That night, I did some thinking about what they had said about my kid and his chemistry. We’d heard from a slew of experts, and all of them had said the same thing: Cubby’s lab was very sophisticated. He had made a lot of different compounds, and his understanding of the chemistry of explosives went way beyond what they ordinarily saw. Of course, what they ordinarily saw was the work of criminals. They didn’t generally see the work of scientists, which was what Cubby wanted to become.
They had actually described a key difference between Cubby’s lab and that of a criminal, though they hadn’t spelled it out in so many words. In a scientist’s lab, there are many different chemicals with which the scientist can conduct experiments. Even if the lab has a single purpose, like the development of a new explosive, the scientist might explore a number of paths to find a solution. Labs like that can be found in every college chemistry department, and in the research and development area of many large corporations.
Criminal labs are very different. Criminals are not interested in esoteric experimentation. They are interested in producing a particular substance. A criminal lab is not a vehicle for discovery and understanding; it’s a factory for the production of banned chemicals. Whether those chemicals are recreational drugs, explosives, or something else does not matter.
A chemistry professor would not have been at all surprised by the variety of chemicals Cubby had on hand. Many of them worked with the same compounds on a daily basis. I heard that many times, getting ready for the trial. That’s what experimenters do. Unfortunately, there were no chemistry professors involved in Cubby’s investigation, only policemen of various sorts. None of them seemed able to escape the criminal lab fixation.
Not one of the investigators said, “This is a really smart kid. What could we do to help him find a place where he could develop his talents?” Instead, in essence they said, “This is a really smart kid. What can we charge him with, to put him in prison?” I suppose you can’t blame the investigators for thinking that way. After all, they investigate criminals all day, so everyone they see probably looks like some kind of criminal, or a potential criminal, after a while. But what about their bosses? Couldn’t one of them have seen the path they were on?
Cubby had not been convicted of anything—yet—but it was already obvious how our society’s misjudgments could turn good kids into criminals. Whether we won or lost, none of us would ever see the criminal justice system in America the same way again. I felt very sad.
We’d been hopeful in the beginning of the trial, when the witnesses were all on Cubby’s side. However, the tide had turned with the later witnesses and the state’s hammering on the idea of hazard and danger and threat. Cubby and I now had to consider what we’d do if he lost.
If he were found guilty, the next step would be a sentencing hearing. The problem was, any superior court conviction would leave my son with a felony criminal record, which would close many doors for him forever, no matter the sentence. I wasn’t sure that we wanted to stick around for that outcome.
Cubby had the same thought I did. “We should leave the country and go somewhere we’d be welcome,” he said. I wondered where that would be. Canada had welcomed draft dodgers in the sixties, but I doubted they’d welcome a teenage felon today. We pondered our options, none of which looked appealing.
The only clear thing was that we were in this together. If we lost this case, our lives as we knew them were over. Wherever we ended up, western Massachusetts would be left far, far behind.
After two days of prosecution witnesses telling a totally one-sided story, it was our turn to tell the truth about Cubby. The first witness our lawyer called was Alex Turner. Alex talked about meeting my son at Amherst High, going to school together, and doing the things teenagers do. Things like playing video games, surfing the Internet, and hanging out with friends at my house.
Alex also described some things most teenagers don’t do, like watching TV while Cubby mixed chemicals or read chemistry texts. He talked about walking through the woods and looking for places they could safely set off test explosions, far from people or houses. With a trace of pride, Alex said he was present for several of Cubby’s explosions. He made a particular point of looking at the jurors and telling them that no one and nothing was damaged. When he said that, the prosecutor looked downright venomous. He said Cubby just loved chemistry and science and wanted to learn more. Perry objected, and then it was her turn to question Alex.
When she stepped up to cross-examine Alex the whole tone of the courtroom changed. Until then, both sides had been respectful. Perry had been almost pleasant with her own witnesses, and our attorney had approached them politely, speaking in a friendly and conversational tone of voice. But as soon as the defense’s first witness was on the stand, Perry attacked, with a hard, mean look and an edge to her voice that we hadn’t heard before.
“You remember talking to Trooper Perwak last year, right?” Alex said he did. “Things got a little heated, and you had to apologize. Do you remember that?” Of course they had gotten heated. Perwak had tracked Alex down at school and questioned him aggressively in order to build a case and charge his friend with a crime. What teenager wouldn’t get scared and maybe a bit heated over that? Alex was pretty uncomfortable, but he stood his ground for his friend, both when questioned originally and at the trial.
Two of our next witnesses spoke of Cubby’s peaceful nature: Steve Roberts, his scoutmaster, and Mark Moriarty, one of his high school teachers. Bringing them in to testify hadn’t been easy. When we listed them as witnesses, Perry challenged us, and we had a minitrial to decide if they could appear in the regular trial. According to her, Roberts and Moriarty had nothing relevant to say because they weren’t there for Cubby’s chemistry experiments or the raid. However, Hoose made a passionate argument for Roberts and Moriarty. “The reputation evidence [Jack] wants to introduce is essential to a fair trial,” he said. “The state has done its utmost to portray a serious student with an interest in chemistry as a terrorist-in-training. This is a vindictive perversion of his character that can only be countered by the insight of people in the community who know him.” That was a fine turn of phrase, I thought.
I’d been feeling down because the last few rulings had gone against us, but this time the judge ruled in our favor. “Malicious explosion is a violent crime, so the testimony of local residents is indeed relevant,” she said.
We were counting on that very thing. For us, Cubby’s reputation was the heart of his defense. We needed respectable people to say he was peaceful, nonviolent, and interested in science. If the jury agreed, there was no way he’d be convicted of the state’s charges.
Steve Roberts was Cubby’s first character witness. He’d known my son half his life and spent many hours with him. As scoutmaster, he’d counseled Cubby through all the levels of scouting, from cub graduation to Life Scout. If it weren’t for the stress of the raid, we were all sure Cubby would have made Eagle Scout too.
“Jack was a popular patrol leader, and he earned sixteen merit badges, including one in chemistry. In fact, after earning his own badge, Jack taught the chemistry merit badge course to other scouts.” Roberts told the court about the National Scout Jamboree, which Cubby attended the year he turned sixteen. He talked about community service, and how Cubby helped the other scouts and other people in town.
“Jack was always peaceful. He didn’t get into fights or serious trouble,” Roberts testified. As a scout leader, he made it clear it was his business to know which kids he needed to watch, and Cubby wasn’t one of them. He spoke with great certainty, in a calm, measured voice.
“You don’t really know the defendant,” she charged. It seemed to me that she was grasping at straws.
He looked at her and smiled gently. “Yes,” he corrected her firmly, “I do. I’ve known him since he was ten. We passed many nights talking by the campfire, at Chesterfield Scout Camp and at events.”
The jurors watched the exchange silently. I
was hopeful, but also nervous. It was becoming clear to me that Perry intended to bully our witnesses when their responses did not serve her case.
Retired Mount Holyoke chemistry professor Ken Williamson was our next witness. Jack first met him a week after the raid, after he received a letter in the mail from the older chemist. Williamson is a kind older man, seasoned by forty years as a college professor. After hearing his qualifications—which included a doctorate in organic chemistry, authorship of several chemistry textbooks, and almost fifty years on the Mount Holyoke faculty—Perry attacked his qualifications as a witness.
“How many courses on explosives have you taken?” she asked.
We had heard from the state troopers and ATF agents, all of whom were qualified as experts on the basis of government training programs. It takes a little more than that for a college professor to learn his trade. “Explosives are part of organic chemistry. I haven’t taken courses on explosives per se; they are just one part of my training.”
She didn’t want to hear that. “So you have never taken any courses in explosives?”
He didn’t know what to say. After a lifetime as a chemist, he didn’t expect his legitimacy to be challenged because he hadn’t taken a six-week bomb tech’s course. He tried to explain, but she cut him off. The whole exchange was just revolting to watch, as she beat up the poor fellow unmercifully. I was glad when he stepped down.
She did the same thing with our next witness, Jack’s high school teacher, Mark Moriarty. “I always knew Jack as a peaceful kid with a love of chemistry,” he said.
“You don’t really know him at all,” she challenged. I realized there was no answering her questions. He said he did, and she denied the statement. It was a mean, ugly thing, the way she treated Cubby’s witnesses.
The irony that she accused Cubby’s friends and teachers of “not knowing him,” when she herself had never spoken to him, was not lost on me. I wished there was a way to share that fact with the jury.
With Moriarty’s testimony done, we had reached the end. We didn’t have anything else to offer; there were no other witnesses to call. I’d felt good about our position earlier in the trial, but Perry’s relentless assault and the sheer weight of testimony had me badly discouraged.
It was time for our best and last shot at winning—time to put Cubby on the stand. We’d talked about it before the trial, and we’d all been in favor of it, provided my son felt strong enough. “I can do it,” he said now.
I hoped he was up to the task. Defense attorneys are always wary of letting their clients testify, because their words may open the door to unwanted questions that blow their own case to pieces. Hoose decided our best bet was to let him speak and give jurors a chance to see his peaceful, geeky self.
We had just watched Perry brutalize one witness after another, so Cubby knew it would be tough. He took a swig of Maalox and stepped up to the witness box. With a bit of a start, I realized this would be the first time the two of them had actually spoken. Taking his seat, he looked at the jurors and back at me. He was scared, but brave. Hoose stepped up to begin the questioning. He asked Cubby why he’d left high school.
“I wasn’t really involved in the high school system, and I didn’t like the courses that were being offered to me. I decided that it would be better to start taking college courses at HCC, so I took the placement test and started taking courses there. I started with calculus and anthropology.”
I could see the jurors looking at him appraisingly. The real-life Cubby before them wasn’t sounding like the monster portrayed by Perry over the past few days. They moved on to his interest in chemistry.
“I’ve been interested in some form of chemistry since I was very small. I first got interested in rocketry in elementary school. I learned about it from the History Channel, from my mother, and from doing amateur rocketry. There was a hobby store that sold rocket kits near us. Eventually, I started building my own rockets and I even started constructing my own engines as well as the rocket tubes themselves, and I stopped using kits entirely.”
Then he talked about his other interests.
“I have an active interest in computer science and programming of various sorts. I have an interest in the outdoors like camping, hiking, and walking around outside. I’ve recently had an interest in biology and the mechanisms of antidepressants and antipsychotics.” He spoke clearly and precisely.
He talked about going to Mexico with his mom and learning about fireworks down there. From there, they moved on to Cubby’s online forums and how he taught himself the necessary web programming. He told the jury he called his forum De Rerum Omnis, Latin for “About Everything.”
“I decided I’d like to have a website that covered far more topics than just chemistry—a universal science site. I had topics relating to the major fields of engineering and science, as well as other stuff like Doctor Who and cooking. I’m a big fan of Doctor Who and cooking.” Some of the jurors laughed, but others looked puzzled.
“Who is Doctor Who?” his lawyer asked.
Cubby explained that it was a science fiction program on BBC television. “It’s been on the air about forty years and I like it a lot.” Any jurors who weren’t smiling before were smiling now.
Hoose continued asking Cubby about his forums and the rules Cubby had posted to govern the site. He seemed puzzled by some of the forum rules. “In one of them, you said people must speak in proper English. ‘The first letter of a sentence and pronoun I must be capitalized. If you don’t do this you will not be allowed to participate on this site.’ Why would you have a rule like that?”
Cubby was unperturbed. “Well, I like grammar, but also because of the type of conversation that was there, there’s potential for misunderstanding somebody’s post. In science, if you misunderstand somebody, you can have dangerous consequences, so I wanted to eliminate as much risk as possible.”
From there, Hoose moved on to Cubby’s chemicals and experiments. He asked how explosives were made, which Cubby was happy to answer in a long and technical narrative. I smiled as I saw jurors shaking their heads. Cubby told them how he kept his experiments safe, and then he talked about finding places to set off test explosions.
I couldn’t tell what the jurors were making of Cubby, but he sure looked like a geeky science enthusiast to me, and I hoped they felt the same. When he talked about setting off blasts in my backyard I could see a few jurors nod. I hoped they were remembering that we still have some property rights in this country and we should be able to do what we want on our own land.
When Perry stepped up to cross-examine Cubby, she could barely contain herself. “Mr. Robison,” she said, “you left Amherst High School because essentially you didn’t like the kids there, is that right?” I wondered whether calling him “Mr. Robison” was an attempt to mock him, or perhaps hide the fact that he was still a teenager. And I wondered whether her comment about his not liking the kids at his school was an attempt to portray him as a loner. Later, in her closing statements, she would call him an “enigma.”
Cubby just looked at her quizzically and said, “No. I left because the way the classes worked didn’t really work with me, and college classes were much better suited to me.”
The courtroom in front of him was full of kids; they were all Cubby’s friends from Amherst High. A moment passed, and the judge called for a short recess. The prosecutor started walking toward the door. As she walked out of the court I heard a shout. “Jack does too have friends!” It was Cubby’s girlfriend, Nicole, sticking up for him the only way she could.
When Perry walked back in and court resumed, she looked enraged.
“Isn’t it a fact that one of the people that you have been communicating with goes by the username Bomb Boy?”
“No,” Cubby said. I couldn’t believe that she would bring up Bomb Boy. I knew, and I was sure she did too, that he was just someone who’d commented on Cubby’s online forums; my son had never met him.
I could see the
jurors’ eyes moving from the prosecutor to Cubby, and to his many supporters in the audience. With each baseless accusation and each calm reply, you could almost see her case unravel. She must have sensed that too, and it seemed to make her even wilder.
At one point, she asked whether he had considered the “thermal heat scorching of people in the woods.”
“People in the woods,” Cubby repeated, puzzled.
“Yeah. People walk through the woods. Did you ever consider children playing in the woods when you’re setting these explosives, sir?” She was practically shouting.
“There were no children present,” Cubby said.
“You guarantee that, is that right, sir?”
“Yes.”
Having failed to place children at the scene, Perry moved on to a red fox. “Now, you had some postings after this, sir, on the Internet, and one of the postings that you had, sir, was the detonation and explosion of a red fox, is that right?”
“That was not my video,” Cubby explained. “That was a video made by a user on YouTube named Axstram from Australia.” Even after Cubby had made it clear that he had nothing to do with the video, she pursued the question.
Raising Cubby Page 31
