My Second Death Penalty Trial

I sometimes carry trial stories around for so long I forget whether I’ve started writing them down. This story’s a doosey I’ve carried around for thirty-six years and, even though I know I’ve tried writing it down several times before, I can’t find a single draft. It is a story so genuinely bizarre I couldn’t possibly have made it up. I’ll start where death penalty cases always start and that’s with some poor lawyer being appointed to represent a defendant the prosecutor has already indicted for murder and filed a notice he intends to seek the death penalty. A defendant no sane lawyer would agree to represent for any amount of money.

Since I had the requisite five years experience trying major felony cases, and had already tried my first death penalty case, I started squirming the first time I read about Ronny Walden. When my phone rang and I found myself talking to the Dorchester County Chief Administrative Judge, I knew instantly he was calling to appoint me to Ronnie’s case. All I could say to the Judge was, “Yes, sir, your honor, I’ll be glad to put my law practice and my life aside for the next 4 or 5 months and represent Mr. Walden.”

They say lawyers have to play the hand they’re dealt. That’s only partly true because, unlike playing cards, you can’t fold a losing hand in a death penalty case. In other cases you can plea bargain but, the prosecutor having made a big splash in the news announcing his intent to seek the death penalty for this heinous crime, there’s no bargaining room left. You’re all in from the git go no matter how bad the hand is you’re dealt.

And from what had already been published and broadcast about the murder, I knew I’d been dealt was a losing hand. Ronnie Walden was escaped from prison in Tennessee where he was serving time for grand larceny. A friend now willing testify against him, gave him a gun and ride to South Carolina where Ronnie thought another friend would hide him out. Problem was this other friend had moved without bothering to tell Ronnie. Left stranded, Ronnie cooked up the plan to pose as a wealthy buyer looking for country property. He conned a local estate agent, husband, father, and respected pillar of the community, into picking him up at a hotel off the interstate where he wasn’t staying to show him some listings. The agent gladly picked him up and drove him out into the country to show him one his best listing. As soon as the agent stopped in the driveway, however, Ronnie pulled his gun and shot him through the head.

People think getting shot it in the head leaves a little red hole in the victim’s head. That little red hole is just the entrance wound. As the bullet bores though the scalp and skull it flattens out and the exit wound on the other side of the head becomes an explosion of blood, bone, and brain coming out a much larger exit wound. The blood and gore splattered all over the inside of the agent’s car Ronnie wanted to steal created a real mess. Ronnie got it all over himself as he pulled the agent’s body from the car and dumped him on the side of driveway. He used some old clothes in the trunk to clean the car and himself as best he could before driving the agent’s car back into town where he used the agent’s credit card to get himself a haircut and hotel room. It was using the agent’s credit card that led the police right to him. Murder committed during the commission of an armed robbery, qualified Ronnie for the death penalty.

After all the gutless Dorchester County lawyers convinced the Judge they either personally knew or had done legal work for the agent to get themselves excused from the case, I was appointed to be Ronnie’s co-counsel with G.W. Parker, the Public Defender for Dorchester County. Being appointed with G.W. was my first break in the case. I was appointed in Berkeley County on my first death penalty case and exhausted myself driving the hour and a half there and back to the courthouse everyday. The courthouse in Dorchester County is even further away from where I lived, so I was determined not to make the same mistake. G.W. and his wonderful wife had a guest room. They welcomed me into their home and extended every hospitality for the duration of the trial.

As the Public Defender G.W. was no stranger to the criminal courtroom but he had never handled a death penalty case before. We decided I would sit first chair but GW did more than his share of the work preparing pretrial motions, researching the jury pool, drafting jury voir dire questions, and making sure each night we had a good home cooked meal and a quite place where we could talk and plan for the next day of the trial. I probably shouldn’t mention it, but G.W. had what I later learned was probably Grave’s Disease, a thyroid disorder, that gives the patient bulging eyes. When I first met him, I got the feeling I had a large spider crawling up my shirt each time he looked at me. Thankfully, in my line of work, I’d learned not to base too much of anything on appearances and that feeling subsided as my respect for his legal abilities grew.

As much of a help as G.W. was, however, my second break in the case turned out to be the Public Defender’s private investigator, Bill, whose last name has faded from my memory. Bill was a hard boiled, retired police detective who knew more about the criminal justice system than I ever would. He spent hours with Ronnie in the jail learning everything about him, his upbringing, background, and the facts of the case. Bill was the first to recognize Ronnie was a a true sociopath. For those of you who don’t know, a sociopath feels no emotions, good or bad. They know they’re different form other people and become experts at faking emotions to fit in. Ronnie was really good at faking emotions, much better than an ordinary person with real emotions. Even the hardened PI, a hardened police officer who saw through Ronnie’s fake smiles and practiced manipulations, found Ronnie to be a likeable person. It was the time Bill spent with Ronnie that broke the case and gave G.W. and I us a trial strategy.

Ronnie readily admitted what had happened +but claimed it was an accident. To his credit, skeptical as he was by nature, Bill remained open to what Ronnie told him. Ronnie admitted he wanted to rob the agent and steal his car but, said, when he pulled his gun, the agent panicked and turned quickly in his seat attempting to open his car door at which time his head hit the barrel of the gun causing it to fire. Ronnie didn’t strike Bill as stupid and Bill reasoned, if Ronnie wanted to murder the agent and steal the agent’s car, wouldn’t he have wanted to wait until they were out of the car before shooting him through the head? Bill traced the trajectory of the bullet and duplicated the movements described and determined what Ronnie said was possible, the magic words to a criminal defense lawyer. We wouldn’t have to prove that what’s happened, the prosecutor would have to prove it didn’t happen that way beyond a reasonable doubt.

But Bill still wasn’t satisfied until he discovered the third break in the case. He examined the murder weapon, the gun recovered when Ronnie was arrested, and discovered it had a hair trigger. A trigger that could easily have fired the gun if the barrel was struck as Ronnie described. Not a defense to either the crime of murder but a whole lot better in a death penalty trial than Ronnie having intentionally pulled the trigger that put a bullet through the agent’s head.

Another lesson I’d learned in my first death penalty trial was not to waste a lot of time and credibility during the guilt or innocence of the trial. GW and I decided early on the evidence against Ronnie was overwhelming and, although it may seem counterintuitive, we stipulated to all the prosecutor’s evidence about Ronnie’s escape from prison, how he got to South Carolina, and all the physical evidence collected at the scene of the murder and seized during Ronnie’s arrest. By the time the prosecutor figured out what we were doing, he already stipulated away a good part of his case.

We knew we weren’t going to win the guilt or innocent phase of the trial, but the prosecutor gave me an opening in his closing argument. He picked up on our hair trigger defense and argued forcibly the Smith and Wesson pistol was a perfectly good gun. In my closing I picked the gun up with two fingers by the base of the grip and held it up before the jury like a dead rat. I told the jury there were no good guns, they only have one purpose and that is to kill people. I then cocked the hammer, turned towards the jury, and tapped the end of the barrel on the podium as the deafening sound of the hammer falling filled the stunned courtroom. During deliberations we could hear the jury banging the gun on the table in the jury room. We were ready for the sentencing phase when the inevitable guilty verdict was returned.

Another lesson I’d learned from my first death penalty case was not to rely on forensic death penalty experts who are hired to develop mitigating evidence for use during the sentencing phase of the trial. The so-called expert in my first case felt compelled to explain to the jury the “13 1/2” tatooed on the defendant hand was for the “twelve fucking jurors who convicted him, one for the fucking judge who sentenced him, and 1/2 for the half-assed lawyer that represented him for a prior conviction.” We decided we’d do the mitigation investigation ourselves and establish whatever mitigation evidence we could muster by the testimony of live witnesses instead of by the opinions of so-called experts. It meant a lot more work for us but paid off in the end.

I traveled to Valdosta, Georgia where I met with Ronnie’s father, one of the nicest person I have every met. He’d been a farmer his whole life but, now that he was retired, opened up his farm through his church to give disadvantaged children some relief away from the oppression of the inner city. He loved his son dearly but had no delusions about what Ronnie was or what he’d done. He chose to remember Ronnie as the star wide receiver on his high school and college football teams. He had scrapbooks full of pictures and newspaper articles about Ronnie. I almost didn’t have the heart to talk with him about the other side of Ronnie. HIs heart must have been broken a hundred times as Ronnie started getting into more serious trouble and ended up in the penitentiary doing hard time. He knew what Ronnie was accused of doing this time in South Carolina but still told me without hesitation Ronnie was not a killer. Oh, he’d steal the money off the collection plate and not give it a minute’s thought, but his father was adamant Ronnie was not a killer. If I ordered a trainload of believable witnesses and they sent me Ronnie’s father, I’d mark the invoice paid in full.

The fifth break that we got was Ronnie’s father didn’t only keep a scrapbook of Ronnie’s football career, he keep everything including letters from two individuals whose lives Ronnie saved while in prison. During one of Ronnie’s stints in the pen, he studied first aid and learned life saving techniques. The first gentleman was a bronco rider in a rodeo that performed in prisons. He had a heart attack and Ronnie got to him and performed live saving CPR until the medics could arrive. The second gentleman was a prison guard who had been knifed in a prison riot resulting in his lung cavity filling with blood making it impossible to breath. Ronnie pulled him to safety and used a ball point pen to drain the blood out of his lung saving his life until he could be rescued. Both men testified at the trial that, although they didn’t know anything about what he’d done, they wouldn’t be alive today if it hadn’t been for what Ronnie did.

I can give a pretty good fire and brimstone closing argument when needed and pulled out all the stops on this one. With help of many better lawyers who have undertaken this task before me, I began my summation by saying, “Even on my best day, any summation I could give in a case where the State seeks the death penalty, I would be inadequate. This, ladies and gentleman, will not surely not be my best day. I am tired physically and emotionally from the burden that has been set upon me. I am tired from the hours, days, weeks, and months I have spent preparing for what has ultimately turned out to be this plea for a merciful life sentence of life imprisonment for Ronnie Walden.. After these long days in this courtroom, when you have retired to your motel rooms for the night, the countless thing Mr. Parker and I have had to do and the worry of the responsibility would rob us of any rest. Last Friday, when you returned your verdict, this burden truly became a life and death struggle. A struggle complicated by the human tears and suffering of all who will be touched by what we do here today. Even on my best day, I would be inadequate. Nothing in my religious, general, or legal education, nothing in the experiences of my life, has prepared me for this day. Where does one look to find the means of measuring the worth of a human life? To understand the infinite influences that could cause a human being to take the life of another, whether that be the life of ___________________ taken that horrible night, or the life of Ronnie Walden the State asks you to take today. Even if I had such knowledge, how would I find the words to convince you in the confines of this summation. Even on my best day, I would be inadequate.” I continued, “The electrocution of Ronald Walden would be no less cold-blooded because it is done in the name of justice and righteousness. It wasn’t so long ago in human history that innocent persons with epilepsy were burned at the stake for witchcraft. Let us never forget, it was perfectly legal to exterminate over six million Jews in Nazi Germany. Justice? Who knows what justice is? Does the prosecutor know? Do I or anyone in this courtroom know? Is there any man who can weigh me and say what I deserve? Let us be honest. What human machinery exists, what perfect courtroom, what miracle of science for finding justice out? If there ids justice, that it must surely take account of the infinite circumstances of any human it weighs. It could be administered by a supreme being who knew the innermost thoughts of the man to whom it is being administered. It means that you must appraise every influence that moves men, the society in which they live, and infinite other influences at work in our lives. If you can do this, they you truly have mor wisdom that I have, and, within that wisdom, there surely must be mercy. Now it may be strange to you that I have used the word mercy in my summation. With acknowledged help from one of the greatest lawyers that ever lived, Clarence Darrow, who was vehemently opposed to the death penalty, I continued by saying, “Give him the same mercy he gave ________________________,” is what I’ve heard said. Is that justice? Is that what the prosecutor would ask you to do? If this State’s courts, if you jurors, are not kinder, more humane, more compassionate, more intelligent, and more merciful than the act to Ronald Walden, then I am sorry I have chosen law as my profession.” I concluded, “I too hat crime and feel its frightful grip on our lives. But I cannot embrace violence as a means of stopping it. I have no choice but to believe in the power of Crist’s word’s of love and peace. Before you put aside His words, consider the power they have had for good these two thousand years. Remember the Lord’s prayer, ‘Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.’ As Luke wrote, “Be ye therefore, merciful, as you Father also is merciful. Judge not, and yet shall not be judged; condemn not and ye shall not be condemned; forgive and you shall be forgiven.’ I ask no more than you be merciful to let Ronnie Walden be locked up in prison for the rest of his life.” The jury returned a life sentence.

I didn’t ask to appointed in either of my death penalty cases. Certainly not on my first case, a triple murder, to which I was appointed the week before Thanksgiving to go to trial a mere six week later on January 8 to following year. But since I was, I put everything I had into the task and gratefully received help from many other lawyers dedicated to fighting the death penalty. I learned more about trying cases than I had in other trial. I know the prosecutor wasn’t happy I was appointed to my second one. He truly thought an escaped convict committing a murder during an armed robbery caught red handed was a slam dunk. But even he knew by the close of my summation, he was wrong and a death sentence was not to be. It’s been thirty-seven years since my second death penalty trial and I haven’t been asked to do a third. 

It must have been a year or two after the trial, I was listening the NPR on my way home from work one night and I heard an inmate at the Ridgeland Correctional Institute had gotten a hold of gun and taken hostages. I thought, oh not, please, don’t let it be Ronnie. But it was Ronnie. He taken the doctor and a nurse hostage in the prison dispensary. It must have been too new for the evening news when I got home and it didn’t make the eleven o’clock news I watched before I went to bed. I spent a very restless night worrying, I would somehow be responsible if Ronnie killed the hostages after I got him a life sentence. It wasn’t until the morning that I was relieved to learn Ronnie had turned the gun on himself and taken his own life.