by Scott Pratt
I was confident as I sat in the courtroom on the second floor in Jonesborough, but as always, I was a little nervous. The bailiff announced the entrance of Judge Leonard Green. The case of the State of Tennessee versus Angel Christian was about to go to trial.
Seventy-seven citizens from Washington County had been summoned. From that group, we’d choose the jury that would determine Angel’s fate. I’d spend a great deal of time talking to them about being open-minded and neutral and the importance of a fair trial, but I knew the goal of jury selection was to try to make sure the trial was anything but fair. I needed to select people who were more likely to be sympathetic to Angel than to the state. The key was to talk to them as much as I could, accurately gauge their answers and reactions, and then make sound decisions.
I’d never before represented a woman accused of murder, let alone a woman who looked like Angel. Her beauty was both a blessing and a curse, and presented me with a fascinating dilemma when it came to picking a jury. I knew Angel would be attractive to the prospective male jurors, especially if I chose them carefully, and I hoped the attraction would cause them to be sympathetic toward her and want to help her. At the same time, there would be evidence presented during the trial of the kind of mutilation any man would fear. If the male jurors perceived at any time during the trial that Angel might be capable of such an act, she’d be doomed.
The image Angel presented to the prospective female jurors was an even trickier issue. The average female in Washington County, Tennessee, was a God-fearing conservative. From the mouth of Agent Landers, those conservative women would hear testimony that Angel was a runaway and that she had worked, if only for a short time, in a strip club. They’d hear that Angel Christian probably wasn’t her real name, and that Landers had been unable to find background information on her. That alone could be enough to cause many women to vote to convict her, but my bigger concern was jealousy. If the female jurors perceived that Angel regarded herself as beautiful, or that she was somehow attempting to take advantage of her beauty to gain favor with the men, we wouldn’t have a chance.
Caroline had chosen Angel’s wardrobe and makeup, and when I saw my client walk into the courtroom early that morning, I was grateful for my wife’s skill. The black pantsuit and cream-colored blouse were conservative but classy, loose enough to hide the curves but not frumpy. Angel’s shoes were black with low heels, and her hair had been neatly tied back. Just a touch of eyeliner set off her fantastic brown eyes. There was no lip gloss, no shading around the eyes, no blush, and no jewelry. She looked like a scared, beautiful college student. It was perfect.
I nodded and smiled at the group of prospective jurors when Judge Green introduced me. I immediately scanned the room for Junior Tester, but he wasn’t there. I introduced Angel and placed my hand on her shoulder. I wanted the jury to know I wasn’t ashamed to touch her, that I felt close to her, and that I believed in her. Angel nodded her head and smiled, just as I’d told her to do.
I sat back down as Judge Green began the jury selection process. He reached into a stack of slips and randomly pulled out a name.
“Lucille Benton,” he said.
A lady wearing a denim pantsuit rose from the middle of the crowded audience.
“Here,” she said, raising her hand.
“Come on down.” Judge Green sounded like a game show host. “Where are you from?”
“Limestone,” the woman said, walking to the jury box.
“Ah, Limestone, wonderful little community. And how are things in Limestone this morning, Ms. Benton?”
I cringed. I was sitting next to a woman who was on trial for murder, and Judge Green was politicking as usual, pandering shamelessly to the jurors. I scribbled notes while he instructed the first thirteen to sit in the jury box and the next seven to sit on the front row of the audience, just behind the bar. Finally, after a half-hour of worthless banter from the judge, I heard the words I’d been waiting for.
“Mr. Martin, you may voir dire the jury.”
Frankie Martin rose, straightened his tie, and moved to the podium. He was about to address a jury in a murder case for the first time in his life, having spent the past four years handling misdemeanor cases in general sessions court. But he was a handsome, articulate young man and carried himself with confidence. He was also fighting for his very survival in the prosecutor’s office. The fact that Deacon Baker was not in the courtroom could mean only one thing: he thought the case was a loser. Martin was Baker’s sacrificial lamb. If Martin lost this trial, he’d be hustling divorce cases next week.
I whispered into Angel’s ear: “I need you to watch the jurors very carefully. If anyone on the jury makes you uncomfortable for any reason, I want to know about it.”
She nodded. Caroline had obviously given her some perfume. She smelled like a lilac bush.
Martin spent an hour on his initial voir dire. He was smooth and courteous, and he failed to make some of the mistakes that rookie lawyers tend to make at their first big trial. Judge Green didn’t get a single opportunity to embarrass him.
When Martin finally sat down, I got into character. While he was speaking, I’d used the time to memorize the jurors’ names. I smiled and was meticulously polite to each of them. I thanked them for performing such a valuable public service and told them if I asked a question that made them the least bit uncomfortable, they could ask the judge to allow them to answer the question in private. I encouraged them to speak openly and honestly regarding their feelings on a wide range of topics, and as they spoke, I watched them closely, looking for any sign of discontent.
Despite Tom Short’s warning, a large part of my trial strategy was to deflect attention away from Angel and to put Reverend Tester on trial. If it was to succeed I needed jurors, preferably female jurors, who held sincere religious beliefs and would be deeply offended by the fact that the pastor had used donations from a church to fund a night at a strip club. It was known in legal circles as the “sumbitch-deserved-it” strategy, and under the right circumstances, it was highly effective.
I also wanted at least four males on the jury, preferably fathers. Angel had a way of engendering sympathy in men. I wanted them to feel an instinct to protect her. I wanted them to hope, perhaps to believe, that they could seek her out after the trial was over and let her know it was their vote, or their influence, that had set her free.
After three hours of questions and answers, challenges and arguments, Judge Green announced that a jury had been chosen. There were five men and seven women. I hadn’t been able to get every person I wanted on the jury, because Frankie kept using his challenges to kick them off, but I felt good about the group sitting in the box. The jurors were given buttons with their names on them, and the judge swore them in. He instructed them on how they should conduct themselves during the case, then looked up at the clock on the back wall.
“It’s noon. I’m hungry. We’ll adjourn until one-thirty for lunch.”
After the jury was out of sight, the bailiffs escorted Angel back to the holding cell. Caroline had packed me a sandwich and some chips, and I spent the lunch hour going over my opening statement. At precisely 1:30, Judge Green walked back into the courtroom and ordered the bailiffs to bring the jury in.
I stood as the jury filed in and took their seats. I smiled and tried to catch the eye of each person passing the defense table.
“I trust you had a good lunch,” the judge said. “Is the state ready?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Is the defense ready?”
“Yes, judge.”
“Read the indictment, Mr. Martin.”
Martin stood and read the indictment that charged Angel Christian with knowingly, intentionally, and with premeditation taking the life of John Paul Tester. Count Two charged her with abusing the corpse by mutilation.
“Opening statements,” the judge said.
Frankie Martin stood up.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the evidence in this case will sh
ow you that the defendant, Angel Christian, brutally stabbed and mutilated John Paul Tester in the early morning on April twelve of this year. Mr. Tester visited a club where the defendant worked on that same evening. The defendant flirted with Mr. Tester, she served him many drinks, and at approximately 11:30 p.m., Mr. Tester withdrew two hundred dollars from an ATM machine in the club lobby. The defendant left the establishment shortly after Mr. Tester left. A witness will testify that she saw a woman accompany Mr. Tester to his room around midnight. Mr. Tester was found at approximately 1:00 p.m. that afternoon in his hotel room. He had been drugged and stabbed nearly thirty times. His penis had been sliced off and removed from the room. His wallet was gone. His severed penis was found near Picken’s Bridge that same morning.”
Martin was calling Tester “Mister” instead of “Reverend.” I’d take care of that soon enough.
“Among the evidence gathered during a forensic examination of Mr. Tester’s hotel room were two hairs that were found on his clothing. Both hairs were tested for DNA. A hair sample was later obtained from the defendant. The DNA profile of the hairs found on Mr. Tester’s body matches exactly the DNA profile of the hair sample obtained from the defendant. The chances of those hairs belonging to someone else are more than one hundred billion to one. You’ll also see a photograph of the defendant taken by the police two days after the murder. The photo shows a bruise on the defendant’s face, and our contention is that she received the bruise during some kind of altercation with Mr. Tester.
“But more importantly, we have a witness who will testify that the defendant confessed to this brutal crime. Our witness is an inmate at the Washington County Detention Center. Her name is Sarah Dillard. Ironically, she’s Mr. Dillard’s sister. She will testify that the defendant confessed during a conversation they had at the jail. The defendant told Miss Dillard that on the night of the murder, the defendant followed Mr. Tester back to his motel room with the intention of robbing him. She’ll testify that the defendant told her that she drugged Mr. Tester and killed him after he passed out on the bed.
“I wish I had a videotape to show you, or an eyewitness, but unfortunately, I don’t. What I do have is a web of circumstantial evidence so tightly woven that the defendant cannot possibly escape. Everything points to her. She was at the club. She spoke to Mr. Tester. She served him drinks. She flirted with him. She invited him to leave with her. She followed him to his room, and then she drugged him, murdered him, and robbed him.”
Martin turned and pointed at Angel.
“Don’t let yourselves be fooled by that young woman’s beauty or her youth. Don’t let yourselves be taken in by her attorney’s tricks or the smoke and mirrors that will no doubt be used to confuse you during the course of this trial. That young woman sitting over there committed a vicious murder, and we have the evidence to prove it. It will be your duty to render a verdict of guilty in this case, and to impose on her the only sentence that will give justice to John Paul Tester and his family, a sentence of death. This woman committed first-degree murder. My job is to prove it. Yours is to make her pay the price. I fully intend to hold up my end, and I hope that once you’ve heard all the evidence, you’ll do the same. Thank you.”
Martin sat down at the prosecutor’s table, and I stood. Martin’s argument had been passionate and persuasive, but parts of it were dishonest, and I intended to point that out immediately. I walked to the wooden lectern, picked it up, and set it down three feet to my right. I didn’t want any barriers between the jurors and me. I glanced at the jurors and then out over the courtroom. Junior Tester had come in and was sitting on the front row, directly to my left. I noticed that he’d put on at least twenty pounds since I’d visited him a couple of months ago. He hadn’t shaved in days and looked tired and haggard. He was also staring directly at me. It unnerved me, but only for a few seconds.
“Not much point in having a trial,” I said, “if you believe everything Mr. Martin just said.” I smiled at the jury. “If everything he said were true, I suppose we could just go ahead and ship Miss Christian off to death row right now and save everybody all of this trouble.”
I sought out eyes, looking for signs that Martin’s argument had closed their minds. They weren’t avoiding me. They were still receptive to what I had to say.
“But what Mr. Martin just told you isn’t the truth. It was his interpretation of the evidence, and as every one of you knows, there are two sides to every story. Now, first things first. This young lady’s name is not ‘the defendant.’”
I walked over to the defense table and stood directly behind Angel. I put my hands on her shoulders.
“Her name is Angel Christian, and she’s going to testify in this case. What she will tell you is this:
“On the night of April the eleventh of this year, Reverend John Paul Tester came into the club where she’d been a waitress for only a month. It’s a strip club, a gentleman’s club, whatever you want to call it. It’s a place where men go to watch young ladies dance and take their clothes off. It’s not the kind of place where you’d expect to find a man of God, especially if he’s paying for his night out with money given to him by worshippers at the Church of the Light of Jesus, where he’d preached a sermon on the evils of fornication less than an hour before he arrived at the club.”
Diane Frye had managed to get hold of a tape recording of the sermon Tester gave that night. I’d tried to get it introduced as evidence, but the judge shot me down. I wasn’t even supposed to mention it, but if Frankie didn’t object, I knew the judge wouldn’t say a word. If he did object, he’d simply be calling more attention to it. Mentioning the tape probably bordered on being unethical, but Angel was on trial for her life. Frankie kept his mouth shut.
“Miss Christian wasn’t a dancer, not a stripper, and she certainly wasn’t a prostitute. She was a waitress. She arrived here in February after leaving a viciously abusive situation back home in Oklahoma. She originally intended to go to Florida, but she met a young lady on a bus in Dallas who told her she’d help Miss Christian find work here.
“Miss Christian will tell you that on the night of April the eleventh, she served Reverend Tester the drinks he ordered — six doubles, straight scotch, the equivalent of twelve drinks, in two hours. She’ll tell you Reverend Tester became intoxicated and that he was aggressive, even a little abusive, toward her. She’ll tell you Reverend Tester used inappropriate language and that Reverend Tester touched her inappropriately. She reported Reverend Tester’s behavior to her employer, Ms. Erlene Barlowe, who will also testify in this case.
“Ms. Barlowe spoke to Reverend Tester, and eventually asked the reverend to leave. Miss Christian had never seen or heard of Reverend Tester prior to his coming to the club that night, and she never saw him again after he walked out the door.”
I moved back to the jury box and stood directly in front of them.
“Now, despite what Mr. Martin said earlier, you won’t hear a single witness tell you they saw Miss Christian anywhere near Reverend Tester’s room that night. You won’t hear a single witness tell you they saw Miss Christian leave the club at the same time Reverend Tester left. As a matter of fact, Miss Christian’s employer, Erlene Barlowe, will testify that Miss Christian finished out her shift and Ms. Barlowe drove her home.
“You’ll hear evidence that two hairs found on the victim’s body contained DNA that matches Miss Christian’s DNA. That is, by far, the most compelling piece of evidence the state will present in this case. I believe it’s safe to say that were it not for those two hairs, we wouldn’t be here today. But what I’ll be asking you to pay particular attention to is where those hairs were found. Both of them were lifted off of Reverend Tester’s shirt. Since there will be testimony that Miss Christian had contact with Mr. Tester at the club, that she leaned over and served him drinks and that he deliberately and obnoxiously rubbed himself against her, it’s not only possible but probable that the hairs were transferred from Miss Christian to Reverend Tester at
the club.
“That, ladies and gentlemen, is all they have, with the exception of a last-minute statement from a drug addict and thief they recruited at the jail. She’s my sister, yes, and she’s furious with me because I had her arrested when she stole from my family. It wasn’t the first time she’d done it.”
Martin stood to object. Judge Green waved him back down.
“Tone it down, Mr. Dillard,” the judge said.
“They have no murder weapon. They have no eyewitnesses. They have no fingerprints, no blood evidence, and no way to place Miss Christian at the scene of the crime. They say the motive is robbery, but they didn’t find any of Reverend Tester’s money on Miss Christian. They have no evidence to prove it.
“In this case, the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Miss Christian, acting with premeditation, stabbed the victim to death and then mutilated his body. In order for you to convict Miss Christian, you must have virtually no doubt that she committed this terrible crime. And beyond that, the judge will instruct you that in a case based on circumstantial evidence such as this one, you can only find Miss Christian guilty if there is no other reasonable theory of guilt. There are dozens of other reasonable theories as to how Reverend Tester was killed.
“When all the evidence is in, you folks will have more than a reasonable doubt. As a matter of fact, you’ll probably be wondering why this young lady was arrested in the first place. Angel Christian has been living a nightmare since the day the state wrongfully accused her of murder. It’s a nightmare only you can end. She is not guilty. She did not do this terrible thing.”
I paused and looked at each of the jurors. I wanted the message to sink in.
“Everyone associated with this trial is doing their duty,” I said. “The judge, the lawyers, the witnesses, everyone. Your duty is to determine the truth, and after you’ve done that, to vote your conscience. In this case, the only verdict you’ll be able to return is not guilty. This is a death penalty case. A man has been killed, and someone should pay for killing him. But none of us wants an innocent person to pay, and that beautiful young woman sitting over there is innocent.”
