prior calculation and design in plotting the death.
These are the competing theories that prosecutors used to charge Bill Inman
with 2 counts of aggravated murder.
Separately, Wallace ruled today that he will not allow a confession that
Inman's wife gave an investigator to be introduced in his trial.
Sandra Inman said in the statement, taken on March 29, 2011, that their son
accidentally killed his estranged wife.
Wallace ruled that it was not admissible under the law and the rules of
evidence.
This was the 4th day of trial testimony.
Bryan Casto, deputy coroner at the Montgomery County coroner's office,
performed the autopsy. He told jurors that the hard plastic zip tie used to
strangle Summer Inman was cinched so tightly around her neck that he had to use
wire cutters to remove it.
Jurors also listened to FBI agents testify about interviewing the Inmans on
March 23, 2011, at their Akron house when Summer Inman was still missing. The
agents testified that Bill Inman became agitated while his son was being
interviewed separately.
"He yelled out to his son to not say anything anymore," said FBI Special Agent
David O'Connor.
Jurors also heard testimony from Kristen Slaper, a forensic scientist with the
Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation who analyzed some items that were left
behind in the parking lot of Century National Bank, from which Summer Inman was
abducted on March 22, 2011.
A blue ball cap collected from the scene contained the DNA of Bill Inman, she
told jurors.
Jurors also were shown a map on which Michael Daugherty, an FBI special agent
who worked the case at the time, traced the whereabouts of the Inmans on March
22-23, 2011 using their GPS.
They had told investigators who asking them about the missing Summer Inman that
their car had broken down in northeast Ohio overnight. The GPS records showed,
however, that Bill Inman and his wife and son were in Logan and Nelsonville on
March 22, Daugherty testified
Summer Inman, 25, was abducted from downtown Logan on March 22, 2011. Her
strangled body was found stuffed head 1st down an underground septic tank
behind a church on March 29, 2011 after her mother-in-law disclosed the
location to authorities.
Will Inman, 28, is serving life without possibility of parole after being
convicted of aggravated murder and other crimes. Sandra Inman, 47, is serving
15 years to life after pleading guilty to murder.
Bill Inman's trial was moved to Ross County because the case's notoriety made
it impossible to seat a jury in Hocking County.
Summer and Will Inman were locked in a nasty divorce and child-custody dispute
when she was abducted and killed.
Defense lawyer Andrew Stevenson has told jurors that the senior Inman
participated in the kidnapping and crime cover-up, but only to help his son.
(source: Columbus Dispatch)
******************************
75th anniversary of the death of Clarence Darrow
Clarence Darrow, northeast Ohio native and the most famous attorney of his
time, died in his adopted home of Chicago 75 years ago, on March 12, 1938.
When he died, his New York Times obituary read: "Mr. Darrow was known
internationally as a criminal lawyer. Defender in a 100 or more murder
trials...[h]e had built up a reputation for himself as a friend of labor and of
the downtrodden. His oratory and his philosophy made him known to millions."
Professor Dean Carro, who, among many other functions for The University of
Akron School of Law, is the director of the legal clinic at that school. He
said that Darrow was both ahead of his time and a tremendous influence on the
legal profession of his time.
"I think that, because of his debate background, he was very interested in a
variety of disciplines, including sociology and psychology."
Bringing those relatively new (at the time) disciplines into the courtroom,
especially on death penalty cases, opened up an entire new way of arguing for
the criminal defense bar.
"He brought to the dance, at that time, a new effort to bring in data from
other disciplines. For instance, in the Loeb and Leopold case, bringing in the
defense of mental illness was a pretty new thing to do."
At the time of that trial, and the Scopes trial, both of which Darrow worked on
when he was past the age of 67, he was, said Carro, "the most famous lawyer of
his time."
Although known as a Chicago attorney and politician, Darrow was born in the
little community of Kinsman, in Trumbull County, Ohio, on April 18, 1857. He
attended Allegheny College in neighboring Pennsylvania, and the University of
Michigan School of Law, not graduating from either institution.
Returning to Ohio, he apprenticed for a year with a Youngstown lawyer, and
passed the bar examination. His 1st salaried job, in 1896, was as the part-time
city solicitor (prosecutor) of Ashtabula.
It was in Ohio that Darrow began to develop what would be one of his primary
calling cards - his 1-pointed dedication to his clients, no matter what the
cost.
He had taken a very small case when he was just starting out practicing law in
Ohio. The case was over a $15 horse harness, and he took a $5 retainer. The
case went to 2 trials and to 3 appellate decisions, and lasted 7 years. It is
the 1st known case that carries Darrow's name as counsel: Brockway v. Jewell.
Darrow talked about the case in his autobiography, saying that, "The most
important case I had in Ohio was an action of replevin for a harness worth
$15."
Darrow's client was never able to pay more than the initial $5. Darrow worked
the case basically for free, as well as paying his expenses and the expenses of
litigation for the entire process (he did have co-counsel, as well).
Darrow had already moved to Chicago before the case was wrapped up, so he also
had to travel back to Ohio to complete it.
Darrow said of the case: "I had spent money that I could not afford to spare,
but I was determined to see it through. This was long ago. There was no money
involved, and not much principle, as I see it now, but then it seemed as if my
life depended on the result."
That was a pattern that Darrow would follow throughout his entire, long legal
career. In some cases, he charged and would receive very large sums of money (a
reported $1 million for Loeb and Leopold, for instance). But in other cases,
especially if there was an important (to him) principle at stake, he would not
only work for free, but would cover expenses???sometimes to the breaking point.
Ashtabula could not hold him for very long. Chicago soon called, with its
opportunity to make some money and be involved in a larger world of politics
and litigation. He also had a brother and sister there, which made his move a
little more comfortable. He landed in the 'Windy City' in 1897.
For the 1st few years of Darrow's tenure in Chicago, he worked as counsel for
the railroad and networked his way through state and local politics.
But then, he had a change of heart.
In 1894, Darrow quit the railroad to represent union organizer Eugene Debs in
the Pullman strike case, and soon became the go-to attorney for labor
organizations across the country.
He worked representing organized labor and helping labor politically for the
next couple of decades. And then, he ran into big trouble with both the labor
movement and the law.
On Oct. 1, 1910, a fire started at the Los Angeles Times building. When it was
over, 21 newspaper employees were dead, and another 100 injured.
2 union organizers, brothers John and James McNamara were arrested for starting
the fire at the anti-union newspaper. Their union and national labor leaders
brought Darrow in to defend the brothers.
Darrow felt that the case was stacked against the McNamara's and pled them out
to save them from the death penalty. The unions charged him with selling them
out, and he was dropped from the list of approved union lawyers.
To add salt to the wound, Darrow himself wound up being charged with 2 counts
of bribing a juror, having to defend himself in two separate trials against
charges that would have cost him his law license and career.
Although Darrow had counsel in the 1st trial, which lasted for 3 months, he
nevertheless gave his own closing argument.
It was, said observers, "the greatest oratorical effort of his long career."
Darrow, the audience and the jury all wept during his summation.
Darrow was acquitted in the 1st trial, and the 2nd ended with a hung jury.
Convinced that the American system of justice, and particularly the criminal
law system, were inherently corrupt, Darrow changed gears and began to
represent criminal defendants, along with taking civil litigation cases.
It was here that he made his greatest impact on the American courtroom, arguing
for the rights of defendants, railing against the death penalty, representing
indigents, representing causes he believed in and beginning the melding of
trial work with the social sciences.
He also ranged far and wide working as a lecturer, which may have made him even
more money than his trial work, said Carro.
But his 2 most famous cases happened late in his life. Semi-retired, and
feeling his age, he was asked in 1924, at the age of 67 to represent 2 boys,
Nathan Leopold Jr. and Richard Loeb, who were accused of the "thrill kill" of
14-year-old neighbor Bobby Franks.
At the time of the trial, Leopold was 20 years old and Loeb was 19.
Darrow 1st pled the boys guilty to the murders, in the hope that his pleas for
clemency, aimed at a seemingly friendly judge in the sentencing hearing, would
save the lives of his clients.
The prosecution virtually tried Darrow's clients during the sentencing hearing,
which also featured 4 members of the newly-established profession of psychiatry
(Freud was still alive at the time).
Darrow's closing argument lasted for 12 hours, during which time he took on the
death penalty as uncivilized, pleaded with the judge not to give the death
penalty to ones so young and blamed society and the educational system for the
warped personalities of the boys who had caused so much damage.
In the end, the boys' lives were spared in "life plus 99" sentences, with the
judge citing in particular the youth of the defendants as a mitigating factor.
Loeb was killed in prison in 1936; Leopold was eventually released from prison
and died in 1971.
In 1925, Darrow took on the task to represent the defense in a Tennessee "test
trial," of a teacher accused of teaching evolution in school.
Carro said this "monkey trial" of John Scopes was a national sensation, and
cemented Darrow's reputation as the best trial attorney in the country.
Darrow's closing argument lasted for 3 days, 8 hours a day. In the end, the
jury found against Scopes, who was fined $10. Darrow and the ACLU appealed, and
eventually won the appeal, although the law stayed on the Tennessee books for
many years afterward.
Darrow died in his Hyde Park apartment on March 19, 1938, remembered as a
Youngstown/ Ashtabula lawyer who became the most famous trial attorney in
American history.
(source: Akron Legal News)
ARIZONA:
Jodi Arias trial: Her path to the Mormon faith
Defense attorneys for a woman charged with killing her lover continued their
case Thursday as they focused on efforts to portray the victim as a liar and
cheat.
Jodi Arias, 32, is accused of fatally shooting and stabbing Travis Alexander in
June 2008 at his suburban Phoenix home.
Defense attorneys began their case Tuesday with witnesses who spoke of Arias as
a professional, conservative woman who never acted sexually inappropriate.
Wednesday's 1st witness was an ex-girlfriend of Alexander who testified that he
cheated on her with Arias and lied about being a virgin.
A friend of Alexander then testified about the man's involvement in the Mormon
faith, his claims to him that he was a virgin, and how Alexander and Arias
acted very much like a couple when they were together.
Daniel Freeman continued his testimony Thursday, noting that Alexander and
Arias, who had converted to Mormonism after meeting the victim, would have been
seen as violating church ethics by having sex out of wedlock.
Jurors later posed questions to Freeman through the judge, something allowed in
Arizona criminal cases, asking whether he had ever seen Alexander become
physically abusive with Arias. He said he hadn't. The ex-girlfriend who
testified Wednesday also noted on cross-examination by the prosecutor that
Alexander had never been abusive with her.
Alexander's religion and sex life have been a constant theme throughout the
trial. Some friends and family members, including ex-girlfriends, believed him
to be a devout Mormon who was saving sex for marriage, while he simultaneously
dated and had sex with multiple women.
The prosecution rested its case on Jan. 17. Defense attorneys have been trying
to portray Alexander as a contradiction who lied to friends and family, cheated
on girlfriends, was abusive and used women for sex.
Authorities say Arias shot Alexander in the forehead, stabbed and slashed him
nearly 30 times, slit his throat and left him in his shower in a fit of rage
after learning that he planned to take a trip to Mexico with another woman.
Arias says the 2 met at a Las Vegas convention in 2006, then began dating in
early 2007 for about 5 months before they broke up. She says they continued to
have sex, and that she came to his home on the day of his death at his urging
for sex.
She first told police she knew nothing of the killing then later blamed it on
masked intruders. She eventually claimed self-defense, saying Alexander
attacked her.
Police say Arias' bloody palm print and hair were found at the crime scene, and
they found sexually explicit, time-stamped photographs in a camera inside
Alexander's washing machine that placed Arias there on the day of the killing.
The photos included images of her naked, him in the shower, and one showing him
dead on the bathroom floor.
Defense lawyers have yet to explain why Arias put the camera in the washing
machine, what happened to the weapons used in the killing, and why Arias
changed her stories.
Authorities say Alexander was shot with a .25-caliber gun, the same caliber
weapon her grandparents reported stolen from their California home just days
before the killing. Arias was staying with them at the time.
The trial was set to resume Monday. If convicted, Arias could face the death
penalty.
(source: Associated Press)
US MILITARY:
Afghan massacre trial set for Sept.
A military judge has scheduled a Sept. 3 court martial for Staff Sgt. Robert
Bales, the U.S. soldier accused of massacring 16 Afghan villagers during
nighttime raids last year, his lawyer said Thursday.
Civilian attorney John Henry Browne told The Associated Press that the date is
too soon to give the defense team time to prepare, and they will ask the judge
to reconsider. Browne had sought a trial in mid-2014.
"It's a very unrealistic trial date for us," Browne said.
Bales faces 16 counts of premeditated murder and 6 counts of attempted murder.
He slipped away from his base in southern Afghanistan early March 11 to attack
2 nearby villages and returned covered in blood, prosecutors say. Most of the
victims were women and children.
The Army is seeking the death penalty. Lt. Col. Gary Dangerfield, a spokesman
at Joint Base Lewis-McChord south of Seattle, where Bales was based and where
he is being held, said he could not immediately confirm the trial date.
Browne said the judge has scheduled questioning of potential jurors to begin
Aug. 19, and dates for pre-trial motions to be filed and argued April 23-26 and
June 4-7.
Browne and co-counsel Emma Scanlan have each traveled to Afghanistan to
investigate the case, but Browne insists another trip by at least one member of
the defense team would be necessary before the trial.
One hurdle to that is financial, he said. He has repeatedly noted that his firm
is working for Bales for free - Bales also has appointed military defense
counsel.
If Browne can't raise the money for another trip to Afghanistan, he said, his
firm might have to withdraw from the case - which, he noted, could set the
trial back more than a year.
(source: Associated Press)
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