Last Witness
On Tuesday, March 9, Sgt. Art Roth took the stand for the DA to testify as to the conduct of Clark's questioning. For the entire day he answered questions from Mr. Burr. Here are some points that really shot holes in Clark's account:
- From the time Clark was picked up in Monterrey until the night/early morning of August 1st, no mention was made to him of where any crime took place or what it was. Clark supplied the street name "Chetwood" and first said that Noyers had been shot dead.
-The interview was conducted in a passive, re-directive way, relying on Clark to provide the narrative after encouraging comments like: "Tell me more about that" and "Let's talk about that". No threatening or stern behavior was shown at that extended interview, yet Clark still unwound the yarn about the Noyers killing and the Rochon incident with very little persuasion. Hardly the picture Clark paints.
-I trust the testimony of Sgt. Roth because he is a cop. If he's outright lying about this conduct at the interview, he;s in for really big trouble. He states that no sterner measures were taken with Richard until he had already told the story I call "I held her while Charlie shot her", and refused to change it even though the officers knew it was heavy with inconsistencies. It was only after that version was directly challenged by the physical evidence at ha
nd that Richard broke down in the sally port and confessed to shooting her himself.I can hardly wait to see what Mr. Zimmer might ask (Sgt. Roth) on Thursday.
3/22/93
I've gotten away from writing in the journal but that's just a function of how busy I've been. Mr. Zimmer questioned Sgt. Roth extensively about the conduct of Richard's questioning. He wanted to characterize it as an "interrogation", while Sgt. Roth described it as an "interview", which only became more confrontational on the second day, when Clark stuck to his BS story about holding Noyers while Charlie shot her. Zimmer tried to impeach Roth's testimony by referring back to previous sworn statements the sergeant had made at a preliminary hearing. Specifically, Roth had said that a picture of Leslie Noyers was shown to Clark at one point in time, while on the stand he stated a slightly different point. It wasn't even important to the believability of the testimony, but Zimmer needed to show that the police fed Richard information which he simply "parroted" back to them. Zimmer wants us to believe that two seasoned cops who had a real suspect in custody (Chuck), were trying to get Richard to tell a story that they didn't even have the answers to by feeding him bits and pieces of information that may not even have told the true story. Richard supposedly put it all together exactly the way they said it, even though they hadn't gotten any information from Stevens.
Now the kicker - Richard says he shot Noyers. They would have railroaded Clark into saying that before trying to force him into confessing. I'll be more lucid about this when it's over.
Roth was the last witness. Then come the closing arguments.
The Prosecution Closes
Mr. Burr was first. Even though he took three quarters of one day and the entire day after, he was really just expanding on his case against Charlie. I didn't even take any in-court notes. I knew what he was trying to show. He described the law to us in his own terms, mostly dealing with first-degree murder. He wants us to convict TC on all four counts, alleging that Stevens had malice and predetermination. Second degree murder calls for malice without predetermination. Attempted murder is a situation where a person wishes to kill and acts on it unsuccessfully, something coming between the act and its completion outside of the design of the potential murderer.
Mr. Burr wants us to find the special circumstances in this case to be true as well. The first in the case of Leslie Noyers, where Burr believes TC lured her into a vulnerable position then aided and abetted Clark by giving him the weapon with the sole intent to kill.
In the Raymond August case, Rodney Stokes' testimony makes it clear that Charlie thought about what he did then sneaked up on him, taking him by surprise- "lying in wait" is the name of this special circumstance. If we find Charlie guilty of one first-degree murder as well as any other count of first- or second-degree murder, the special circumstance of "multiple murders" will apply.
Mr. Burr is not impressed by Dr. Cooper's theory on "coercive compliant" behavior. He pretty much reiterated his rebuttal to that theory. Zimmer tried to show places in Clark's testimony where he only fed back information given to him by the cops. Burr showed us the booking photo of Leslie Noyers, he played the tape where Richard describes her as having "sandy-blond" hair. The booking photo is a poor color rendition, and her hair looks almost black. The better photo of her, the one with her on the driveway of 541 Chetwood with her brains blown out, shows sandy blond hair. When Mr. Burr showed us that one, an older woman on the gallery began sobbing uncontrollably. It was a moving and difficult moment for all of us. All of us but Charlie, who was trying his best to stifle a laugh. The judge had us recess for five minutes, and the anger in the room was palpable.
One more round o' notes, then I gotta rely on memory....
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