Yet he had been on track to win three convictions, even with the startling lies under oath by a Savannah detective, if it had not been for the one juror. There was another reason: Lawton, who is very focused on victims' rights, so passionately believed that Jim was guilty of cold-blooded murder that he wanted to see him punished for it. He wanted justice for the emotionally disturbed young man, whom he believed had been exploited by a wealthy manipulator. Jim Williams and some of his supporters were convinced that Lawton was motivated by campaign money donated by Jim's arch rival, Lee Adler. Lawton vigorously denied it.
It would have been nearly impossible to get an impartial jury in Savannah after three high-profile trials. Seiler was able to make a good case for a new venue for the fourth trial. The media had heard that some of the jurors in the third trial had called Jim a "faggot," and said they didn't care if he lived or died.
Mandatory retirement age forced Judge George Oliver to a role of senior judge. He gave way to Chatham County Superior Court Judge James W. Head to preside over the fourth Jim Williams trial. Judge Head's clerk during the fourth trial, Michael H. Barker, is now Chatham County Magistrate Court Judge. Barker reaffirmed the reason for the change of venue: everyone in Savannah knew about the case.
The choice of city for the fourth Williams trial, Barker said, was basically Judge Head's decision, but he received input from the attorneys. The goal was to find a city with similar demographics so that a comparable jury could be seated. Atlanta was too large, and a city like Tifton was too small. Judge Head chose Augusta because the city came closest to Savannah's size and demographics.
Proceedings began in Augusta on May 1, 1989. Two days later, a jury of six men and women was selected, along with one man and two women as alternates. Trial testimony began May 4, 1989. District Attorney Spencer Lawton Jr. and Chief Assistant District Attorney David Lock presented the prosecution's case. Frank "Sonny" Seiler and Don Samuel presented the defense case.
The Williams case, with its four trials for premeditated murder, was unique in Georgia criminal history. Lawton's three central arguments for the four trials-the creation of a hoax on April 3, 1981, to put Danny on record as a crazed gunman; the staging of the crime scene to look like self-defense; and the lack of gunshot residue on Danny's hands-weakened under increasing scrutiny.
His theory that the April 3 incident was a premeditated hoax was not substantiated with any physical evidence. Several people, including Joe Goodman and Douglas Seyle, said they heard Danny admit going on a destructive rampage. Danny's girlfriend, Debbie, told Lawton's investigator that Danny had described the entire incident to her. More important, a young neighbor, Vanessa Blanton, had witnessed a young man like Danny shooting twice into Monterey Square on April 3.
Police photos of the scene demonstrated that a large contingent of officers milled around the death scene and moving items around. One photo even captured Jim's cat, Sheldon, roaming freely at the scene.
Dr. Larry Howard, the former head of the state crime lab, was inconsistent in key testimony about where Jim was standing when he shot Danny. Expert defense witnesses like Dr. Joseph Burton, the Atlanta medical examiner, Dr. Irving Stone and Dr. Charles Petty of the prestigious Dallas forensics lab, supported Jim's version of the shooting.
The gunshot residue test and the chair placed over Danny pants leg were still major issues for the defense. Seiler had three witnesses who did not see a chair near Danny's body: Joe Goodman, the emergency services technician who examined Danny, and a funeral home employee who transported the body to the hospital.
Before the trial started, Seiler believed that Lawton would try to discredit Marilyn Case's testimony from the third trial that Danny's hands were not bagged at the death scene. He made it his business to find others who could testify to the same information as Case had. Timothy H. Holbrook was one of the men from the Fox & Weeks funeral home who picked up Danny's body and took it to the Candler Hospital emergency room. He said the hands were not bagged when he picked up the body.
Seiler then learned that the first person to write on the Candler Hospital record for Danny was not Marilyn Case, but Angela Douglas, who put the plastic identification bracelet on Danny and filled out the top line on the record sheet with Danny's name. The rest of the sheet was filled out by Marilyn Case. Douglas remembered that his hands were not bagged.
To be on the safe side, Seiler planned to call Coroner James Metts to testify about what he told Case to do.
Interestingly, Lawton called Det. Joseph Jordan to testify about how he had bagged Danny's hands at the scene with brown paper bags and evidence tape. Jordan told the jury that he did the hand-swabbing samples at the hospital before the autopsy.
Seiler challenged Jordan's lie emphatically, but Jordan held his ground. Later in the trial, Seiler put his witnesses-Marilyn Case, Dr. James Metts, Angela Douglas, and Timothy H. Holbrook, the funeral home employee that picked up Danny's body from Mercer House and took it to Candler Hospital emergency room,-on the stand to testify that Danny's hands were not bagged, as Jordan had testified.
There were four closing arguments: Spencer Lawton and David Lock for the prosecution, Frank "Sonny" Seiler and Don Samuel for the defense. All four closing arguments were polished and professional, but Sonny Seiler's stands out as really capturing the angst and frustration of a decade of Jim Williams' trials.
Frank "Sonny" Seiler's Closing Argument
[The transcript of the closing argument had no quotation marks. They have been inserted to clarify paragraphs where more than one speaker is quoted]
"May it please the court and ladies and gentlemen, it befalls my job to wrap this thing up for the defense. I'm going to try not to cover a lot that Don Samuel went over. I know you're worn out with it. Because of the challenge from my friend over here, David Lock, I am going to meticulously review every piece of evidence.
"I'm going to try to help you arrive at a decision. I don't like to lecture from behind this thing [lectern], and I'm not going to do that. I like to feel that I'm talking with you and not to you. I want to give you a road map that I hope will save you some time back there.
"All right, if I'm unfair in any way to these people up here, you correct me back there, but I'm only human and I've been living with this thing for about eight, nine years now. I've forgotten more about this case than I can tell you, and so I'm going to leave some things out.
"And I'm glad you've been taking notes. I hope you'll continue to do so, because if I forget to bring something up that means something to you that's favorable to my client, I want you to do it for me, because that's your job in the jury room. I can't get back up here anymore, ever again. When I sit down, Jim Williams has had his day in court.
"But I have tried to organize this in a way that it will help you to intelligently and carefully consider everything, their side and ours, and arrive at a decision that I hope will liberate this man from what he's been put through by the worst criminal investigation in the history of this state.
"Now, you know already that this case has been tried three times. I can't tell you why we're back here. Wish I could. But I can tell you one thing that you can deduct simply because we're here, and that is that Jim Williams is still in this court before 12 people to be proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and for whatever reasons there have been, they're all gone his way or we wouldn't be here today.
"Now, when I first got involved in this case, I tried to take a very practical approach to it and this is the way I've got to argue it to you. I want to appeal to your reason, to your reasoning ability, to your knowledge. I'm satisfied with every one of you. If there are any of you here that we didn't want on here, we could have struck you, so I'm not one given to emotion, and I'm not going to argue the case like that.
"I want to talk to you about reason, and in order to understand this ridiculous theory that they've come up with, you must ask yourself certain questions to start with, and one of them is: What is the logic of the state's theory? Is it even logical?
"Now let me suggest some things to you in approaching this. You heard what they say about the case. They say he planned it for months. They say that Jim Williams intentionally wanted to kill Danny Hansford.
"Just a few months before this incident happened, this young man who was given to drugs took an overdose, a lethal overdose of pills, that he got out of Mr. Williams' cabinet, 49 of them, and he came in and sat down while Jim Williams was in his study working and said, 'I've just taken a lot of your medicine; I'm going to kill myself.'
"And Jim didn't pay any attention to him, because he just couldn't believe it. And suddenly, after a period of time, he heard some keys hit the ground, and he looked over there. Hansford had rolled out of the chair and he was curled up on his floor in the throngs of death.
"Now, if Jim Williams wanted Danny Hansford dead, he could have walked out of the room, left him right there, never touched him, no act of humanitarianism, and he would have died. How do we know that? Because Dr. Brooks testified under oath that's what would have happened. Now, there's no evidence that Jim Williams held Danny Hansford down and poured drugs in his mouth.
"That was the makeup of the Danny Hansford that fits into this scenario. That was long before the April incident or the May incident. Jim Williams gets up and calls his personal physician and tells him what happened. Dr. Anton Williams says, 'Call the EMS.' At Jim Williams' bidding, Danny's life was saved. He was taken to Memorial Hospital. His stomach was pumped out.
"Now, this blends in an element here that I find very interesting, because what they've been trying to do is characterize this as some smart, successful, sophisticated man, taking advantage of a lesser person. Well, let's examine that.
"You know, an interesting thing is when you go to a hospital for something like this, they go thoroughly into your background, and in this case, as you heard from the stand, from what Dr. Brooks said, the man's mother was there. And Brooks testified it was also reported that there was a previous suicide attempt and I documented all of this in a chart.
"And also gathering information from any available source, he was described as being a charmer, a person who was able to get his way. He could charm folks into doing things his way. That's Danny Hansford's mother, folks. It sounds to me like if there was any charming being done around here, it may have been Danny Hansford charming Jim Williams.
"He goes on. The only other remarkable things I see in the history and physical was getting a past history from the mother. He was reported to be a breath-holder, a child who would turn blue. I used the term cyanosis, which is the term for turning blue. And occasionally he lost consciousness over it. He had several broken bones. And then, under social history, there was also a note, the fact that he used drugs. He was reported to be a drug abuser.
"Long before April the 3rd, long before May the 2nd, you see a character, humble as it is, whose life is ruined. Jim Williams didn't do anything to provoke any of that. Jim Williams saved this man's life just months before. This is why David Lock wants to tell you that there's no motive involved in this case. Baloney! If you're going to have malice, you've got to have motive.
"Now rationalize with me. Why would Jim Williams tear up his house and shoot into his desk and shoot three times at 2:30 in the morning in his own parlor, on a weekend where it seems like half of Georgia is in Savannah for "Night in Old Savannah," a festivity that goes on into the wee hours of the morning. It's kin to Mardi Gras.
"Knowing that anybody can hear anything or see anything. If he wanted to do Danny Hansford in the way these guys have figured it out, he could have taken him downstairs in the basement of the house, shot him one time in the head, rolled him up in a rug, put it in his car. A million people could have seen the rug getting in the car and nobody would have cared because rugs go in and out of that place all the time. It would have been over. He would have been in the marsh somewhere.
"'Murder, She Wrote!'-'Murder, She Wrote!' hasn't come up with the bizarre things that these people have dreamed up. I mean, this just doesn't make sense, that anybody would plan it just like that. Why would he shoot the desk? Why not shoot into the wall? Why didn't he hurt himself, like they always do when they're going to claim self-defense and nobody's around? There wasn't a scratch on him.
"Does that sound like premeditation to you? How could he have possibly contemplated this scene so that everything fit? How could he anticipate that Dina Smith would be out in the park smoking a cigarette and hear the shots [claps hands four times] and then no other shot?
"Sure, she stayed out there 10 or 15 minutes. It was a beautiful night. She respected her hostess, who didn't like smoking. And when she started to come in, she remembered that the front door [of Mercer House] was open, the light was on. She goes in [to her cousin's home].
"Now, they criticize her because she didn't go chase them down and say what she heard. Isn't it strange that they didn't even make a canvass of the scene to find any of these witnesses? Hey, we found them. I'll put our investigation up against theirs anytime, and I will within the next hour.
"If Jim staged this shooting, why has he historically been so confused over the number of shots that were fired? Why has he always been confused over which side of his head a piece of shrapnel went, as if that matters? This is ridiculous.
"The first thing you've got to ponder and examine is why would anybody, if they're going to contrive a scene, fix a chair like that and leave it? It isn't accidental. If he was going to contrive a scene, he'd walk around and look. I'll tell you how that chair got there in a minute, but these are the things that you need to first examine before you start even attempting to buy this very bizarre set of facts that they got wedded to in 1981 because of a ridiculous investigation.
"Now, follow. Isn't the main question in this case who shot first? Isn't that what it's all about? I think it is, and if you agree with me, nothing comes into play, not one piece of this bizarre evidence, until the state first proves to you beyond a reasonable doubt what Spencer Lawton told you he was going prove the first day of this trial, and that Hansford did not fire the gun. Okay?
"Now, the only way they can do that is with the gun residue test. The gunshot residue test is their case. It is like a house of cards. If it falls, the state's case falls. It is over. Examine this with me. Think about it as I tell you.
"Is the chair indicative of who shot first? Is the paper on the gun indicative of who shot first? Or the blood on the hand? Or whether or not somebody smushed out a cigarette-and they've never proven who smushed it out or when it was smushed out; they just got a picture of it.
"Is any of the trace evidence in the room vital to who shot first? None of this has anything to do with the threshold question, so this is why it is important for you to take up gunshot residue first and this is why they want now to pooh-pooh that test, you see, because two years ago, thank God, we found this document in Candler Hospital.
"So they had wedded themselves to it for four years, through two trials. Suddenly it blew up in their face, and now they don't want to even talk about it and they don't want us to talk about it. So if you find from the first thing you should deliberate, and that is who shot first, that the gunshot residue test is tainted or improperly performed or that somebody lied about it, then end it.
"Spare yourself the misery of having to go through all this scientific stuff that we were forced to do before we found the truth of a gunshot residue test. And if you find that that test was faulty, if you find that that test was improperly performed, if you find that somebody lied about it, then it's you duty to stop the deliberations right then, because there is not only reasonable doubt, that ends their case, because it has been gutted of the only thing that they've got to prove that fact.
"We don't have to prove anything, although we have. The burden is right there and it stays with them throughout this trial. Now, I'm going to get back to the gunshot residue test, but let's go on now at the invitation of Mr. Lock and examine some of these things.
"The time gap. Well, they were going to show you that there was 36 minutes between the shooting and when Mr. Williams called the police. And in order to do that, they bring Joe Goodman to the stand, under oath, as their witness. Okay?
"Well, you see, they get off in the hole to start with, because what they're trying to do is get Joe Goodman to estimate whatever is convenient for them and wipe off everything else. Joe Goodman very fairly told everybody that every time he ever expressed a time, he was estimating. And they were going to show by Joe Goodman that it was 36 minutes. Okay?
"Now, Joe Goodman didn't have a watch. He didn't have a clock that worked. Whenever he glanced at a clock, it was on a Radarange [Amana microwave oven] and he told you that on that Radarange, the sixes and the eights and the zeroes all look the same. He gave them a piece of paper-let me see if I can find it. [Pause.] I'll talk about this, too.
"I can't find the paper. It's in there somewhere. He gave them a paper that's all marked up. It's on a yellow piece of paper, where he estimates all of these times for them: 'about this, approximately that, about this, about this.' They jump on that and they want to start everything on an estimated time of 2:05. Joe Goodman didn't know any times.
"The only thing he did know is that he didn't arrive at Williams' house until Anderson and the police came, and we all know, and it's in their report, which is in evidence, that he got there at 3:00. So what we can do is work backwards from 3:00 to see about when this fatal call would have come.
"Well, he said it took him eight minutes to drive there. You back that off to 2:52. It took him three minutes to dress. You back that off to 2:49. They didn't put on anything but jeans and a T-shirt. 'This is critical,' I said. 'How long did that second call last?'
"He said, 'Just a matter of seconds.' When Jim said, 'I had to shoot Danny.' 'Just a matter of seconds.' I said, 'Give them a minute. Give it to them. Give them a minute.' So you back that off at 2:48. Stop. It isn't but 12 minutes.
"Thirty-six minutes be damned! It's 12 minutes. Then if you want to back it off to the first call, he smoked and they talked. Take 10 minutes away, 2:38. Twenty-two minutes from the first time, when he knew Hansford was alive because he heard him on the phone. You see?
"So if he had turned around then when he hung up the phone and shot Hansford instantly, it's only 22 minutes. But we know that it's only 12. So they get in the hole with Goodman. Now, this is what they really wanted to get out of Joe Goodman, and then they sought to find out, you know, a few other things about him, but the time sequence was why they had to call him.
"So Joe Goodman arrives and Anderson's been called at 2:58. He's just two blocks from Jim's house. He gets there at 3:00. He's got a rookie cop in the car with him named White. I don't know where White's been since these cases have been tried, but I've never met him.
"And coming back up with White is an Officer Chesler, and he's got a rookie cop riding with him named Gibson, and we ain't seen any of those people here. And so this whole entourage goes up, Mr. Williams is at the door, 'come in, the door is open, he's in there.' In walks Anderson and in walks Joe Goodman. There's nobody there to stop Joe Goodman. They walk all the way up to the body and they look down.
"Now comes the chair. 'Mr. Goodman, did you see a chair over that body?' 'No.' 'Did you see a chair resting on the pants leg?' 'No.' 'Did you get right up to the body where you could see it?' 'I was standing right by Anderson.' 'Was it there?' 'If it had been there, I would have seen it.' 'Do you remember seeing a chair dumped over? 'No.' Not I don't remember. 'No,' he said.
"Their witness. 'No.' Anderson. Give me a break. Anderson. Corporal then and still a corporal now. Anderson says, 'I don't remember seeing a chair.' Oh, they wrench him around and finally he says, 'Well, I think I remember seeing the chair, but it wasn't on the pants leg. It was, I think, straddling the body.'
"'Why didn't you put it in your report?' 'Well, you know, it's just not in the report.' 'Don't you put important things in the report? Aren't you supposed to?' 'Sure,' he tells me. Why isn't the chair in any of those reports if it's so big to their case? They've only got a million pictures of it.
"I tried to get in one, Exhibit 69, and they holler and scream and later they put it in themselves. It's Exhibit 12. I wanted to show it to him. 'Did you ever see the chair like this?' 'No.' The first two people in the room, they haven't seen the chair.
"That ain't all. He puts up the EMS man who came to check the body. They get just what they want out of him. The man's dead, as if we didn't know that, you know. Anderson told them that. But they bring the EMS man. I don't criticize them for that. That's procedure.
"Mr. Segal was his name. When they get through with him, I ask him, 'Did you have plenty of room to work around the body?' 'Yeah.' 'Did you have to move anything to get to it?' 'No.' 'Did you have to pick up any chairs, move any tables?' 'No.' He looked at me in bewilderment, like, is this man for real, asking me about chairs and tables?
"They were squirming over here. I heard all this paper shuffling. Never dawned on them to ask Segal was the chair over the pants leg. So the first three witnesses, and there goes the chair. Now do you want to know why they want to use this chair argument?
"They had to give us the picture, you see. And they knew that the minute we saw this that we'd jump on it as a defense, to prove exactly why he hadn't contrived the scene, because nobody'd leave it like that. And so they knew if they were going to give us the pictures, they'd better do what we call backing and filling, that they'd better go back and find some reason to use it themselves.
"The only thing they didn't have was the evidence to support it. So with the first three witnesses, the chair is blown out of the case. Not that it matters, you see, because they haven't proved that Hansford didn't fire that gun yet. But let's go on down at the invitation of Mr. Lock to do all this.
"What about the paper on the gun? Now, here is the absurd part of the case. You talk about 'Murder, She Wrote' and 'Matlock,' or these things that they confect on television, this is bizarre. Now, get this, because I don't think it's been explained.
"They want you to believe that the paper on the gun is there because supposedly after Williams shot into his own desk, before he shot into the desk, he put the weapon down on the desk, then comes back and shoots it. Puff! Up goes the paper and it settles on the pistol. That shows that the pistol had to be there before the shot.
"Does it? Well, let's see. You see, they're willing to grab so many straws that it doesn't make any sense to them when, in their zeal, they want to show that Williams wiped off the weapons and there was no fingerprints on it. But if he picked it up to wipe it off and there's no fingerprints on it, there goes the paper argument.
"They can't have it both ways. I mean, everybody said they didn't expect to get fingerprints off the gun anyway, but the absurdity of it all, they argue the paper on the gun and right behind that they come, not thinking, just sure, anything, anything that looks funny, we'll put up.
"They don't think it out, because if he's going to pick it up to wipe it off, there goes the paper. So if you want to leave the paper on, then forget the fingerprinting. They can't have it both ways. It's absolutely ridiculous how they failed to connect any of this.
"Interesting thing about this paper. You've got some in the bag. I couldn't open it in here. I can't do a test for you right here. I can't show you. The law won't let me. But guess what? You can. And I can help you do it. I want you to do something for me. They ain't going to like this, but you can do it. It's in evidence.
"Take out some of these paper particles that are so minute that I doubt you can find them. Put them down on the table and take a book. Take one of these things, anything, and drop it near it. Drop it near it. Just put it down. Or just get back and do that one time and see where that paper goes.
"They had so many people in that room over the time of this investigation that they can't count them. And they want to send my man up for paper being on a gun? Baloney! They come in with all this 'Did you secure the scene,' all these glib clichés they talk about.
"'Did you secure the scene?' 'I secured the scene.' 'What did you do?' 'I stationed Officer White at the door.' Rookie cop. 'I said, "Who'd you put at the back door?"' Anderson, 'well, nobody.' In they come, out they go, EMS, coroner, coroner's assistant, Gibson-I mean Goodman, all these police, in and out.
"You want to know how that chair got up there? They knocked it over in the midst of all that and somebody just uprighted it. Or at best-and they wouldn't tell you this, but it shows in the picture, I think some do-that thing's got rollers on it. It's made to move as easy as pie. It's a big old heavy chair. You just hit it like that and the chair moves.
"And they want to-they want you to believe that they had some sacred veil over this stuff when they took these pictures. Oh, is that so? Let's see. You've got a set of these pictures here. Look. Here's one guy. I don't know who that is, doesn't matter, he's in the room. Here's a foot, looks to me like the officer's shoe.
"Same shoe there. Who's this dude in the suedes? What's he doing in there if it's so sacred? They don't even know who that is. Here's somebody else, obviously an officer in uniform because he's got those shiny military-type shoes. Here's this guy again standing there. I think this is a copy. And then you get down, look at this laid back soul. He's got moccasins on. He's right in there with the evidence.
"And they tell you they secured the scene, want you to believe that this girl went in there and took all these sacred pictures, that they want to convict my man. Secured the scene? Crime investigation? Huh! What about Sheldon Williams? Do you know who Sheldon Williams is? He's the cat that's in this picture, 102. You wouldn't see him if you didn't look hard, but there's old Sheldon walking here among the evidence. There's Sheldon.
"Now, I'm not going to tell you that Sheldon jumped up on that desk and disturbed those particles, but he could have. What I'm telling you is that good police investigation would have required them to get the cat out of the house and eliminate that. And there's the cat walking among all that stuff. And they tell you they want you to convict because there's paper on the gun? It is absolutely absurd, folks.
"Bullet fragment on the chair? Mr. Lock wants that talked about. Well, look, Jim Williams has never ever said, nor have they proven otherwise, that he was in that chair. He was standing. If he hadn't been standing, he couldn't lean over and shoot the way their own Larry Howard says.
"So what, there's some fragment in the chair. That doesn't conflict with anything we've ever said and they can't tie it up, so let's get away from fragment in the chair. That never has been involved.
"Blood on the hands? Why? Why is there blood on the hands? Well, we know that some got on the back of his hand because, like their own witness said, when he got shot in the chest, he grabbed his chest, turns around counterclockwise, feet twist, he falls to the ground, in a last conscious effort to put his hand out to break his fall.
He doesn't end up grabbing it [the gun] like that, like a layman would expect to rig a scene with. You and I would probably think that, you know, if you gonna rig a scene, you ought to put the gun in the hand like you see on TV.
"All of the experts, including theirs, here's Ragan's been doing this stuff for 16 years, he says only three times has he ever found a hand clutching the weapon. All the other times, the hand's either on the weapon, partially on the weapon, or away from the weapon.
"Now, blood on the hands? There's no evidence at the scene that there was any blood on the palm of the hand. None. The only evidence that they've got of blood on the hand is in the picture, and if they're telling the truth-and you see, they'd like to wiggle out of this, but they can't, because they can't tell you we lifted the hand and looked, because they've already told for eight years that we didn't touch the hand at the scene, even though-even though the pulse was taken by how many people? Count them.
"But nobody ever rolled the hand over to describe any blood on the palms of the hand. The only place you get that is from [state pathologist Dr. Richard] Draffin's autopsy report. But you see, Draffin didn't know that the hands weren't bagged when Hansford was brought there and that the undertaker people had plopped the naked hands over the chest that was full of blood.
"So God knows how much blood was on the hands. We know how it got there now. It got there because they never bagged the hands and the hands were wrapped up in a bloody sheet. So forget blood. You can't send anybody to the penitentiary on blood on the hands, because they caused it.
"Here's one for you. Cigarette smushed on the desk. They have always loved that picture. They've never proved who did it. They said Hansford did it. Who? Who from this stand ever testified Hansford smushed that out? They don't know that.
"They don't know that that's Hansford's pot. It ain't Jim Williams', because Jim Williams abhors drugs, doesn't like 'em, wouldn't take him to London over it, never uses them, wouldn't even take the pills that the doctor gave him, and he doesn't drink.
"And through all these scenarios, not one person has ever said that Jim Williams was drinking or that he was drunk or he was taking dope. In fact, the evidence is to the contrary. He wouldn't take him to London because he knew he couldn't trust him not to take pot.
"But getting back to the cigarette on the desk, it amused them so much, until finally, poor Dave [Lock], in his zeal to just get you to cling to anything, he says suddenly, 'that's why he shot him.' Danny smushed out the cigarette on his desk. Smushed it out. Burned a hole. That made Jim mad, so Jim shoots him.
"What happens to the theory that Jim confected this scene months before? They're willing to, for that one moment, say forget that argument and buy the cigarette. Here, this is what caused it. Isn't that ridiculous? Are you believing these people? Give me a break.
"Well, let's go. I know they want to hear this again. Now let's look at that. That should be up here. It should be above this, not down here. This is the one they don't want to talk about. Before I get to this, let's go back and examine what Jim told them happened that night.
"Now, he's testified in four trials. They've got volumes and volumes of what he's always said about this. He has never ever changed one sentence of describing what took place that night that matters. Never. You didn't see them one time grab any transcript and confront him about anything that makes a difference.
"I thought he did pretty darn good. I don't know how I'd stand up to that, because let me tell you something, let me tell you how unfair and how unrealistic it is for him to cross-examine Jim Williams on what took place within seconds.
"Unless you have been there and been shot at by somebody, when you knew they were shooting at you, you don't know the feeling. And it's impossible for me to describe it, because fortunately for me, I haven't been in that position. Hope I never am. But I've heard people describe it.
"I heard one lady describe it as the feeling you get when you see an animal run over, where everything just goes like that. I heard another person-we've got a lot of cockroaches in Savannah, those big flying kind, jump out of palmetto trees-I heard somebody say, 'it's like a roach that jumps on your bosom or shoulder and you just-get him away.'
"Now, how much would you know or remember after that? And they want him to tell everything that happened. I haven't been shot at. But if I've got a gun available, I'd do the same thing. Anybody-any of you'd do if you get shot at.
"This boy comes around the thing [points to desk in photo], tries to fire it one time and throws a round out, gives Jim time to stand up and get his gun. By that time, he's shot. What does he hit? Hits this [Jim's desk]. What do you think this sounds like when it gets hit with a bullet? Look what it did.
"So Jim hears that. Then he hears it hit behind him on the wall. He hears, I don't know how many sounds, and they want to belittle him because he said he got shot at three times, one time. Who would know? The point is, he got shot at.
"And the other point is that he got his weapon, thank God, and he shot, and he doesn't know how many times he shot. And that's not important. Fortunately, the first one found its mark. All you've got to do is pull the trigger. Bam! Bam! Bam! Just what the girl [Claudina Smith] heard in the park, and it's over.
"Now what do you do? You're scared to death. You tremble. You've got nobody to turn to. There's no roommate, no mama, no relative in the house. He's got to make some calls. He calls Joe Goodman, 'cause he knows his number. And he knows he needs a lawyer. Anybody would know that.
"Well, you see, Jim has never been in any trouble before, so he didn't have a number readily available for a lawyer. Bob Duffy handled a real-estate closing for him. He has to find Bob Duffy's number. He's moving things on the desk as fast as he can to find a lawyer's number.
"Paper on the gun? It's a wonder it's not all over the place. I'd have been digging in there like a rabbit. He finds the number. He calls Bob Duffy. Talks to Bob Duffy for five or six minutes, who says, 'call the police.' He calls the police. Police come, open the house. 'Had to shoot him.'
"'I had to shoot him,' is what he told Anderson, who sat on that stand and looked you in the eye and lied, knowing it was in his report. Wouldn't even give him the break then. I know the court got a little provoked with me and I don't blame the court for doing that, because it took me a long time to find it and to get to the point, but here's what it's all about.
"You know, all these guys, they all make these official reports. Oh, they make them. They make it to the major and to the lieutenant and this one blesses it and this one has to supervise it, this one approves it. Look here what he says. I said, 'Didn't my man tell you that he was being shot at, that he had to shoot?'
"He [Anderson] sat on that stand and denied it and denied it and denied it and I tried to get him to read it in his report and he wouldn't read it. Mr. Williams was making an oral argument to Corporal Chesler-another police officer that they never brought in here-free and voluntary, and I walked up and heard, 'He was shooting at me and I shot him'
"Corporal Anderson, Sergeant Izzo, and it goes to the major. And he would deny Jim Williams that. The reason that's important is because if Jim Williams had made an admission or confession, they'd have it up here blown up twice this size to convict him. But when he makes a statement before he's had time to think or deliberate or anything, when it's the freshest and purest, then they don't want to give him the benefit of it before this court.
"Now let's see how truthful Anderson is. Don't forget, they've got more chiefs than they've got Indians. That's another thing wrong with this. The first time, Anderson's in charge of the investigation, he puts White there to mind the scene.
"Then in comes Officer Stevens with her camera, the ID person, who didn't even take fingerprints to see whether my man's telling the truth about Hansford dumping over the clock or the silver tray, and I'll get to that in a minute. Now she's in charge, so Anderson reports to her and she does all these things.
"Then about 3:30, in comes, moseying in, is Ragan and his sidekick, Jordan, and we're going to talk about him some more. They don't get there until 3:30. They told Joe Goodman that they'd been doing work in a bar, surveillance work in a bar. They say they were home and picked up one another. It doesn't matter, just another conflict.
"So when Ragan gets there, Anderson has to report to Ragan. What does Anderson tell Ragan about it? Let's see. Here's Ragan's report. D.E. Ragan. Supervisor, Sergeant Pendergraph. And if you'll remember, the top of it shows that it went to Jim Weaver, the major. All this stuff [was] very important, you see.
"According to Williams' oral statement to whom? To whom? Corporal Anderson. 'Victim was identified as Danny Hansford. Had become angry with Williams because he would not take Hansford to London on a business trip. It goes on. Hansford began breaking up furniture and that Hansford produced a weapon and shot at Williams three times.' Anderson tells that to Ragan. On the stand, he doesn't tell it to anybody, and on his own report, it shows he said he got it from Chesler. Classy investigation, isn't it? Please. Can't believe it.
"Now, all the evidence is gone. We've talked about it all except one thing. For four years, they've whipped us with this gunshot residue test. And Irving Stone, true to his expertise, kept telling us, 'something about it, something about it, I need to know. I would like to know who all handled that body and how much, because even if the bags-even if the hands were properly bagged, if they are bumped around and dropped around from one place to another in the hospital, it's going to knock off this miniscule dust that takes a microscope to see'-that they were going to use to convict Mr. Williams of murder with.
"The same gunshot residue test that was so important that they wouldn't even try to indict him until they got the results. You want to hoot? Look at Exhibit 110 when you get back there. This is the letter from Randy Riddell to Roger Parian dated June 9, 1981, where he says, 'enclosed are hand swabbings made at the Savannah Lab using five percent nitric acid solution and taken of my hands by Detective Jordan of the Savannah Police Department. That's the test. Jordan is the detective who swabbed the victim's, Danny Hansford's hands, at the crime scene,' says Parian. Parian is of the opinion that Jordan did it at the crime scene, where he should have done it.
"And it goes on. 'These tests are being made for your comparison-your requested comparison. The purposes are not intended for the official record. However, if you do not want to report test results, we'll give you the hand swabbing item numbers.' That means if you like it, if it fits into your scheme, we give them numbers and you can use it. If not, let's don't say nothing about it. 'Just let us know. The grand jury hearing is Friday, June the 12th. Detective Ragan would love to hear something from you.'
"Important? You bet your life it was important. It's their case. And we ate it for four years. It was hard to disprove. Why? Because Jordan always historically lied. They'll do that occasionally. The police will lie. And once they lie and get wedded to it, they have to ride it out.
"I don't blame Spencer. These guys inherit this stuff. They have to play the cards the way they're dealt, like I do. But the thing about it is, their investigation ended after seven hours and ours is still going on. Up until the last witness that testified yesterday, I still was looking for stuff.
"Well, what we did after Stone-Dr. Stone suggested that is,-we decided to subpoena Candler's records, see what the hospital had. Not looking for this gem, but looking to find out what orderlies had handled the body and how much and where and when so we could get that evidence to Dr. Stone.
"Well, lo and behold, look what we catch? Keep in mind, Jordan has testified that he bagged the hands at the scene. This is funny, because Ragan sort of shies away at this point. Ragan's okay. He just caught in a trap, too. He shies away. His testimony is, 'I suggested to Jordan that he bag the hands.' Question: 'Did you see him bag them?' 'No. I was elsewhere in the house working.' 'Did you see the body when it left?' 'No.'
"Asked Jordan. 'Did you bag the hands?' 'Yeah.' 'What'd you use?' 'Brown paper bags, evidence bags.' 'What'd you wrap them with?' 'Evidence tape.' 'Show me how you did it.' He holds up his hand right around the wrist. 'You're sure you did that?' 'Yeah. Positive.' 'Why?' 'Because that's procedure. Procedure to do that.'
"'Why didn't you just go ahead and do the hand-wiping test right there? Why wait and transfer him to the hospital? Why not do it right there, like all those witnesses they parade up there with expert opinions said would have been the thing to do?'
"Well, you see, Jordan got by with that for two trials, and we didn't find this until we were choosing the jury for the third trial. We didn't have any time to do anything with it. We didn't have time to find these other people that I brought up here.
"The only person that we got to put on the stand was Marilyn Case, who is probably one of the most credible witnesses that testified at this trial. A very professional lady. And she lets us go out there on Memorial Day two years ago and talk to her. And the minute she saw the chart, she remembered.
"Metts called her, talked to her on the phone. She'd worked for him. She was Assistant Coroner. Told her to get all of this done. She wrote it down. And told her, 'if the hands aren't bagged, bag the hands.' Right there in the hospital. Well, the hands weren't bagged.
"And she told you if they had been bagged-and there are some people that have nursing skills or know something about hospitals-she would have put that. She'd have called the doctor back and said, 'Doctor, the hands are already bagged.' He'd have said okay and she would have noted it on the chart.
"But they weren't bagged. They weren't bagged. So she went and bagged them and she entered it up here over her signature. 'Hands bagged bilaterally in ED,' emergency department, 'per'-per means 'by'-'by MB Case, R.N.' She signs it. She didn't document it until she did it because that's the way nurses have to operate. If you document it first, you might forget to do it.
"Okay? Then she calls Jordan and says the body's ready. In the meantime, the body gets carried down to radiology where it's unwrapped again. They make the x-ray, wrap him up again, back to radiology department from the x-ray.
"Then it comes back to the emergency room, and then eventually they carry him off to the morgue, where they unwrap him again and he's got plastic bags that Marilyn put on there after Fox & Weeks brought him, dripping with blood. And they want to put my man in jail with that kind of evidence? You ought to be outraged.
"He goes on to the autopsy. Who's at the autopsy? Draffin, Metts, and Jordan show up. Now, here is the conflict that my brother, David Lock, would not mention that I want to talk about. Here you've got Jordan under oath for four years that he bagged the hands before they left Williams' house.
"He [Jordan] now says, 'I got to the autopsy and the first thing I did was take the bags off' and do this famous swabbing. 'What'd you do with the bags?' 'I threw 'em away.' 'What'd you do with the tape?' 'I threw it away.' 'Show me on your chart where you bagged the hands. Show me in your record, if it's so important.'
"'If it's this important, show it to me.' 'It's not in my records.' 'Why not?' 'Well, we don't write those things in records.' 'Well, they got a photographer at the autopsy. He takes the pictures they want, two pictures of the body. How come he didn't take any of the hands bagged or hand swabbing?' Because Jordan lied.
"Because Dr. Draffin and Dr. Metts say, 'when we started the autopsy, the hands were still bagged.' So once they take the bags off, if you want to carry it out to its ridiculous end, once they take the bags off, then the hands are so polluted by everything that any test is an absolute null and void deal. And they can't get out of this, see, because it's all their witnesses. Jim Williams wasn't invited to the autopsy, folks, nor were we.
"Well, you see, I can't tell you what happened, but here we are again. Now, in the interim period of time, we go and get Holbrook [the Fox & Weeks funeral home employee]. David Lock wants to know why I didn't put Holbrook up? I'm going to tell him, although I don't like to give trial strategy away. But let me tell you why we didn't call him at the last trial.
"We expected them to do what anybody would do if they had faith and credit in their officer and that's bring him [Jordan] back to the stand after Marilyn Case testified to tell you again-not you, but the other jury-to tell them again, 'I bagged the hands,' and be definite and defiant about it, and if-."
Lawton interrupted, "Your honor, I object to this. If it please the court, he's gone in-he's going into what transpired or did not at previous trials in terms of-."
Seiler said, "All right, sir, I won't cover anymore, but he blamed me for not putting that witness up and I have a right to explain that, sir."
Judge Head instructed the jury to disregard counsel's remarks about the last trial. "I will give you further instructions when I give you full instructions about that. Proceed, counselor."
Seiler continued, "Anyway, I saved him in my pocket to play if I had to play him, but I didn't have to. But he testified at this trial, didn't he?
"Now, let's talk about that, because they say they had a statement from him that said he didn't know anything. Well, let me tell you where we were coming from-oh, here's that thing I was going to tell you about Goodman. You can look at that later. Just remember how it looks, you want to see how he was guessing at time, but we've already talked about that.
"Let's stay on this. So Holbrook, after we interviewed him, I took an affidavit from him under oath. Under oath. He knew who I was, because I told him, and I told him why I wanted him, and we subpoenaed him and that's been testified to.
"They go over there, they don't-see, they scare the devil out of people when they come at you. They don't tell people who they are half the time. And here's what they take from Holbrook, this piece of paper here. It isn't even typed up. Not under oath.
"Holbrook doesn't want to get involved with anybody. He wouldn't have come up here now if I hadn't subpoenaed him. But here's his first consistent statement, when he says they weren't bagged, and he got up there and told you they weren't bagged.
"Now, listen. How does he know they weren't bagged? Because if you ever-no matter how much experience you've had-if you ever pick up a body under those circumstances and both hands are bagged you're going to remember it. He says the hands weren't bagged.
"Well, if you want to say he doesn't remember, that's okay. Why? Because we've got Angela Douglas, and everybody's going to believe Angela Douglas. That little girl won't tell a lie to the world. And they found her.
"But let's don't leave this business about Holbrook. Holbrook said, 'when we got there, there's no furniture around, didn't have to push any chairs out of the way, he was dead, a lot of blood. We put the sheet over him, put his hands across his bosom so they wouldn't flop out and embarrass people when they take him out of the house.'
"Right over the wound. Nothing but blood on both hands. They wrap him up in a sheet like a taco and put another sheet on top of him. And then they put a drape on top of that and off to the hospital he goes for the autopsy that's going to put my man in prison.
"Well, you see, Det. Jordan is still at Thunderbolt [a town on the Wilmington River] on a bond hearing and he hadn't bagged the hands. So when they [Holbrook and another Fox & Weeks employee] get there, they're greeted by this little girl who, Marilyn Case, she already knows he's coming, Metts called her, and she knows what she's to do.
"They get him in the back room, and I'm not being disrespectful of the dead, but they're treating this as a very objective scientific test now. Nurses, hospital people get used to that. Well, they have to unwrap him again. They take all those bloody sheets off of him and give those back to the funeral home and they wrap him up again in new sheets.
"Then Marilyn bags the hands, or maybe she bagged them before she did that. The point is, they weren't bagged en route to the hospital and they were nestled in blood. Whatever gunshot residue may have been on those hands, my friends, was long gone or polluted.
"Dr. Jimmy Metts is their coroner, their official. He got to the scene. You heard him. Extremely truthful man. The first time he's ever testified. Who had to bring him here? Not Spencer Lawton. Not David Lock. The defense team had to call the coroner of Chatham County to prove a lie.
"Question: 'Do you recall calling Marilyn Case?' 'Yes.' Called her that morning after he got back from investigating another scene on the viaduct. 'What'd you tell her?' 'Told her if the hands aren't bagged, to bag them, want to do a gunshot residue test.'
"Why? Because he's used to doing those tests because he has to investigate suicides. The truth of the matter is, Ragan and them hadn't even thought about it. Metts is the one that thought about it, and he tells her to bag them. I show him the chart. 'Is this consistent with all the orders you gave?' 'Yes.' What kind of person is Marilyn Case?
"See, 'cause they were going to jump her, like [David] Lock did when he was up here. Oh,…'she should have put it here [a place on the hospital form], and because she didn't put it over here, she's a liar.' Well, she put it here because it was something that she had to personally do and she signed off on it. It's on the chart and Jimmy Metts says 'that's exactly what I told her to do.'
"And she is a very proficient, trustworthy, professional person. Didn't know Jim Williams, didn't know Danny Hansford, and that's what records are kept for. Flawless. Thank God it was there. But wait, let's don't stop there. They say it might have been toyed with. Well, let's see. The next copy went to the coroner, the pink copy.
"And Dr. Metts told you that when all this flap came up at the last trial that he was contacted and he went and dug his records out of the bowels of the courthouse, where they've been stored, and lo and behold, he matches up the pink sheet to the green sheet and it is identical. No tampering. Two records. Please, folks, people are in jail over stuff like this. I had to call the coroner to get that straightened out.
"All right, it doesn't stop there, because you see, in their quest to prove Marilyn Case a liar, they send J.D. Smith, my friend over here, with this record that they get from the court, and he goes looking for this person whose initials I can't even read. They say Marilyn didn't know who she was. Well, her name was Morris then. Her name is Douglas now.
"She is the one who got him first. She filled all this out in her own handwriting. She doesn't know Jim Williams. She doesn't know Danny Hansford. She's a clerk doing her job. What was her job? To initiate this report, because until you got this so they can write on what's done, you don't go anywhere, dead or alive, in a hospital. Nurses will tell you all that.
"So she initiates it, she signs it, but what else does she do? She identifies the body. Where does she put it? Not on the foot. On the wrist. Now, how many DOAs do you think that little girl's handled? 'Were the hands bagged?' 'No, they were not bagged.' She doesn't tell Sonny Seiler that, she tells J.D. Smith that, because see, they got to her first.
"'Where did you put the ID bracelet?' 'I put it on the arm, on the hand.' 'Did you have any trouble?' 'No. The hands weren't bagged.' Well, you see, they had to give us her name. One of the few things we get out of this deal. So we go to her, but the trial is over. We didn't get to play her last time. We didn't have the advantage of her testimony.
"So we not only get her, but we get her husband, because she says here she is watching the nightly news, the same stuff the judge tells you not to watch, and she's suddenly aware that her old friend, Marilyn Case, is on TV testifying about her report, and she exclaims to her husband, 'that's my report, they're talking about me. I remember that. The hands weren't bagged. I should go down and tell them. This means something.'
"I'm not blaming Mr. Douglas for this, but they'd just gotten married and she needed to work. He could foresee her sitting in the hall of a courtroom for a long time and so he said, "No, look, your initials are on there. They found you once, if they want you they can find you again," so she didn't come down there. We didn't know about her.
"But after that, when they find her and they give her name, church is out. We got her and we got her husband. We brought them both in here. You heard them. Do you believe her? I think you do. Any need for her to lie? Uh-uh. It's over, folks. No, they don't want to talk about gunshot residue, because that's the only way they can prove that Hansford didn't fire this gun, and they nurtured it with a lie for four years.
"So don't think for one minute that you are hearing the same case that other people heard. You are not. Five new witnesses have been brought before you. Thank God we found them.
"Look, I can't even talk anymore. I've talked enough. You've listened to me very patiently and I appreciate it.
"Good character. Don touched on it. I told you that we were going to put Jim Williams' character in issue. Why? Because a person's who's lived 56 years with no act of violence in his life, never even a brush with the law, not even a DUI, has the right to come with that evidence before you and show you that he is not a violent person.
"He is a peaceful person, and if there is anything in his background, with all the vast computers they've got, they would have had it up there. If he had ever been convicted so much of mistreating an animal, he would have been-they'd have had it. The man's a good man and you're entitled to know it.
"Listen carefully what the judge tells you about good character, because he will tell you, good character alone, good character alone can generate reasonable doubt over and above everything else. Do you think for one minute that these fine people from Savannah-and I know Jim's at a disadvantage because we've got to come up here and try it before you, because you don't know these people.
"But George Patterson, 15 years President, Trust Company of Georgia, retired. President. You heard his testimony. He's not going to stick his neck out on something unless it's true.
"Mrs. Lucille Wright, who everybody in Savannah knows her reputation. Has known Jim for thirty-something years. She's not going to come up here and lie for Jim Williams. Nor is Anne Thornberry, who was born and raised here in Augusta. Nor is the lady from the Humane Society.
"We could have brought a truckload, but that's not going to do any good. Bring enough so you people will know the kind of folks that respect my client, because if there's anything-once we mention his character, if there's anything they've got on him, the door is open, folks, they can bring it in.
"Do you think Jim Williams is a violent man? Jim Williams has a nice family. Jim Williams has adopted a lifestyle that might not conform with ours, but he ain't on trial for that, and I submit to you that the only reason they've ever played those cards is to incur your prejudice. He's a good man. He's a peaceful man. He minds his own business. Does good things. Everybody testified, I would believe him under oath.
"Now, enough. Your duty as jurors. We had 20 strikes. The law gives us that. You saw us use them. You might not have known who we were striking, but I can tell you this: If there's any person on this jury that we weren't satisfied with, if I thought for one minute that you wouldn't live up to your oath, if I thought for one minute any of you had any prejudices that you would hold against my man, you wouldn't be in that box, because they didn't get but 10 strikes.
"It's the only break we get in this thing. We didn't get a break back when it was fingerprint-taking time. They didn't even call for fingerprints on the silver tray or the clock that would have shown, if nothing else, maybe that Danny Hansford's fingerprints weren't on them. See, negative results mean too-they wouldn't give him a break.
"We didn't get to participate in any of that. They could have done all that to see if he was telling the truth. Taken them off the silver tray. I got many a beating for handling silver. They didn't try to get them off. And Jim's cooped up in the back of the house. He can't do anything.
"Let's get back to this. If we had any doubt about your ability to be fair, to put prejudice aside, and approach this case like we had wanted it approached, you wouldn't be on it. So all I can ask you is this: If Jim Williams has been guilty of bad associations, and maybe he has, he's paid for it.
"If he's guilty of a lifestyle that you don't like or we don't cotton to, we have to deal with those people every day. They're part of our community. Some of them are very fine people, some of them are not, just like everybody else. It's a community all unto itself. This is God's world. Don't convict him for that.
"Don't convict him for bad association. He's had enough. He's been punished for eight years over this, because he couldn't get a fair trial. And when we finally proved the lies, we were able to get it up here to you. Be fair. Be organized. Be strong.
"Why did we fight these wars all these years? We fought them for the freedoms that I'm asking you to apply now. Innocent until proven guilty and proof beyond a reasonable doubt. This is why we fought the wars. I'm giving out. I give it to you. We've worked hard on it. Let him go back to his family. He's had enough."
End of Closing Argument
On May 12, the jury began to deliberate. After one hour, Jim was acquitted. The nearly decade-long legal drama was finally over.
According to Spencer Lawton, the quick acquittal occurred for several reasons. Aside from the inevitable staleness of an eight-year-old trial, the Georgia Supreme Court had placed such limitations on the evidence that it was difficult to mount a prosecution as effective as those in the previous trials. Lawton also thought that one of the main reasons for the acquittal was Sonny Seiler's argument: After eight years of hounding Jim, the jury should tell the prosecution to let the man alone, he said. This argument played to the jury's inherent desire to pardon.
I had heard that the jury had only deliberated 15 minutes, but had stayed an hour so that it wouldn't look as though jurors had made too hasty a decision. I asked Judge Michael Barker if it really only took the jury 15 minutes to agree on its verdict. He replied that the total jury time was about 45 minutes, 30 of which were spent looking for Sonny Seiler.
聚合中文网 阅读好时光 www.juhezwn.com
小提示:漏章、缺章、错字过多试试导航栏右上角的源