Authors: Tim Junkin
The state's case had gone in well, gone in with hardly a glitch.
S
TEVEN
S
CHEININ THEN
had his turn. He began the defense case by calling several police officers who'd taken statements from Nancy Hall and Donna Ferguson the day of Dawn's death. These officers testified as to the early descriptions these women had given and what they'd said that day, statements different from what they told the jury. He brought in Officer Charles Moore, who'd taken the statement from Donna Ferguson that she didn't see the man calling for Lisa and didn't know if he was the same man that she'd previously seen sitting on the electric box. Lazzaro, cross-examining him, pointed out how little experience he had in felony investigations compared with the homicide detectives handling the case.
Scheinin tried to call other officers to make the point that dozens of police had gone around Fontana Village broadcasting the description given by the two boys and showing the composite sketch, suggesting to everyone the characteristics of the assailant. Judge Hinkel wouldn't allow any of it. He sustained the prosecutors' objection to this whole line of questioning as irrelevant.
When it came time in the trial for Scheinin to put on his alibi
witnesses, it was nearly noon. Scheinin asked Judge Hinkel for a luncheon recess, one that would have allowed him time to talk to them before they testified, to perhaps do some last-minute preparation. Hinkel wasn't ready for a recess and denied the request. Scheinin had no choice but to call them. One by one, they took the stand. They did not seem well prepared.
Joey Martin went first, followed by Tammy Albin. Wanda Bloodsworth went next. Birdie Plutschak and Dawn Gerald testified as well. All swore that Kirk was home at the South Randolph Road address the morning of July 25. But the prosecutors knew how to make these witnesses look confused, uncertain, like their stories were contrived. It wasn't hard. Ann Brobst cross-examined Wanda Bloodsworth. “When did you first try to remember back to what happened that day?” Brobst asked her.
“When Detective Capel had told me he suspected Kirk of murder,” Wanda answered.
“And do you remember when that was?”
“I don't remember exactly what day it was.”
“Well, surely that was very upsetting to you?”
“Yeah,” Wanda answered.
“You can remember that day, I imagine, vividly, isn't that correct?” Brobst's tone was facetious.
“Yes.”
“But can you tell us what day of the week that was that Detective Capel talked to you?”
Wanda started to fidget. She looked around the courtroom, as if for help. “No,” she said. “Because he was there more than once,” she added.
Brobst asked some other questions, then worked her way back to this same pointâWanda's inability to accurately remember dates. “Now, would you please tell the members of jury what time you got up on July18 the preceding week?” she asked.
Wanda was baffled. She again looked toward Scheinin, as though he could answer for her. “I don't know,” she finally said.
“You don't remember that?”
“No.”
“Do you remember what you did that day?”
“No.”
“Do you remember what you were wearing that day?”
“No.”
“Do you remember what you had for dinner?”
“No.”
Brobst kept her off balance. “Now, you said that it was the day that Kirk was arrested, that you first realized you would have to think back to the 25th and that you believe that was about August 7?”
“Yes.”
“So it was about two weeks later?”
“Yes.”
“What were you doing two weeks ago today?”
“Two weeks ago today?”
“Hmm, hmm.” Brobst was patient now.
“February, I was here I think it wasâoh, no.” Wanda put her hand over her face. “I don't know what I was doing,” she said.
Others fared worse. Ann Brobst sensed that Joey Martin was repeating a canned story. “When did you first realize that you would have to come in and tell the members of the jury what happened on the date that Mr. Scheinin directed your attention to?” she asked.
“Last night.”
“And was that the first time that you tried to remember what happened back on this date?”
“No. I remember a lot of it, but the date, the day and the date itself, I'm not too sure of.” Joey was easily confused.
“Okay,” Brobst pressed. “Now, do you remember what you were doing July 18, 1984?”
“Is that the day?”
“I'm asking
you,
if
you
remember.”
“I don't remember. If that's . . . I don't know . . . Dates I'm not good with.”
Scheinin called Wayne Palmer and Jeffrey Wright to complete the alibi. They held up no better on cross-examination than the others. Of them all, Birdie Plutschak was the most composed. Brobst did little to dent her testimony.
While Birdie was on the stand, Scheinin asked her whether Kirk had called her the night he left Baltimore. She answered that yes, he had. Scheinin asked her whether Kirk had told her then that he had done something bad. She said yes again. Scheinin asked her to tell the jury what that something was. The prosecutors objected. The question called for hearsay, they argued. Judge Hinkel sustained the objection and told her that she wasn't permitted to answer the question. She couldn't repeat what Kirk had told her the bad thing was. She did manage to blurt out that it didn't have anything to do with Dawn's murder, but the jurors never heard her confirm that he'd mentioned a taco salad.
But Scheinin had reason to hope. At least he'd put on the stand more alibi witnesses than the state had put on ID witnesses. He also offered some confirmation that the alibi witnesses were correctly remembering the date. Wanda had brought to court a copy of the mental health clinic record from July 25. It confirmed that she was at least remembering the right day. A receipt from the sporting goods store confirmed that Jeffrey Wright sold his rifle there on July 25. Details that might make a difference.
Scheinin also thought his next witness might win over some jurors. In the middle of trial, after seeing for the first time the tennis shoe that Capel had measured and noticing that inside it was marked size 8, Scheinin had contacted Richard Rudolph, the proprietor of
Towson Bootery, and asked if he would testify as a shoe expert for the defense. Rudolph was known as the Mayor of Towson. His shoe store, located in the heart of town, had been a local fixture, a hangout for gossip and political talk for decades. Rudolph had fit many generations with shoes. If you needed a pair, your children needed a pair. And if you needed a favor, something done, a good word with the town council, say, or some Orioles tickets, Rudolph was the man to see. Large, engaging, and robust, he was a local legend. When Scheinin called him to the witness stand, Rudolph brought with him his own specially designed foot and shoe measure. There, before the jury, Scheinin had Rudolph measure the tennis shoes that had been seized, the ones Ramsey had measured with a ruler and about which the FBI expert testified. They measured size 8. Rudolph then measured one of Kirk's feet. It was size 10½. Scheinin had Rudolph try to put the tennis shoes on Kirk. Rudolph should have been on vaudeville. He went through great pains to try and jam them onto Kirk's feet. Maybe he tried too hard. He forced them on him, but only after Kirk's toes curled up.
Lazzaro and Brobst that night regretted the shoe debacle. “Sometimes you have to take an arrow and not wince,” Lazzaro told Brobst. “We'll have to deal with it somehow in our closing . . .”
Following Rudolph, it was finally time for the defendant. Scheinin called Kirk Bloodsworth to testify. Kirk rose, turned briefly to face the silent crowd, then walked to the witness stand. He steeled himself. He knew it all came down to this moment. Kirk's best chance lay with himself. This was it. No dress rehearsal. No coming back. What he wanted to do was to jump out of the witness box, take each juror there by the collar, and shake hard until each understood that he was innocent. But all he could do was answer the questions posed to him by the lawyers. He was at the mercy of the lawyers.
Kirk raised his right hand and swore to tell the truth, as all the witnesses had done. Scheinin asked him questions about his general
background, his time in the marines, his relationship with Wanda, and he answered carefully, deliberately. His voice was steady. He looked at the jury without trying to stare. He tried to stay calm, to concentrate on the questions, not to be emotional, though he felt like this wasn't who he really was. He described how he'd worked at Harbor to Harbor and been off on July 25. He recounted that he'd been home at the Randolph Road address most of that morning and then gone out with Wayne Palmer to look for some marijuana to buy. He was never anywhere near Fontana Village. He didn't kill anybody.
Scheinin asked Kirk about leaving the Baltimore area, and he explained why he decided to leave. The bad thing he told everyone he'd done referred to his earlier promise that he'd buy his wife a nice dinner, her favorite, a taco salad. Instead of doing this, he'd left his job and left her without even saying good-bye. Kirk replayed his first interview with Ramsey and Capel in Cambridge and denied that he was later talking about blood on a rock, though he admitted talking about the rock and panties they'd shown him. Kirk told the jury the tennis shoes in question weren't even his. Scheinin indicated then that he had no further questions.
Lazzaro stood to cross-examine Kirk. For a moment, he just eyed the defendant, as though sizing up his target, as though adjusting his crosshairs. With his first few words, he threw Kirk off guard. He asked about his mother, whether she was strict, whether she was domineering. The psychological profile was his blueprint. He asked questions about the other women in Kirk's life, whether they were domineering or violent. “Isn't it true, Mr. Bloodsworth, that all of the women in your life scolded you and dominated you? Isn't it true that you were frustrated by that? That this frustration built up over the years? That you finally vented your frustration on this little girl?”
Lazzaro had Kirk recount the stressful living conditions at South
Randolph Road, the fights with Wanda. Lazzaro paced back and forth in front of Kirk. He asked him about the statements he made to Rose Carson that he had done a very bad thing. He scoffed at the taco salad excuse. Had Kirk repeat it. Lazzaro's expression showed his incredulity. The jurors, from their reactions, seemed to agree. To all Lazzaro's questions Kirk answered with short, clipped, responses. That's all Lazzaro gave him the opportunity to do. Lazzaro asked about him working in a funeral home with dead bodies. He brought up the comments Kirk had supposedly made to Tina Christopher in Cambridge about a bloody rock, and underscored those for the jury. “Isn't it true that you knew about the bloody rock because you were the one that used it to bash Dawn Hamilton's head in?” He asked Kirk about his strength and muscular condition. If a few of the questions seemed a bit random, they weren't. The prosecution would return to all of these subjects later. They were all grist for the closing argument Brobst would give and the rebuttal argument with which Lazzaro would conclude the trial.
Kirk was on the stand for slightly more than an hour. And then it was over. He was told by Judge Hinkel to step down. He wasn't ready to step down. He felt like he'd never really gotten a chance to explain himself, to let these people on the jury get to know him, to learn and see who he really was. He thought his time on the stand was too short.
Following Kirk, Scheinin called the four character witnesses, one after another. Each told of what a gentle and peaceful man Kirk Bloodsworth was. Each was only on the stand briefly.
His last witness, Scheinin told the judge, would be his eyewitness identification expert, Robert Buckout. The prosecutors asked to approach the bench where they could speak out of the jury's hearing. There they renewed their objection to Buckout's testifying. Judge Hinkel decided to excuse the jury for the day in order to hear argument on this point. He then listened to the reasons given by the
prosecution as to why Buckout should not be permitted to testify. His testimony was unscientific, they argued, unreliable. It improperly invaded the function of the jury.
Scheinin made a proffer to the court summarizing Buckout's credentials and experience and the gist of his expected testimony. Buckout's opinions would criticize the way the composite drawing was made, because it unfairly led the child witness. There were limited foils to choose from. The child had to pick one of these predetermined drawings. Buckout would criticize the other identifications too. He had scientific data showing the significant likelihood of error in such testimony. Buckout took the witness stand out of the presence of the jury so that Judge Hinkel could better assess his testimony. It seemed rambling, confusing. Hinkel asked him to clarify exactly, what he intended to say. Again, Buckout was less than clear:
My belief and sort of underlying theory is that eyewitnesses are really confronted with a difficult situation, and when the circumstances add up to a very difficult challenge to the memory system, these are the things that can happen to various parts of their testimony and various parts of their identification, and testing methods, of course is one of the areas that I have done most of my work on, and the testing method again I see as simply a tool, and the checklist is simply to provide to the jury, or elements of the checklist are provided to the jury, so that they can essentially assess what, at least, the filter of the scientist would say about a given test.
Judge Hinkel heard it all patiently, then ruled out Buckout's expert testimony, concluding that it not only invaded the province of the jurors but was of little value and would tend to confuse and mislead them. Closing arguments would begin the next morning, March 8.