Before He Wakes (47 page)

“Objection,” Cotter called, breaking the mood Evenson was setting.

The judge reminded the jurors not to consider Evenson’s rhetoric as evidence. “You may proceed,” he said.

“He was an innocent human being,” Evenson said of Russ, “and he lies out there in his box under the sod because of the criminal conduct of that defendant seated over there. You know, he will never pitch another baseball. He will never go over to his mom’s house and eat Sunday lunch. He will never coach another team. He will never serve his country again.

“You know, it’s the little things in life that make it worthwhile. It’s not the exciting things. It’s not the money you spend or where you go. It’s the breeze on your face and the sun on your head. You think about that when you walk out the courthouse doors, that he will never again experience those things.

“Sometimes it’s hard for the jury to think about those realities because it does become kind of an abstract game where the lawyers block this move and keep this evidence out and try to get this evidence in, but that’s why we’re here, because he is not.”

Evenson picked up the .25 from the exhibit table.

“Russ Stager was dispatched to eternity at the business end of this gun,” he said. “Warm blood and tissue is no defense for the rip-roaring piece of hot lead that comes blowing out the end of that thing when the trigger is pulled, and I’m talking about brain tissue, and don’t you know she knows that? She’s seen what it can do before.”

Evenson went on to describe how Barbara had reached for Russ’s hand at his parents’ house the night before he was shot, an open display of affection designed to fool his parents, he maintained. “Not once did she think about anybody but herself as she’s holding his hand and she’s setting his own mother up.” Doris Stager had no idea, Evenson said, that in the morning her daughter-in-law would be blowing her son’s brains out.

“Now you think about that. At dawn I’m going to be doing it when the death bell sounds at six. His son’s alarm is his death bell. The alarm goes off and that’s it. It was so well planned, you see. It was perfect. All for cash.

“The Bible says that the love of money is the root of all evil, and, ladies and gentlemen, you were witnesses to one of the greatest evils you can ever see when a wife murders her own husband for money.”

She had showed no mercy, Evenson said, but her lawyers soon would be asking mercy for her. “One of the lawyers might step up here and say imposing capital punishment is seeking revenge. He might say that vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. This case has nothing to do with revenge. What we’re talking about is justice.”

Barbara’s rights had been protected, he said. “But what rights did Russ Stager have that morning? She was his judge, jury and executioner. There was no due process. There was no well-lighted courtroom. There was only this defendant and this wicked weapon standing behind him.”

Evenson went on to quote liberally from the Old Testament about the fate of those who murder, before he launched into the mitigating factors that Barbara’s lawyers would be arguing in her behalf.

That she had reared two fine sons, regularly attended church and was a good friend to many was no excuse for murder, he said.

Her lawyers might argue about the horrors of the gas chamber, Evenson said, but think of the horrors that Russ had gone through.

Even sentenced to death, Barbara would have one advantage that Russ never had, he said. “She has got time to make peace with her maker.

“The only appropriate punishment in this case is the ultimate punishment. Capital punishment is a thunderous statement by you and by society that we will not tolerate the taking of innocent life and especially coldblooded murder by anyone.”

In deciding for death, Evenson said, the jurors would not be making the judgment.

“The judgment was already made on February the first. She knew the law. She wrote her own judgment.”

Edward Falcone had come into Barbara’s case too late to take much of a role in her defense, but he had questioned that morning’s witnesses, and now he pleaded with the jurors to spare Barbara’s life as “the right thing to do.”

He reminded the jurors that their responsibility was grave. “You have more legal power right now as you sit there than any human being. Each and every one of you is responsible.”

Barbara, he said, maintained her innocence. “But I am not going to argue that point with you here. We’re not asking you to excuse what you have found Barbara Stager to have done. There’s a world of difference between excusing and mitigating.”

Witnesses had said that Barbara didn’t even know how much money she was going to get from Russ’s death, he noted. “Somebody’s out to kill somebody just for money, don’t you think they would know exactly how much insurance we’re talking about?”

What’s more, he said, the single and questionable aggravating factor was not greater than all the good in Barbara that the witnesses had told them about. “Your job is not just to tally,” he said. “Your job is to feel. I ask you to temper vengeance with mercy. It’s natural to lash out. Russ Stager had a right to live. There is nothing you can do to bring him back. I say to you that based on what you heard about Barbara Stager, her life is worth saving. I ask you to send her to prison for the rest of her life, where she won’t harm anyone and where she can make peace with her maker before God takes her away, and I ask you to let God take her away and not the State of North Carolina.”

The love and mercy of the New Testament should supersede the harsh dictates of the Old Testament that Evenson had quoted, Falcone said. “If Barbara Stager is executed, I ask you, will the world be a safer place? A more loving place? Will the world be a better place?”

This decision would remain with them for the rest of their lives, Falcone reminded the jurors. “Make sure it’s yours and not others’.”

Barbara, he said, was a person, too. “She’s human. Barbara breathes. She hurts. She hungers. She loves just like the rest of us. What you have said she did is a bad thing. There’s no getting around that, but there is a lot of good in Barbara Stager. What I’m asking you to do is not to vote to kill Barbara Stager. Give her an opportunity to share that good with the people she loves. She’ll be behind bars. It won’t be a pleasant life. She’ll be caged. But give her an opportunity to see Bryan, who’s twenty, finish college, see Jason, who’s fourteen, grow from a fine young man into an adult. Don’t make them see their mother die.

“Let her see the birthdays of her parents, Marva and James, her brothers, Steve and Al. I’m not asking you to set Barbara Stager free. I’m not asking you not to punish Barbara Stager. I’m asking you to put her in prison for life. There is reason to let her live, and I ask you to do so.”

Bill Cotter looked as if the weight of the world rested on his slumped shoulders as he rose to fight his last, life-or-death round on Barbara’s behalf.

He reminded the jurors of how he had questioned them about their feelings about the death penalty during jury selection. He had done that, he said, so the jury would be made up of people who understood that just because a person was convicted of first-degree murder, the law did not require death.

“You have found her guilty and that’s a done deal,” he said. “She is a murderer. I’m not going to quarrel with your decision. You heard the evidence. Some of the evidence I would have preferred you did not hear. Some of the evidence I didn’t think was fair, but I was overruled. You have found her guilty beyond reasonable doubt, and you did so in overwhelming fashion.

“I’m afraid that you’re going to go back there and vote to put her to death,” he said, his voice breaking. “I really am afraid of that, and I would ask you not to.”

One of the problems with the death penalty is that it is final, he said. “Then five years later, eight years later, they find out a certain tape was not really a tape of Russ Stager’s voice, or they find out that some evidence was not proper, or that it was made up.”

The system is not perfect, he noted, reminiscing about a recent TV show he had seen about the assassination of John F. Kennedy. No other murder had ever been the focus of such a massive investigation. All the greatest experts were called into it. “And after all these years, they have more questions than answers.”

If the jurors sentenced Barbara to death, he reminded, a date would be set. It would be changed several times, but eventually she would be led down a hallway and killed. “And if anything comes up years later, it’s too late. She’s dead.”

The death penalty should be reserved for cases that go beyond horrible, Cotter said, “reserved for people who are so wicked and evil and so inhuman that there’s absolutely no reason that they should live.” Cotter went on to cite horrible cases that would justify the death penalty, but this, he maintained, was not such a case. Barbara was not a worthless person.

“She is described as she might have two faces. Well, maybe she has two faces. We all have more than one. She has two sides. Even if she has two sides, even if there is something despicably wrong with her character, so twisted that because she is in such a bind about money, the only way she can reason to get out of that is to kill her husband, even if she has that character defect, that is not enough to kill Barbara Stager.

“I have to assume you’re going to find that the murder was committed for pecuniary gain. I’m not a fool. You were out for forty-five minutes. I have to assume you believe most, if not every single bit, of the state’s evidence, and at least a third was Barbara shifting money around and needing money.”

That was but one aggravating factor, one of eleven possible to justify death, he pointed out, and the mitigating factors in Barbara’s favor should outweigh it.

“I’m not saying, yeah, that makes murder okay, the fact that she raised two fine children, that she was a good friend. Nothing makes murder okay…. There’s some good in Barbara Stager. There’s some decency and humanity.”

Barbara was not likely to kill anybody in prison, he said. Nor was she apt to escape from prison and kill somebody. She had been out of jail for a year, he pointed out, without harming a soul. She was not aggressive. “She’s a rather peaceful, quiet, meek, scared, trembling forty-year-old woman right now who has a serious character defect.”

Pecuniary gain was one of the least of the aggravating circumstances that could send somebody to death, Cotter maintained, going on to cite many of the good things Barbara had done for others. In prison, Barbara would still have a chance to do things for others, he said, especially family.

“These people have a lot to work out. They may have some explaining to do to each other. They have some soul-searching they have to do.” He gestured toward Barbara’s two sons. “Their two fathers are dead. What purpose would it serve to kill their mother? It doesn’t bring Russ Stager back. It doesn’t bring Larry Ford back. It takes from those two young boys their mother.” But Larry’s death, he hastened to add, was not an issue here and they shouldn’t consider it.

“Excuse me a minute before I sit,” he said, his voice impassioned, his face grave as he turned to the defense table to examine his notes. “I’m scared to death. I don’t want to sit down and then drive home tonight to Durham and say, ‘Well, why didn’t I mention this? You wrote it down and why didn’t you say this?’ If I can think of anything, if I knew what to say or do to convince you not to kill this lady, I would do it. I would say it, because I firmly believe that you should not vote to have her killed. The Old Testament is not the law. The law is not if you kill someone, you die. It’s not a death-penalty case. It’s a case where she should get the second worst punishment that is available. I would ask you to please bring back a decision for life in prison.”

Barbara’s fate was now up to the jurors, and Judge Allen released them, as he had once before, to go home and think about it overnight.

As Barbara was led back into the courtroom for the denouement of her trial Friday morning, she still bore the pale, stunned look of disbelief that had swept over her at her conviction two days earlier. She also still wore the same turtleneck blouse and print skirt.

Judge Allen briskly set about the day’s business, taking only thirty minutes to instruct the jurors in their duties. Looks of nervous dread filled the jurors’ faces as they shuffled back to the jury room at 10:04. Under North Carolina law, only they could decide whether Barbara lived or died. Their decision would be binding on the judge.

When they were gone, the judge ordered Barbara returned to a holding cell, then put the courtroom at ease and returned to his chambers. The trial’s participants and observers settled in for what they anticipated would be a long wait.

Throughout the courtroom and in the hallways outside, people formed in small clumps to speculate about the jurors’ decision. Some thought that they would never choose death for a middle-class white mother whose friends proclaimed her to be a loving person and a strong Christian. After all, the jurors had looked daily at her two sons, had heard the lawyers’ impassioned appeals in their behalf. “They’ve already lost two fathers, don’t kill their mother, too.” Others pointed out how quickly the jurors had convicted Barbara, how conservative they seemed to be.

After taking their seats in the jury room, one juror suggested that they begin by seeking guidance from the Bible. Melanie West, a nursing instructor, picked up the Bible from the center of the big table and read aloud the Twenty-third Psalm.

As he had done before, the foreman, Norman Watkins, suggested that they take a turn around the table to allow everybody to speak their feelings. It quickly became apparent that this time there was no unanimity, and there would be no quick decision. The first vote was split, six for death, six for life.