Objection! (11 page)

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state. At trial, the outcry witness is typically the first person to whom a rape victim tells what happened, most often in a distraught state. Such witnesses are invaluable to the state because they can either corroborate or discredit a victim’s credibility.

Anne Mercer drove Patricia Bowman, the alleged rape victim, home from the Kennedy mansion in Palm Beach that night, immediately after the reported rape. At trial, Mercer underwent a vicious attack by the defense, led by attorney Roy Black, and with good reason—Mercer had to admit under oath that she was paid $40,000 for an appearance on the television show
A Current Affair.

The defense rests.

Another high-profile defendant nearly walked free when a key state’s witness sold his story to the
National Enquirer.

Michael Markhasev went to trial for the 1997 murder of twenty-seven-year-old Ennis Cosby, son of the beloved entertainer Bill Cosby.

The young, unarmed Cosby was ambushed and shot as he was changing a flat on a freeway exit ramp. The state’s star witness, Christopher So, testified in no uncertain terms that he overheard Markhasev confess to the shooting. The defense launched its case with an assault on So’s credibility after it was uncovered he had contacted the
Enquirer
about their offer of a reward in the case. It turns out So pocketed $40,000 for interviews and was promised another $100,000 if Markhasev was convicted. To make matters worse, the detective who investigated Cosby’s case testified under oath that when he interviewed So, the witness actually asked the cop, “Does my story sound good?”

Luckily, Markhasev was convicted and sentenced to mandatory life behind bars in 1998—no thanks to So, whose greed nearly tilted the scales of justice the wrong way.

O. J. Simpson’s trial serves as a textbook primer on what is wrong with the justice system on so many, many levels, this one included.

Does the name Jose Camacho ring a bell? It should. This guy was sliced up like a Thanksgiving turkey on cross-examination by the defense in 7 0

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the O. J. Simpson case. In what should have been strong testimony for the state, Camacho said Simpson bought a knife in the store where he worked a few weeks before the double murders. But the witness’s damning words turned into every prosecutor’s worst nightmare come true. Camacho had to confess that he accepted $12,500 from the
Enquirer
after
Hard Copy
had offered him “peanuts.” Prosecutors tried their best to salvage Camacho’s credibility by stressing that he sold his story only after his testimony at grand jury. Obviously, the strategy didn’t work.

Jill Shively, another star witness in the case, testified in front of the grand jury that she saw Simpson driving like a madman near the scene of the murders. Prosecutors had no alternative but to to scuttle her testimony after she sold her story to
Hard Copy
for a reported $5,000.

This blatant brokering for the “dirt” on a sensational case isn’t even done in secret. The
Enquirer
’s editor appeared on
Larry King Live
to show off the $1 million check the tabloid had offered to Al Cowlings to tell what really happened in the white Bronco during the chase seen around the world. In one of the only displays of restraint shown by the major players in that case at the time, the Simpson insider opted not to jump on the trial’s gravy train. Cowlings did wind up cashing in, however, selling autographed photos of the infamous Bronco chase online.

This phenomenon of witnesses selling out to the media isn’t a by-product of our 24/7 media age—it only seems that way because the number of outlets vying for “exclusives” has grown exponentially in the last few years. Paying for stories is a dangerous and destructive tradition. And it’s not just scandal-mongering tabloids and TV shows that shell out big bucks for salacious stories to sell. A 1994 issue of that
Columbia Journalism Review
reported that the revered
60 Minutes
paid Richard Nixon’s henchman H. R. Haldeman $25,000 for his story in 1975. G. Gordon Liddy went for the reduced rate of $15,000. Nixon himself brought in the biggest haul. Swifty Lazar, the late Hollywood über-agent, brokered a $600,000 deal for Nixon’s interview with David O B J E C T I O N !

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Frost that aired in 1977. Frost defended himself on CNN in 2002, saying at least he got to quiz Nixon on television, as opposed to the watered-down version the disgraced ex-president offered in his book—for which he received $2.3 million.

Clearly, the shady practice is alive and well today. In January 2004, the
New York Times
reported that CBS news magazine
60 Minutes
paid Michael Jackson $1 million for an exclusive interview after he’d been charged with child molestation. While the network called the allegations “categorically false,” a CBS spokeswoman acknowledged that there was another deal that had been struck with the King of Pop. Jackson had to deny the charges on air during the
60 Minutes
interview in order for the network to consider broadcasting his musical special, pulled from CBS’s schedule after Jackson’s arrest in November 2003.

Another television icon bites the dust.

J U S T S H U T U P !

Legislation could easily be
passed in each state to outlaw payment or anticipated payment of witnesses and other participants in criminal cases before trials. The First Amendment protects free speech—not storytelling for fame and profit. To witnesses who just can’t shut up, I say tell your story for free before trial if you absolutely must—if jeopardizing the case means nothing to you—but do not pass go, do not broker a deal, and do not collect any cash until after the trial. Judge Alfred DeLucchi implemented a great idea after the Scott Peterson guilty verdict. He disallowed any form of payment, not so much as a fruit basket, to Peterson jurors in exchange for talking until ninety days following Peterson’s sentencing.

This way everybody’s happy: loose-lipped witnesses, the prosecution, the victim, and the victim’s family. There’s one sad face in the crowd: the defense attorney who just got robbed of a potentially explosive cross-examination. But I’m not using up all my energy blaming 7 2

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greedy witnesses. There are plenty of other pigs gorging themselves at the jury rail.

T O S E R V E A N D P R O T E C T —

T H E I R O W N I N T E R E S T S

Police investigations often take
months, even years, to complete.

The reality is that cops are lucky if somebody even says thank you when they’re done. I can’t count the number of bear hugs, handshakes, and letters that were written to me by cops after I uttered those two painfully obvious words. I saw it as a small gesture of appreciation after they put in extra hours to work a case, gave testimony on the stand, or undertook additional investigation at my request. Sadly, it’s more than most officers are accustomed to getting. To me, it’s the heart and soul of what law enforcement is all about . . . to serve and protect a grateful public.

They may be few and far between, but unfortunately there are bad apples, officers who are looking for a lot more than a simple thank-you or the personal satisfaction of a job well done. Montgomery County police chief Charles Moose, who headed the investigation into the Washington, D.C., sniper case in 2002, is one of them.

During the shootings in the fall of that year, people in the D.C. area were afraid to pump gas, let their children walk from bus to classroom, or stop by the grocery store. Fear gripped those who lived in or around the nation’s capital as the body count around the Beltway rose by the day. Just one year earlier, the nation had lived through the September 11

terrorist attacks. Many feared terrorists had returned and were now un-leashing their hatred on individuals. But now, unlike in most serial killings, there was no tie linking the victims to either each other or their killers.

Moose quickly emerged as a hero while the horrific scenario played out in newspapers and on television around the country. He presented O B J E C T I O N !

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a calm, competent front to the nation, assuring everyone the killers would be caught and justice would be served. Eventually, John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo were arrested and charged with thirteen shootings and ten murders in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. The killers’ path of death and destruction extended all the way south to Alabama.

Now, long after the mystery has been solved, Moose’s bid to cash in on the case continues its ripple effect. The idea of a police officer suc-cumbing to unbridled greed before a case even goes to trial gives being a police offer, formerly an honorable profession, a big black eye. And for what? A book deal. Moose signed with publisher E. P. Dutton in January 2003 to deliver
Three Weeks in October: The Manhunt for the Serial Sniper.
His story was based on the suffering of the ten innocent people who lost their lives at the whim of two nomadic killers as the victims went about the day-to-day business of living. Moose’s deal was reportedly $170,000, a little more than his annual salary. He claimed the book was a once-in-a-lifetime chance.

Once in a lifetime? Sonny Buchanan, a thirty-nine-year-old land-scaper, was shot dead from behind while he was cutting grass in Maryland. Linda Franklin, an FBI analyst, was shot in the head in the parking lot of a Virginia Home Depot after she and her husband shopped inside.

They and the snipers’ eight other victims had their “lifetimes” brutally cut short by these random acts of violence.

After a Montgomery County ethics panel refused to let Moose cash in on his office, he resigned from law enforcement. Not content simply to go off and pen his tell-all, he promptly sued his former employer in federal court, claiming that the county had violated his civil rights and denied him free speech. When it looked as if he wasn’t getting anywhere with that self-serving argument, he changed his story and announced that his book would be a work of fiction in which the lead character just happens to investigate sniper killers who gun down victims at random.

Robert F. Horan, the prosecutor for Fairfax County, Virginia, who 7 4

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oversaw the prosecution of Malvo, said in an interview before the book’s release in 2003 that Moose could have caused irreparable damage to the case. “If it gets into evidence—what they did, how they did it—then you get into an area where the argument can be made that anybody who read the book would be unfairly prejudiced,” he said. Moose didn’t even give prosecutors an advance look at the book. He defended himself by claiming that he’d never said he would do so.

The same ethics panel stopped Moose from collecting a paycheck for a movie deal. But this wasn’t just about becoming a media celebrity.

Only weeks after the snipers were arrested, Moose and his wife, Sandy Herman-Moose, applied to run a private consulting firm, setting themselves up as “keynote presenters, workshop leaders and facilitators.”

Maybe they can lecture on the loss of ethics.

Moose’s book created a potential field day for the defense on cross-examination—and they didn’t even have to work for it. Moose served it up to them on a silver platter! It’s shocking to me that the deal was being struck before the killers even went to trial, giving legs to the argument that Moose drove the investigation in a manner most suited to upping future book sales, amounting to an incredible violation of trust.

So go ahead, trash Simpson-case detectives Vannatter, Lange, and Fuhrman for their books all you want (more on them later)—at least they had the decency to wait until after the verdict to write their memoirs.

T H E R E ’ S

A R E A S O N

T H E Y ’ R E C A L L E D

A M B U L A N C E C H A S E R S

Lawyers hate lawyer jokes,
but we have to admit there’s a reason people love to hate us. The actions of my unscrupulous “colleagues”

have tainted the profession and fueled the widely held belief that we’re O B J E C T I O N !

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all prostitutes who will do anything for a dollar.
Webster’s
defines an

“ambulance chaser” as “a lawyer or lawyer’s agent who incites accident victims to sue for damages.” Webster was too kind.

Ambulance chasers are just like roaches—when you stomp one, another pokes its head out of a crack. If you’ve never encountered one, drop by the critical-care unit, trauma ward, or emergency room of your local hospital. Peek down the corridors of the courthouse just after a courtroom calendar call and keep your eyes on defendants, petitioners, and respondents who are “pro se”—momentarily without counsel.

Even mortuaries and funeral homes aren’t off-limits. And if you think the one place you’d least expect to find whores of the court is the police station, think again. The truth is, police precincts are among their favorite spots!

That’s right. It’s called “solicitation” of clients and it’s unethical.

After every car crash, domestic disturbance, bar brawl, or Little League dukefest, a 911 police report is generated. A “connection” inside the police station supplies a “runner” who works for the ambulance chaser with fresh police reports, and the chase is on! The information in a police report includes the complainant’s name and address, Social Security number, and date of birth, the location of the incident, witnesses’

names and contact information, full police accounts, and statements made on the scene—even helpful diagrams are included. Score!

Later in this book, I’ll tell you the story of a car crash I was involved in one morning on my way to court to start a murder case. When I got home from court late that evening, I got right into bed with all my files, ready to work until I fell asleep. My phone rang just as I settled in.