Flesh Collectors (23 page)

Similarly in present-day Florida, despite what a jury votes to do in a capital case, it is always the judge who ultimately imposes the death sentence. In Florida, judges have imposed death sentences on juveniles many times.

Darrow decided to base his defense of the boy’s actions by not offering a defense at all, but rather an explanation to show their insanity. If he could show that the boys, because of their insanity, were not responsible for their actions, the judge might have mercy.

The prosecution argued that was nonsense. Psychiatric testimony was only admissible if the defendants claimed insanity during trial. They had offered no such evidence, since they chose to plead guilty. The defense could not then introduce insanity evidence after the fact.

Darrow argued strenuously that evidence of mental disease should be considered as a mitigating factor in consideration of the sentence. In the most critical ruling of the trial, Judge Caverly decided against the state’s objection and allowed the psychiatric evidence to be introduced.

Darrow decided to build his case on the backs of four respected psychiatrists who would testify that Leopold and Loeb were insane for a host of reasons. Therefore, they should not be held accountable for their actions.

During the month-long hearing, the state presented more than one hundred witnesses proving—needlessly, in the opinion of many—every element of the crime. The defense presented extensive psychiatric evidence describing the defendants’ emotional immaturity, obsessions with crime and Nietzschean philosophy, alcohol abuse, glandular abnormalities, sexual longings and insecurities.

On August 22, 1924, Clarence Darrow began his summation for the defense: “Where responsibility is divided by twelve, it is easy to say ‘away with him’; but, Your Honor, if these boys are to hang, you must do it by your cool, premeditated act, without a chance to shift responsibility,” Darrow addressed Judge Caverly.

For over twelve hours, Darrow argued that the universe gave us life as “a series of infinite chances.” Why should the boys’ wealthy background be held against them, any more than their genetic murderous impulses should bring about their deaths at the hands of the executioner?

“Nature is strong and she is pitiless. She works in mysterious ways, and we are her victims. We have not much to do with it ourselves. Nature takes this job in hand, and we only play our parts. In the words of old Omar Khayyám, we are only impotent pieces in the game.…

“What had this boy had to do with it?” he argued of Loeb. “He was not his own father; he was not his own mother. All of this was handed to him. He did not surround himself with governesses and wealth. He did not make himself. And yet he is to be compelled to pay.”

In defending Leopold, Darrow argued, “Tell me that you can visit the wrath of fate and chance and life and eternity upon a nineteen-year-old boy!”

Darrow had long been an opponent of the death penalty. Once again he attacked it, declaring it “roots back to the beast and the jungle.”

A life sentence was punishment severe enough for the crime. He reminded the judge how little Leopold and Loeb would have to look forward to in the long days, months and years ahead: “In all the endless road you tread there’s nothing but the night.”

It was an appeal out of love to the inherent value in human life. Even Leopold and Loeb had some value to their lives. When Darrow finally ended his appeal, tears were streaming down the face of Judge Caverly and many courtroom spectators.

State’s Attorney Robert Crowe closed for the prosecution. Noting Darrow’s reputation, he sarcastically characterized him as “the distinguished gentleman whose profession it is to protect murder in Cook County, and concerning whose health thieves inquire before they go out and commit a crime.”

Crowe ridiculed Darrow’s attempt to excuse the crime in light of the boys’ background and genetics. “My God, if one of them [the defendants] had a harelip I suppose Darrow would want me to apologize for having them indicted.” The “real defense” in the case was “Clarence Darrow and his peculiar philosophy of life.”

“I wonder now, Nathan,” said Crowe, addressing Leopold directly, “whether you think there is a God or not. I wonder whether you think it is pure accident that this disciple of Nietzsche’s philosophy dropped his glasses or whether it was an act of Divine Providence to visit upon your miserable carcasses the wrath of God.”

After retiring to consider his verdict, Judge Caverly came back to the bench two weeks later. “A crime of singular atrocity,” was how the judge characterized the murder of Bobby Franks. Yet Caverly cautioned that his “judgment cannot be affected” by the causes of crime. It was “beyond the province of this court” to “predicate ultimate responsibility for human acts.”

Caverly pointed out that “the consideration of the age of the defendants” and the possible benefits to criminology that might come about by studying their psyches ultimately persuaded him to spare their lives. “To the offenders, particularly of the type they are, the prolonged years of confinement may well be the severest form of retribution and expiation.”

Whether Caverly was referring to the defendants’ crime or alleged homosexual preference for one another was never made clear. He didn’t elaborate on what he meant by their type. To Darrow, it made no difference—he had won his victory and saved the boys’ lives. Would history repeat with the modern-day Leopold and Loeb, Rodgers and Lawrence? Victor Killam sure hoped so.

Killam was the attorney the Florida Supreme Court had assigned to Jon Lawrence’s case. Killam took a page out of Darrow’s book. He would plead him guilty and try and prove that Lawrence should be given mercy. Prosecutor John Molchan understood. What could he do? There was no defense of diminished capacity in Florida: either you are insane at the time of the crime or you are competent.

“Do you sit there and tell a jury this guy didn’t do anything?” Molchan asked. “It becomes a credibility issue with a jury because you’re asking them not to sentence him to death.”

May 30, 1999

A letter appeared on the editorial page of the Sunday edition of the
Pensacola News Journal
Under the heading
LAWLESS LEADERSHIP,
the writer delivered a tirade against President Bill Clinton and his extramarital affair:

I am passionately disgusted to live in the most hypocritical, deceiving country God ever allowed to perch itself atop the face of the earth.… Move out of this country if I don’t like it, you say? I can’t. I’m awaiting trial for murder
.

Jeremiah Rodgers

Rodgers wrote well, albeit violently—a point noted by the Secret Service, the federal agency that guards the president. They take threats against the president, especially one by a convicted murderer, very seriously. The disposition of the next portion of Rodgers’s case interested them.

While Rodgers and Lawrence had received life in prison without parole for killing Justin Livingston, there was always the possibility they could be released at a later date. It had, after all, happened to Nathan Leopold, who was released in 1958 after serving over thirty years. His friend Richad Loeb had died in prison.

Even if Rodgers was convicted for killing Jennifer and received a life sentence, there was still the minute chance he could be released on parole or pardoned by a governor in the distant future. The Secret Service would be watching Rodgers’s state murder trial.

Closely.

March 26, 2000

Jon Lawrence came on the docket first.

On March 26, 2000, Jonathan Huey Lawrence pleaded guilty in Judge Kenneth Bell’s courtroom to the murder of Jennifer Robinson. A conviction on the murder-one charge was entered and the judge impaneled a seven-man, five-woman circuit court jury for the penalty phase.

Victor Killam had access to the extensive discovery information and had noticed how eloquently Todd Hand and Joe McCurdy had documented the case. Reading between the lines, they clearly had an opinion that Jeremiah Rodgers was the catalyst for the murders. If he could get either McCurdy or Hand to say that under oath in court, it might go a long way toward establishing a mitigating circumstance, and the judge might have mercy and give Jon Lawrence life.

Florida judges create a two-part list. The first part deals with aggravating circumstances. That is where all the reasons for imposing the death penalty are listed. In the second part of the list, mitigating circumstances, the judge lists why it is that the defendant’s life should be spared. The idea for a defense counsel, of course, is to tip the list toward the latter. Considering Jon Lawrence’s mental history, and despite the fact that a defense based upon diminished capacity was not allowed, Killam felt that he still had a shot at saving Lawrence’s life.

March 29, 2000

A jury had gone through the voir dire and had been seated. Having gone immediately to the guilt phase, they were all “death qualified.” Now they would hear the evidence that would determine whether Jonathan Lawrence lived or died. “Call Detective Joe McCurdy to the stand,” the court clerk said.

McCurdy walked through the slatted wooden divider in the courtroom that separated the visitors’ gallery on two sides, into the well of the courtroom, where the judge ruled over the proceedings. On the left side of the room looking forward from the witness stand was the defense table, where Victor Killam and Jon Lawrence sat. On the right was the prosecuting attorney’s table, where John Molchan sat with huge folders all around him.

“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

“I do,” McCurdy answered and sat down.

After the usual questions establishing his name and credentials, Molchan took him through the crimes and his investigation, trying to establish once again the defendant’s guilt. After he was finished, Killam got up for cross-examination.

“Mr. McCurdy, you talked to both the defendants, did you not?” asked Killam.

“Yes, I did,” McCurdy replied.

“Were you able to form an opinion as to who was the leader and who was the follower?”

Molchan spoke up. “Objection, Your Honor. No foundation.”

“Sustained,” said the judge.

Killam continued his cross-examination. “Based on your conversation with the two of them, were you able to discern who was the person who was making the decisions in this matter?”

Now Molchan got to his feet. “Objection,” he shouted. “Lack of foundation, and also this is going beyond the scope of direct examination.”

“Absent more of a foundation, I’ll sustain the objection.”

Killam had been stymied in his strategy. “I’d like the witness on call for tomorrow,” Killam said, and let McCurdy go, at least temporarily.

Todd Hand was up next, and Molchan knew that as the chief investigator on the case, Hand clearly had an opinion regarding aspects of Lawrence’s personality.

“Judge,” Molchan began, “if we could approach on an issue. I understand that they’re going to do some cross-examination of Detective Hand. I anticipate—just total anticipation,” he said laconically, but added, “I haven’t had a chance to talk to counsel, but one of the questions will be, ‘Who was the leader, who was the follower?’ I mean, we would object to that question on the fact that this is basically an ultimate-issue type of question that’s being asked.

“We’re going to the ultimate issue that the jury is going to decide as to whether Jeremiah was the dominant person over Jon Lawrence. And our objection is basically from that. There’s no question that they can go into words and deeds of those individuals, but to ask him the ultimate issue is, in our opinion, basically objectionable at this point.”

Molchan went on to give an example to prove his point.

“A law enforcement officer in a marijuana case, for instance, cannot testify about the amount of the marijuana and whether it’s consistent with intent to distribute. And I believe that that falls into the same range of what Detective Hand may be asked in this situation.”

Killam, of course, saw things differently and wasn’t about to let Molchan win on what was so crucial a decision to the defense, a decision that ultimately could lead to Lawrence’s getting death or life.

“Judge, the dynamics of the detective is reading people and determining who the leader is and who is the follower. And [Hand] has got a case file this thick.” Killam opened up his arms at least three feet wide. “And he was probably in the presence of both of these defendants more than anybody. And I think we can lay a foundation and he can answer that simple question, if he has an opinion, as to who was the dominant person of those two,” Killam argued.

“I’d have to see the foundation and have to hear what the foundation is,” the judge answered.

“The foundation would be, ‘How much time have you spent with Jon Lawrence? How much time have you spent with Jeremiah Rodgers? Have you taken statements from both defendants? Did you spend time in the car?’”

Killam added: “‘Did you compile an extensive file on this case and review that file? Did you give a deposition … that lasted from nine in the morning until two-thirty in the afternoon on this issue?’ You’ve been down here a number of weeks. He’s the main man to answer that question, as far as none of us have been in the presence of the defendant as much as Mr. Hand. I think he’s qualified to answer that question, which one was dominant. It’s a thought process he has to pretty much determine before he goes into situations. And you use that dynamic to find the truth, you know, the ol’ Mutt-and-Jeff approach.”

The judge considered.

“I don’t have any problem with the specific facts, or incidences, or things that happened that would go to that; but my question is whether he can give the ultimate conclusion or opinion as a lay witness basically, a lay opinion as to who was the dominant player in this role and that is the ultimate fact. I don’t have any question about you being able to ask him, you know, specific facts or questions that would allow you to make the argument to the jury; but the problem is asking him that ultimate question.”