Violence (20 page)

When Anderson caught a glimpse of Al Ward’s intense stare through the glass partition it was the only anchor of sanity in the roiling sea of a courtroom.

Henklin did her job of questioning and detailing how Anderson’s life was ripped from him, but Anderson, being the stoic, self-reliant man that he is, didn’t fall apart weeping in the recounting so when Calcote took over on cross-examination it was easier to be aggressive.

In Anderson’s defense, though, Henklin was trying to rush through his testimony. It should have been a triumphant peak to have the sole surviving member of the family there for the jury to finally see with their own eyes, but the prosecutor naturally must have felt like she let him down and guiltily just wanted to be done with it.

Calcote didn’t go right at Anderson, but rather asked some benign questions that made it appear he wasn’t going for the jugular, so to speak, when in actuality, that was his every intention.

After the soft ball set-ups, Calcote hit him hard. He made sure Anderson affirmed the fact that “Mrs. Anderson knew about the gun” and “knew where it was” and “was familiar with it” and that, yes, he, Anderson had shown her “how to use it.”

Calcote then posed some seemingly innocuous questions about the nature of Anderson’s construction work, which was really an attempt to create some calm before the final assault when he inquired, “Mr. Anderson, you say your wife asked you to come home for lunch that day because these men gave her some cause for concern?”

“Yes.” Anderson answered succinctly.

“And you were also concerned once you saw them?” Calcote asked in a petulant tone.

“Yes.” Anderson responded.

“So worried you went off to a country club to play cards all night?” Calcote countered, throwing his hands in the air in a gesture of bewilderment.

“Objection, your Honor! Argumentative!” Henklin protested.

“Sustained.” Judge Marr agreed.

Calcote didn’t care, he had easily won that round and continued undeterred. “Did you know that when these men arrived at your house to commence their landscaping duties that your wife paraded about in front of them in her swimsuit?”

“Objection! Badgering!” Henklin argued, rolling her eyes in dismay. “Counsel is obviously trying to pull the witness into an argument!”

“Overruled.” Marr intoned.

“I’ll ask again, did you know your wife paraded in front of these men in her swimsuit?” Calcote resumed.

“It would never happen.” Anderson answered, staring hard and cold at Calcote.

“’Never’?” Calcote came back abruptly, trying to goad Anderson. “Or you hoped it would never happen?”

Anderson remained in command of his emotions and simply gazed stone-faced at Calcote.

“Wasn’t that why you were so upset…” Calcote asked, blistering with rancor. “…why you had them called off the job, because you saw her flirting with them?”

“No.” Anderson answered emphatically, evenly.

“How can you be so sure?”

“I know my wife.”

“Did your wife know you weren’t going to be home that evening?”

“Yes.”

“Mr. Anderson, would it be fair to classify you as a hard worker, 70, 80, even 90-hour workweeks not so uncommon?”

“I guess you could say that.”

“So how much did you know your wife? She had a lot of free time!” Calcote vehemently insinuated, placing the consideration further in each juror’s mind that there was some estrangement in Anderson’s marriage or at the very least neglect as a husband on his part.

“Your honor, this is incredibly unfair!” Henklin flew in with another objection. “Counsel’s remarks are purely argumentative-”

Calcote put up his hand as if to signal he knew he had gone too far, but instead of backing down he continued, “I am merely trying to understand how Mr. Anderson can blame these men when the sad fact is we’re looking at a tragic accident! Talk about unfair!”

“Objection!” Henklin shouted and heatedly stepped out from behind the prosecution table but Calcote was finished anyway and said, “I have no further questions.”

“Mr. Anderson, thank you for your time today, you may step down.” Judge Marr excused Anderson in a mildly consoling tone.

The tension in the courtroom was acute.

Ward knew it and so did everybody else.

Anderson should have been cautioned rather than comforted by Judge Marr because as Anderson headed out he threw a look in Derek’s direction. And that was a mistake.

Derek, ever so carefully, let a smirk come over his face.

Anderson took the bait and went ballistic, starting angrily for Derek at the defense table but with just enough self-control to give the courtroom deputy sheriffs a chance to step between them and hustle Anderson out.

Derek and the others cowered at the defense table, shrinking back as though horrified and stunned by the outburst.

It was all over in an instant, Anderson thought. Not the altercation with Derek. No. The testimony. His justice. His life. He knew that was done with in a flash.

* * *

         D
ay 4 saw the prosecution rest.

The defense dropped Anderson and all the other experts scheduled to appear from their list of witnesses. They were already seen and called by the prosecution and seemingly successfully cross-examined by the defense. Why press their luck.

The lone defense witness who appeared that morning was Dr. David Saklow from a local university hospital who had co-authored numerous articles for medical journals citing the dangers of having a gun in the home.

Dr. Saklow detailed how, by having a gun at home, the risk of suicide by firearm went up significantly, some studies estimating by as much as 20 times.

Calcote also made sure the doctor mentioned that whenever a gun is kept in a home, the most common cause of death in that home overwhelmingly becomes suicide.

Dr. Saklow also, at Calcote’s insistence, talked about the fact that in the majority of cases where “a person died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound it was also discovered that this person showed no previous signs of mental illness.” In other words, it was “an impulsive act.”

Saklow finished up by relating “a personal story.” He told the jurors about how his own 5-year-old child found his gun one day at home playing after school with a neighbor’s child. You could hear some of the jurors gasp, sensing what was coming next, as the doctor matter-of-factly described how his son then went out by the garage and had the other little boy place an apple atop his head in an improvised re-enactment of the William Tell legend. The hardest single thing the doctor said he ever had to do was “face the dead neighbor boy’s parents.”

Henklin did her best to counteract the damage on cross-examination by letting the jury know this expert testimony was only given “to introduce reasonable doubt” and what the doctor was saying was not untrue. It just wasn’t true in this case.

Dr. Saklow was excused and the defense rested.

Judge Marr called the prosecution and defense counsels into his chambers where it was agreed that lesser charges should be considered. He asked the opposing attorneys to try to avoid lengthy closing arguments.

Calcote said he would be concise.

Henklin also assured him she would be brief, and she was being honest because it’s in closing arguments where you can get hit with prosecutorial misconduct. You can say something that can get the whole case thrown out, especially if you’re trying to make up for what you believe might be a losing effort. Better to just sum up and appeal to reason, which is exactly what Henklin did when they returned from recess.

Once they were back “in session,” but before the jurors were brought in, Judge Marr asked the defendants if they wanted the jury to be instructed on the lesser charges (which included second-degree murder along with involuntary manslaughter) and at their defense counsel’s urging, they agreed to let the jury “be so instructed.” The defense wanted to hold to the first degree murder charge as the only one to consider but they knew it was a gamble that might land them with life sentences, so they approved.

Calcote just wanted to make sure Judge Marr also clearly instructed the jury on how “finding the defendants guilty of one or more of those felonies which involve the use or threat of physical force or violence would trigger the felony murder rule which would invariably lead to harsh Class X mandatory minimum sentences, effectively convicting them of first degree murder.”

Judge Marr agreed he would “so instruct them” but would use the word “significant” in place of “harsh” regarding the sentencing options. Marr was hoping the jury would nail Derek and the others, despite the availability of lesser charges, because otherwise he would be drastically limited in handing out extended terms for “exceptionally brutal or heinous behavior indicative of wanton behavior.”

Henklin, in her Closing Argument, passionately laid out the evidence for the State’s case and finished by telling the jurors, “The evidence in this case overwhelmingly supports the highest charges,” and added that she was “confident that you will do your duty and return with a guilty verdict.”

Calcote was a bit longer. Among other things, he said: “Summarizing the evidence of possible wrongdoing is easy in this case because there is no irrefutable evidence. There is not even a preponderance of the evidence. There just is
no
evidence
.” This last jab might have been a mistake because the jury knew
something
went on here. He also expressed a firm belief that the jurors would return with verdicts for the defendants of “not guilty.”

Henklin presented the State’s rebuttal to the defense Closing Argument and here made a more impassioned plea, talking about “the ridiculousness of Mrs. Anderson wanting to ‘party’ with 3 men she just met” and asked the members of the jury “to keep us all safe from the dark ages of rape cases where a victim was asked what they were wearing to provoke the attack” and “to resist the ludicrous idea that just because a woman is in a bathing suit, it doesn’t mean she wants to have sexual relations with someone!”

Once they were finished, Judge Marr lengthily instructed the jury on all the substantial features of the case. He submitted the lesser included offenses and carefully instructed the jury on each count, and how to apply the evidence. He mentioned again, as he did at the start of the trial, that the accused are under no obligation to introduce any evidence in their defense, the burden of proof is on the State to prove its case “beyond a reasonable doubt.” After all the theatrics that went on throughout the trial, Judge Marr also made sure he told the jurors that “what the attorneys say is
not
evidence.”

The jury, seeing how tomorrow was Friday, was glad for having a chance to go home for the Independence Day holiday weekend. Even though the trial itself was rather short in duration, all of them had been empanelled for two weeks now starting from actual jury selection. They were eager to go home.

The jury room they were sequestered in was small and windowless. Having the twelve jurors crammed in there was no picnic. A lot of the jurors sat with their arms folded in front of them, body language which would normally signal a lack of openness but in this instance was more a form of self-protection. Many were showing signs of emotional trauma which those serving on juries for horrific trials report experiencing.

That afternoon, the jurors only had time to pick a jury foreman. It took some more time to set up the procedure they would take for reviewing the evidence and the charges so there was no quick polling of the jury members. There were too many questions and they already knew they would be kept overnight in a hotel.

The next day, after asking for a couple of clarifications from Judge Marr, it took the jury most of the morning but they did finally come to a decision.

The jury foreman informed the deputy sheriff that a judgment had been reached, and the verdicts were read aloud to Derek, Gabriel and Ruben.

* * *

The courtroom emptied quickly after the verdicts were announced. Anderson had waited anxiously in the corridor outside the courtroom. He didn’t want to be there for the jury’s decision for a myriad of reasons, not the least being he didn’t want to lose his cool again. He had given enough of his soul to this process.

Al Ward filed out with a notepad in his hand and moved up to Anderson.

“Let’s go somewhere and talk.” Ward suggested.

“Talk here.” Anderson answered him. “What happened?”

Detective Wayne Crotty was among the spectators there for the jury’s decision. He spotted Anderson with Ward, and stepped over to them.

“Big Al! Noticed you inside. Didn’t get a chance to say hello.” Crotty said this as he extended his hand to Ward who only half-heartedly returned the handshake. “Been awhile.”

“Wayne, how are you?” Ward offered in response, but it wasn’t really a question.

Crotty shook Anderson’s hand firmly, and said, “We got ‘em. I know it’s not enough, it never is, but I think the State did everything they could.”

Anderson’s heart leapt with this news.
‘Got ‘em’?
Good. He fixed on Crotty, expecting him to expand on his statement, but Crotty only said, “I wish you the best.”

Crotty then nodded good-bye to Ward, and walked off.

Anderson stared intently at Ward who gravely gave him the news.

“The judge let them consider lesser charges.” Ward explained. “I’m sure no one wanted a hung jury, especially the judge. It’s a waste of time and the taxpayer’s money to do a retrial. The one kid, Roney, is walking. They found him ‘not guilty’ on everything. He maintained he was out by the car the whole time and the Lysanders let him run with that from the get-go, probably in exchange for his silence. I’m sure the prosecution tried to get him to turn state’s evidence on the other two… Anyway, the jury obviously must have believed his bullshit story, too.”

‘Got ‘em?’ What happened to ‘Got ‘em?’

“They hit Gabriel Lysander with involuntary manslaughter.” Ward continued. “That’s a Class 3 felony that carries a sentence of 2 to 5 years with a possibility for probation, and you have to consider he’s been locked-up for over 2 years so there’s already some time served.”