by Carol Baxter
A horrified hush descended on the courtroom. The jurors stared at Tallman’s hands, then leaned forward almost compulsively to gaze at the exhibit. A female spectator fled from the room. The International News Service’s Larry Smits remarked that the skull’s production was a macabre act worthy of the imagination of the great Edgar Allan Poe himself.
The courtroom attendees weren’t looking at Haden’s face, of course—at his dark hair or eyes or fleshy nose or upper lip. Or his blood-spattered wounds. They were looking at his bony skull, which had been boiled in water to remove the decomposing flesh. Still, it was a ghastly sight they would remember for the remainder of the trial, if not the remainder of their lives. They hadn’t been offered a picture of the living Haden with his movie-star good looks. All they knew was that he enjoyed drink, drugs and debauchery. And now these negative impressions were being glued to the image of a gruesome skull. It was courtroom theatre at its most audacious.
Carson briefly questioned Tallman then called his newly acquired expert to the witness stand. Albert H. Hamilton, senior member of the firm of Hamilton & Hamilton, ballistic experts and criminologists of Auburn, New York, had read accounts of the trial in his local newspaper. He had phoned Carson with suggestions regarding the evidence already submitted to the court and had offered to travel to Miami to testify. When Carson admitted that he had no funds to pay him, Hamilton said that he would pay his own way.
Hamilton told the court that he’d had forty-seven years’ experience in the industry, this being his 296th case. He was employed only to the extent of examining the exhibits and making his report to his employer. The evidence he found determined whether he was then employed by the prosecution or defence. His previous cases? He had, for example, been called to testify in the Sacco and Vanzetti case.
Everyone remembered this 1920s case involving two Italian anarchists who had been convicted and executed for murder. It continued to be the subject of much controversy.
Carson asked, ‘Is there any scientific way to determine the distance of the muzzle from the body?’
Hamilton said that there was a way, with some limitations. He had examined the exhibits and determined that Clarke’s wound was what was called a contact shot. Three types of contact wounds existed: contact with the muzzle just touching the skin; loose contact, in which the muzzle presses slightly into the skin; and close contact, in which the muzzle is pushed against the body or, in the case of the head, the muzzle is pushed hard against the head and the head against the muzzle.
‘When the gun loosely touches the skin and the shot is fired,’ Hamilton explained, ‘the bullet comes first. Behind it is a mixture of powder gases of a high temperature. They are on the base of the bullet. The moment the bullet base leaves the muzzle and enters the skin, with the slightly loosened contact, it lets the smoke shoot out and it is deposited on the outer surface of the skin. This reduces the pressure so when the bullet enters the head, the maximum force of the bullet doesn’t enter the head.’
The courtroom was silent as the spectators hung on his every word.
‘In close contact, there is no explosion until the bullet enters the scalp and the smoke deposit goes on the inner surface of the scalp. If you peel down the scalp and examine it, you find a roseate while the outside is not marked. The hair on the head around the wound is not even singed. Expanding of gases in the skull pounds the brain to a pulp jelly, the skull itself is fractured, and in certain instances from eight to ten radiating fractures are found.’
As Hamilton provided his detailed yet comprehensible explanation, Carson couldn’t believe his luck. He now asked, ‘Is there any way to distinguish whether it is suicide or murder in a contact shot?’
‘Yes, in certain cases. When the gun is one-hundredth of an inch away you can’t tell, but the record made by this shot shows that the gun was in close contact with the head, and the head was exerting itself against the gun. My conclusion is that the hand which held the gun belongs to the same body as the head.’
Picking up the gun, Hamilton pushed the muzzle against his head. As the seconds dragged by, every eye in the courtroom focused on his forefinger. They saw it tug gently on the trigger. As they held their collective breaths, the finger tugged harder and the firing pin clicked.
Nothing happened, of course. The chamber was empty. However, as he fired the gun another four times, some of the spectators looked decidedly queasy.
Receiving permission to leave the witness stand, he picked up the skull and carried it over to the jury box. Holding it so that the right ear was facing the jurors, he pointed to the bullet’s entrance wound and to the three radiating fractures surrounding it. He said that the bullet had entered the thinnest portion of the skull, where it was between two-sixteenths and three-sixteenths of an inch in thickness. Swivelling the skull, he pointed to five radiating fractures at the exit point. Then he reached out and handed the skull to one of the jurors.
‘I knew upon examination,’ Hamilton told the man who was gingerly holding the skull, ‘that there was a tremendous explosion in the skull, striking in all directions. That told me that the gun was pressed very hard against the head and the head was pressed against the muzzle of the gun.’ He added that the photographs, which were excellent, showed that Haden’s hair wasn’t even singed. As he spoke, he handed the skull to each of the jurors. After he collected it from the final juror, he put it back in its box on the exhibit table.
Picking up the gun again, he demonstrated how Haden had held the gun at the time of the shooting. ‘I found it easy to pull the trigger without cocking the gun,’ Hamilton advised the jurors. Using a protractor, he showed that the bullet was fired across the head with a slight backward angle of between three and six degrees, and that the bullet’s upward trajectory was between ten and twelve degrees. He indicated that this was feasible from a self-inflicted wound.
Carson asked, ‘Have you made up your mind finally, based on the exhibits, as to how he came to his death?’
‘Yes I have. There is but one conclusion that could be arrived at from this examination. And that was that this shot was a self-inflicted, close, hard contact shot at the instant the gun was hard against the head and the head hard against the gun.’
‘Was it suicide or homicide?’ Carson asked, wanting his expert’s conclusion to be as clear as possible for the jury.
‘Absolutely homicide!’ Hamilton announced.
As Hamilton sat back triumphantly, Carson’s face blanched with shock. He jumped to his feet and stuttered, ‘What did you say?’
The spectators saw Hamilton pause for a moment as if replaying his words. His eyes widened with horror. Laughing nervously, he said, ‘I was thinking of something else’—as if such a claim could account for his appalling gaffe. He then took a deep breath and proclaimed, ‘Absolutely suicide! There is not a scintilla of evidence to support a theory of homicide or murder.’
The press largely ignored Hamilton’s slip-up. They were dazzled. Everyone was. The United Press correspondent declared him to be the ‘ace card played by the defence’. The Miami Herald pointed out that most of the spectators and court attachés thought his testimony conclusive, which meant that many of the jurors would as well. Hawthorne would have his work cut out if he was to undermine the evidence of the defence’s last-minute expert.
Commencing his cross-examination, Hawthorne said, ‘I think you stated that the death of Haden Clarke without question was self-inflicted. But if you were asleep with your head on a pillow when someone touched your forehead with an object, and you were trying to come out of a sound sleep, would the effect not be the same?’ As he said the words, he placed his finger on his temple and jerked his head towards his finger.
‘These conditions wouldn’t exist, Mr Hawthorne. You would not have the power to throw your head as you just did. I’d say it would be impossible and his feather pillow would offer a springy effect which would not allow sufficient pressure unless you have the consent of the head.’ He added that, if a
person awoke to find a gun being pushed into his or her head, the tendency would in fact be to pull away.
Having failed to undermine Hamilton’s explanations of the evidence, Hawthorne set about attacking his reputation. He denounced him as a publicity-conscious attention-seeker. He then took him to task over some problems with the evidence in the Sacco and Vanzetti case. But he failed to breach Hamilton’s smug self-confidence.
The forensic interrogations continued the following morning. Dr Donald F. Gowe, a second member of the autopsy commission, told the court he had conducted 184 autopsies in his years as a doctor. He testified about the commission’s findings, including the radiating fractures in the skull. As a rule, he said, these types of fractures were not caused by the bullet itself but by gas explosions.
‘Can you infer from your examination the distance of the muzzle of the pistol from the head?’
‘I infer that the muzzle was close to the head.’
‘Do you feel competent to express an opinion if the wound was self-inflicted or not?’
‘I do not, not scientifically.’
‘Based on probability?’
‘Oh, yes, on probability.’
Hawthorne objected to the question and answer and the judge sustained the objection. But the damage was already done. One of the city’s own medical experts had just told the court that he had reached the same conclusion as the defence’s ballistics expert. And the other three members of the commission also informed the jurors that the gun was clearly in direct contact with the skull when it was fired.
In Hamilton’s testimony, he had mentioned that another sign of a close contact wound was a powder roseate found on the skull around the wound entrance. Carson asked Dr Tallman if he had seen such a roseate on the skull. Tallman said that he had.
Having established by the testimony of these five witnesses that the gun was pressed so firmly to Clarke’s head that the gases could only escape into the skull itself, Carson completed his forensic interrogations.
Hawthorne wasn’t finished with Hamilton. He knew how powerful the ballistics expert’s testimony had been. Even if he hadn’t been able to gauge the courtroom mood, he had read the journalists’ opinions. He recalled Hamilton and questioned him about his decision to testify. Hamilton told him that he had approached Carson because it was too late by then to approach Hawthorne himself.
‘Why was it too late to come to me?’
‘That’s very simple. You should have had my report before going before the grand jury and seeking an indictment. Then this trial never would have occurred.’
Hawthorne asked what information in the witnesses’ testimonies had led him to contact Carson.
‘I thought that the undertaker’s statements about the powder burns was misleading and would have a misleading effect on the jury. I thought Mr Carson ought to know.’
It was one of those moments when a prosecutor wished he could object to his own question and have it struck from the record—and from the minds of the jurors. He slid onto a new subject, asking Hamilton if the results of his examinations could be determined with mathematical certainty.
Hamilton picked up the skull and turned it from one side to the other as he made his calculations. Suddenly it slipped from his hands and flew up into the air. The spectators gasped. Hawthorne reached out and tried to grab it. He missed. Time seemed to slow as the skull descended. Hamilton snatched at it and managed to grab hold of it, juggling it a few times before hugging it to his chest like a football.
Thankful that his interrogation hadn’t descended into a complete farce, Hawthorne briskly rubbed his hands together—a symbolic ‘phew!’ As the spectators laughed, the courtroom tension eased.
The prosecution’s final forensic rebuttal witness was C.A. Peterson, who had conducted the state’s ballistics tests. Hawthorne asked if he knew Doctor Hamilton.
‘Only by his reputation.’
‘Do you know his general reputation as an expert witness regarding his regard for truth and veracity?’
When Peterson acknowledged that he did, Hawthorne asked if his reputation was good or bad.
‘Bad.’
Naturally, Carson didn’t want such a damaging assessment of his key witness lingering in the jurors’ minds over the weekend. He and Hawthorne proceeded to conduct a legal skirmish, each using their questions to Peterson to belittle the other’s expert.
Three of Carson’s final witnesses were called to rebut the claims that Hamilton had a poor reputation. One was Miami’s own Francis Malone, city editor of the Miami Daily News, who had collaborated in writing a series of articles about Hamilton and believed that the man had a sound reputation.
Hawthorne’s rebuttal witnesses included men who testified that Haden had thought there would be trouble when Bill came back. But could anyone truly think there wouldn’t be trouble of some sort when a man cuckolded his best friend? Other witnesses said that Haden was a happy-go-lucky fellow who wasn’t depressed and didn’t seem to worry about anything at all, including his finances.
Noteworthy by its absence was any testimony from Haden’s mother or his brother. Beverly Clarke continued to sit with the prosecutors while witnesses testified about his brother’s temperament and emotional state. Towards the end of the trial, his mother sat among the courtroom spectators. Neither was called to resurrect the reputation of the dead ghostwriter.
Chapter Forty-Seven
The final battle now began, the tug-of-war between two implacable forces who were determined to show the jurors they had the truth on their side. Hawthorne and his team had commenced the trial thinking that the verdict was a foregone conclusion—if there ever could be such a thing in a jury trial. Now, two weeks later, they knew it would be a fight to the finish.
Carson was the first to offer his closing argument. He began by telling the jury that the prosecution’s case had continuously crumbled as it was being presented and that he would show its collapse by examining its witnesses’ statements.
The state had drawn from Attorney Huston that Bill had wanted him to say that the gun that killed Haden Clarke was his own; however, this clearly wasn’t the sleight-of-hand intimated by the state because Bill had purchased the gun as a replacement. Likewise, Huston’s testimony that Bill had asked if Haden was likely to speak again was later shown to be phrased differently, that Bill hoped Clarke would speak again so he could explain why he did it.
Regarding Officer Hudson’s testimony, Carson told the court that he had many concerns. The crumpled telegram. The blood-soaked gun that had been wiped off before being passed to the state’s fingerprint expert.
As for Chubbie’s testimony, he remarked, ‘There are women—all doctors know it and books show it—who, due to some pathological condition, are utterly unable to live up to the standards of virtue and chastity which you and I have been taught to believe constitutes the crowning virtue of their sex. Here is a woman whose bravery and courage have caused to be fixed upon her the admiring eyes of all the world; but here also is a woman who suffers from some particular physical or mental or pathological defect that has made it necessary for her weakness to be brought forth in this courtroom and detailed fully and completely. And by reason of her matchless gallantry in this courtroom (no matter what her faults may be), her sordid story has gone out over the instruments you hear clicking behind me to be read, to be condemned perhaps, to be gloated over by those of sordid minds in the far corners of the world.’
Chubbie sat in the courtroom watching him, her face expressionless but for her tightly clenched lips.
Carson reminded the court that Chubbie’s testimony had withstood attack from every angle, both in the courtroom and during the initial investigation. If the state attorney’s office had found her guilty of telling any falsehoods they would have trotted them out during the trial.
‘Now we come to the big bad boy, Mr J.F. Russell, around whom the state’s case is very largely built.’ He pointed out that the state’s witness had divulged the detai
ls of Chubbie’s new relationship in the hope of inducing Bill to smuggle Chinese men and dope into America. Bill, however, had not only refused to break the law, he had written in his diary that Russell and Tancrel were accordingly likely to be vindictive.
After reminding the jurors of Tancrel’s lies, Carson declared, ‘These crooks, these lousy bastards, to quote Captain Lancaster, who were trying to violate the laws of this country, are brought into this American courtroom in the name and by the authority of the State of Florida. And without their testimony, what have you got?’
He directed the jurors’ attention to Undertaker Bess, who had testified that there were no powder marks on the outside of Clarke’s head. Yet Dr Thomas, who was paid by the state to perform autopsies, had examined Clarke’s body after his death and had found powder stains inside the wound. Dr Thomas had presented his written report to the grand jury, yet the state attorney had not called him to testify.
Having shown the collapse of the state’s case, he turned his attention to the defence’s case. He told the court that Bill didn’t have to testify, yet he had not only done so, he had been calm, courteous and collected throughout his three days of testimony, offering no contradictions in any of his statements. His character witnesses included national and international heroes who had spent their own money travelling to Miami to testify for Bill—a stark contrast to the witnesses offered by the state. ‘For the defendant, clean, brilliant and outstanding warbirds of the world, birds who come to us from the clean highways of the sky. Can you picture the contrast? In the case of the state, Russell and Tancrel, foul carrion birds, who come to us from cells where they are charged with the betrayal of your country and mine.’
As the courtroom clock ticked the final few minutes before the noon recess, he again read out the eight reasons provided by Chubbie as to why Haden might have committed suicide.
