No, Daddy, Don't!
Page 20
The elder Battaglia met with Steve McGonigle anyway. The reporter asked if he had seen his son.
John Sr. nodded. “It wasn’t a monster I found in jail,” he told McGonigle. “It was my kid, and he was in a lot of pain . . .
“No one incited John like Mary Jean,” John Sr. continued. “She just loved to push his buttons. He really became despondent over Mary Jean’s attempts to put him in jail. He believed that could have cost him his visitation rights. Guess he felt that there was no place to go. He felt that Mary Jean had pushed him in the corner and he’d never see his girls again.”
Continuing to press for sympathy, John Sr. told McGonigle about John’s early life, his mother’s suicide, and the fact that John had been an altar boy and a Boy Scout.
Paul Johnson read the two-page article and gritted his teeth.
District Attorney Bill Hill had been questioned extensively about which penalty he would seek—life imprisonment, or death, for John Battaglia.
The DA had a policy of conferring with the victims’ relatives before deciding. Mary Jean had already made her wishes clear. “Your daddy’s gonna pay” meant that she wanted their killer to get the maximum.
On May 30, DA Bill Hill announced his decision saying, “The circumstances of the case . . . plus John Battaglia’s past violent behavior call for the state to seek the death penalty.”
FORTY
Mary Jean appreciated the widespread support from friends and strangers, but she didn’t want any more media attention. The Dallas Morning News and dozens of other newspapers clamored to interview her, and television channels across the country were determined to get her on camera. To insulate her from the media turmoil, she hired a public relations/ media specialist. Mary Jean was able to talk to friends about her tragic loss, and even found it therapeutic, but she had no desire to take her grief public. It would require an extraordinary situation for her to give an interview.
Judge David Finn—the same David Finn who had turned a deaf ear to Mary Jean when she begged him not to dismiss her assault charge against John Battaglia—provided her with just such a situation.
Thirty-eight-year-old Finn had grand ambitions. He wanted to unseat the incumbent district attorney, Bill Hill. Both the police and DA Hill’s office had been recently shaken by controversy surrounding a mountain of drug arrests. The contraband evidence for those arrests, which had been seized by the police and secured in their evidence locker, was later discovered to be pulverized Sheetrock—a powder that looked remarkably like cocaine. Even though police had taken custody of the evidence and were responsible for testing it, Police Chief Terrell Bolton tried to blame the district attorney, whose office had indicted scores of the alleged drug traffickers. When someone discovered the sham, the district attorney was reluctantly forced to dismiss seventy-six drug cases for lack of evidence.
David Finn saw this as his opportunity to strike. He resigned his judgeship, called on friends both in and out of the legal field, and put his campaign together.
In February, David Finn participated in a political debate against Bill Hill. He smiled as he shook hands with Jose Luis Vega and Jacinto Mejia, two of the men the DA had been forced to release from jail. The men had been invited, and the reason for their presence became clear when they stepped to the microphone and asked Bill Hill to apologize for arresting them in the first place.
Everyone knew it was an obvious ploy to embarrass the district attorney, but he refused to fall into David Finn’s trap, telling the crowd, “I don’t base my decision on what defense attorneys tell me, but on what the facts are.” Bill Hill had already called in the FBI to investigate the case.
Gallantly, David Finn strode to the microphone and, reading in Spanish, apologized to the men and their families “. . . because Mr. Hill won’t.”
The Republican party conducted a poll and found that a runoff vote would probably be necessary because the race between the two Republican candidates was too close for either to gain a majority.
Mary Jean Pearle read about the debate in the newspaper and decided she had had enough of David Finn’s attempt to pass himself off as the standard of common sense and compassion. As it would turn out, Finn had miscalculated her ability. He may have seen her as a helpless victim in his court, but he should not have underestimated a woman whom the legal system had failed—a woman who had only grown stronger with every injustice she suffered.
She decided to call a press conference, and Channel 8 (WFAA), an ABC affiliate, was only too happy to oblige. On February 18, Mary Jean Pearle met in a private home with members of Republican Women For Family Safety. Some of these women were the same ones who had been in Finn’s court the day he tried to dismiss the charges against Battaglia.
Nightline News anchor Gloria Compos introduced the special report by saying, “One of the most brutal cases of domestic violence in Dallas last year may turn political. John Battaglia’s ex-wife has never addressed the media before, but tonight she points an accusing finger squarely at the judge in the case, who now hopes to unseat the DA.”
Mary Jean’s attractive face filled the screen. She looked smart in a navy pin-striped suit and white blouse. A small diamond cross dangled from a chain around her neck.
“I’m here tonight because I believe that Judge David Finn let my children and me down,” she said in a poised, calm voice.
The announcer, Jeff Brady, told viewers that, “These women are not attorneys, but monitor domestic violence cases.” The next face on the screen was that of a pretty blonde, Patti Ransome, the group’s spokeswoman. She reported that while monitoring the Dallas county family court system, they found that among all the judges they observed, Mr. Finn was the only one doing a bad job.
The camera zoomed in on David Finn’s handsome face as Jim Brady interviewed him. “I gave the state everything they asked for,” Finn said. “They wanted one year in jail, probated for two years with conditions, and that’s exactly what I did. I don’t know where they’re coming from.” However, Finn was discussing his decision from the previous August when John Battaglia was in his court for the second time for his Christmas Day beating.
The announcer moved the audience back to the issue and pointed out that Hill supporters claimed Finn dismissed the Battaglia case when his ex-wife didn’t appear in court on time. Finn retorted that the prosecutors themselves requested the dismissal, but of course he didn’t mention that he had forced them into it by threatening to find Battaglia not guilty of the charges.
Mary Jean returned to the screen and brought up the aborted hearing over the marijuana test. “That would have been in January, 2001, and then John killed my little girls four months later. So I believe that if he had been in jail he wouldn’t have been able to kill my daughters on May second.”
David Finn glanced down at the newcaster’s desktop. He looked like he was about to cry. “I didn’t know anything about the Battaglia probation situation until the day after the fact,” he said. Finn’s statement followed the one he made earlier in the telecast boasting that he had given Battaglia two years’ probation.
The announcer concluded, “Just how much weight one awful domestic violence case carries in the minds of voters may be the deciding factor of who fills the Dallas district attorney’s office for the next four years.”
On March 12, 2002, voters went to the polls. DA Bill Hill soundly defeated David Finn by a percentage of 59 to 25.
FORTY-ONE
The task of selecting the jury for John Battaglia’s murder trial began on January 11, 2002 at the Frank Crowley Criminal Courts Building. The ten-thousand-square-foot jury room was filled with people who, for the most part, didn’t want to be there. Several hundred sat on padded folding chairs, while latecomers sprawled on the gray tweed carpet.
Assistant District Attorney Harold Blackmon, the dark-haired lead prosecutor of John Battaglia’s case, stood on a wooden platform. Speaking into a microphone, he admonished a crowd of almost eight hundred not to read or watch anything ab
out the case. Prospective jurors clutched an eighteen-page questionnaire that asked them about every viewpoint they held. With a jury pool of that size, it would seem relatively easy to find twelve qualified people. However, that was not to be the case.
Another month passed before prospects culled from the initial throng were brought in, one by one, and quizzed in the courtroom where the trial would take place. The presiding judge, the two defense attorneys, and two of the assistant district attorneys, along with the defendant, were present for every minute of every day of voir dire.
By mid-February, the trial of Andrea Yates, the mother who had drowned her five children, was moving rapidly through a Houston court. That jury had been assembled in two days, and the trial was well underway. By that time, the Battaglia case had acquired only half a dozen jurors.
John Battaglia looked impressive. His attorneys obviously had cleaned him up for the show. He wore a black suit over a crisp white shirt with a patterned dark tie; his hair was short and dark. The handsome man did not resemble the ragamuffin brought in for the indictment; this man looked more like an executive at a board meeting.
Seeing him dressed as he was answered many questions. Why did two fine women agree to marry him? Why did judge after judge place him on probation instead of sending him to jail when his violations began piling up?
The assistant DAs spent a great deal of time quizzing prospects on their opinions about the death penalty. The prosecution couldn’t afford to place one anti-death sentence person on the jury.
When questioned about the ultimate punishment, some prospects stated aggressively that they would be able to consider it. Others weren’t so sure.
At that point, either Assistant DAs Patrick Kirlin or Keith Robinson would proceed to paint a picture that would make even Stephen King shudder.
They’d begin, “I don’t want you to have regrets down the line when you pick up the newspaper someday and see that Mr. Battaglia over here was executed. This is Texas, after all; we don’t just talk about the death penalty, we do it.
“After the defendant’s appeals are over, they will take him to the Walls Unit in Huntsville. On that last day, he’ll get to see his friends and relatives—the very same people who will sit in the chair you’re sitting in now and who will beg you to show mercy for their loved one. Then, after he eats his last meal, they’ll come for him. He may drop down to his knees and pray for forgiveness. He may scream, yell, and fight those dragging him to the death chamber, all the while proclaiming his innocence and saying how he was railroaded, or he may go somberly with head bowed.”
Then, to increase tension and paint a realistic picture, the prosecutors would spell out how the defendant would be restrained on a gurney with six straps across his body, and how needles inserted into both arms would drip two poisons into his veins. They described how one poison would stop his breathing while the other shuts down his heart.
“When his lungs collapse you’d hear his last gasps for breath before death overtakes him.” In the quiet courtroom, the assistant DA would pause and wait a few seconds to let that sink in.
Some interviewees swallowed hard, as did Battaglia the first couple of times he heard the rendition. A few prospective jurors would still say they could grant it. But many who had been staunch death penalty advocates at the start changed their minds after they heard the draining description. Regardless of the variety of their replies, the vast majority of prospects were excused, one after the other.
Voir dire had begun in the winter. By spring, only eight jurors had been seated.
While voir dire lumbered on, The Dallas Morning News reporter Steve McGonigle found John Battaglia Sr. willing to again grant him an extensive interview, complete with a photograph of himself. As the court searched for jurors, John Sr. shocked his son’s defense attorneys by admitting in print that John had probably shot his granddaughters. He softened his words by trying to give reasons. “John was obsessively bitter toward his former wife over money and custody issues and feared losing access to the children.” The father also said, “A psychiatrist found that John suffers from bipolar disorder. In addition, he has depression and an antisocial personality disorder that he may have inherited from his mother.”
John Sr. discussed the irony that his granddaughters’ slayings and his son’s arrest had forged a closeness between father and son that had eluded them for most of John’s forty-six years.
Now the lawyers also had to ask prospective jurors if they had read that article as questioning continued.
That type of newspaper story on Battaglia made choosing a jury all the more difficult. For example, shortly after the interview with John’s father came out, a prospective female juror strutted into court to take her place on the witness stand. Her bright red-and-yellow dress had already made a statement, but it paled in comparison with her words.
Assistant DA Patrick Kirlin asked if she knew about the case, and it was evident that the woman had disregarded any admonition that jurors not read or watch the news. The woman charged ahead, speaking quickly and directing her answers to John Battaglia.
“I’ve read about it and heard about it. You had your girls in your loft or whatever,” she said, facing the defendant. “I think this had been a continuous thing. You were on the phone with your ex-wife. You were taking care of your two young daughters. They were little, not big, little. You got pissed off at your wife and shot your daughters. Not one of your daughters, but two, both of them. Then the police find two dead bodies in your loft, and I don’t think anyone else came in and did that. And your wife heard the shots on the phone. So you’re guilty.”
When Kirlin asked if she had formed an opinion of the punishment her answer was predictable. She raised her voice and pointed her finger directly at John Battaglia. “You, sir, are a monster! And you deserve the death penalty!”
Kirlin broke from procedure and, without any discussion with the judge or defense, excused the woman.
As the third month of voir dire approached, John Battaglia sat comfortably, watching and listening to the jury process. Battaglia would chat amicably with his lawyers while the prosecution detailed every needle prick of lethal injection. Sometimes his laugh would ring out at the very moment his possible death was being vividly portrayed.
Around 3:00 P.M. one Friday as the afternoon was growing tediously long, another prospective juror, a gray-haired woman, slowly made her way to the witness stand. She was not quick to give answers to the prosecutor’s questions; she took her time, and her replies showed reflective thought.
Assistant DA Keith Robinson asked her what she already knew of the case and a dark, troubled shadow colored her face.
“When I first heard about this, I couldn’t help but think about the responsibilities of a father,” she began. “A father is a little child’s protector, the person who can be looked up to and trusted. As a child, I always felt secure in my father’s arms.” She glanced over at John Battaglia. “I can only imagine what this man’s little girls were feeling in those last terrible moments of their lives. What fear filled their little hearts.”
John Battaglia had never showed any remorse or emotion since killing his daughters. Even now, his demeanor remained one of pleasant interest. But his interior emotions betrayed him. A red blotch appeared above his starched white collar. It elongated and crept up his neck, then onto his face until it pooled near his cheek.
Like a marathon racer finally closing in on the finish, the voir dire proceedings sprinted to a rapid close on Thursday and Friday during the first week of April. In those two days, two jurors were seated—the twelfth, and one alternate.
The last juror was not to the defense’s liking. He was a law-and-order type with family members who were prosecutors and police. While the assistant DAs beamed, the defense team formally objected to the seating of the twelfth juror, thus establishing their first point for appeal.
FORTY-TWO
Death investigator Gigi Ray had taken the weekend off from the medica
l examiner’s office for a little R&R, a necessity for someone in her profession. She and a friend had driven south to the historic town of Fredericksburg, nestled deep in the Texas hill country. With the bustle of the Metroplex behind her, she could unwind in the quiet serenity with nothing more on her mind than the nightly hum of cicadas.
Gigi returned home April 21, the night before the trial began, on a warm Sunday evening. As she carried her small travel bag down the hall, she noticed the blinking light of her answering machine. She pushed “play” and heard the voice of her coworker Scarlett Long.
“Gigi. The DA’s office has been trying to get hold of you. You’re to call Paul Johnson.” Then she left a number.
Gigi glanced at her watch. Five-thirty. She figured that she wouldn’t get hold of Johnson at this hour, especially on a Sunday, but she punched in his number anyway.
Paul Johnson was sitting on a chaise longue next to Paul Brauchle on Brauchle’s patio. The air was thick with cigar smoke as they reviewed the Powerpoint presentation one of their psychiatry experts would detail at the trial. They had spent the entire day with the doctor in Fort Worth.
“Have you heard from that ME investigator yet?” Brauchle asked.
“Gigi Ray? I left a message with her office. Called them late Friday. They were under the impression that Gigi wasn’t needed at the trial. I told them she wasn’t, but we wanted her at the evidentiary hearing. Since the hearing’s right before the trial, I’d hate to have to run around getting a subpoena and delay the trial. They told me she was out of town for the weekend.”