Issue 329
March 25, 2005
v
R. v. Clayton, Ontario Court of Appeal (March 18,
2005)
v In Courts, Threats Have Become a Fact of Life by Deborah Sontag
v Detectives’ Lawyers Know the Spotlight by Alan Feuer
v Police tapes reveal accused killer’s 1991 plea for help
v Escaped Killer Hid as Poet in Chicago by John Beckham and Elizabeth Mehren
v Jackson Trial’s Flip Side by James Ricci and Christine Hanley
v Jackson prosecution witness jailed in robbery spree
*****
The Appellants, Clayton and Farmer, were charged with firearms offences arising out of their possession of two loaded semi-automatic handguns. At trial both Appellants argued that the weapons were found as the result of a search which violated their rights under section 8 and 9 of the Charter , and contended that the guns should be excluded from evidence under s. 24(2).
Police responded to a 911 call in which the caller told police that there were 10 black men congregating outside of the front of a strip club and that four of these persons were holding handguns. The caller also described four vehicles. Police immediately responded to a “gun call”. Officers Robson and Dickson arrived at a rear exit to the strip club intending to stop any vehicle attempting to exit the parking lot. A sporty black Jaguar driven by Farmer with Clayton in the passenger seat approached the rear exit and was blocked by a police vehicle.
Officer Robson approached Clayton and informed him he was investigating a gun call. He asked Clayton to step out of the vehicle. The officer put his hand on Clayton at which time a struggle ensued and Clayton ran towards the front of the strip club. Clayton was arrested and found to be in possession of a handgun in his pants pocket.
Officer Mulholland who was detaining Farmer, claimed he heard Officer Robson over the police radio confirming Clayton had been arrested and found to be in possession of a firearm. Based on this information, Mulholland arrested Farmer, searched him, and located a loaded handgun tucked into the back of his pants. On the Voir Dire it was established that Robson had not made the radio transmission call that Mulholland believed he had heard and based upon which he had arrested Farmer.
At trial, the judge, found that the initial stop of the Appellants was constitutional, however that police conduct after the initial stop infringed the Appellants’ right to varying degrees. The guns were not excluded from evidence, and the Appellants were found guilty at trial.
Clayton and Farmer appealed the decision contending that the trial judge erred in not fining that the initial stop of the vehicle was unconstitutional and in not excluding the guns under s. 24(2). Farmer also raised the issue of racial profiling, stating that the trial judge failed to recognize that the police were engaged in racial profiling when they stopped Farmer’s vehicle. Racial profiling had not been raised until some time after the trial was over.
Justice Doherty speaking for the Court of Appeal disposed of the Appellants’ racial profiling argument, because there was no basis in the trial record for this submission, which was made for the first time on appeal. He stated:
“It is unfair for those who are the target of this serious allegation to raise it for the first time on appeal. In addition, advancing a claim of racial profiling where it is so obviously devoid of merit tends to trivialize a matter of serious concern within the community…”
The Court in holding that the police stop of the Appellants’s vehicle constituted a roadblock stated that “the placement of the roadblock must itself be reasonable; that is, there “must be some reasonable relation between the commission of the crime and the establishment and location of the roadblock”.
Justice Doherty held hat the use of a roadblock cannot be justified in furtherance of the police duty to investigate and prevent crime unless the police have reasonable grounds to believe both that a serious crime has been committed and that the roadblock stop may apprehend the perpetrator.
Justice Doherty stated the following with respect to the significant interference with liberties occasioned by a roadblock:
“combined with the fact that the individuals stopped are targets of a police investigation and may face criminal jeopardy as a result of the police action, demands a strong state interest to justify police interference with individual liberties.”
The Court of Appeal also added teeth to the analysis under section 24(2) by excluding the handguns seized by police from the evidence. Justice Doherty quoted from Justice Hill writing extra-judicially in “The Role of Fault in Section 2492) of the Charter ” where he stated:
“The apparent good faith of the individual draftsperson [police officer] ought not to mask police fault where it can be established that institutionalized policy or features effectively drive a pattern of legal non-compliance. A system that routinely fails to produce the reasonably well-trained officer ought not to benefit from a goon faith analysis measured against a climate of its own creation.”
The Court emphasized that the inquiry under s. 24(2) cannot be focused solely on the specific prosecution at issue: it is the long-term consequences of regular admission or exclusion of this type of evidence on the repute of the administration of justice which must be considered. Thus, despite the fact that the exclusion of the handguns from evidence would lead to the Appellants having escaped justice in a real sense, the Court of Appeal decided to exclude the evidence.
*****
The following article appeared on nytimes.com on March 20, 2005:
In
Courts, Threats Have Become a Fact of Life
By Deborah
Sontag
Last March,
a federal prosecutor in Utah overseeing a racketeering case against a dozen
members of the Soldiers of Aryan Culture received a chilling threat.
"You
stupid bitch!" the letter to the assistant United States attorney, who is
an African-American woman, began. "It is because of you that my brothers
are in jail." The letter went on to mention the prosecutor's home address,
concluding, "We will get you." It was signed, "Till the casket
drops."
After a
second threat, a federal magistrate summoned the 12 defendants to a courtroom
in Salt Lake City late last year and informed them that their family visits and
telephone privileges would be suspended.
The men, who
are accused of operating a violent criminal enterprise that peddles white
supremacist ideology and methamphetamine inside and outside Utah's prisons, did
not take the news well.
Seated in
the jury box because they were too numerous to sit together at the defense
table, the defendants were handcuffed and shackled. But this did not stop them
from leaping to their feet, spewing profanity-laden protests, spitting, kicking
and scuffling with more than a dozen United States marshals and court security
officers.
It was not
just another day in an American courtroom, but it was not an aberration either.
Defendants act out. And threats against judges and prosecutors appear to be a
regular, almost routine, part of courthouse life, not only in highly public
emotional cases like that of Terri Schiavo, the severely brain-damaged woman in
Florida whose feeding tube was
removed by court order on Friday, but in garden-variety disputes, too.
Only federal
authorities keep a count of annual threats, but the 700 reported against
federal judicial officials alone suggest that the total made against federal,
state and local court officials is much larger.
In the last
decade, too, threats have escalated, especially on the federal level, where
there is a new age of dangerous cases involving terrorism, international drug
trafficking, international organized crime and gangs.
Violent incidents
themselves, inside and outside the courtroom, are not tallied, but they are
known to involve an unpredictable range of defendants, from white supremacists
and gang members to white-collar frauds, batterers and civil litigants.
Court-related
violence is a chronic, costly preoccupation for those inside the system, but it
is not one that usually gets much attention. That concern ratcheted up
considerably and went public after the back-to-back killings of a federal
judge's relatives in Chicago and of a judge, court reporter, sheriff's deputy
and federal customs agent in Atlanta.
The
killings, which the authorities say were committed by a disgruntled plaintiff
in Chicago on Feb. 28 and a rape defendant on March 11 in Atlanta, prompted
security reviews at courthouses around the country, an appeal by federal judges
for bolstered security and a nationwide, soul-searching conversation among
judges, prosecutors and other court officials shaken by the events.
In his
annual state of the judiciary speech on Tuesday, Ronald M. George, chief
justice of the California Supreme Court, said the slayings highlighted
"the physical vulnerability of our courts." Two-thirds of
California's courthouses lack adequate security, Chief Justice George said, relating
the story of a rural judge who stacked law books in front of his bench to
protect himself from flying bullets during an attempted hostage-taking in 1997.
"Courthouses
must be a safe harbor to which members of the public come to resolve disputes
that often are volatile," he said. "Once courthouses themselves are
perceived as dangerous, the integrity and efficacy of the entire judicial
process is in jeopardy."
Chief
Justice George, as he acknowledged, did not have to go back to 1997 to find an
example of courtroom violence in California.
Just the day
before, Erick Morales, a gang member on trial for murder in Los Angeles County,
slashed the arm of his court-appointed lawyer with a razor blade hidden in his
mouth. Mr. Morales's wrists were secured to his waist, but the restraints had
been loosened to make them less visible to jurors, allowing him to spit out the
blade, catch it and cut his lawyer, Linda Wieder, who needed five stitches.
While it
might seem counterintuitive that a defendant would attack his own lawyer, some
public defenders say it is commonplace for their clients to disparage them.
"In any
prison, the person most inmates name as responsible for them being there is
'the dump truck P.D.,' " said David Coleman, the public defender in Contra
Costa County, Calif. "Thus, the razor or weapon used against a public
defender is all too common."
On Tuesday,
facing an additional charge of assault with a deadly weapon, Mr. Morales
briefly appeared again in court. He was strapped at his shoulders, ankles and
wrists into what the presiding judge, Ronald Coen of Los Angeles County
Superior Court, called "the Hannibal Lecter chair," referring to the
"Silence of the Lambs" character.
"Over
the years, we've seen numerous shanks in the courtroom," Judge Coen, who
specializes in death penalty cases, said in an interview. "Still, I think
we're seeing more bold defendants. When I was a young lawyer, I didn't see
judges getting attacked."
Lethal
attacks on judges and prosecutors remain relatively rare, but they do happen.
Three federal judges were assassinated from 1979 to 1989, and two more have
been assaulted in the last few years; at least seven state and local judges
have been killed. A nationwide prosecutors' memorial in Columbia, S.C.,
contains the names of eight prosecutors killed from 1967 to 2001 and a ninth is
about to be added.
"The
numbers killed are small, but the numbers threatened are relatively high,"
said Dan M. Alsobrooks, the district attorney in Charlotte, Tenn., and past
president of the National District Attorneys Association. A 2001 survey by the
association found that 81 percent of large state prosecutors' offices reported
work-related threats or assaults that year.
And a Justice Department survey determined that 40 percent of state and
local prosecutors felt threatened in their jobs.
"You
take precautions," Mr. Alsobrooks said. "You arm yourself, you wear a
bulletproof vest, you get round-the-clock security."
Threats
against federal judicial officials have undergone a "dramatic
increase"' to average about 700 annually in recent years, according to the
United States Marshals Service. The marshals handle security for all federal
judges and courts in the country. In 2004, they provided protective details for
39 federal judges and prosecutors. This included round-the-clock protection for
two judges in New York City - Michael B. Mukasey and Kevin T. Duffy - whose
involvement in terrorism trials has forced them to live under protection for more
than a decade.
On the state
and local levels, where security is weaker, especially in rural courthouses and
in ancillary courts like traffic court and family court, officials say judges
and prosecutors constantly receive threats.
In New York,
there are 120 to 150 cases involving threats against state-paid judges
annually, and that number has varied little over the last decade, said Ronald
Younkins, the chief of operations for the New York State Unified Court System.
George W.
Greer, a state judge in Florida, has been the target of considerable invective
and the recipient of voluminous hate mail and death threats for ordering the
removal of a feeding tube from Ms. Schiavo. For weeks, sheriff's deputies have
kept Judge Greer under close guard.
Judge John
Hill, a senior appellate justice in Texas who was shot in his courtroom in 1992
during a child custody case, said he worried about "the general
encouragement of ill feeling against the judiciary." Several other judges
also expressed concern about the sharp language used to denounce so-called
activist judges.
"I
don't know if it has any effect, but there are a lot of political attacks on
judges today," Judge Hill said.
In San
Fernando, Calif., Judge Coen said that he had received numerous threats, that
deputies had moved into his house on several occasions and that he was
habitually security-minded. He has a permit to carry a concealed weapon. As a
"confidential voter," his name and home address do not appear on
voter rolls. He has all his mail sent to his office.
"You
don't wear a sign saying, 'I'm a judge,' " he said. "You do your best
not to advertise that fact. Our chief justice made a statement when I got sworn
in 20 years ago. He said, 'With every ruling, a judge makes one permanent enemy
and one temporary friend.' If you go by that, you have to protect
yourself."
White
supremacists and gang members are hardly the only ones who threaten officials.
"What we get is a lot of people who look like Mr. Ross," said Richard
D. Eadie, the presiding judge at King County Superior Court in Seattle. He was
referring to Bart Ross, 57, the electrician who claimed responsibility in a
suicide note for the killings in Chicago of the husband and mother of Judge
Joan Humphrey Lefkow of Federal District Court. "It's a person who has a
civil case, is disturbed by the result, obsesses on the case, focuses on the
court system as the culprit and even on the judge as the villain."
Last fall,
Judge Lefkow dismissed a lawsuit in which Mr. Ross sought to hold doctors
responsible for disfiguring him during cancer treatment. He represented himself
"pro se," like many of the plaintiffs who become unnaturally
obsessive about their cases, according to court officials.
"In a
society as litigious as ours, the courtroom has become the theater for
emotional catharsis," said J. Anthony Kline, the presiding justice of the
California Court of Appeals in San Francisco. "Those threats are greatest
that involve disputes over the quotidian events because they are the ones that
stimulate the most intense emotions."
In and of
themselves, threats can be potent in destabilizing the justice system,
officials say. In Utah, the federal prosecutor was not harmed, but the threats
were serious enough to force her off the Soldiers of Aryan Culture case.
Federal prosecutors in Idaho have indicted two people for the threats.
Actual
assassination plots, though far rarer, clearly shake up the system, too.
Consider the case of Amr Mohsen, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and the defendant
in a complicated case arising from a business rivalry.
It might
have seemed unlikely that Mr. Mohsen, the founder of a San Jose company called
Aptix Corporation, would try to hire a hit man to kill a federal judge who
presided over a patent-infringement case. But, as a result of that civil case,
Mr. Mohsen was in jail facing multiple charges of conspiracy to commit perjury
and obstruct justice. And, according to the government, he did indeed solicit a
fellow inmate to kill the judge -
although he
quibbled at the asking price of $25,000, saying he considered $10,000 more
reasonable.
The inmate,
an informant, caught the conversation on tape.
"So,
now, what would you want?" the informant asked Mr. Mohsen, according to a
tape transcript Mr. Mohsen's lawyer provided. "He could be shot. He could
be knifed. He could be blown up or it could look like, maybe a gas leak in his
house or what?"
Mr. Mohsen
asked the man which approach would be "the least traceable," and
though he expressed some discomfort with the idea of killing a judge, he
ordered the informant to track the judge's movements.
"I
wouldn't want to do it at the courthouse," he said. "Get him when
he's driving around. I'm sure he goes to a golf course or something."
When Mr.
Mohsen pleaded not guilty last summer to 23 criminal counts including
solicitation to murder a federal judge, the case had to be assigned to a judge
in Sacramento because the entire San Francisco bench recused itself from the
case.
Most
attackers do not issue an explicit threat beforehand, according to a study of
judicial violence done for the United States Secret Service. But that does not
mean that threats can be ignored. Judge Eadie in Seattle said, "It's very
difficult to separate the people who are just blowing off steam from the people
who are building up steam and will explode
eventually."
Contrary to
conventional wisdom, the Secret Service study said, most "near-lethal
approachers and the great majority of attackers and assassins" are not
mentally ill. Attacks on public officials are generally premeditated; the
attackers' motives can include the desire for notoriety and the desire for
vengeance. And there is no profile of a judicial
assassin.
Would-be assassins run the gamut from white-collar criminals to cold-blooded
killers like Larry Delon Casey, convicted in 1973 of murdering two children and
an 86-year-old woman in Texas.
For years
after he first landed in prison, Mr. Casey sent Bert Graham, the prosecutor on
his case, a Christmas card that said, "Thinking of you." A few years
ago, prison authorities discovered that Mr. Casey was plotting to kill Mr.
Graham, now the first assistant district attorney in Harris County, and
eventually Mr. Casey hired an undercover police officer to commit the murder.
Mr. Graham
acknowledged "shock and concern" when he learned of Mr. Casey's obsession. "I was surprised he was
planning something that specific," he said. "He was fully capable of
following through with the plan."
Often it
takes a murder plot or a violent incident to serve as a catalyst for enhanced
security. After the slayings in Chicago and Atlanta, court officials across the
country are re-examining security - adding razor wire here, security cameras
there - and debating approaches to security enhancement because many fear
turning courthouses into fortresses. They are also hoping that the current
flash of public interest will shake free
some
financing.
In Okaloosa
County in the Florida Panhandle, however, Judge Thomas T. Remington of Circuit
Court is not optimistic. His motel-like courthouse in Shalimar is the least
secure in the state, he said, offering nearly unfettered public access.
For eight
years, voters have refused to approve a 1-cent sales tax to help build a new,
secure courthouse. "Voters just think it's some luxury for judges, lawyers
and crooks," Judge Remington said.
For a moment
after the Atlanta shootings, he allowed himself to hope. But letters to the
editor in the local newspaper proclaimed that the lethal shootings inside the
modern Atlanta courthouse proved that modern buildings are not safe, either.
* * * * *
The
following article appeared on nytimes.com on March 20, 2005:
Detectives'
Lawyers Know the Spotlight
By Alan
Feuer
A criminal
trial without good lawyers is not unlike a pennant game without good pitchers.
The contest counts, but it is not as interesting to watch.
Bruce Cutler
and Edward Hayes are nothing if not fun to watch. They are New York lawyers of
the look-at-me variety, self-conscious personalities who have gained a level of
celebrity in the often dish-soap annals of the law.
The matter
at hand is this: Mr. Cutler, 56, and Mr. Hayes, 57, recently joined forces on a
case, hired to defend a pair of retired city detectives - Louis Eppolito (Mr.
Cutler's client) and Stephen Caracappa (Mr. Hayes's) - accused of being killers
for the mob.
The charges
are spectacular: a shooting on the Belt Parkway and the abduction of a gangster
featuring a trunk. The case also includes a marijuana dealer-turned-informant,
a defendant who had a bit role in the movie "Goodfellas," and likely
testimony about the former under boss of the Luchese crime family, who has
confessed to more than 30 murders.
For those
who care about such things, however, the case will have an extra touch of
glamour: watching Mr. Hayes and Mr. Cutler, two old friends, working side by
side in court.
Much has
been written of Mr. Cutler's taste for representing gangsters (John J. Gotti,
for example, the Gambino family don, whom Mr. Cutler channeled at the Mr.
Gotti's wake) and for the "Bruceifications" he often delivers to
witnesses on the stand. He is a bald-domed former wrestler with a rambling
manner (think Brando in "Apocalypse Now"), the sort of man who, in the
same conversation, will make a bit of literary talk but then discuss his over-spiced Albanian lunch.
Mr. Hayes,
on the other hand, is known for sounding like an old-timer at the Queens
Boulevard Elks Lodge, but also for dressing out of Savile Row. He has
represented Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue, and the Andy Warhol estate, and
his shoes are a few shades whiter than his colleague's. He is talkative,
married to a model, and hails from the Jackson Heights section of Queens.
The two men
have known each other since 1981, when they met at the funeral of a mutual
acquaintance, the son of John McNally, a private investigator. At the time, Mr.
Hayes was in the homicide squad of the Bronx district attorney's office. Mr.
Cutler worked in Brooklyn at a similar job.
Over the
years, the two men - both garrulous and natty and connoisseurs of New York
crime - became close friends. Mr. Cutler is even the godfather of Mr. Hayes's
daughter, Avery, 17.
They are
close enough, in fact, that anything said of them pales before what they say of
each other. It makes sense to let the one describe the next.
"If
there's anything I love in the world, it's a tough Brooklyn Jew, and Bruce is a
tough Brooklyn Jew," Mr. Hayes said. Mr. Cutler, was born and raised in
Flatbush.
As for Mr.
Hayes, Mr. Cutler said: "He's the Irish brother I never had."
In terms of
courtroom style, Mr. Hayes described his colleague as vigorous and aggressive -
he has elsewhere been described as obnoxious and loudmouthed - and said that
Mr. Cutler was "a very strong-minded guy who is also very physically
strong." Mr. Hayes seemed impressed with his friend's physique, honed on
the wrestling squad at Brooklyn's Poly Prep. He said: "God gave Bruce
great athletic ability. I had to work like an animal to be in shape."
Mr. Hayes
acknowledged that Mr. Cutler's past statements denying the existence of the
Mafia might cause trouble in their current case. Their clients have been
accused of taking part in at least eight murders for the mob.
"When
we got into this, I called him up," Mr. Hayes said, "and told
him, 'Bruce, you got to say there is a
Mafia and you hate them.' "
Mr. Cutler
explained that Americans are psychotically obsessed with the mob. Then he said:
"I'm not representing what the journalistic or literary people would call
'the Mafia.' I'm representing the accused."
On the topic
of Mr. Hayes's skills as a lawyer, he said: "Eddie is quick - quick,
quick, quick. He is the quintessential quick-talking, smart, great Irish lawyer
in the Michael Kennedy mold."
Then he
added: "We'll make a good team because I tend to pound on things to drive
the point home while Eddie is glib." He amended this by saying, "Not
glib in a bad way, glib in a honest way. Up front."
Despite
their success, the two men have an almost physical disgust for the
establishment, especially the government, though they come at it from different
points of view.
Mr. Hayes is
of the up-from-the-bootstraps school and rails against many forms of
centralized power. Mr. Cutler's populism feels a bit more strategic. His method
has often been, as New York magazine wrote in 1998, "to shift emphasis
away from the charges against his client and attack something - e.g., the
prosecution, big government, big business."
Then there
is the matter of their tailors - men who, if one can trust the lawyers'
appearances, must be rich. "In terms of clothing styles, I prefer natural
soft shoulders," Mr. Hayes said. "He is more the high-end Brooklyn
type."
* * * * *
The
following article appeared on CNN.com on March 23, 2005:
Police
tapes reveal accused killer’s 1991 plea for help
(CNN) -- The
man charged with killing 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford confessed in 1991 that he
tried to molest a 5-year-old girl, telling police "I need help,"
according to a tape obtained by CNN.
The suspect,
46-year-old John Evander Couey, was charged this week with capital murder,
burglary with battery, kidnapping and sexual battery on a child younger than
12.
Couey had
been arrested 25 times previously in Florida -- the same state as where he
allegedy kidnapped and killed Jessica.
In the
confession recorded 14 years ago, he described what he did to the 5-year-old
girl in her back yard.
"She
was riding across and I went over there, and she offered to go in the back yard
to jump on the trampoline. And I said 'OK.' We went back there and she was
jumping on there," he said on the tape. "I asked if she wanted to
play hide and go seek and she said yes, so we did."
Couey
acknowledged to police that he exposed himself, that the girl then sat on his
lap -- voluntarily, he claimed -- and that he put the girl's hand on him.
"Then
her mother come out and yelled for her and I took off," Couey said.
"I feel
that prison ain't going to help me," he said. "I got a 10-year
sentence and I done got out in three years, and it doesn't really help. I feel
that I need help for myself. That's why I'm confessing to my crime that I
committed tonight, 'cause I want help for myself so I will never have to be
this again. I mean I feel bad about it, really I do.
"I feel
that if I can get help for myself then I can make a better person out of
myself," he said.
Couey was
given the maximum sentence for attempted molestation -- five years -- and was
out on parole after two years.
He told
police at the time that his effort to molest a young girl was not a one-time
event.
A written
report by the officer who took the taped confession said: "Couey admitted
that this was not the first child he had ever touched, however, this is the
first time he was caught."
The officer
continued: "Couey admitted to molesting his wife's daughter, however, she
agreed not to report the incident if he left the house and gave her a divorce,
which he did. Couey knows he has a problem, however, has never sought medical
assistance to help him control his sexual attraction for young children."
CNN tried
unsuccessfully to locate Couey's former wife for comment.
Fourteen
years after Couey's plea for help, police sources said, he entered Lunsford's
house the night of February 23, made his way to the girl's room, covered her
mouth, ordered her to remain quiet and forced her to leave.
Authorities
found her body March 19, buried behind the home of Couey's half sister in
Homosassa, Florida, north of Tampa.
* * * * *
The
following article appeared in latimes.com on March 24, 2005:
Escaped
Killer Hid as Poet in Chicago
After
breaking out of prison in 1985, Norman A. Porter is headed back to Boston.
'It's been a
good 20-year run,' he told police.
By John
Beckham and Elizabeth Mehren
Times Staff
Writers
CHICAGO — As
J.J. Jameson, he was a popular poet. As Norman A. Porter Jr., he
was a
convicted murderer who had escaped 20 years ago from a Massachusetts prison.
On
Wednesday, the two personas merged.
Porter, 65,
appeared before Judge Kevin Sheehan in Cook County Circuit Court, a day after
he was arrested at the Unitarian church where he worshiped and worked as a
handyman.
Porter
waived extradition and was ordered back to Massachusetts to face a felony
indictment for prison escape.
That charge
could add 10 years to the life sentence he walked away from in 1985.
His name has
topped Massachusetts' most-wanted list ever since.
"It's
been a good 20-year run," he said to the Illinois state policeman who
arrested him. Then he asked for a cigarette.
Porter told
the officer that he had expected his past would catch up with him.
Massachusetts
authorities got a tip about a month ago that Porter was living in the Chicago
area.
C.J. Laity,
the publisher of ChicagoPoetry.com, said he had known "Jameson" for a
decade. Last week, Laity said, the poet was among 33 who performed at a
"Poetry Cram." When Jameson's name was announced, Laity said, the
crowd cheered.
"He was
one of my regular poets, a poet and a friend," Laity said Wednesday.
"What I am discovering now is I never knew him that well at all."
Porter was
21 when he shot and killed a clothing store clerk during a 1960 robbery. While
awaiting trial, he and another inmate tried to escape, overpowering their
jailer and killing him with a smuggled gun.
Porter
pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in both cases and was sentenced to
consecutive life terms.
In 1975,
then-Gov. Michael S. Dukakis commuted one of Porter's life sentences.
While in
prison, Porter earned a high school diploma. He also started a prison newspaper
and radio station. His Boston lawyer, Gordon T. Walker, said Porter took up
poetry while incarcerated.
"He was
quite talented," Walker said.
Porter was
working toward a college degree when he escaped in 1985 from a minimum-security
facility.
He had
eluded capture once, when he was arrested in Chicago on theft charges in 1993.
He told police his name was J.J. Jameson, and his fingerprints somehow were not
matched with the outstanding warrant for his arrest.
The charges
against him were dropped.
Porter was
living in Chicago's Austin neighborhood — one of the city's most violent. He
helped his neighbors run a food pantry. He served as the historian for the
Third Unitarian Church on Chicago's West Side.
Jessie
Selvy, who lived across the street from Porter's tiny second-floor apartment,
said "J.J." was active in a community organization whose meetings
routinely were attended by police officers.
"He was
just a regular guy. No way did he seem dangerous to anyone," Selvy said.
"I am shocked. It is unbelievable that he could blend into the
community."
Over the
years, Porter occasionally called his lawyer, but he never revealed where he
was living or that he had assumed a new identity. Porter called again Tuesday
night.
"He
sounded relieved and resigned," Walker said. "He didn't sound upset
or surprised."
As Jameson,
his poetry covered many topics, including the penal system. One work, called
"Thoreau's Grave," is read by Porter on the e-poets.net website.
"His
grave is outside a walled prison," the poet recites. "His grave, his
grave, wrapped around a prison."
* * * * *
The
following article appeared on latimes.com on March 20, 2005:
Jackson
Trial's Flip Side
The
well-documented history of the accuser's family provides plenty of ammunition
for the pop star's defense.
By James
Ricci and Christine Hanley
Times Staff
Writers
The family
accusing Michael Jackson of child molestation is as much a target in the pop
star's criminal trial as he himself.
Haunted by
money troubles and split by divorce, the family has been roiled by past
allegations of wife beatings, child abuse, mental illness and shoplifting,
which Jackson's defense is expected to exploit in coming weeks.
For years,
the family crammed into a studio apartment while the mother groomed her
daughter and two sons for lives in the entertainment world glittering somewhere
beyond their East Los Angeles neighborhood.
But instead
of finding Hollywood riches, the family was accused of stealing clothes from
J.C. Penney, and their fame has sprung from an accusation of sexual
molestation. The Times is withholding their names to protect the identity of
the alleged molestation victim.
Lawsuits,
restraining orders, police investigations, grand jury testimony and the
parents' divorce have left a trail of damaging and sometimes contradictory
testimony by members of the family. But such public records, rooted in
conflict, inevitably give an incomplete picture of people.
They are
potential weapons, however, in the hands of the defense lawyers, who have been
blasting at the family's credibility. The attorneys are hoping to persuade
jurors that the tale of molestation was concocted to extract money from the eccentric
entertainer, who faces a possible 20-plus years in prison if convicted of all
charges.
The lawyers
have aggressively questioned the alleged victim, a 15-year-old cancer survivor.
He testified that Jackson, now 46, molested him in 2003 at the singer's
Neverland ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley.
Defense
attorneys took the boy to task last week in Santa Barbara County Superior Court
for swearing at trial that Jackson had fondled him, after earlier telling a
school official that the pop star had never touched him.
Pushing
young witnesses too hard can backfire with a jury, but no such concerns are
likely to hobble defense lawyers when, as expected, the children's parents are
called to testify.
Only
Jackson's legal team knows how much potentially damaging information it has on
the family. Available public records contain allegations regarding the mother's
mental health, the parents' 1993 bankruptcy and the family's attempts to profit
from the son's cancer, as well as from the case against Jackson.
Defense
attorneys could use the lawsuit against Penney's, for example, to suggest a
pattern of seeking money from wealthy sources. The father, mother and their two
sons, then 7 and 8 years old, were stopped by store security Aug. 27, 1998, in
the parking lot of the Plaza at West Covina and accused of shoplifting clothes.
The parents
contended in a subsequent lawsuit against the store that security guards
attacked them without reason and falsely accused the elder boy — Jackson's
accuser — of taking the clothes. The mother said one of the guards sexually
assaulted her.
Penney's
lawyers contended that the boy was guilty and that he and his father left the
store ignoring guards' orders to stop. Store lawyers said security personnel
had to restrain the father and handcuff the mother after she attacked one of
the guards, according to court records.
In September
2001, the family received a $152,000 out-of-court settlement.
Last year,
in a court petition seeking permission to visit his children, the father said
his ex-wife had "coached her children for depositions in a lawsuit against
J.C. Penney," writing out questions and answers "for the children to
study and practice with her."
But when he
later testified before the grand jury in the Jackson case, he denied that the
mother had coached the children. In her own grand jury testimony, she also said
she had not told her children what to say.
In his 2004
petition for visitation rights, the father said that if he'd been present at
the court hearing that awarded custody to the mother, he "would have
presented evidence regarding [his ex-wife's] veracity and mental health."
He said she had admitted herself to a Kaiser Permanente health center in 1998
"to be treated for mental health issues."
At least two
court documents refer to the mother's having been diagnosed as "delusional
and schizophrenic" by psychiatrists in the Penney's case. One of Jackson's
attorneys, in subpoenaing depositions from that case, said the material being
sought included "the diagnosis of [the mother] with paranoid schizophrenia
with delusions."
Testifying
last April before the Jackson grand jury, the father described his ex-wife as
"very emotional." He said she "goes from one extreme to
another…. She'll be happy, very sad, very nice, very mean…. I've been waiting
for her to get better all these years, but it's getting worse and worse."
In October
2001, the mother filed for a restraining order against him, saying
"violence in [the] marriage was a daily" occurrence.
She wrote
that a few weeks earlier the father "grabbed me by the arms, shook me,
pushed me and started hitting me in the head, pulling my hair. When I fell to
the ground, he kicked me…. He said he hated me and hated our kids and that he
was disowning us. He said if I ever told anyone about this that he would kill
me, and the kids would have no mother."
A judge
granted the restraining order and gave the mother sole custody. Shortly
thereafter, she filed for divorce. (The father eventually pleaded guilty to
misdemeanor corporal injury to a spouse in connection with the incident and was
ordered to attend 52 sessions of a program for domestic abusers.)
On Nov. 11,
2001, according to police reports, the father violated the restraining order by
holding his daughter captive in his car more than two hours while threatening
to kill her and the rest of the family. The following June, he pleaded no
contest to one count of willful cruelty to a child and was sentenced to four
years' probation.
The mother
told the Jackson grand jury that her husband had abused her throughout their
18-year marriage, and abused the children as well.
But the
father testified before the grand jury that he had never abused his wife and
said, "I don't even spank my kids."
Public
records also deal with the family's economic troubles.
In 1993,
while still married, the parents filed for personal bankruptcy, listing assets
of $2,795 and liabilities of nearly $30,000, including almost $11,500 in credit
card debt.
Late Friday,
the judge in Jackson's criminal trial unsealed police reports saying the father
had tried to exploit his son's illness to get money from sympathetic
celebrities, including comedian George Lopez. Lopez participated in one of four
benefits for the boy at the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood.
At those
events, the father and his children, with permission from Laugh Factory owner
Jamie Masada, stood at the door to collect the admission charge. At the sick
boy's request, Masada persuaded Jackson to call, and he later invited the
family to his ranch.
The newly released
documents say Lopez became suspicious after the young cancer patient called to
say he'd left a wallet containing $300 at the comedian's home.
Lopez
located the wallet but found just a few dollars in it. Afterward, he broke ties
with the family. Masada later accused the father of inducing the boy to lie
about the wallet, but the club owner gave him $300.
Comedian and
radio producer Louise Palanker gave the father $10,000 so he could take time
off work to be with his son during chemotherapy, the documents show. She had
met the family in 2000, the year the boy was diagnosed with cancer, while
teaching comedy to the children at a Laugh Factory camp.
Three weeks
later, Palanker told investigators, the father asked her for an additional
$10,000, which she gave him. She also said she arranged for a contractor to
create a germ-free room for the boy, whose immune system was weakened by his
cancer treatment. She later learned that the family never paid the contractor's
$800 bill but bought a large flat-screen television and DVD player.
Palanker
refused subsequent requests for money.
A separate
court document says that in November 2002, the family sought to conceal from
Jackson the $152,000 Penney's settlement they'd received the previous year, in
order to appear needy.
Jackson's
trial has its roots in a documentary by British journalist Martin Bashir, in
which the entertainer said he enjoyed sleeping with boys in a nonsexual manner.
Jackson's accuser, then recuperating from chemotherapy, appeared in the documentary.
The boy's
mother and his siblings then appeared in a so-called rebuttal video, in which
they said Jackson was "like a father."
In the
video, the mother said that, during visits to Neverland, she and the children
stayed in the main house with Jackson. Occasionally, she said, she slept in
separate guest quarters.
She repeated
the assertion to state Department of Child and Family Services social workers.
According to grand jury testimony by one of the social workers, the mother said
her children were never alone with Jackson.
In her own
grand jury testimony, however, she asserted that her comments in the rebuttal
video were made under duress and "scripted" by one of Jackson's
managers. She testified that she never spent the night in the main house with
her children, staying only in the guest quarters.
In her grand
jury testimony last year, she denied asking for money from Jackson. "I
don't want the devil's money," she said.
The woman's
current husband, however, testified at an August pretrial hearing that he and
his wife had demanded payment from a Jackson representative for the appearance
in the rebuttal video. "You're making millions off this," the man
testified that she told Jackson's representative.
He also said
he and his wife were disappointed by media offers, turning down $15,000 for an
interview with two British journalists.
The mother
told the grand jury that her experience masking her ex-husband's abuse
explained why she could appear happy on the rebuttal video. She said she
participated only because of perceived threats against her family by Jackson's
managers.
"You
got to understand," she said, "I had years of being beat up. Years
that I knew that if I pretended to smile, people wouldn't ask questions. I had
years of going to a job bruised up and smiling…. So, yes, I got really good at
smiling. I got really good at pretending everything was OK."
* * * * *
The
following article appeared on CNN.com on March 24, 2005:
SANTA MARIA,
California (CNN) -- In a twist likely to further complicate the prosecution's
efforts to convict Michael Jackson, a former bodyguard expected to be a key
witness against the pop star is sitting in a Las Vegas jail, facing a slew of
felony charges stemming from four armed robberies.
A spokeswoman
for the Clark County, Nevada, district attorney's office confirmed that
Christopher Eric Carter, 25, was indicted Wednesday on 15 counts, including
first-degree kidnapping, burglary, robbery, coercion and possession of a
firearm by an ex-felon.
At the
Jackson child molestation trial, meanwhile, the judge Wednesday refused to
allow prosecutors to introduce as evidence electronic erotic material found on
computer hard drives seized at the singer's home.
According to
the indictment against Carter, the ex-bodyguard had been convicted in 2000 in
Maryland on drug and escape charges, two years before he went to work for
Jackson.
The victims
in the kidnapping counts were targets of the robberies and were patrons inside
businesses who were held against their will, according to the indictment.
The serious
felony charges are likely to damage the credibility of Carter, who has
testified he witnessed Jackson and his teenage accuser drinking alcohol
together during an airplane flight.
The first
armed robbery Carter is accused of committing in Las Vegas was on October 29,
2003 -- about two months after he left Jackson's employ and before he testified
before the Santa Barbara County grand jury that indicted the pop star in April
2004.