The True Story of How a Series of Lies Sent an Innocent Man to Prison
“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” Søren Kierkegaard One of Hanna’s comments in Aggravated continues to resurface for me periodically. In her May 2006 interview with Tom Swearingen, less than two months before the first trial began, …
Parts of this post were used in Aggravated. This one and the four posts that follow it were part of a chapter in Aggravated, called The Night of the Rodeo. In that chapter I answered and/or explained the first five questions and items (out of thirteen) in just a few paragraphs. The other eight required …
Parts of this post were used in Aggravated. This is the second of four posts about a search for some evidence. If you haven’t read the first post yet, you should probably do that before reading this one. Here’s a link, Part 1, Why I Searched for Karla. A Trip to Deep Springs In late-August …
The Responsibility of Judges Do judges have any responsibility to comment or interrupt or notify the attorneys, or even to strike a venireperson on their own [which is called sua sponte, “of his own accord”] if they spot an irregularity during a jury voir dire? Judge Hawes founded the Deep Springs chapter of CASA. He …
Questions From the Prosecution Hawes turned the proceedings over to the prosecutor, Elmer Ross, who said, “This is the point in the process where we will be talking to you a little bit about your background and about your life experiences to determine whether or not you would be an effective and impartial juror on …
A couple of posts ago, I mentioned that Steve’s first attorney, Roland Mathis, within his first six or seven months, had been paid $7,500 by Newbold and Vanderhoop (N&V), our mother’s lawyers, and that money was borrowed against Steve’s eventual inheritance. Within nine months that amount had risen to $27,928. Steve and Robin paid N&V …
Parts of this post were used in Aggravated. Numbers and Details The more I looked into Ada Dixon and others associated with Steve’s trial, the more I began to wonder how accurate their testimony was. For example, in the second trial (August 2006), Dixon was asked by the prosecutor, Elmer Ross, how many times (in …
The disclaimer in the book, Aggravated, explains how and why I changed the names of almost everyone involved in the story. That passage can also let you know what to expect on this blog and website, since I will be doing the same thing here. Here’s the passage. “This is a true story, filled with …
I’m using a fictional city named Deep Springs, Texas, as the primary setting for this (non-fiction) book, Aggravated: The True Story of How a Series of Lies Sent an Innocent Man to Prison. I realize that’s quite a mouthful, so I usually just refer to it as Aggravated. I wanted to include this post on …