Mean Justice

by Edward Humes

  The only comfort Laura could take from the Rollins case was the unexpectedly merciful sentence imposed by Judge McGillivray. Over the DA’s protests, the judge invoked a little-used law that let him return Offord to the juvenile justice system, where the case began. Offord’s age, exemplary past and otherwise clean record justified this sentence, the judge ruled, which meant instead of serving the life term District Attorney Ed Jagels sought, Offord would go free at age twenty-five, after enduring a maximum of eight years of incarceration with the California Youth Authority. It was the only flaw Jagels found in what he considered to be an otherwise remarkable victory for his office.42

  As Susan Penninger told it, questions about the performance of police and prosecution—not to mention judge and jury—in the Rollins case seemed obvious and legion, and she believed they should have led to much soul-searching, if not formal inquiries, within the Kern County justice system. Instead, there were only accolades for those responsible and this, more than anything, left Laura afraid for Pat Dunn and unsure of her own case, which had seemed rather powerful before she heard of Offord Rollins. You reward what you want to see more of, she knew.

  A few months after Offord Rollins’ sentence, Jagels named Lisa Green his office’s prosecutor of the year, the first such award he ever bestowed. Responding to claims that the Rollins trial was tainted by racism and official misconduct, Jagels told a reporter such attacks were “an utterly unwarranted and vicious smear offered up by bad losers.”

  “Not only did she try the case extraordinarily well,” Jagels said of Green, “but she exhibited a level of class and professionalism which was an example to us all.”

  7

  THE MOBILE HOME SAGGED IN THE MORNING SUN-light, its metal sides rippling and dirt-streaked, the yard around it strewn with blackened parts from dismantled cars and machinery. Laura Lawhon, for the third time, had driven from the Marriott in Bakersfield to this lonely outpost on a rural road in Weedpatch, surrounded by farms and the thick smells of manure and pesticide. She watched the home, watched the cars, took license-plate numbers. She waited. Coble patrol, she called it: Looking for Jerry Lee Coble, his family, his associates—and information that would unravel his critical eyewitness testimony about Pat Dunn dumping his wife’s body into the back of a pickup truck.

  She took a deep breath and walked to the rickety wooden fence enclosing the rectangle of grassless yard. A weathered man, looking at least sixty years old, with a cap bearing a tractor logo on the front, peered out of the screen door, then slowly walked toward Laura, careful to keep several feet between himself and the fence. It occurred to Laura that he might be afraid she would thrust a subpoena at him, and he wanted to stay out of reach.

  “Mr. Coble?” she said brightly, putting as much wattage into her smile as she could muster.

  The old man said nothing, just looked her up and down, shaking his head slightly, making her acutely aware of just how out of place her light business suit and gold jewelry looked in this barren stretch of blacktop and scrubby fields. She knew this man was Elvin Coble, Jerry Lee’s father, a thirty-year employee of a cement company—a gruff man and a hard drinker, but, unlike his four boys, someone who had never been in trouble with the law. His company thought so highly of his long service and loyalty to two generations of owners that it presented him with a shiny red pickup truck as an honorarium. Gleaming and new in front of that tired yard and weathered house, it appeared to be his most prized possession.

  “Mr. Coble, my name is Laura Lawhon,” she announced, sensing that, with this man, short and to the point was the only way to go. “I’m a private investigator. I work for—”

  “I know who you work for,” the elder Coble cut her off. “You work for that Dunn fellow. The one that killed his wife.”

  Laura flashed another smile at him and shrugged. She could have protested this pronouncement of guilt, said that nothing had been proven against Pat, that he remained innocent under the law, the usual rap. But she knew it would be a waste of time, knew this man wasn’t going to help, knew the Cobles would stand behind Jerry Lee no matter what. Jerry was family. He was blood. And without his deal to testify, he was looking at six years in the slammer. Pat Dunn, on the other hand, was a stranger. Who else could the elder Coble support, other than his own blood? Who else could he choose to believe? Elvin’s bulbous nose, red and thickly veined, bobbed in front of Laura. She could smell alcohol on his breath and his clothes, but his eyes were unclouded and, even though he had to know her job was to attack his son, she saw no malice in his stare, only a weary resignation, the look of a man who had been down this path one too many times with his wayward boys. Laura found to her surprise that she felt sorry for this man, knowing, thirty-odd years ago, he had held a baby son in his arms, had felt the wonder and possibilities of new life, and had never imagined that his boy would become a hype and a convict and a snitch. Elvin Coble could never have envisioned the day that cops and private investigators and attorneys would visit his home more frequently than neighbors and friends. She could see the pain etched in the lines of his broad, open face. But she had to push on, had to do the job, had to try.

  “I just wanted to ask you a few questions about your son Jerry,” she said.

  Elvin Coble started to say something, but a voice called from inside, a younger man’s—maybe one of Jerry’s brothers. Maybe Jerry himself, for all Laura knew. She couldn’t see more than a movement of shadows within the darkened trailer. “Tell her to go away,” the voice said. “Tell her we don’t want her around here.”

  “I can’t help you,” Elvin Coble said, neither angry nor sad—just tired. He turned away and returned to his home. Then he looked over his shoulder. “But I can tell you, every word my boy said is true. He wouldn’t lie about something like that. He’s not built that way. I sat there with him and that detective in that restaurant and listened to every word—and I know it’s true. I heard the truth in my son’s voice. That man Dunn killed his wife, sure as I’m standin’ here.”

  Then he was gone, the screen door thumping shut behind him. Laura stared for a moment, hoping someone else would emerge, even if only to berate her. But no one did, though she felt sure that eyes were peering at her from inside. She turned and left, thinking about what Elvin Coble had said, how he had been there in the Denny’s Restaurant when Detective Soliz interviewed Jerry Coble that first time. It was an interesting revelation—especially since the detective had somehow neglected to mention in his report that Elvin Coble was present.

  • • •

  The Cobles were the key, the heart of the case—at least, that’s what Laura and the rest of the defense team hoped. Pat’s lawyers felt sure that the prosecution would live or die by Jerry Lee Coble. Though Laura had other concerns, given what had happened to Offord Rollins, she agreed that the defense team’s first and most important task had to be discrediting Coble as a witness. They already had accomplished a great deal toward this end: Thanks to Stan Simrin’s work at the preliminary hearing, they had Jerry Coble on record swearing he had been to the Dunn neighborhood only once—on the night of the murder—then had not returned until Detective Soliz brought him there many months later.

  In response, the defense had a witness to contradict Coble on this: Rex Martin, who said he saw Jerry Coble cruising by the house weeks after the murder. In addition, the defense had Coble’s erroneous description of the cars in the Dunn driveway, which matched the scene weeks after Sandy disappeared and included the car Pat rented after his own were seized by the police—further corroboration for Rex’s version of events, and a major hole in Coble’s story. Even so, the defense team felt this might not be enough: in his ill-advised testimony at his preliminary hearing Pat had undermined this defense by misstating the date Rex followed Coble. So Pat’s lawyer wanted to be able to flay Coble on the witness stand, which is why Laura and the other investigators from her firm pursued every member of the Coble family, looking for more ammunition, contradictions, anything—so far without
luck. Either they couldn’t find the family members, or when they did, they were told to get lost.

  Hours had been spent combing the voluminous court records on the four adult Coble boys, Perry, Terry, Jerry and Gary, a group long known throughout Bakersfield law enforcement. The files stood two feet high when stacked one on top of the other, a record of thefts, assaults, robberies, drug crimes and burglaries. There were also hints that Jerry Coble had been an informant in the past, something that the DA, when queried by the Dunn team, reluctantly conceded had happened once before. In that case, Coble had not testified and his identity had not been revealed to those he accused, though his information had led to arrests and convictions. The authorities refused to release any other details to Pat Dunn’s lawyers, saying that to do so would put Coble’s life in jeopardy. Laura and the other investigators from her firm had tried hard to dig out more on Coble’s informant activities, but they came up empty.

  And Jerry Lee wouldn’t talk to the defense, of course. Unbeknownst to Laura and the rest of the defense team, Coble still thought the Dunn defense team was trying to pin the murder on him, thanks to the comments Pat’s brother Mike had made to Detective Soliz. Any momentary wavering in his resolve to testify against Pat—and he did waver at one point—vanished when he learned he might be considered an alternative suspect.

  So that left Jerry Lee’s family. One by one, they had refused to help the defense. Coble’s mother hung up on them. Perry had nothing to say. Terry Coble, who had been arrested with Jerry for stealing brass and copper, would not help, either. He was ashamed of his brother—not because Jerry might be lying, but for cooperating with the police at all. In the Coble family, he explained in a brief phone conversation with Detective Soliz, it is a greater shame to cooperate with the authorities than it is to commit a crime. “We don’t rat,” he said.

  That left the oldest, Gary Coble, the only one of the boys who no longer lived in Kern County. Ten years older than Jerry, he had an even longer criminal record. The Dunn team searched throughout Southern California for him, hoping he might somehow help their defense, but had been unable to locate him. Then, as they were about to give up, Pat’s attorney, Gary Pohlson, received an unexpected telephone call.

  “This is Gary Coble, Jerry’s brother,” the caller said. He spoke slowly, as if still debating the wisdom of placing this call, even after dialing it. “I don’t want to be a witness. I can’t testify. But I just want you to know, Jerry’s lying.”

  At first Pohlson couldn’t believe his ears. They had hoped one of Jerry Coble’s relatives might have some information to contradict a piece or two of Jerry’s story, perhaps offering differing stories on where he was that night, what he was doing the next day, that sort of thing. They had talked to his father-in-law, for instance, because Jerry had said he remembered which day he had seen Sandy’s body because the next morning, he had to get up early to work for his father-in-law, who installed and repaired mobile homes. The father-in-law, however, making no attempt to hide his distaste for Coble, told Laura that Jerry Coble was wrong. “He didn’t work for me that day. That’s a lie.” Those were the small contradictions that, if they found enough of them, could bit by bit render Coble unbelievable to even the most proprosecution juror. But now, here was Gary Coble, the star witness’s own brother, providing not just some niggling contradiction, but the whole ball of wax: It was all a lie, just as Pat Dunn had insisted all along.

  “What do you mean, he’s lying?” Pohlson asked in reply.

  “I mean, he made up the whole story so he wouldn’t have to go to prison. He read about the case in the paper, he heard it on the news, he even pretended to be a delivery man with a package so he could knock on the door and get a look at the guy.”

  “He told you this?” Pohlson could barely contain himself.

  “Yeah,” Gary said after a moment. “He told me this.”

  Pohlson did a quick mental calculation: That last “yeah” meant Gary had heard a direct statement from his brother about lying. This was not hearsay, not supposition, not interpretation. Gary’s story would be absolutely admissible in court, classic impeachment testimony, as evidence challenging a witness’s veracity is known. Pohlson knew Gary Coble could be used to devastating effect in court—if the lawyer could get him there. Pohlson said, “We have to get together.”

  “No way,” the star witness’s brother replied. “I told you what I know. That’s it.”

  Still, as final as his refusal sounded, Gary Coble didn’t hang up. He listened as Pohlson wheedled and begged. Gary had to come forward, the lawyer pleaded; he had to testify, had to save an innocent man from life in prison—or from death row, a very real possibility. Gary kept saying no, no, no. But instead of hanging up and dissolving back into the woodwork, he agreed, in the end, to talk some more, to check back in to see if he could provide any more information. And he kept his promise: After two more long conversations, Gary left a phone number. Pohlson immediately looked it up in a reverse index, found the address in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles and drove out on a Sunday afternoon with one of his law partners, arriving unannounced. They cruised by the small tract house with its tiny yard, seeing cars in the driveway and movement behind the windows, then ducked around the corner and called on a cellular phone. “We can be there in five minutes,” Pohlson said when Gary answered the call.

  The man started to object, then sighed and said simply, “Come on.”

  Gary Coble turned out to be a virtual opposite of his small, wiry, quick-witted brother Jerry. Gary was big and meaty, built like a professional wrestler, a slow talker and, by his own admission, no deep thinker. They sat down over coffee and talked about Jerry, about the Coble family, about how Gary believed he was not the only relative who knew Jerry had lied. “They’ll cover for him,” Gary said. “And they’re gonna be mad as hell at me for talking to you.”

  Pohlson laid out a simple choice for Gary: Without his testimony, Pat Dunn could easily end up going down for a murder he didn’t commit. There was no other evidence of any import, Pohlson said. “Can you live with that?”

  Gary closed his eyes and, after a moment, slowly shook his head.

  Three hours later, the two lawyers left the Valley with a star witness of their own—Jerry Coble’s own brother, who had no motive to lie and every reason to have just kept his mouth shut. Indeed, by coming forward, he not only risked ostracism from his family, he put himself at odds with the police and the DA at a time in his life when he apparently was trying to go straight. Pohlson felt Gary Coble’s testimony all but cinched the case for the defense. Only Laura still felt uneasy.

  “I don’t like doing it,” the new defense witness told her when they met later, “but I can’t let an innocent man go down for murder. There’s some things even I won’t do.”

  “I only hope it’s enough,” she said.43

  • • •

  “Sometimes I get so keyed up, I just have to talk to someone,” Pat told Laura a few days later. It was late afternoon, and the jail visiting room smelled of sweat and disinfectant, the telltale aroma of too many bodies jammed into too little space with too little hope. Pat perched on a chair, those big hands clasped in front of him, watery eyes moving nervously behind his glasses. “If I can’t get the lawyers on the phone, then I turn to the inmates. I just have to talk about the case, about what they’re doing to me.”

  “Pat, under no circumstances can you talk to inmates about your case,” Laura admonished firmly, quietly—though in the confines of the small room, it seemed she nearly shouted at him. That was all they needed—Pat blabbing to some inmate, who then might decide to twist the conversation into a “confession,” providing another nail in the prosecutorial coffin. Susan Penninger’s client Carl Hogan had gone down the same way. “Half the guys in the place would love to be able to sell you out to the DA, Pat. You know you can’t talk to anyone. You can’t trust anyone. Look what happened when your brother talked to the cops.”

  Pat look
ed down at his hands and shook his head. He was angry, he said, going crazy in jail, unable to understand why this was happening to him. He expressed his helplessness by peppering the lawyers with phone calls and letters and endless jottings filled with his comments on the evidence, the witnesses, the police reports. Most of all, he kept insisting he had to take the stand at trial and set the record straight. Laura feared letting him testify, feared he might lose it, leaving such a bad impression the jury would miss his kind and caring and funny side and feel no compunction about convicting him. The five months behind bars since his arrest in October had taken a profound toll on him, Laura knew. Anyone, friend or foe, could see it. Some clients barely seemed to react to confinement, Laura had observed. To many, it was like coming home. Pat was not one of these. He looked older to Laura, diminished somehow, the confidence and belief in the justice system bled out of him day by day, his face pale and lined. He looked desperate, sounded desperate.

  “I know, you’re right,” he sighed at last. “But you don’t know what it’s like, to be in here when you didn’t do anything. It’s killing me. You’ve got to get me out.”

  Laura didn’t—couldn’t—answer this plea. Instead, she tried to occupy him with helping her, returning to the questions that still stymied her investigation. She wanted to know more about his relationship with Kate Rosenlieb, what he knew of Marie Gates, the names of people who could support his contention that Sandy’s memory had been failing. Pat gamely tried to help, but he was finding it hard to focus. After an hour, she left, feeling sad and helpless.