Objection! (44 page)

and their humiliation—revealed on camera.

In 1996, I was lucky enough to meet four women who broke that mold. They said no to nearly every stereotype imposed on rape victims by society and the justice system. When I was assigned
State v. Anton
Jermaine Smith
, I encountered some of the most extraordinary women I have ever met. Without any hesitation, they decided to allow cameras in the courtroom—and reveal their identities—during their trial.

Atlanta had been terrorized for months by a man whose pattern was to stalk a particular woman for days without her knowledge, to learn her habits and living conditions, and then break into her home at night to demean and rape her. He disguised his face with a pair of nude-colored pantyhose. Writing about it now brings back the sickening feeling I got when I first read the case file. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to wake up in the dead of night with a knife-wielding stranger over my bed, his features distorted by the stocking over his head. But that changed when I took this case.

I had been to the women’s homes, walked every inch of the crime scenes with my investigator, and compared their statements to hone in on the attacker’s modus operandi. I worked late into the night preparing legal briefs to ensure that the cases would be tried together and to foil, with preemptive strikes, any antics the defense would pull in an effort to threaten the introduction of my evidence. But there was one thing I couldn’t prepare for—the surprising strength of the victims.

3 0 0

N A N C Y G R A C E

The women met one another in the aftermath of the attacks. In 1995, Kay Cross, Andrea Goode, and Lavon Skyers were attacked by Anton Jermaine Smith when he broke in to their homes late at night. Skyers was able to fight Smith off and escape. Smith was arrested hours after breaking in to Skyers’s home but was mistakenly released from jail when lower-court prosecutors failed to inform the judge of the rape charges he faced. The judge had been told only about the burglary case, and Smith was released on $10,000 bond (he put up $1,000 and walked free). Less than three weeks later, he was arrested for the rape of Lynda Denham.

Denham’s attack could have been stopped with a simple clerical correction. The person who made the mistake faced no consequence for the costly error. I believe that in cases like this one, the responsible party should face an automatic review of his or her job performance, at which the victim is heard, and if found grossly negligent, possibly face criminal action. All hell broke loose when the mistake hit the press.

When I got the case, I was summoned to the district attorney’s office for a meeting. He impressed upon me the need to resolve the case, help the women, and calm the firestorm started by some clerk in some courthouse annex whom we would never pin down.

I left with my marching orders, preparing for a serial-rape case.

What I never counted on was meeting four of the bravest crime victims I’ve ever known. As we sat huddled together outside the courtroom for pre-trial motions, the women began to talk about being made to feel that what had happened to them was their fault. They got angry and turned to me. I didn’t know what to say. I had already told them that I had opposed a request for press in the courtroom, because I assumed they would not want their faces revealed.

One of the women burst into tears right there in the hall, her face all red. I’ll never forget her words: “I didn’t do anything wrong. This is a crime. I’m not going to be ashamed about what happened to me. I want the world to know. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

I called Court TV that very day, and when the trial started, a lone camera sat in the back of the room. In the televised proceedings of the O B J E C T I O N !

3 0 1

William Kennedy Smith rape trial, a blue dot had obscured Patricia Bowman’s face.
State v. Anton Jermaine Smith
was the country’s first gavel-to-gavel coverage of a serial-rape trial in which the victims’ faces were actually shown on television.

I had no experience with televised trials, but moments after we started, I forgot about the camera because I was so deeply embroiled in the case. The defense fought tooth and nail, contending that the victims were mistaken about their identifications of Smith and challenging the accuracy of the scientific evidence. But their IDs of the defendant won out. One of the victims was forced to listen to the defendant read the Bible aloud, as he had done to her before and after the rape. She also had to perform a voice ID. That witness was so distraught after her testimony and the attack she underwent on cross-examination that she literally fell from the stand when she tried to get up from her seat. I caught her. She looked straight at the defendant.

Smith was found guilty on July 12, 1996. He was sentenced to three consecutive life terms. The ladies in the Smith prosecution taught me about courage under fire. I also learned something else: A camera in the courtroom doesn’t lie. It cannot. Like the Smith jury, it will always render a verdict that speaks the truth.

T A K I N G A H A R D L O O K

When it comes to
allowing cameras in the courtroom, I advocate that each trial be reviewed on a case-by-case basis, with all participants given an opportunity to be heard on the matter. The weight given to the testimony of each participant, be it a victim, a defendant, or an attorney, must be judged in the context of the case itself. I firmly believe that the general rule must be, under our Founding Fathers’ wishes, for a completely open court, to be closed only after great consideration and only with great cause.

C H A P T E R E L E V E N

TO M Y C R I T I C S

NOBODY EVER SAID IT WAS GOING TO BE EASY.

The realization sank in a few months after my fiancé’s death that my life was not going to be what I had mapped out. Wife, mother, English professor—it was not meant to be. Instead, as part of God’s mysterious plan, I found a new and very different life.

I’m reminded of a true story about a woman in New York City who was battling breast cancer. She took up running as part of her recovery from the devastating illness. After months had passed, she decided to enter a 5k—a 3.1-mile race through Central Park. She got there about an hour and a half beforehand and was surprised to see hundreds of other women already warming up. She quickly joined in. At the start of the race, when the gun sounded and the runners took off, the woman thanked her lucky stars she’d gotten there early and was ready for the competition. About an hour into the race, she passed the five-mile sign, and immediately thought,
This is not the race I signed up for!
She continued running as best she could and I’m happy to report that she ran, not walked, across the finish line, her arms raised in victory. It was not the race she’d signed up for, but, by God, it was the race she was in.

I think of that story when I recall my courtroom battles. There were many, many times when I sat alone in the courtroom at the end of the O B J E C T I O N !

3 0 3

day—by then it was evening, and it would be dark outside when I left the courthouse. I’d often think,
How did I get here?
It was not what I had planned, not what I had bargained for, not the race I’d signed up for. But, by God, it’s the race I am in.

Many times on air, when a defense attorney runs out of legal or factual attacks, I become the target. That’s okay. There’s a wise old saying in the legal world that goes like this: “If you have the facts, argue the facts. If you have the law, argue the law. If you have neither, just argue!” When I get attacked personally on air, I’m torn between the usual feelings of anger or hurt and the realization that the other side’s assault is based on their knowledge that they have neither the facts nor the law on their side. I really believe that.

During all the years I practiced law, I kept Keith’s murder to myself. I did not want it to be part of some ridiculous defense argument that I was bent on revenge. It simply was not true. There is no satisfaction in putting the wrong perpetrator behind bars.

There have been times on
Larry King Live,
on
The John Walsh Show,
and other programs when Keith’s murder is used against me. During one live show, I recall being accused of wearing his death “like a badge.”

That hurt. The truth is, my story doesn’t change the law or facts in any of the cases I argue. A reporter once told me during an appearance on
The
John Walsh Show
that I wasn’t fit to analyze cases because I had opinions as a victim of violent crime. Somehow the reporter reasoned I wasn’t fit to comment. I didn’t know how to react in front of a huge studio audience. I chose, naturally, to fight back, and it turned into such a battle, the incident hit the papers the next day.

I am proud to have survived many blows, proud to be the voice of those who cannot speak for themselves, and proud to continue fighting the good fight as I see it. I have been confronted many times, on air and off, by “journalists” who accuse me of not being one of them. I am accused of having beliefs, opinions, and convictions. I plead guilty.

I’ve never once made a secret of the fact that I am not a journalist.

I never pretended I was. I am what I am. I am first and foremost a sur-3 0 4

N A N C Y G R A C E

vivor who lived through the court system, endured the pain, and made it my business to master the law and the rules of evidence to return to that system and do battle there. I love the law. I believe in our system.

It causes me genuine pain to see Lady Justice, who is really all we have to protect us, mistreated, tricked, and degraded. I am an advocate for other victims. I have tried to use my knowledge of the law as my sword and shield and studied it in great detail, keeping it at the tip of my tongue and at the forefront of my mind at all times. The reason I am not and never could be a journalist is that I also keep that knowledge of the law deep in my heart, and when I need the shield, I raise it. When I need the sword, I draw it out.

Defense attorneys—but amazingly not Johnnie Cochran—have routinely attacked not only my point of view but also me. That’s okay, though. It’s nothing compared to being accused of using dirty tricks to win a trial or being held in contempt of court. Nothing can sober you up like the thought of being thrown into the county jail overnight while you should be working your case. I remember that while under siege on air.

If I were to back away from an argument, I would be letting down not only Keith but all victims who go unheard.

I recall the night in April 2003 when Scott Peterson’s father, Lee Peterson, called in to
Larry King Live
and lambasted me. He insisted I had a “personal vendetta” and was out to get his son. I was torn between really lacing into him with questions I knew he couldn’t answer about his son and thinking of my own father and how he would fight to the finish to save me. The thoughts of my own father won out, and I held back. Lee Peterson was hurting, too, and I knew that. Of course, it was “great TV,” as several producers said after the show. It wasn’t TV.

It was real. And it hurt. The next morning, it was replayed on talk shows throughout the day. I didn’t watch.

When I watch the manipulation of evidence, the endless arguments, and the posturing in a court of law, I can’t pretend I don’t know what is the truth. Trials are not “stories.” They are the pain, the suffering, the raw emotions of victims and defendants, of witnesses—and O B J E C T I O N !

3 0 5

many shrink back, either too afraid or too apathetic to speak out. I don’t see it as fodder for conversation. I see it as a battle of right versus wrong. I want the truth to win out.

Political correctness be damned. On-air or in-court “performances,”

legalese, arguments for argument’s sake be damned. None of it matters.

All that matters is the truth and it remains the same, no matter how attorneys twist it and turn it and repackage it. The truth doesn’t change. “See no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil” while hiding behind the presumption of innocence and political correctness is something I’m not willing to do. It’s not okay, and if people are not willing to take a stand for others, then who will take a stand for them when the time comes?

It’s hard to swallow, but the truth is not always told in court. Contrary to what some of my critics have said, I don’t believe in “guilty until proven innocent.” I firmly believe in “innocent until proven guilty.”

That’s the standard I followed in every case I ever tried, and if
I
am ever judged, that is the standard I pray my jury holds sacred as well.

But that is not the end of the judge’s charge. An accused is presumed innocent “unless and until that presumption is overcome by evidence of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.” That is the law. If we choose to ignore the law, victims have no recourse, no hope.

On
Larry King Live,
I have been confronted several times by legal analysts and defense attorneys like Mark Geragos about the fact that I, along with the police, contended Richard Albert Ricci was a perfect suspect in the Elizabeth Smart abduction case. I stand by my statement. Wisely and correctly, before his death, he was never charged. I recall that at the beginning of the search for Elizabeth, a man named Michael Edmunds, a drifter, was spotted in the neighborhood by a milk-truck driver and all hell broke loose. Edmunds was the first suspect we knew of. The press and the cops chased that poor guy all over the country until they got him. I actually agreed with Geragos on air at the time regarding Edmunds as a suspect and said, “This doesn’t make sense to me. Something doesn’t fit.” To all the critics who claim I think everybody’s guilty: Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

3 0 6

N A N C Y G R A C E

Now back to Ricci. Consider this: He had worked at and been inside the Smart home, had a long and extensive history of criminal behavior, had actually stolen from the Smart home even after they’d given him money and employed him. His bizarre behavior and reports that he failed a polygraph test made him a prime suspect in Elizabeth’s disappearance. Ricci was out of jail on parole for shooting a cop in the head at the time he stole from the Smarts. The stolen items were found in his trailer—a clear violation of his parole. I have no problem with his parole’s being revoked and his landing back in jail. His long history of both criminal and bizarre behavior made him a suspect. All this time, he was out free on parole for shooting an officer in the head.