Devil's Knot, page 34
In the months that followed, one of the most seasoned criminals in the place took Damien under his wing.311 Damien would later claim that this inmate had had the knife planted in his cell as a way of demonstrating the level of autonomy he exercised in the prison.312 After the knife incident, the man offered Damien protection—and introduced him to elements of a plot that had been hatched long before Damien’s arrival.313 As Damien quickly discovered, Arkansas’s maximum security unit was at the time a place rife with corruption, and Damien’s self-appointed protector was exploiting the situation. Because he and some friends on death row had access to large amounts of money from outside sources, they had been able to bribe guards and certain prison administrators, securing drugs, luxuries, and other contraband items. The ringleader’s unique status on death row was evidenced by, among other things, the presence of a recliner in his cell. He also had a Polaroid camera, with which he photographed parties he threw in his cell. The photographs graphically demonstrated the breakdown of security at what was supposed to be the state’s most secure prison. By the time Damien arrived there, the inmate and his cadre of friends were using the situation to plan an escape. They had already loosened a window, and they’d removed a cinder block in the wall between the ringleader’s cell and the one adjoining it. Shortly after Damien’s arrival on death row, he was assigned to that adjoining cell.
The escape plan failed. There was a change in the prison administration, and soon afterward, guards discovered the loosened window and the hole in the wall between the cells, as well as hidden tools and gunpowder. The ringleader was punished severely, his privileges taken away, and when he was finally released from the hole, he wanted to retaliate. He wanted, at the very least, to embarrass prison officials, whom he considered corrupt and equally culpable. Toward that end, he smuggled photographs of his recliner and the parties to a reporter, and they were published in the Arkansas Times. Coincidentally or not, at approximately the same time, Damien wrote letters to state officials and to the media, claiming that the veteran inmate had repeatedly raped and beaten him. In the letters, Damien reported that the assaults had begun shortly after he had arrived at the prison, that he’d been photographed in “states of nudity and semi-nudity,” and that “several high-ranking officers [at the prison] were already aware of the fact, and would do nothing to prevent it.”
The allegation, leveled in March 1995, after Damien had been at the prison for a year, raised the question of how one death row inmate would even have had access to another.314 In his letter, Damien claimed that “part of the wall was missing…so that our cells were joined.” The sensational assertion, combined with the photos published by the Arkansas Times, called public attention to the breakdown in security at the prison.315 The Arkansas State Police conducted an investigation, and though investigators said they could not substantiate Damien’s claim that he had been raped, three staff members, including an acting warden, were fired as a result.316
Jessie’s Appeal
As promised, the lawyers for Jessie, Damien, and Jason all filed direct appeals to the Arkansas Supreme Court. Jessie’s appeal went to the high court first. In a unanimous opinion handed down on February 19, 1996—two years after his conviction—the seven Supreme Court justices noted that Jessie’s statements to police were “virtually the only evidence” offered against him; that they amounted to “a confusing amalgam of times and events”; and that they contained “numerous inconsistencies.” Nevertheless, the court found the statements to be sufficient to support the jury’s verdict.317
Chief Justice Bradley D. Jesson wrote the opinion. In it, he pieced together what he called “the substance” of Jessie’s statements to the West Memphis police, laying it out “in such a way as to reveal with clarity” Jessie’s description of the crime. Unlike Jessie’s statements to the police, the chief justice’s summary was presented as a coherent narrative. It noted, for example, that Jessie said he’d been invited to meet Jason and Damien in the woods. “They went to the area, which has a creek, and were in the creek when the victims rode up on their bicycles. Baldwin and Echols called to the boys, who came to the creek. The boys were severely beaten by Baldwin and Echols. At least two of the boys were raped and forced to perform oral sex on Baldwin and Echols.” Elsewhere: “The appellant [Jessie] was asked about his involvement in a cult. He said he had been involved for about three months. The participants would typically meet in the woods. They engaged in orgies and, as an initiation rite, killing and eating dogs….”
The Supreme Court recognized that Jessie had gotten some significant details wrong. “The appellant [Jessie] initially stated that the events took place about 9 A.M. on May fifth,” Justice Jesson noted. “Later in the statement, he changed that time to noon…. [In a later statement], the appellant said he, Echols and Baldwin had come to the Robin Hood area between 5 and 6 P.M. Upon prompting by the officer, he changed that to 7 or 8 P.M. He finally settled on saying that his group arrived at 6 P.M., while the victims arrived near dark.” But all seven justices waived off the discrepancies. “When inconsistencies appear in the evidence,” they noted, “we defer to the jury’s determination of credibility.”
Attorney Stidham argued in Jessie’s appeal, as he had at Jessie’s trial, that the confession had been involuntary. The justices acknowledged that “the age, education and intelligence of the accused” were “factors to be considered” in determining the validity of a confession. They also recognized that a confession made while a subject is in the custody of police “is presumed involuntary” and that “the burden is on the state to show that the confession is voluntarily made.” Despite those requirements, however, the chief justice wrote that the entire court had found that Jessie’s confession had been voluntary.
Nor was the high court swayed by Stidham’s pleas regarding Jessie’s age and mental capacity. “Persons younger than he have been held capable of giving voluntary confessions,” the chief justice noted. Furthermore, he added, “A low score on an intelligence quotient test does not mean that a suspect is incapable of voluntarily making a confession or waiving his rights.”318
The high court also agreed with Judge Burnett’s decision that the techniques used by Inspector Gitchell and Detective Ridge—the circle diagram, the polygraph, the picture of the victim, and the tape recording of Aaron Hutcheson’s voice—had not been overbearing. Though they acknowledged that “the boy’s voice gives us pause” and that this type of tactic “comes perilously close to psychological overbearing,” the justices concluded that “in this instance, since numerous other factors point to the voluntariness of the confession, we will not invalidate the confession.”
But none of those conclusions constituted the most controversial part of the opinion. The part that would reverberate through the Arkansas justice system for years to come centered on Jessie’s status as a minor and the fact that detectives had failed to have a parent sign his waiver of rights. The issue was particularly troubling in Jessie’s case because, as the high court noted, “At the time the appellant signed his waiver, [Arkansas law] provided that a juvenile’s waiver form must be signed by a parent, guardian, or custodian.”319 Despite the law’s apparent clarity, the high court nevertheless concluded that it did not apply in Jessie’s case. That was, the chief justice wrote, because at the time Jessie was questioned, the State Supreme Court had already ruled “that, when a person under age eighteen is charged as an adult in circuit court, failure to obtain a parent’s signature on a waiver form does not render a confession inadmissible….” In that opinion, the court ruled that “when a juvenile is charged as an adult, he becomes subject to the procedures applicable to adults. Therefore, the requirement of parental consent is limited to juvenile court proceedings.”320
To Stidham, the ruling was both maddening and absurd. It meant, he argued, that a minor charged with a relatively light offense, such as throwing a rock through a window, could not sign away his constitutional rights without a parent also signing the form with him—yet a juvenile charged with a serious crime, for which he might receive a sentence of life in prison or even death, did not get that protection.
Stidham continued to attack the validity of Jessie’s confession based on the detectives’ failure to record his entire confession. But the high court dealt easily with that, noting that “no Arkansas law requires this.”321 Stidham’s final points were even more easily dismissed. The high court supported all of Burnett’s decisions, including the one to admit into evidence items such as “a picture of Jason Baldwin wearing a black t-shirt with a skull and the name of the group Metallica on it; testimony of a witness that she attended a cult meeting with the appellant and Echols”; and “a book on witchcraft found in Echols’s home”—items that Stidham claimed were irrelevant and prejudicial. To the contrary, the high court reasoned, all of the items were relevant because they served to corroborate aspects of Jessie’s confession. And, “With the confession being the state’s only meaningful evidence against the appellant, any corroboration was highly probative.”
Finally, the court addressed Stidham’s contention that Jessie should have been granted a new trial when, during Damien and Jason’s trial, the associate medical examiner, Dr. Peretti, changed his testimony to a time of death that contradicted Jessie’s confession. The high court dismissed this as well, noting that the jury in Jessie’s case would probably have found Jessie guilty anyway, even if it had heard Peretti’s estimate that the time of death was probably well after midnight.322
The Ruling on Damien and Jason
It took the Arkansas Supreme Court a bit longer to address the forty-four points raised by attorneys in Damien’s and Jason’s direct appeals. The opinion, which the justices handed down two days before Christmas in 1996, was ninety-three pages long, the lengthiest in the court’s recent history. And the ruling’s effect was equally sweeping. On every point the defense lawyers raised, the justices unanimously found that the trial had been fair and that Judge Burnett had made no errors.323
The Supreme Court concluded that although the evidence was circumstantial, it had been sufficient to support the verdicts. In explaining the court’s decision, the high court referred frequently to the state’s theory that the killings had occurred as part of a satanic ritual. “On cross-examination,” the opinion said,
Echols admitted that he has delved deeply into the occult and was familiar with its practices. Various items were found in his room, including a funeral register upon which he had drawn a pentagram and upside-down crosses and had copied spells. A journal was introduced, and it contained morbid images and references to dead children. Echols testified that he wore a long black trench coat even when it was warm. One witness had seen Echols, Baldwin, and Misskelley together six months before the murders, wearing long black coats and carrying long staffs. Dr. Peretti testified that some of the head wounds to the boys were consistent with the size of the two sticks that were recovered by the police.
Regarding the state’s theory of motive, the Supreme Court had this to say:
Dr. Dale Griffis, an expert in occult killings, testified in the state’s case-in-chief that the killings had the “trappings of occultism.” He testified that the date of the killings, near a pagan holiday, was significant, as well as the fact that there was a full moon. He stated that young children are often sought for sacrifice because “the younger, the more innocent, the better the life force.” He testified that there were three victims, and the number three had significance in occultism. Also, the victims were all eight years old, and eight is a witches’ number. He testified that sacrifices are often done near water for a baptism-type rite or just to wash the blood away. The fact that the victims were tied ankle to wrist was significant because this was done to display the genitalia, and the removal of Byers’s testicles was significant because testicles are removed for the semen. He stated that the absence of blood at the scene could be significant because cult members store blood for future services in which they would drink the blood or bathe in it. He testified that the “overkill” or multiple cuts could reflect occult overtones. Dr. Griffis testified that there was significance in injuries to the left side of the victims as distinguished from the right side: People who practice occultism will use the midline theory, drawing straight down through the body. The right side is related to those things synonymous with Christianity, while the left side is that of the practitioners of the Satanic occult. He testified that the clear place on the bank could be consistent with a ceremony. In sum, Dr. Griffis testified there was significant evidence of Satanic ritual killings.
The high court ruled that all of this constituted “substantial evidence” of Damien’s guilt. As for the substantial evidence against Jason, the justices cited only Michael Carson’s testimony that Jason told him he had “dismembered the kids.” The court labored a bit longer over arguments that the trials should have been severed. But in the end the justices concluded that “almost all of the factors” they considered “clearly” weighed in favor of a joint trial.324 Similarly, the court had little trouble approving the extraordinary nighttime search; the fact that the West Memphis magistrate who’d issued the search warrants had also instructed police in how to prepare the affidavit; and the vagueness of warrants authorizing police to search for “blue, green, red, black, and purple fibers” and “cult or Satanic materials.” The high court did deal at some length with arguments concerning the admission of evidence regarding the occult. But ultimately, all of those arguments were rejected as well. Relying heavily on the testimony of Griffis, the high court ruled that Judge Burnett’s decision to qualify Griffis as an expert had not been error; that allowing Griffis to testify had not been error; that Judge Burnett’s ruling admitting the dog’s skull, heavy metal music posters, and books Damien had read into evidence had not been error; and that there was no problem with Judge Burnett’s ruling allowing Jerry Driver to testify that he’d seen Damien, Jason, and Jessie walking together six months before the murders, carrying “long sticks or staffs.”325
The Supreme Court also rejected arguments that Judge Burnett should have required Christopher Morgan to take the stand, even if he had invoked the Fifth Amendment for every question he was asked. The justices ruled that the trial judge had the discretion to decide whether Morgan should testify or not. Since they found no “manifest abuse” of that discretion, they declined to second-guess Burnett’s decision.
And so it went. The high court approved of Burnett’s decisions to admit as evidence the sticks found in the woods months after the killings and the knife taken from the lake, based on Dr. Peretti’s testimony that wounds to the victims “were consistent” with injuries that might have been caused by such objects. Similarly, the high court supported Fogleman’s demonstration in front of the jury with the knives cutting the grapefruit. And it found no problem with the fact that, even now, two years after the trials, none of the court-appointed defense lawyers had been paid.326
Though the opinion was exceptionally long, its bottom line was simple: the convictions would stand. The only avenue of appeal left to the defendants now, in the state of Arkansas, was for them to claim that their lawyers had been grossly inadequate. But no court would appoint someone to do that, and all three of the inmates were indigent.
Paradise Lost
At a point when it appeared that Damien, Jason, and Jessie might slip into obscurity, Sinofsky and Berlinger, the filmmakers who’d recorded the trials, released their documentary. Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills premiered in 1996 and created an immediate sensation. Against a sound track by Metallica, the documentary showed gritty scenes of West Memphis and the families involved in the case, on the sides of both the victims and the defendants. Images of poverty, grief, and anger played against the formality of courtroom proceedings. Interviews with Damien, Jason, and Jessie in jail were interlaced with comments from the victims’ families, and long segments in which John Mark Byers railed against the accused. The film aired on HBO. Its directors never offered a conclusion, beyond the actuality of the convictions, but thousands of viewers—and most reviewers—found the film and its contents shocking.327
Many viewers in Arkansas were dismayed by the image of their state presented in the film—and by the way reviewers focused on the small-town mentality that they generally assumed had given rise to the verdicts. Michael Atkinson wrote in Spin magazine that West Memphis was “the kind of dreary hellhole that America is sick in the blood with.” Robin Dougherty observed in the Miami Herald that Damien’s “wardrobe and his page-boy-gone-bad haircut wouldn’t get a second look at South Beach.” Roger Ebert focused on the prosecutors’ explanation of motive. “Oh, it’s a great film,” Ebert said, “and one of the things it points out is the need, the real need to create the idea of Satanic rituals in order to explain crimes, because it’s not enough that there could be a sick deviate out there who would kill these boys…. But everybody in the town and in the courtroom and on the jury are all blinded by their fantasies about Satanic cults, and they can’t listen to reason.”
