“Bailiff,” Schwab called out over Peernock’s voice, “have him bound and gagged!”
As the defendant was being dragged out, he continued shouting all the way down the aisle.
“I want a sixty-day continuance so I can prepare a motion for new trial!”
Tasha could feel her heart slamming inside her chest. The atmosphere in the room took on an out-of-control, nightmare quality. My God, she wondered in a sudden panic, what if he’s managed to hire some cohort to come in here in a deputy’s uniform and toss him a gun? How much power does he really have outside his cell, anyway? She held her breath, half convinced that an explosion of violence would go off in the next second.
There was stunned silence among all the witnesses in the courtroom. A number of them, having testified at trial and therefore not having been allowed to see any other part of it, had never witnessed one of his outbursts before. They had just had their first look at something Tasha knew all too well: the way Robert Peernock could go from dead-eyed calm to hot rage in split seconds. The crimes that she had described instantly became easier for everyone else to visualize.
When he was brought back a short time later he was gagged; the entire bottom half of his head was wrapped in duct tape. His hands were cuffed behind him as Natasha’s had been four years before.
Now Judge Schwab ordered that all the sealed portions of the transcript should finally be unsealed, so that future courts and the attorney general of California could have the benefit of reading the many accusations that Donald Green and others had had to endure from Robert Peernock during sealed proceedings over the course of the trial. They are now public record. They are there for anyone who chooses to take the trouble to read page after page of every imaginable accusation of corruption and bribery, all leveled by Robert Peernock against anyone who would not do as he ordered.
Still, Green had continued to file one motion after another on Peernock’s behalf and to argue passionately for him at the trial.
Later that day, just before Peernock’s fate was read to him, Green pleaded for the lightest sentence possible. He asked the court to view Peernock’s behavior not as consciousness of guilt but as the actions of a desperate man. He ended his pleas for leniency with a historical reference that was right in the domain of Howard Schwab’s personal interest.
“One hundred and thirty-one years ago,” Green began, “in a hot August summer in Washington, D.C., there was the famous Andersonville trial. This was the trial of Captain Henry Wirz, who was the Confederate commandant of the Sumter County prison camp for Union soldiers during the Civil War. And during his command between 1863 and the end of the war, some twenty thousand Union soldiers were starved, beaten, or otherwise killed.
“But there was not one person, not one person, who could actually say that Captain Henry Wirz killed any of those people …. There was one person who came in, in the middle of the trial. That person didn’t even have a name. He was named by his cohorts in prison. His nickname was Chickamauga, and Chickamauga was the name given to him because of a famous battle in the Civil War, at which time he lost all his memory of everything that occurred before the battle. But everything that occurred after the battle he remembered in excruciating and lurid detail.
“And when Chickamauga was on the stand he couldn’t remember anything about what happened before he got to Andersonville prison, but he did remember that one time when he was released on a work detail to go outside of the prison camp to gather firewood, to gather blueberries so that they could have additional foodstuffs, he remembered seeing Captain Henry Wirz on a horse and saying, ‘Kill that union soldier son of a bitch.’
“And one of the Confederate soldiers shot him …. The moral of the story is, your honor, that Captain Henry Wirz was ultimately hanged in the decision of the court martial which sat in his judgment. And judgment was pronounced by General Lew Wallace, who later came to be the first territorial governor of the state of New Mexico—”
“And the author of Ben Hur,” Schwab added with a smile, not missing a beat.
“And the author of Ben Hur, a religious novel.”
“However,” Schwab interrupted, “with all due respect, Mr. Wirz did not flee to Las Vegas and see a girlie show on the night of the homicide ….”
Green never really wrapped up the end of his story. Perhaps it is safe to assume that, with Howard Schwab’s interruption, Green knew that he was watching the stern of the Good Ship Peernock sink beneath the waves for the final time.
However, just as Judge Schwab was preparing to dole out the sentences, he expressed his admiration for Donald Green’s work, performed under a vise grip of pressure and without support of his client.
“I would note for the record that I find, Mr. Green, that you are an outstanding lawyer. You are a man of high integrity and you have defended your client to the best of your abilities, which are considerable. But I look at this case as a very, very strong case against Mr. Peernock. The evidence is overwhelming with and without Natasha Peernock’s testimony. And I find here a man who murdered his wife and tried to murder his own daughter, his own flesh and blood, a most unnatural act, for nothing less than greed and money.
“To take your own future and cast it away for money.” Schwab sighed, then continued. “As I’ve said before during the trial when Mr. Peernock was disruptive, I had him removed from the court for two reasons. One, I wanted to ensure Mr. Peernock a fair trial. That was very important to me… Second, I felt it was unseemly that Mr. Peernock should be bound and gagged in front of the jury. But today I felt that if in fact the motions for a new trial were to be denied, that Mr. Peernock should be present in court to be able to see for himself the results of his foul crimes.
“And what he has done is inexcusable and inhuman. I find him to be one of the most dangerous men that has ever appeared before me in this court. I find him to be one of the most dangerous men that I have ever had to deal with in my career as an attorney, and I have dealt with many very dangerous and severe homicides. And as such I make the following sentence ….”
All those in the room held their breath for an instant. People often do at this point. It is the moment of justice boiled down to its smallest component.
Consequence.
“The motion for new trial is denied on all grounds,” Schwab began. “Now I also notice—” He stopped, looking at Peernock.
Peernock slumped forward, as if passing out. But his nose was not covered by the tape gag. Was this, perhaps, a last little trick? Sentence cannot be pronounced on an unconscious defendant.
“Is Mr. Peernock having a problem? I notice he has placed his face underneath the desk. This is a court of law, I will not have him act like an animal in this court.”
Schwab ordered a recess as Peernock was removed once again so deputies could see if there was a real problem. But moments later Peernock was brought back in, still bound and gagged.
“Probation is denied, of course,” Schwab began once more, “the grounds being that Mr. Peernock is a tremendous danger to the community ….”
Then Schwab issued the first sentence, for the solicitation of a hired hit on Natasha and Victoria after Peernock’s arrest. “The sentence will be twenty-two years, four months in prison.”
The length of that sentence was Natasha’s exact age at that time. The tone of irony that had begun the case years before, with Peernock claiming that he was guilty of nothing more than too deep a loyalty to society, now grew to a peak. Robert would serve the length of his daughter’s life for having tried to have that life extinguished.
Judge Schwab further ordered that after Peernock had served the twenty-two years and four months for soliciting Natasha’s murder, he would then begin a life sentence for his attempted murder and assault upon Natasha during the night of the crimes. And after he had served the twenty-two years and four months followed by the life sentence, if he were still alive due to some mediating factor of sentence reduction for good behavior, then whatever remained of Rober
t John Peernock would begin serving a term of life in prison without possibility of parole for the murder of Claire Peernock.
“I do this,” Schwab explained, “because of the especially callous manner in which this crime was committed, almost a torturous, satanic manner, in which his daughter was tied up, hog-tied, had the mask put on her face, was force-fed with alcohol and drugs, in which he attempted to murder his own daughter, his own flesh and blood, an unspeakable act even in this day and age of unspeakable acts.
“… I want the following placed in a minute order to go with Mr. Peernock’s file. It is my most steadfast recommendation that Mr. Peernock never be allowed back into society, and I want this stated in the minute order that I recommend that no future governor ever parole Mr. Peernock. That if any future governor should parole Mr. Peernock, Natasha Peernock’s life is in danger. Other persons’ lives are in danger. And the blood of any person Mr. Peernock kills will be on that governor’s hands.
“… I further recommend, and I want this placed in the minute order, that he be placed, that Mr. Peernock be placed in a position of high security, the most high security prison possible, Pelican Bay if possible … that he be allowed to have as little contact with other persons as possible because of his danger to other human beings. So I want this also placed in the minute order that he is to be put in a high security module as much as possible, Pelican Bay if possible, and that he be watched carefully and never allowed to again wreak his evil vengeance for greed or any other untoward purpose.”
And then Robert Peernock was taken away.
Deputy DA Pam Springer’s light blond hair made her stand out in the crowd as she sat alone in a back row of the courtroom to watch Robert Peernock’s sentencing. Even though she had been transferred away from the Peernock case two years before and carried her own heavy caseload, she had asked Craig Richman to tell her when the sentencing was to take place so that she could come and see for herself. She sat wordlessly through the bizarre drama of Peernock’s explosions and through all of the heartrending comments that family friends delivered before the sentence was read. She listened to each judgment being read against Peernock, in which the word evil was used again and again.
Like Craig Richman, she describes how her work always consists of rushing from one hot spot to another, usually on an emergency basis. She says that the same is true for everyone on the front lines of the firestorm of crime that is blackening lives in every part of the largest city in the most populous state in the most powerful country history has ever known. And she shares in the frustration of a besieged population that cries out for better protection, safer streets, longer sentences for felons, more prisons to hold them—and lower taxes.
But Springer paused in her rush from one fire to another on the day of Peernock’s sentencing because she felt the need to see for herself the moment of consequence for this man who had made a mockery of the very idea of family and who then had openly jeered at the system while it labored to bring him to justice.
When it was all over she paused long enough to congratulate Craig Richman for having pursued the conviction so avidly, as she had been certain that he would. Then she turned and hurried back to her own office, back to the latest fire. There had been no time to spare for her to attend the hearing to begin with, but as with so many other people involved with this case, her professional detachment had been penetrated by it. The specter of a father laying waste to his own daughter’s face with a bar of cold steel was an image she couldn’t shrug off.
Pam Springer had recently given birth to her first child, a baby girl.
Detective Steve Fisk offered a quick congratulation to Craig Richman too. But that was it. The day was still early enough for him to get back to the office and check on new developments in his latest landslide of homicide cases. As he began his twenty-fifth year as an L.A. cop, he knew all too well there is never time to rest on laurels. While the city’s population tears away at its own flesh like some crazed animal caught in a trap, Fisk hangs on to his serenity as a born-again Christian. Others don’t have his source of solace; old friends on the force are constantly dropping out on stress leave or taking early retirement.
Steve Fisk had only been able to build this case by putting in outrageous seventeen- and eighteen-hour days, sometimes working straight through the weekend. It’s a pace no one can sustain indefinitely, but he’d been trying not only to give back some kind of justice to what remained of the Peernock family but to give back a little justice to the city he’d been born and raised in, where he has built his own family.
It was just one way to work at giving his kids some sense of hope for the future, a sense that if enough people can pull together hard enough, determinedly enough, things might not fall completely apart after all.
But he knew there would be a stack of messages waiting on his desk.
There always is.
“I don’t do high-fives when I win a case, and I didn’t do any then,” Craig Richman said afterward. “This thing was a tragedy any way you look at it. Here was a man who had it all, and he threw it away. A mother is dead with young daughters she will never see growing up. Natasha was left to try to find some way to trust people again.
“It was definitely not ‘Miller time.’ But you take what satisfaction you can. At least Vicki and Tasha both have a better chance to live out natural lifespans without some hired psycho coming after them.
“Your reward just has to be the satisfaction of creating a little justice. That”—he grins—“and of course the fabulous paycheck of a public servant.
“I did get the rest of the day off, though. So that’s something. There was just enough time to hit the gym on the way home.”
Now that this case was wrapped up there would, of course, be another stack of files sitting on his desk the next morning.
There always is.
Donald Green left the courtroom that day feeling sure that he could have provided his client with the magical reasonable doubt if only the man had kept his mouth shut and cooperated. Green had earned the admiration of everyone involved with the case, but he headed for the airport having only the Ancient Litigator’s Riddle for comfort: “Attorneys work so hard to win their cases. Why do clients work so hard to lose them?” He had taken the case determined to help prevent a man from being “framed for murder,” as his client had presented the story to him. But Robert Peernock, as Judge Schwab eventually concluded, had come to court determined to make it his personal Golgotha.
So Green left Los Angeles still facing a malpractice suit by the client he had tried to save. It would be many months to come before the suit would be dismissed. Later, he would also be taken to court by the investigators who had worked on the case for him, despite the fact that he’d entirely used what little money the courts provided him in order to pay his investigators’ fees. Even though the investigators initially agreed that they would get paid only when Green himself did, and Green got nothing for all his troubles, they took him to court anyway.
He eventually won the suit, but it would take him years to clear up the legal fallout from the Peernock debacle.
Remarkably, at the time of this writing Green has changed nothing about his way of carrying out his practice. He still will not turn away a referral client in need of defense on a major felony charge, regardless of his or her ability to pay. He kept his practice going despite huge monetary losses on the case. He still hates the idea of innocent people facing prison because they can’t afford good representation. So cases continue to come through his door because the word is out that he fights hard and loves to win.
When his clients give him the chance.
Although Robert Peernock seemed to have been pulled from the courtroom a thoroughly beaten and traumatized man, the case record shows that he went back to his cell and hand-wrote a “Designation of Record on Appeal.” It was many pages long and signed that same day. Before the sun was down on the day of his sentencing, the unrelenting jailhouse lawyer had already begun
the process of setting his appeal in motion.
Tasha lay down that afternoon and went to sleep, something she rarely did in the daytime. But the day’s strangeness had vacuumed all of the energy out of her. She was limp with fatigue. She hadn’t spoken at the sentencing hearing, even though Craig had invited her to. Where would she find words to express her feelings as her father was locked away forever? The reporters outside the courtroom had hounded her for quotes, but she’d brushed past them and said nothing. She’d felt no need to see her name in the papers again and had no desire to make a soundbite for the evening news. Writers had pressed business cards into her hands. She’d dropped them to the floor and kept moving toward the exit, hungry for nothing else than to be gone from that unhappy place for the last time.
She lay down to rest without thinking whether she wanted to or not. Her body had just run out of gas. Sleep carried her away.
She woke up hours later. It had gotten dark. In the first fuzzy moment after opening her eyes it seemed that everything, all of it, had been an endless, awful dream.
Then as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes, her fingers brushed over the indented bones above her cheek, the ones that ached and throbbed every time the weather turned cold. She was instantly reminded that all of it had been real.
The reminders would be there for the rest of her sleep-shortened days and throughout all of her long, wakeful nights. Clear and present monster tracks, they would keep the memories forever close at hand.
CHAPTER
31
Robert was shipped off to Pelican Bay, a super security high-tech prison whose renowned Secure Housing Unit, called simply the SHU, is a thing of dread among California prisoners. Some of the SHU’s most hardened inmates are said to have gone quite literally insane in the enforced silence of its utter isolation.
Even the very toughest child-murdering, gang-banging jailhouse thugs are known to have begged to be released back to a life of hard labor at an ordinary maximum security prison after less than a year in the SHU. A few have been dragged away to mental units after resorting to extreme and irrational behavior within their cells, going so far as to smear urine and feces all over themselves as if in some bizarre form of performance art reflecting the devolution of their lives. But at the Pelican Bay SHU such behavior is rarely effective in earning a transfer to a padded cell; more often they simply end up chained to their one-piece toilet.
A Checklist for Murder Page 30
