Anatomy of Injustice

by Raymond Bonner

  A few days before Elmore’s trial was to open, the guards put Gilliam in a cell with Elmore. A day or two later, Gilliam scrawled a note to Sgt. Alvin Johnson, well known to Gilliam from numerous encounters:

  My name is James Gilliam. I am in the county jail. I think we should have a talk. Mr. Elmore has did a lots of talking to me about killing that lady. I would like to talk to you and Mr. W.T. Jones if I can. Thank you.

  A jailer mailed it. Two days later, Gilliam was taken to Solicitor Jones’s office on the second floor of the Grier Building. Sergeant Johnson and Detective Vanlerberghe were there. For two hours on Friday evening, as he tapped ashes and ground out cigarette butts into the ever-present, always seemingly full ashtray on his desk, Jones went over Gilliam’s testimony with him. When the lights were turned off and everyone had left, Gilliam was ready for trial time.

  It was permissible for Jones to go over Gilliam’s testimony with him prior to trial, and indeed, it was part of good trial preparation. However, a lawyer may not encourage a witness to lie nor put him on the stand knowing that he will lie. But lawyers, trained to argue about the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin, find their ethical consolation in the difference between “knowing” someone is lying and merely “suspecting” that he is.

  Anderson objected to Gilliam’s being allowed to testify to what Elmore had allegedly told him. The jury was sent out.

  The guards at the jail had placed Gilliam in the cell with Elmore to ask him questions, and that made him a state agent; he was thus required to give Elmore his Miranda warning, Anderson argued to Burnett. He apologized for making the argument. “I’ll be frank with you, Judge, I think they’ve got good evidence. I think that the evidence that has been elicited at this trial has been certainly evidence that has been forthright. But, now, I think this is a distraction, frankly, on what they’re trying to do here and it’s unnecessary and prosecutorial overreach.”

  Jones feigned offense.

  “Now, Your Honor, I don’t like that at all. It ain’t no prosecutorial overreach. I’d be derelict in my duty if I didn’t bring him in here.”

  Judge Burnett ruled that Gilliam could testify. “I find specifically from the evidence that there was no intention of any law enforcement personnel to place this witness, Mr. Gilliam, with this defendant for the purposes of eliciting any statements. Voluntary admissions and statements of the defendant are his prerogative and deserve no constitutional protection, and there is no violation in this case.”

  Jones told Burnett that Elmore had confessed to other men in the jail, but in the interest of saving time, he was calling only Gilliam. Anderson didn’t challenge this, didn’t ask for the names of the others.

  The jury was brought back in.

  “How did this conversation about this case come up with him?” Jones asked Gilliam, who was casually dressed.

  “I don’t know. I guess he just needed somebody to talk to him,” Gilliam said.

  JONES: All right. Tell us some of the things he said.

  GILLIAM: Well, he said he went there to rob the lady, you know.

  JONES: He went there to rob her?

  GILLIAM: Right.

  JONES: Did he say he knew her before?

  GILLIAM: Yes, he did. Said he did some work for her, cleaning windows and ducts, and all that stuff.

  JONES: All right, then, he said he went there to rob the lady. And what did he say to you about it.

  GILLIAM: Well, then he said he didn’t want to hurt her, but he knocked her down when she—

  JONES: But, he knocked her down?

  GILLIAM: He knocked her down.

  JONES: And what?

  GILLIAM: She wouldn’t quit screaming.

  JONES: She wouldn’t quit screaming?

  GILLIAM: Right.

  JONES: And then what?

  GILLIAM: He said he had to kill her, then—

  JONES: He said he had to kill her?

  GILLIAM: Right.

  JONES: All right. Is there anything else that you recall that he had to say to you?

  GILLIAM: Well, he asked me then if you have sex with a woman and you wash up, would it show any signs that you’ve had sex with her.

  JONES: If you have sex with a woman and you wash up, would it show any signs that you’ve had sex?

  GILLIAM: Right.

  JONES: All right, was there anything else you can recall?

  GILLIAM: And he said he knew the police couldn’t have no fingerprints of his because he had wiped everything down when he left.

  JONES: He knew the police couldn’t have no fingerprints of his because he wiped everything—

  GILLIAM: Wiped everything down before he left.

  JONES: Wiped everything down before he left?

  GILLIAM: Right.

  JONES: I see. Can you think of anything else he said?

  GILLIAM: That’s about it.

  JONES: All right, answer questions of counsel if you will, Mr. Gilliam.

  Anderson didn’t believe Gilliam. He thought he saw a jailhouse snitch who was testifying to save himself. Besides, why would Elmore, who was so reticent that Anderson couldn’t get anything out of him, spill his guts to a stranger? Anderson asked Gilliam about his previous convictions, his long criminal record. Hadn’t he concocted all this because he was facing prison and was hoping to cut a deal? No, said Gilliam.

  Jones still had one legal issue to address. To convict Elmore of larceny, which was one of the charges, the state had to establish that something of value had been taken from Mrs. Edwards’s house. Jones called Carolyn Edwards Lee. Answering questions from Jones, she testified that her mother had an Aigner clutch purse worth between $40 and $50, and that she usually kept at least $50 in cash in it. When Carolyn had gone through the house on the Tuesday after her mother’s body was found, she had not been able to find the purse or any money, she testified.

  Carolyn was on the stand for only a few minutes. It hadn’t been as bad as she had feared, and she was greatly relieved that she wasn’t asked any questions about her mother’s relationship with Holloway.

  Jones told the court he had no more witnesses. It was Friday afternoon. It was time for the defense case.

  THE DEFENDANT—EDWARD LEE ELMORE

  ANDERSON AND BEASLEY had almost nothing to offer. They called only one witness—Elmore. Some jurors showed their surprise.

  It is rare for the defendant in a murder case to testify. The Fifth Amendment, which was adopted in response to abuses of authority by the British Crown, provides that no person “shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” Judges instruct juries that no inferences are to be drawn if a defendant does not testify.

  No one of sound mind, guilty or innocent, would subject himself to cross-examination from a lawyer like Jones. “That man could get the pope to confess,” said Greenwood police detective Vanlerberghe. “He was downright scary. He was a very feared man.” But Anderson told Elmore he had to testify. Elmore obeyed, as he always did.

  Elmore, wearing dark pants and an open-collared white shirt, his hair medium length, was sworn in. Anderson asked him about his work washing windows and cleaning gutters in Greenwood’s fancy neighborhoods. Anderson came to Saturday, January 16. Elmore recounted the events of the day, as he had to the police, and his testimony was the same as what his ex-girlfriend, Mary, had testified.

  While Elmore was answering questions from Anderson, Jones was rocking back and forth in his chair, grimacing, making faces, relaying to the jurors only a few feet away his scorn for Elmore and his story.

  It was after five o’clock when Anderson finished questioning Elmore. Once again, Burnett wanted to keep going. He wanted this trial over with.

  Edward Lee Elmore, shy, quiet, uneducated, was now at the mercy of William T. Jones, and Jones showed no mercy.

  Jones asked Elmore how often he had worked for Mrs. Edwards.

  The first time had been “when the leaves was falling,” Elmore said.

&nbs
p; “Well, when was the second time? That’s what I’m asking you about.”

  “That’s what I’m saying, a month before—before the—before the, you know, the first time.”

  Now Jones was confused. “What’s that?”

  “It was a month or so before the first time I worked for her.”

  “You mean the second time that you worked there is a month or so before the first time?”

  “Yeah.”

  Elmore spoke so softly that Judge Burnett, sitting next to him, had trouble hearing his answers. “Would you speak into the microphone and speak out, please, sir, so we can all hear you,” he said to Elmore.

  With the next question, Jones employed a classic trial lawyer’s tactic on Elmore, firing off questions in an effort to rattle the witness into contradicting himself or admitting knowledge that would undercut his denials, reveal his lies. It was the stuff of Perry Mason, crime novels, and movies, but with a person of Elmore’s IQ, Jones could reasonably believe it would work.

  He showed Elmore a picture of Mrs. Edwards’s den, with the couch and TV.

  JONES: And that’s what she lie on and watch TV?

  ELMORE: I don’t know. I couldn’t tell you.

  JONES: You couldn’t tell us, huh?

  ELMORE: No.

  JONES: Was she lying there that night?

  ELMORE: What night?

  JONES: The night we’re talking about.

  ELMORE: I don’t know.

  Jones paced while asking questions. He stopped, then moved to within inches of Elmore. Jones had a reputation for being a bit of a bully, and that side of him was on display now. “He was intimidating,” said a juror. “If it had been me, I would have been real scared.”

  JONES: When you went around there and killed Mrs. Edwards it would have been after dark, wouldn’t it?

  ELMORE: I didn’t kill Mrs. Edwards.

  JONES: If you had, it would have had to have been after dark, wouldn’t it?

  ELMORE: I didn’t—I didn’t—

  JONES: Well, did you go around there in the daylight?

  ELMORE: I didn’t go at all.

  JONES: Did you go in the daylight?

  ELMORE: I didn’t go at all.

  JONES: Well, I asked you did you go in the daylight?

  ELMORE: No, sir.

  Elmore’s mother began to sob and left the courtroom. Elmore’s sisters sat impassively, petrified.

  Watching Elmore getting pummeled by the questions, Reverend Spearman thought he looked like a scared child. “It was like he didn’t know why this was happening. He knew he was on trial, but he didn’t realize the magnitude of the situation,” Spearman recalled. “The expression on his face was, Why is this happening to me?”

  Jones led Elmore through the evening of the sixteenth, his trips to Kmart, his pleas with Mary, her rejections, his following her to her apartment, passing each other on Bishop Street. They were the same facts the others had related.

  Then Jones asked about the shirt Elmore had ripped off at her apartment. “The main reason you took it off is because you didn’t want to go around with it bloody?” he asked Elmore. It was a statement to the jury as much as it was a question.

  “No, sir, there wasn’t no blood on it.”

  “The truth of the matter is that she saw the blood and made some comment about it, isn’t it?”

  Anderson could have objected. There was no evidence in the record that Mary had seen blood on the shirt. Anderson’s objection might have been overruled—on cross-examination, an opposing lawyer has considerable latitude and is allowed, for example, to ask leading questions, which he may not ask on direct examination. But by objecting, he would have been reminding the jury that no one had testified that there was blood on Elmore’s shirt. Instead, Jones got away with planting the inference that there was.

  Jones turned to mockery. “Now—now, anytime during that month of January, whether Mrs. Edwards was in there or not, did you ever stand around her bed and reach down in your pubic area and start pulling out hairs and throwing them on the bed?”

  It wasn’t a serious question. Elmore didn’t know any better than to answer it straightforwardly: “No, sir.”

  Jones had been hammering Elmore for more than an hour. He was almost finished. By putting Elmore on the stand, Anderson had handed Jones an opportunity to lay a trap, and now the solicitor set it. He turned to Sergeant Johnson, who was seated among the spectators.

  “Stand up, if you will,” Jones said.

  Remember him? Jones asked Elmore.

  Yes, sir, was the response.

  “I’m going to ask you if you told him that if you went there and killed Mrs. Edwards you just didn’t remember it?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You are saying, now, you deny on Wednesday, January the twentieth, around three p.m., or shortly thereafter, telling Officer Al—Sergeant Alvin Johnson that if you went there and killed the lady you couldn’t remember?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Jones turned to Tom Henderson. Stand up, please, Jones said. Elmore said he remembered him as well.

  Same question to Elmore: “Will you admit, or deny, that you told him that if you killed Mrs. Edwards that night you didn’t remember it?”

  “No, sir.”

  Finally, at 7:25 Friday evening, Elmore limped off the stand. He looked like a “frightened child” to one juror.

  EVERYONE was back in the courtroom at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday.

  “I hope you had enough time this morning to watch some of the Saturday morning cartoons before coming up,” Judge Burnett said to greet the jurors.

  “Does the defense rest?” Burnett asked Anderson.

  “Yes, sir. Yes, sir,” Anderson replied.

  It was time for the state’s case in rebuttal. Jones now sprung the trap he had set for Elmore.

  He called Sergeant Johnson as a witness, reminding him that he was still under oath. Jones had only two questions for him.

  “Mr. Johnson, I ask you this, whether or not on January twentieth, 1982, at the South Carolina Law Enforcement Headquarters, sometime after three p.m., the defendant, Edward Lee Elmore, told you that if he went there and killed Mrs. Edwards he couldn’t remember?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he do so repeatedly?”

  “Yes.”

  On cross-examination, Anderson asked a few perfunctory questions: Where did this happen? SLED headquarters. What time? Three p.m. Who else was present? Henderson. He didn’t ask Johnson to explain how the conversation had come about. Had Elmore just blurted this out? Or had Johnson planted the idea? Had Johnson said, Now, Mr. Elmore, is it possible that you did this, but you didn’t know what you were doing? Might he even have said, Look, if you did it but don’t remember, you can’t be held responsible?

  Henderson was next.

  Same two questions from Jones.

  “Mr. Henderson, I will ask you to state whether or not the defendant, Edward Lee Elmore, on January the twentieth, 1982, at the South Carolina Law Enforcement Headquarters, sometime after three p.m., told you that if he went there and killed Mrs. Edwards, he couldn’t remember?”

  “Yes, sir, he did.”

  “Did he do so repeatedly?”

  “Yes, sir, he did.”

  Anderson asked no questions.

  The state rested.

  The defense rested.

  IT WAS TIME FOR closing statements. It was the moment for Elmore’s lawyers, and then Jones, to argue their case to the jurors, summarizing the evidence most favorable to their side, highlighting what they saw as the weaknesses in the other. The order is the reverse of opening statements, with the defense going first. Beasley led off.

  It was Saturday, a day he did not like to work. “I promise to be brief,” he told the jurors. He was. Anodyne. He had represented lots of criminal defendants, but he had never seen one as nice as Mr. Elmore, he told the jury. “For him to be charged, really, is just for me—it’s sort of shocking because, of course, I did not know
him before this time, but I know him now. And really, he seemed to me like such a nice fellow to be up here and charged with such a serious crime.” He gave the jurors a high school civics lesson: the burden was on the state to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. It is the last resort for a defense lawyer who has given the jury no evidence to raise doubts. Beasley asked the jurors to dispense justice to Elmore just as they would to any member of their own family.

  “Thank you,” he said, and sat down.

  THE PROSECUTOR’S CLOSING ARGUMENT

  WILLIAM T. JONES got up, and everyone knew he wouldn’t be short and he wouldn’t be bland.

  “Mr. Foreman, ladies and gentlemen, a book can never be judged by its cover,” he said. “You could ask the question, How could someone as young and someone as nice-looking and someone who can sound nice and cooperative do such a thing. Mr. Foreman, ladies and gentlemen, don’t expect yourself to know that. You’re not supposed to know that.”

  Someone entered the courtroom. Jones was not pleased. He did not want anything to divert the jury’s attention from what he was saying. He asked Judge Burnett to prevent anyone else from coming or going until he had finished.

  “I apologize, ladies and gentlemen, but I’m—inept enough without other things,” he said with his well-practiced feigned modesty. “We’ve got a job to do here. I’m trying to do mine the best I can and I apologize to you for all of my ineptness. And I’m not trying to sound humble when I say that, because I know I am in many respects inept. I just don’t know how many.” He had the jury spellbound.

  Jones turned to the issue of malice. It could be implied from the use of dangerous instruments—the needle-nose pliers, the paring knife. “And particularly, Mr. Foreman, and particularly, there are times I think when a man, who keeps himself in shape, doubles up his fist even and rams it into the face and the fragile little bones and into the—to the rib cage of a human being no taller than four feet, five and a half inches, weighing no more than a hundred and thirty pounds, not later to break them, but crush them where they go into the entrails, certainly, the heart and the lungs are entrails as well as things in our abdomen, and puncture them, causing them to collapse and bleed.” Jones was using Mrs. Edwards’s height and weight as recorded by Dr. Conradi in her autopsy report; she was actually several inches taller and many pounds lighter. Still, it was not hard to imagine jurors blanching at this scene, though there was no evidence in the record to suggest this was what happened.