The usual way these matters were handled was by looking to see if the accusations were sufficiently credible to warrant further examination. Granting a hearing didn’t mean that the judge thought they were true. It just meant the judge concluded there was enough there that it should be given a hearing and the prisoner should be given the opportunity to prove in court what the facts were, if he could, assuming he could make a reasonable showing that his assertions might have some merit. The full hearing was to decide if they actually did have any merit.
Evidently some staff lawyer at the supreme court had looked at the conviction and then at Harker’s writ petition and recommended that Harker should have been given a hearing.
Jamison shook his head to nobody in particular. This was why death penalty cases never seemed to end. What the public thought of as endless appeals were actually endless writs where defendants made constant claims about things their lawyer should have done or claims of evidence that wasn’t introduced. The more serious the case, the greater the possibility that some sympathetic appellate staff lawyer would feel his or her sense of justice being pricked and take it to a judge who would feel his or her sense of justice being pricked—and a guy who had been convicted of the ax murder of his wife would get a hearing about whether his trial was unfair. As far as Jamison was concerned the claims were usually about as substantial as why they got a spanking that traumatized them for life and the jury didn’t hear that in deciding whether they should be found guilty—or sentenced to death.
Jamison wasn’t very sympathetic. He had acquired the common prosecutor’s contempt for judges whose sense of justice was contemplated within wood paneled rooms with deep carpets instead of looking at savaged bodies on the floor while investigators and prosecutors like Jamison stepped around pooled blood. Intellectually Jamison knew he wasn’t being fair. Those judges had their job to do and he had his. But he couldn’t help thinking that maybe those judges would be a little less sympathetic if they actually had to smell and see a homicide scene or hold the desperate hand of a savagely battered woman clinging to what was left of her dignity and life while some stranger tried to collect evidence of rape.
Jamison looked at the signature at the end of the last page, the chief justice. Pretty standard stuff except the order came from the supreme court. Okay, Judge Reynolds should have given Harker a hearing. All the supreme court decided was that Harker had shown enough to get a hearing and reversed Judge Reynolds’s decision that there wasn’t a sufficient showing. Now he would get his hearing and then get sent back into his hole at San Quentin.
Jamison knew enough about the Harker case to know that there was a mountain of evidence of his guilt. The thing that tugged at Jamison was why this had gotten the district attorney’s bowels in such an uproar. There’s nothing here that defendants don’t say all the time. They always say everybody was lying about them. What were they going to say? Everybody is telling the truth about them?
Jamison reached over and hit his speaker phone button, then punched in the three-digit code for Veronica Castellon in the office pool. As soon as she answered Jamison began the start of the process. “Veronica, I want you to have one of the office assistants go over to the storage room and pull the file on Richard Harker. I don’t have the case number, but it shouldn’t be too hard to find. It’s going to be a big file, probably in three or four boxes at least. Have it brought to me as soon as it’s pulled. Also send me the file on the writ petition in the Harker case that was denied last year. It should be in a separate file.” Jamison paused for a moment. “Oh, and, Veronica, make sure you tell them to clean the mouse droppings off before they bring the boxes. The last time I got one of these old files I had to have shots because of the poop that was on the file boxes. Thanks.”
Jamison could hear Veronica laugh. Files this old were kept in storage for years along with the evidence in the cases. While some of the cases ultimately ended up being destroyed just to make room, that didn’t happen for years and cases like Harker’s never got destroyed. The files just sat, moldering away in a dark corner holding the paper record of people’s lives and their sins. This case had been tried before Veronica was born, and when the crime had been committed Jamison was still in grade school.
Jamison let his mind wander for a moment. Veronica was the object of constant attention by the young lawyers in the office. None seemed to ever get anywhere, but Jamison had a feeling that his attention might be welcome. However, one thing Matt Jamison realized a long time ago with a resigned sigh was that you don’t fish in the office secretarial pond, not if you want to stay out of trouble. And given that most of Jamison’s contact with members of the opposite sex was either with DAs or defense attorneys or secretaries in the office, the pond he had to fish in wasn’t very big. And most female defense attorneys were usually in his face telling him what was wrong with his case or him rather than flirting. He was tired of his mother asking him when he was going to meet a nice girl.
Jamison pulled out a yellow legal pad, letting the momentary thought pop up as to why legal pads were always yellow. He dismissed it and wrote Harker’s name at the top of the pad. Then he began to outline the things he would need to do. The first thing he had to do was read the file and that was probably going to take a few days in and of itself. Then he had to talk to whomever the court had assigned to Harker’s case so the logistics of it could be worked out. And he needed to get an investigator, which meant he was going to have to pull an overworked investigator from other cases to work on this one.
Jamison already knew the investigator he was going to use was Bill O’Hara. He just didn’t want to go down and deliver the news because of the reaction he would get. Willie Jefferson O’Hara was a seasoned homicide investigator who was like a grumpy old dog that basically tolerated the people who fed him. Actually, Bill O’Hara—“Willie” to those who knew him well—mostly cultivated his crusty persona to keep people at a distance until he decided whether to let them in his inner circle. Then he was only irascible depending on his mood instead of all the time.
Jamison had long ago decided that he would put his life in O’Hara’s hands without a moment’s hesitation and had in fact done exactly that on several occasions. Jamison did a mental nod to himself. Yes, O’Hara’s the right investigator for this. He decided to spare himself O’Hara’s reaction for the time being and read the rest of the writ petition first. Whatever was in that would tell him why the supreme court had issued the order that was sitting on the edge of his desk and, he suspected, would also tell him why the district attorney was so agitated.
Fifteen minutes later, Veronica brought in the file on the writ petition. It was stuffed with notes and the declarations and other written arguments that had been submitted by Harker’s lawyer to Judge Reynolds and denied without a formal hearing. Jamison looked at the assignment sheet. One of the law and motion deputy district attorneys had handled the file, Franklin Bailey. Jamison pulled an image of Bailey from the back of his mind—young, good law school, a little bookish, liked digging through arcane legal trivia. It all fit, perfect law and motion guy. He started to pick up the phone to talk to Bailey, then put the receiver back down. It was probably best if he read that part of the file first. At least maybe it would give him an idea of what got the attention of the supreme court.
Two hours later, Jamison had separated out the declarations and notes. The declarations were written statements made under oath. They weren’t subject to cross-examination and were basically statements that a judge reviewed to determine that if the declarations were true and if the information was unknown at the time of trial, whether there was any reason to question the credibility of the verdict.
The first declaration in the case was by Harker himself, claiming that while in prison, an inmate named Clarence Foster had allegedly admitted that he had lied to the police when they had interrogated him and he had fingered Harker as being at the scene of the crime.
Jamison then read Harker’s declaration that he had
told detectives that the witnesses, including Foster, were lying, but nobody paid any attention to him. He put the declaration down for a moment. That couldn’t be what got the supreme court to issue its order, could it? Obviously, Foster had snitched on Harker. Anybody going into the joint with a snitch jacket would have a hard time. So Foster had an incentive to ingratiate himself with Harker since he was one of the people who put him there. Jamison considered for a moment that Foster was actually lucky to be alive given that Jamison doubted Harker was the forgiving type and prison rules were essentially predator rules with very few absolutes about the sanctity or worth of human life. This included the rule that snitches were a life form slightly above child molesters.
He rummaged through the rest of the file, but there wasn’t any declaration from Foster. That didn’t mean it didn’t exist, but it wasn’t in the file. And, in any event, he couldn’t believe the supreme court would order a hearing based on some inmate claiming he lied to the police. It took more than that to get a writ hearing. First Harker’s lawyer would have to show that there was some reason for the investigators to know that Foster was lying and either conceal it or ignore it. Or they would have to show that the testimony could not have been discovered by reasonable investigation.
You couldn’t just go back and keep reopening cases simply because somebody now said they lied unless there was more to it. Jamison knew that there had to be a lot more. Then he saw the name on the next declaration—Christine Farrow. It had been submitted on behalf of the defendant, Richard Harker—the man who killed Christine Farrow’s mother.
Chapter 4
Jamison reread the declaration of Christine Farrow for the third time. It hadn’t changed through a single reread. He picked up the photograph of the child taken at the crime scene slightly over a quarter century ago. At the time it was taken she was three and Jamison would have been almost eight years old. He tried to remember what it was like to be three years old. Only bits and pieces flashed through his mind. It was almost impossible to put the pieces of childhood memory in any order, let alone relate them to how old he was when the memory was created.
Childhood memories were like a jumble of snapshots and two-second videos. It was parents or adults who put those images in context. Jamison realized that what he remembered from his childhood was a combination of how he had chosen to remember things and feelings that affected his memory. But he also realized that nothing in his life compared to what Christine Farrow had been through.
Jamison thought about what Christine’s memories must be like and whether the mind would bury it as an act of self-preservation. Some things were simply so horrible that the human mind closed the door and kept such images in the dark. But Jamison knew that didn’t mean the memory wasn’t still there. The memories were always there, concealed in the recesses of the mind, lurking and waiting and sometimes springing out like a nighttime intruder.
The declaration of Christine Farrow was all of that and more.
Harker’s appointed counsel, Samuel Gifford, had gone to her as part of a routine investigation into his client’s claims of innocence and the supposed admission of Clarence Foster that he had lied. Jamison could only imagine what Gifford thought when he finished talking to a now twenty-nine-year-old woman reliving a memory that should never be a part of anybody’s childhood.
Christine Farrow’s declaration was written in the first person. Jamison’s eyes moved back and forth over the words of an adult visualizing what she remembered as a three-year-old child.
SUPREME COURT
STATE OF CALIFORNIA
IN RE THE MATTER OF
RICHARD HARKER
V
PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
DECLARATION OF
CHRISTINE FARROW
My name is Christine Farrow. I am twenty-nine years of age. I live in Tenaya County, California. Twenty-six years ago my mother, Lisa Farrow, was the victim of murder. I was there. I was three years old. Richard Harker was convicted of murdering my mother. I testified that Richard Harker was the person who killed my mother.
For the last twenty-six years I have believed what I was told about what happened to my mother and to me and what little I thought I remembered. I have struggled with emotions and pieces of memory, but when I tried to recall exactly what happened I would suffer from anxiety attacks. For the last five years I have been receiving psychological counseling.
Last year, with the help of my therapist, Dr. Arnold Vinson, I was finally able to bring forward my memories. Dr. Vinson helped me to cope with the images that have made my life so difficult. Now I know the truth.
All my life I have believed that Richard Harker killed my mother. I have read the police reports and understand that is what I testified to in court. I identified Richard Harker as the man who was in our home the night my mother, Lisa Farrow, was murdered.
I now realize that the man who killed my mother was not Richard Harker. I am certain I made a mistake. I was only three years old. I now understand that Richard Harker is innocent and that my testimony as a child was wrong. I am prepared to testify that I now remember that the person who killed my mother was not the man I identified in court.”
CHRISTINE FARROW, Under Penalty of Perjury.
Christine Farrow
A chill went down Jamison’s spine. He knew the basic facts in the Harker case, but he didn’t know the details, the evidence used to convict Harker. Was the only actual witness to the murder of Lisa Farrow a child, three-year-old Christine Farrow? And now she was willing to testify that Richard Harker was innocent?
He could feel himself cringing. If Christine Farrow testified in court that Harker was not the man who murdered her mother, then the hearing would turn into a media circus. No wonder Gage was agitated. His career had been built on the conviction of Richard Harker and now the supreme court had granted a hearing that would put the entire core of that conviction in question. Jamison could see the headlines in his mind—Child-Witness Now Claims Convicted Murderer Is Innocent—District Attorney and Rumored Candidate for Attorney General Built Career on Wrongful Conviction.
Jamison had seen similar declarations before, usually in child molestation cases. Small children were asked what happened to them in the most horrible situations and asked to describe who did it to them and what they did. Jamison had worked on sexual assault cases for almost a year until he couldn’t stand it anymore. He had grown to hate the people who hurt little human beings and finally asked to be moved to a different assignment. It wasn’t an uncommon request. Many men had difficulty with the assignment. Women prosecutors seemed to handle it better. Jamison wasn’t sure why that was, but he had quickly realized that he couldn’t keep doing it and keep his sanity.
But he had also seen some of those cases come back years later, a few of those children, now adults, struggling with their memories. It didn’t happen often but sometimes they recanted their original testimony. Usually it was because it was a relative who had been their tormentor and other family members prevailed on them to change their minds or made them uncertain that what they had said was correct. But sometimes they simply became uncertain, and the passage of time and unjustified guilt over what they had been through seemed to persuade them that it must have been a mistake. Jamison didn’t understand the psychology of it, but he knew at the time it was reported that it was very real to those children because he had heard them say it, and he had also heard some of those now grown children say it wasn’t true.
Then declarations would be filed and people who were in prison for the most awful sex crimes would find their accuser becoming their savior as they changed their testimony. Victims would again be victimized by the destructive forces of memory and the mystery of the human mind as it tried to reconcile the horror of the past with the wreckage of the present. What was real or wasn’t real was blurred by time and the jumble of childhood images that had no context.
Jamison had himself fought several of these recanted testimony battles in cour
t years after the fact. One of the issues in those cases was always the credibility of the child victims, three- and four-year-old children trying to answer questions about what happened to them and who did it. First there was the problem of a child trying to explain something that they didn’t have the words for. Then there was the problem of that child, now an anguished adult, trying to explain why they thought what they testified to and believed at the time was the truth was not in fact the truth.
It had always pained Jamison that children were asked to describe sexual activity that at their age they shouldn’t even begin to understand, let alone be victims of. And then there was the problem that by the time he was able to talk to the child, numerous other people, mostly well intentioned, had talked to the child, sometimes parents, sometimes babysitters, sometimes strangers just trying to help and then cops and prosecutors. And sometimes defense attorneys.
Jamison had come to realize that a child’s understanding of things was a layered process of explanation and memory, context and experience. A child had difficulty relating what they had not previously experienced, and their innocence took away the context that adults had. So when an adult talked to a child, the child picked up cues and understanding from the adult asking them questions. Experience had taught him that the initial questions asked of a child and repeated questioning would affect their explanation and memory.
He had learned that years ago. When these children were first questioned by well-meaning investigators, there had been little training in how to talk to children. Now investigators were trained by specialists in the field of child and victim psychology.
Shades of Truth Page 3
