the Onion Field (1973) (39 page)

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury," said the judge patiently, "the jurors will disregard the specific statement of Mr. Schulman that the objection is a frivolous one. The citations for misconduct are denied."

Among the long procession of prosecution witnesses was a Los Angeles robbery detective who had interviewed Jimmy Smith as to the armed robberies. He related Jimmy's apparently evasive response to his questions.

"Defendant Smith said to me: 'Well, I can't help it, I just can't think.'

"I said: 'Well, what is the problem?'

"He said: 'I have nightmares. I can't sleep. I just keep seeing that officer's coat jumping.'

"And at this time I had to admonish Mr. Smith because I told him again that we were only interested in robberies. That we could not overlap into the homicide investigation and we did not want to hear about it."

And then the detective read the statements of Gregory Powell as to the robberies, including a confession to at least one Las Vegas robbery the detective still believed Greg's brother was actually responsible for:

"Well sure, with the red hood on, I'll bet you there isn't a person down there that would tell you within twenty pounds how much I weighed," Greg had told him. "I know they described me in the paper as at least six feet tall and weighing at least a hundred and ninety pounds. But I did that job too."

When it was Pierce Brooks's turn to testify, Greg's attorney once again repeated the old objections.

"We will object, your Honor, on the constitutional grounds, violation of due process, and not free and voluntary, not having been advised of his right to counsel, nor having the advice of counsel."

"Well, if the court please," said Schulman in exasperation, "I don't know where the constitution says anyplace that a police officer . . ."

"Pardon me. I made my objection," said Moore.

"The objections and each of them are overruled," said the judge.

The jury would hear the taped conversations of Brooks and Gregory Powell:

"Greg, anytime you want to ask me a question, you go right ahead and ask me and I want to let you know now that I will never lie to you," said the taped voice of Brooks. "I will either answer your question truthfully or I will tell you that I cannot answer the question, that it would interfere with the investigation."

Moore once again interrupted the proceedings.

"I will make my objection on the constitutional grounds, violation of due process, without the benefit of consulting with an attorney, the advice of an attorney, or the presence of an attorney, and not free and voluntary."

"Not free and voluntary?" asked the judge.

"Yes."

"All of the objections, with the exception of the objection 'not being free and voluntary,' are overruled. Do you desire to take the witness on voir dire examination as to any of the objections?"

"Not at this time, your Honor."

"All right. All of the objections are overruled. I say, knowing the thinking of our appellate courts, that we have to be very very careful, particularly in a homicide case with a death penalty, because it's a joint trial for the sake of convenience."

On the morning of August 6, with the air conditioning broken, the judge entered a suffocating courtroom. All three lawyers were looking unhappy but still had their white shirts buttoned at the throat and their ties adjusted. The air conditioning was repaired before a decision was made to let them remove their coats.

"Pursuant to the provisions of Section 1089 and 1123 of the Penal Code," the judge said that morning, "it appearing to the court that the alternate juror, Mrs. Jeans, is ill and unable to perform her duties as an alternate juror, and has, in addition, requested the court to be excused, she will be excused and discharged as an alternate juror."

John Moore then said, "Defendant Powell will move a mistrial on the basis that there was not a sufficient showing for her excuse, your Honor."

"All right. The motion is denied."

When the next detective witness took the stand, Schulman said, "I am now going to ask you to relate the conversation that you had with the defendant Gregory Powell after the defendant Jimmy Smith left the room."

"I will object on the grounds previously stated," said Moore.

"If the court please," said Schulman, beside himself now, "I would like to find out just where the constitution says . . ."

"We don't want to speak in front of the jurors!' said the judge.

"Withdraw it," said Schulman.

The jury then heard Gregory Powell's boast to the robbery detective: "Anytime you can find one where it's got Schenley's on it, it's me!"

The hot summer days bled one into the other for Karl Hettinger, until August 9, when after a defense motion was granted, he found himself standing once more in a place he thought he would never see again. Now, though, the summer sun was in the cloudless sky over Bakersfield. It was hot and still and the lawyers were in shirtsleeves, as was the witness, who stood in the dust of the road near enough to the chairs where the jurors sat by the onion field. He looked at the stakes in the ground which had been placed to represent where four men stood exactly five months ago when the sky was black and bitter cold and the wind was howling.

Karl looked across the field he had run through and he thought of the glasses he had lost and he wondered if they might be just on the other side of the wire fence where the tumbleweed was packed solid. But he did not go to the fence and look. Karl, like Ian Campbell, was frugal. He did not take the loss of a thirty-dollar pair of glasses lightly, and, in fact, he had still not replaced them. But he would not go into that field, nor near that fence. Even now in the light of day with so many others here. He stood where he must, looked where he must, answered what he must.

Then he found himself testifying. Telling it again. Pointing to the exact places where it all happened.

"Was there any talking at that point?" asked Schulman.

"Yes, that's when he made the statement about the Little Lindbergh Law," said Karl, his soft husky voice disappearing in the open air.

"I don't know if the jurors can hear you. What took place then?"

"When Powell moved to that position of the stake, he had the gun pointed at about a forty-five degree angle and this is when he said, 'We told you we were going to let you go, but have you ever heard of the Little Lindbergh law?' "

"What did Campbell say?"

"He said yes."

"What did Powell then do?"

"Powell shot him."

"How did he do that?"

"He raised the pistol to shoulder height and he fired it."

It was perhaps the sixth time Karl had testified to this and when it was the defense counsel's turn John Moore said, "Would you walk down to the spot where you looked back, sir, and look over your left shoulder in the way you did?"

"Do you want him to run down the road, Mr. Moore?" asked Schulman sardonically.

"If there is an objection, I would like to hear it," Moore snapped back. Then to Karl, "Just before you got out of the car, Officer, you were told to freeze, were you not?"

"No. I may have been, but I don't recall it."

"Well, you didn't go over your notes today?"

"I would like the record to reflect, your Honor," interrupted Schulman, "that I have gone over the record fairly thoroughly and I don't recall this witness at any time testifying that Powell told him to freeze or anything of that nature."

"At this time I cite the district attorney for misconduct for stating what he thinks the evidence shows."

"I object to those remarks also," said Ray Smith.

"This is in regard to a question by Mr. Moore in a sarcastic manner that Tou haven't looked at your notes today,' " Schulman retorted.

"I will cite the district attorney a second time for misconduct for saying I asked the question in a sarcastic manner!" said Moore.

"All right. The objections and each of them are sustained," said the judge, sitting in a folding chair at a folding table. "The jury is admonished to disregard the colloquy between all counsel."

"When you ran twenty feet, you turned and looked back over your left shoulder, didn't you?" asked Attorney Smith on cross examination.

"Yes."

"You were going full force?"

"I slowed some."

"Now is it your testimony that Officer Campbell fell backward or forward when he received the first shot from Powell?"

"He went down and he appeared to fall more backward. He went more backward than he went straight down."

"And would you say that when he fell down, Officer Hettinger, that he was lying six feet two inches long on the ground? Or was he more or less fallen in a heap?"

"I don't know, sir."

"And before he hit the ground you were gone, isn't that right?"

"I don't know."

"I have no further questions."

The judge was then to grant another defense motion: to see the onion field at night, the way it might have been on another night. So at 9:30 p. M. Karl Hettinger stood by the road with Pierce Brooks, beside the lighted county bus. He looked across the darkness toward Wheeler Ridge and then east and north toward the mountains far far on the horizon. The wind was not howling and it was not cold this night, still he shivered, while the sweat trickled down his chest and back and ribs.

He thought about his new daughter and thought about Helen and he thought about putting brake shoes on his car. He thought about anything but what was creeping into his mind. He beat it back and thought about the stomach cramps which had been plaguing him of late. But a thought stole into his mind, so he turned from the fields and looked into the crowded bus. The judge and jurors were sitting quietly. The defendants were in separate darkened cars, handcuffed, under heavy guard. Suddenly Karl began hurting badly, a twisting pounding hurt in the pit of the stomach. He feared a diarrhea attack. They waited several minutes in the quiet, lonely dark after the judge ordered the lights turned out on the bus.

Finally, the judge said: "Let the record show that it is now about six minutes after ten. The jurors have remained in the bus and the lights have been out, and we are going to take our adjournment at this time until 9:30 a. M. on Monday, when we will reconvene in Department 104 of the Superior Court."

When the trial resumed in Los Angeles after the sojourn to the onion field the defense tried new motions.

"Your Honor," said John Moore that morning, "the evidence here would show that this witness, Sergeant Brooks, without the permission of the public defender has interviewed this defendant about this case, and has so destroyed this defendant's confidence in the public defender at least for a period of time, that he would not cooperate with the public defender. As long as there is an attorney on the record, I say, in my belief, the police officer should not be able to talk to him."

"Mr. Moore, if the law required that I notify you, I would do so," Brooks would reply. "And if you or anybody from your office had ever called and asked me not to see Gregory Powell on any occasion I would not have done so. I did not force myself on him. He asked me to see him. Even in your presence he asked me and you did not object."

Attorney Ray Smith once more offered his old motion.

"I want the record to show that the defendant Smith is asking your Honor for an advised verdict of not guilty for the reason and on the basis that the evidence thus far introduced in this case fails as a matter of law to show that the offense alleged in this information occurred within the jurisdictional territory of Los Angeles County."

Pierce Brooks often sat at the counsel table and glanced absently at the photo exhibits, at the open eye's of Ian Campbell lying on his back on the stretcher, his chest soaked with blood and the trickles of blood running from his upper lip down into his ears. Mostly the detective looked at the opened eyes of the dead policeman. The eyes hadn't yet clouded when the photos were taken. Brooks thought Ian looked just a little sleepy and serious, perhaps even sorrowful.

The detective stared at the picture and thought of the thousands of dead bodies he had seen, some with eyes open, some closed, some with one open and one closed. He had never seen the killer's face in a dead man's eye as the old stories had promised. But he knew whose image would show sharpest if such a thing were possible. Then he turned and glanced at the two killers: Gregory Powell, sitting tense and straight, head swiveling on that long neck, looking toward the jury every few moments to catch their reaction to testimony. Brooks glared at Jimmy Smith, sitting hangdog as usual, lip pouting, forehead permanently wrinkled despite his youth, as though he lived in pain. Brooks despised Jimmy Smith, and wondered how the cowering bully felt at the last when he had a cop helpless at his feet. Yes, Powell was a dead man. The battle was over. He had yielded to the detective. Brooks felt nothing toward him now. But Jimmy Smith, that was another matter.

The prosecution used multicolored arrows and markers to describe the death scene and escape route of Karl Hettinger. The exact place of Ian's murder was to be known as the place marked by the red arrow. The red arrow was repeated so often it became a litany that Pierce Brooks would never forget. And when it came time to use markers on the blackboard to describe the defendants' and officers' positions, Pierce Brooks smiled to himself and was tempted to use a yellow marker for the coward Jimmy Smith, but had too much reverence for the court and law to be anything but respectfully serious.