Random picture thread for Friday

                                                                 **Anatomy of a Murder - Trial**

Below posted are two photos I took during the week that followed the March 27, 1964 Great Alaska Earthquake. At the time I had access to the devastation as a consequence of helping as an Explorer Boy Scout to deliver emergency messages in the otherwise restricted area. Where I stood to take these photos was on the eastern edge of Anchorage’s Bootleggers Cove. It was so named for the role it played as a smugglers’ haven there on the shores of Cook Inlet during Prohibition.

As I pointed my camera up to what was termed the “L”Street Slide Area, “M” Street behind me was where a murder would take place years later. As the earthquake had ripped apart the earth in 1964, that subsequent murder would rip apart the populace of Alaska as the victim, 21 year-old Bethany Correira, remained missing for an entire year.

Ironically that same Bootleggers Cove location to which I had a personal connection would be revisited some four decades later by the subject murder and a NBC “Dateline” television special to which I would also have a personal connection. It was titled, “Mystery at Bootleggers Cove.”

In a recent internet search I learned that my name is forever linked to the subsequent murder trial in which I had been a juror. More specifically I was identified as a juror interviewee of NBC “Dateline” Correspondent Keith Morrison. Reflecting back on that interview I did an email search and found the following contemporaneous email that I had posted on February 28, 2007:

“Well today we finally concluded the NBC “Dateline” juror interview. Spent two hours back in the courtroom as NBC Correspondent Keith Morrison quizzed us [jurors] at length. It felt kind of strange having someone I’d only seen on TV speaking to me by name as he kept coming back to me asking, “Dale, as an attorney …..”

After the airing of the NBC “Dateline” television special titled, “Mystery at Bootleggers Cove” Keith Morrison had prepared a written narrative summarizing the storyline which was posted on the internet. From our previous interview, in it he had selected inclusion of the following response from me, after having questioned which of two brothers had set a building on fire to hide evidence of the murder for which the Defendant Mike Lawson had been charged:

Keith Morrison:

But was it Mike, the jury wondered? Or was it Bob? They looked again at the only photo they’d ever seen of Bob.

“Dale : As we glanced at that photograph, here was Robert wearing a pair of sunglasses in a photograph he had up above his head. So that raised a question, at least in my mind.”

As jurors we had separately heard testimony from a witness who had seen someone in the Bootleggers Cove area wearing sunglasses while driving a Mercedes SUV in the early morning hours at a time relevant to the fire. The Defendant, and impliedly his brother who lived with him, had access to such a vehicle.

In Keith Morrison’s narrative he explored many aspects of the “Mystery at Bootlegger’s Cove” which mystery was ultimately “solved” by the conclusions that we the jury came to after hearing and seeing the evidence that was presented at trial. We found that the Defendant was guilty of Tampering with Evidence and that he was guilty of Second Degree Murder in the death of his tenant, the 21 year-old Bethany Correira.

Here, for the first time, is a summary reporting of my experience as a juror at the murder trial. I have titled it, “Anatomy of a Murder - Trial” in deference to the Jimmy Stewart movie classic, “Anatomy of a Murder.”

While there appeared to be a consensus among us jurors that one or more of the other charges, including arson, may have met the Civil standard of “More Likely Than Not,” meeting the Criminal Standard of “Beyond a Reasonable Doubt” was more problematic. Likewise, the element of intent essential to a verdict of First Degree Murder lacked conclusive evidence. In the end though the prosecution and family of the victim took satisfaction in the fact that the judge imposed the maximum sentence of 99 years upon the Defendant for Second Degree Murder, a punishment that arguably would have been similar to that for First Degree Murder.

As to my personal involvement as a juror, it was a most unique and unlikely occurrence in the first place that I, as an attorney, would end up being seated on the jury. After the trial the judge himself expressed surprise that neither the Defense or the Prosecution had opted to use one of their challenges to have me excused. Suffice it to say that as an attorney, being a juror for a murder trial was a rare and unusual experience likely shared by few, if any, other “Officers of the Court” regardless of jurisdiction.

I have to acknowledge that because of my experience as a lawyer there were other jurors who probably gave more credence to my comments during the deliberations than they might otherwise have done. Recognizing this prospect, at the beginning I declined to be positioned as the jury foreperson. I also purposely allowed others to express their opinions with regard to the evidence first.

By the same token the other jurors seemed to welcome my comments with regard to the Court’s Jury instructions as to the law set forth within them. Included were identifying from the evidence the facts necessary to meet the legal elements set forth in the instructions.

I recall my own position during the deliberations that justice would not be served if we made determinations not supported by the evidence. I pointed out that this would likely lead to an appeal and overturning of our verdict. There were some jurors who felt otherwise. On that point I felt vindicated as I read from Keith Morrison’s narrative his comments with regard to our verdict and the judge’s subsequent sentencing, “It [99 years] was the maximum allowed for second-degree murder - which happened to be the same as the maximum for first-degree. And thus were the Correiras saved, of course, the seemingly endless prospect of appeals. Finally finished.”

We deliberated for close to four days before arriving at our verdict.

The trial itself was unique and pioneering in many respects. To my knowledge it was the first murder trial in our State that had been filmed or videotaped and recorded for a national TV program. That fact, however, was hidden from us as jurors during the trial. The cameras were well disguised.

As suggested earlier, we the jury had little difficulty in coming to agreement that the Defendant was guilty of Tampering with Evidence. This conclusion was convincingly arrived at as a consequence of new forensic technology made possible by the use of cell phones and how preserved cell phone use data could be extracted after the fact. While more widely appreciated today, back in the first decade of 2000 it was not generally known that one could track movement of a vehicle through preserved cell phone data. The prosecution’s witnesses were able to demonstrate the timing and movement of the Defendant in his vehicle - facts which correlated to when and where the body was taken.

The case also stood out on a legal front in that the key witness, the Defendant’s brother Robert, had prior to the trial committed suicide which complicated the admissibility of statements that he had made which became inadmissible due to the Defendant’s loss of opportunity to cross-examine. Even so, we were allowed to hear a recorded communication between the brothers that assisted us in coming to agreement as to the charge of Second Degree Murder, but on its face that same piece of evidence actually aided the Defense with regard to the element of intent that was otherwise necessary to establish First Degree Murder.

Looking back on the experience as a whole it provided valuable insight to me as to what goes on in the jury room and the role of jurors in our legal system. It also caused me to reflect back upon one of the first jury trials that I had tried as a lawyer.

In that trial I was representing the then largest bank in the State in a case where the Plaintiff’s bookkeeper had written checks on his business account to herself defrauding him out of a large sum of money. At the end of the trial one of the jurors had commented that she couldn’t go along with the other jurors in exonerating the bank because her father had been treated badly by a bank during the Depression. I then asked her why she hadn’t responded during the pre-trial examination to my question asking whether anyone had feelings that would make it difficult to be fair to my client bank? Her answer was, “If I had told you that you wouldn’t have allowed me to stay on the jury.”

In conclusion, here are some photos from the post-trial questioning of us jurors by Keith Morrison as referenced above:

Getting closer to completion -