The main part of Mr. Burr's cross-examination was clear today. Once Richard found out that the DA had decided not to press charges when he told the truth abut Lori Rochon, why did he continue to lie about being the killer of Leslie Noyers?
"Because if I told them something completely false then they would figure out that I was not involved. I thought that Charlie would tell them, you know, that, well, 'Rich wasn't there, how could he say that?'"
Huh?
What kind of logic says the best way to get out of trouble is to admit that you killed somebody, using the facts you know the police already have?
Mr. Burr asked Clark why he didn't report the killing of Lori Rochon to the police.
"I didn't want to be a witness. I was afraid Charlie might hurt me or my family."
Alright. Given that Richard's family had very little (financial) support with him out of work, did he know about the $25,ooo reward for the arrest of the killer? It had been mentioned in the first article about the murder as well as radio and TV reports. No, he hadn't heard about it. Would he have claimed it if he had known?
"I would of tripped over something doin' it."
"So you just didn't know about it and that's why you never claimed it?"
"Yes."
"Perhaps you didn't know, or perhaps you just had something to hide..."
Over loud objections and the judge's order to strike the remark, we were sent to lunch knowing that Mr. Burr had just sunk a 40-foot 3 pointer.
March 8, 1993
Last Tuesday, Richard Clark was cross-examined by Mr. Selvin. (Stevens' attorney) He didn't take long, concentrating mostly on the testimony surrounding Lori Rochon's killing. After establishing that Richard was not being altogether truthful, he attempted to make the same impression stick that maybe Richard was trying to cover the fact that he himself was the shooter that night. Personally, I'm not buying it. It's an impression I get through the interview tape that can't be defined precisely. I wrote down in my court noted that the way Richard said "stupid" in the interview was enough to convince me he was being truthful.
As an aside here, let me get down an interesting observation I made. While the tapes of the various confessions to Noyer's killing were played, old Chuck Stevens seemed to be rather amused. It seemed like everyone else in the courtroom was intent on following the transcript, but I watched Stevens out of the corner of my eye. As we heard Clark describing all the different ways the murder went down, Charlie was smirking and shaking his head. Then we listened to the Lori Rochon tape. As Richard's voice intoned in that slow, dull way like in the other tapes, Stevens was intent, serious. He appeared to be following the transcript word by word, looking perhaps for any small inaccuracy. When that one tape finished, he was still solemn. I take that as a measure of his belief in the account. I've watched Mr. Stevens closely several times in order to gauge his reactions to testimony.
I'm no clinical psychologist, but after these many weeks I've seen a good cross-section of his behavior. I'm convinced he killed Lori Rochon. I think it is not yet firm in my mind whether this killing warrants the death penalty. However, there is no doubt so far for me that Stevens committed a capital crime in the murder of Raymond August. He was seen by Rodney Stokes as he (Stevens) raised a gun to shoot at him. I believe Stevens killed August because he went out that night to hunt humans on I-580. God help me if it is immoral to think it, but under the law as I know it, Stevens should be put to death for that.
Continuing on next time with Adventures in Psychology!
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