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, …
Getting Started How I gathered evidence for Aggravated is a topic I cover a bit in the book, but I thought if I also said something about it here it might help you see how I tried to find the truth in circumstances where it at first seemed there was little or no evidence. Over …
Initial Excuses Judge Hawes’ first action was to examine the venirepersons for qualifications and excuses. After swearing everyone in, he allowed anyone who felt they shouldn’t be there, or needed to be excused, to come up and talk to him about it. The room was packed with ninety-five venirepersons. It was so full, Doug Sanford …
Greatly abbreviated versions of this post and the eight that follow it were used in Aggravated. These posts made up the initial Voir Dire chapter in the book before it was trimmed down to its essential bits. I’ve posted them here in case anyone wanted to see the same material with a great deal more …
A Conversation About Steve’s Appeals Steve usually calls me every Saturday, and we talk for a half hour or so. Recently, we spent much of our conversation talking about the two posts before this one (read Part 1 here and Part 2 here). Here is an abridged version of part of our conversation. I’ll pepper …
Parts of this post were used in Aggravated. What the Court Got Wrong Much of the following is directly quoted from court records (with names changed, of course). Just to recap, Argument 2 concerned Steve’s marijuana conviction. Steve thought it shouldn’t have been admitted because of its age (24 years before). Argument 3 charged that …
Parts of this post were used in Aggravated. Two Arguments the Court Got Wrong In Steve’s first appeal (to the 19th Court of Appeals, in Keegan, Texas), he made four arguments, all of which the court ruled against. I’m only going to deal with Arguments 2 and 3 in this post, but here’s a quick …
Parts of this post were used in Aggravated. Bolstering Truthfulness – Gonzo’s Trial In the previous post, we looked at Blake Goudy’s and Ada Dixon’s testimony in Steve’s trial, and I wondered if Dixon’s insistence that her clients were always truthful was typical of her trial behavior. In the court’s opinion for the appeal for …
Parts of this post were used in Aggravated. Bolstering Truthfulness – Steve’s Trial I’m not a lawyer, and if I’ve interpreted this incorrectly, someone please tell me, but I believe that a federal rule of evidence (Number 608) precludes a witness (like an expert witness) from being able to say that they know someone is …
We think of facts as being the absolute truth, but are they always? Just look at the political climate we’re in, flooded with “alternative facts,” and cries of “fake news.” This book examines a trial that was based solely on statements made by various parties in the trial (no DNA, no other forensic evidence, and …