Objection!: How High-Priced Defense Attorneys, Celebrity Defendants, and a 24/7 Media Have Hijacked Our Criminal Justice System

by Nancy Grace

  I’m against this dangerous precedent. Again, the Constitution says we have a right to an open courtroom, not an open jury-deliberation room. Juries don’t deliberate in public for good reason. If they had to, they wouldn’t be able to be themselves and couldn’t express their thoughts and feelings. Another serious issue that arises out of filming jurors is the threat of reprisal, either real or perceived. A camera in the jury room takes away a juror’s anonymity. If you were on the jury trying a murder case and you believed strongly that the defendant was guilty but in the end he was acquitted, would you feel safe? What about a mob case where the mobster walks and finds out which jurors wanted a guilty verdict? This outrageously bad idea not only puts jurors in potential danger but also jeopardizes the fairness of the entire system.

  Ironically, the term “in camera,” meaning “in chambers,” refers to closed-door proceedings. Such proceedings are appropriately kept away from the camera. Much of what is discussed in camera is about the admissibility of evidence and involves a myriad of issues, some of which may turn out to be inadmissible at trial. One example is the results of a search, later deemed inadmissible; another could be about the defendant’s rapsheet. In camera matters are usually treated as such because discussing them in open court could forever damage the defendant, the victim, or a witness. The same reasoning that applies to in camera proceedings applies to jury deliberations and to the jurors themselves. None should be put on camera.

  If jurors want to make themselves known after the trial, as they did 2 9 6

  N A N C Y G R A C E

  in the Simpson, McVeigh, and Martha Stewart cases, where many of the jurors granted interviews, that’s their business. If not, they should not be forced into the spotlight for doing their civic duty. Lawyers and judges have chosen to be in the courtroom. The same cannot be said about the victim or the jury. I believe they should be protected from having their images broadcast for the entire world to see.

  We, the people, are granted two weapons with which to fight the government: jury service and our vote in public elections. These are the two powers the Constitution grants citizens to police their own government. Both are done in private so as to ensure total freedom of thought and honesty. Trial by jury is guaranteed three times in the Constitution. More than a million Americans serve on juries each year. To do so, they must overcome prejudices and differences in order to come together as a jury to render a true verdict. Juries are the souls and consciences of their communities. They have the power to correct the errors of government officials and are the bastion between three parties often at war—the defense, the judge, and the prosecutor. The jury is the heart, mind, and soul of the justice system. Jurors and their deliberations must be protected from the cameras at all costs.

  T H E C A M E R A D O E S N ’ T L I E

  When it comes to seeking justice, television is one of the last forums where you can tell the truth. As I’ve explained in these many pages, you can’t always do that in the courtroom anymore. Often the very rules of evidence and judge’s rulings don’t allow the whole truth to be told.

  The truth is caught by the lens without interpretation, spin, or elabora-tion. Excluding cameras from courtrooms keeps the workings of justice beyond the purview of the taxpaying citizen. Why should the truth be available only to those who can afford to go and sit in the courtroom?

  What about everybody else?

  I don’t want somebody else’s version of what happened. I want to O B J E C T I O N !

  2 9 7

  see for myself every nuance of the defense, the demeanor of the defendant, the level of charisma or lack thereof of the lawyers and the judge.

  I want to know when the jurors get bored and take a break or when they furiously begin writing notes. I want to watch when the defendant smiles or scribbles or maybe is forced by his own conscience to look away from the witness stand during testimony. I want to know that the justice system is doing its job every day—and I certainly want to know when it isn’t.

  Thanks to the cameras in the courtroom at Jayson Williams’s trial, we knew more than the jury knew. We were privy to the idea that the shooting was more akin to a drunk-driving manslaughter than anything else, due to the former NBA star’s high blood-alcohol levels after a long night of partying. We also knew that the death of Gus Christofi was far from Williams’s first brush with violence or with guns.

  Williams had spent the night partying with a group of Harlem Globe-trotters. Some of them told police that he seemed drunk and was driving

  “fast, dangerous, and/or erratic.” One player in particular, whose demeanor I watched very carefully on the stand, told cops he said “a silent prayer because he was afraid.” New Jersey State Trooper Melvin Saunders II testified that Williams was slurring his words, that he stank of alcohol, and that he told the others in the house that night “not to say anything because [Williams] had a lawyer coming.” Paramedic Matthew Wilson testified that while houseguests were dressed as if they’d been out for the evening—which they had been—Williams was wearing a T-shirt and sweatpants, indicating that he’d changed his clothes after the shooting. It was later revealed at trial that Williams had wiped down the gun that night, then taken Christofi’s hand as he lay dying on the floor and placed his prints on the gun to set the scene as a suicide. Blood tests later put Williams’s blood-alcohol level at between .18 and .22, which prosecutors consider “severe intoxication.”

  The jury never knew that due to a ruling by the judge. But the camera knew—and because of that, so did we.

  The jury definitely got the sanitized version of Jayson Williams’s 2 9 8

  N A N C Y G R A C E

  history, while the camera again told the truth. Williams won major rulings when Judge Edward M. Coleman refused to allow the jury to hear about his earlier incidents of violence involving guns, like the time he fired a gun repeatedly at a car parked at the Meadowlands Sports Complex. As I mentioned in a previous chapter, jurors were also kept from hearing from Dwayne Schintzius’s account of the time Williams shot his own dog.

  There were additional alleged prior bad acts that were kept from the jury, but, unlike lawyers and judges, the camera can’t lie, withhold, or obscure.

  The issue of having cameras in the courtroom surfaced again in the Scott Peterson trial in 2004. I felt it was a huge injustice that cameras were disallowed, because their presence could have exposed all of the posturing throughout the trial by the defense. At the same time, I understood that Laci’s family did not want her life and death exposed to the public in this way. Stanislaus County District Attorney James Brazelton presented the motion to ban cameras from the courtroom to the judge with a letter from Sharon Rocha, which said, in part, “The family of Laci Peterson [is] requesting that no cameras be allowed inside the courtroom. . . . Please don’t let memories be destroyed by televising the ugliness of the trial.” I understand how she feels, I really do. But cameras could easily have captured facts, both in court and on endless television programs and in chatrooms. All of that went undocumented, save for stories based on secondhand news. Those accounts were based on an individual’s spin and interpretation, not the actual testimony heard unvarnished for our own interpretation.

  Of course, there was no end to the leaks during the case. We heard about the possibility that Laci vomited in the kitchen, leaving DNA evidence that necessitated the kitchen floor’s being remopped by Peterson. We were also told that Laci knew about Peterson’s affair with Amber Frey and had made peace with it. We heard endless theories, from Satanic cult murders to sexual predators being responsible for Laci’s and Conner’s deaths, none borne out by the evidence. Why? Because we couldn’t hear the truth—because there were no cameras in the courtroom. All we had was spin.

  O B J E C T I O N !

  2 9 9

  F A C I N G J U S T I C E

  According to the FBI in 1996, there were more than 100,000 rapes that year, which meant that one sex attack occurred every five minutes.

/>   That figure was most likely deceptively low, as many rapes and other forms of sexual attacks go unreported because the victims are too trau-matized, afraid, or humiliated to openly reveal the attack. Rape victims who do summon up the courage to come forward are generally and uni-versally reluctant to have their names exposed, much less their faces—

  and their humiliation—revealed on camera.

  In 1996, I was lucky enough to meet four women who broke that mold. They said no to nearly every stereotype imposed on rape victims by society and the justice system. When I was assigned State v. Anton Jermaine Smith, I encountered some of the most extraordinary women I have ever met. Without any hesitation, they decided to allow cameras in the courtroom—and reveal their identities—during their trial.

  Atlanta had been terrorized for months by a man whose pattern was to stalk a particular woman for days without her knowledge, to learn her habits and living conditions, and then break into her home at night to demean and rape her. He disguised his face with a pair of nude-colored pantyhose. Writing about it now brings back the sickening feeling I got when I first read the case file. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to wake up in the dead of night with a knife-wielding stranger over my bed, his features distorted by the stocking over his head. But that changed when I took this case.

  I had been to the women’s homes, walked every inch of the crime scenes with my investigator, and compared their statements to hone in on the attacker’s modus operandi. I worked late into the night preparing legal briefs to ensure that the cases would be tried together and to foil, with preemptive strikes, any antics the defense would pull in an effort to threaten the introduction of my evidence. But there was one thing I couldn’t prepare for—the surprising strength of the victims.

  3 0 0

  N A N C Y G R A C E

  The women met one another in the aftermath of the attacks. In 1995, Kay Cross, Andrea Goode, and Lavon Skyers were attacked by Anton Jermaine Smith when he broke in to their homes late at night. Skyers was able to fight Smith off and escape. Smith was arrested hours after breaking in to Skyers’s home but was mistakenly released from jail when lower-court prosecutors failed to inform the judge of the rape charges he faced. The judge had been told only about the burglary case, and Smith was released on $10,000 bond (he put up $1,000 and walked free). Less than three weeks later, he was arrested for the rape of Lynda Denham.

  Denham’s attack could have been stopped with a simple clerical correction. The person who made the mistake faced no consequence for the costly error. I believe that in cases like this one, the responsible party should face an automatic review of his or her job performance, at which the victim is heard, and if found grossly negligent, possibly face criminal action. All hell broke loose when the mistake hit the press.

  When I got the case, I was summoned to the district attorney’s office for a meeting. He impressed upon me the need to resolve the case, help the women, and calm the firestorm started by some clerk in some courthouse annex whom we would never pin down.

  I left with my marching orders, preparing for a serial-rape case.

  What I never counted on was meeting four of the bravest crime victims I’ve ever known. As we sat huddled together outside the courtroom for pre-trial motions, the women began to talk about being made to feel that what had happened to them was their fault. They got angry and turned to me. I didn’t know what to say. I had already told them that I had opposed a request for press in the courtroom, because I assumed they would not want their faces revealed.

  One of the women burst into tears right there in the hall, her face all red. I’ll never forget her words: “I didn’t do anything wrong. This is a crime. I’m not going to be ashamed about what happened to me. I want the world to know. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  I called Court TV that very day, and when the trial started, a lone camera sat in the back of the room. In the televised proceedings of the O B J E C T I O N !

  3 0 1

  William Kennedy Smith rape trial, a blue dot had obscured Patricia Bowman’s face. State v. Anton Jermaine Smith was the country’s first gavel-to-gavel coverage of a serial-rape trial in which the victims’ faces were actually shown on television.

  I had no experience with televised trials, but moments after we started, I forgot about the camera because I was so deeply embroiled in the case. The defense fought tooth and nail, contending that the victims were mistaken about their identifications of Smith and challenging the accuracy of the scientific evidence. But their IDs of the defendant won out. One of the victims was forced to listen to the defendant read the Bible aloud, as he had done to her before and after the rape. She also had to perform a voice ID. That witness was so distraught after her testimony and the attack she underwent on cross-examination that she literally fell from the stand when she tried to get up from her seat. I caught her. She looked straight at the defendant.

  Smith was found guilty on July 12, 1996. He was sentenced to three consecutive life terms. The ladies in the Smith prosecution taught me about courage under fire. I also learned something else: A camera in the courtroom doesn’t lie. It cannot. Like the Smith jury, it will always render a verdict that speaks the truth.

  T A K I N G A H A R D L O O K

  When it comes to allowing cameras in the courtroom, I advocate that each trial be reviewed on a case-by-case basis, with all participants given an opportunity to be heard on the matter. The weight given to the testimony of each participant, be it a victim, a defendant, or an attorney, must be judged in the context of the case itself. I firmly believe that the general rule must be, under our Founding Fathers’ wishes, for a completely open court, to be closed only after great consideration and only with great cause.

  C H A P T E R E L E V E N

  TO M Y C R I T I C S

  NOBODY EVER SAID IT WAS GOING TO BE EASY.

  The realization sank in a few months after my fiancé’s death that my life was not going to be what I had mapped out. Wife, mother, English professor—it was not meant to be. Instead, as part of God’s mysterious plan, I found a new and very different life.

  I’m reminded of a true story about a woman in New York City who was battling breast cancer. She took up running as part of her recovery from the devastating illness. After months had passed, she decided to enter a 5k—a 3.1-mile race through Central Park. She got there about an hour and a half beforehand and was surprised to see hundreds of other women already warming up. She quickly joined in. At the start of the race, when the gun sounded and the runners took off, the woman thanked her lucky stars she’d gotten there early and was ready for the competition. About an hour into the race, she passed the five-mile sign, and immediately thought, This is not the race I signed up for! She continued running as best she could and I’m happy to report that she ran, not walked, across the finish line, her arms raised in victory. It was not the race she’d signed up for, but, by God, it was the race she was in.

  I think of that story when I recall my courtroom battles. There were many, many times when I sat alone in the courtroom at the end of the O B J E C T I O N !

  3 0 3

  day—by then it was evening, and it would be dark outside when I left the courthouse. I’d often think, How did I get here? It was not what I had planned, not what I had bargained for, not the race I’d signed up for. But, by God, it’s the race I am in.

  Many times on air, when a defense attorney runs out of legal or factual attacks, I become the target. That’s okay. There’s a wise old saying in the legal world that goes like this: “If you have the facts, argue the facts. If you have the law, argue the law. If you have neither, just argue!” When I get attacked personally on air, I’m torn between the usual feelings of anger or hurt and the realization that the other side’s assault is based on their knowledge that they have neither the facts nor the law on their side. I really believe that.

  During all the years I practiced law, I kept Keith’s murder to myself. I did not want it to be part of som
e ridiculous defense argument that I was bent on revenge. It simply was not true. There is no satisfaction in putting the wrong perpetrator behind bars.

  There have been times on Larry King Live, on The John Walsh Show, and other programs when Keith’s murder is used against me. During one live show, I recall being accused of wearing his death “like a badge.”

  That hurt. The truth is, my story doesn’t change the law or facts in any of the cases I argue. A reporter once told me during an appearance on The John Walsh Show that I wasn’t fit to analyze cases because I had opinions as a victim of violent crime. Somehow the reporter reasoned I wasn’t fit to comment. I didn’t know how to react in front of a huge studio audience. I chose, naturally, to fight back, and it turned into such a battle, the incident hit the papers the next day.

  I am proud to have survived many blows, proud to be the voice of those who cannot speak for themselves, and proud to continue fighting the good fight as I see it. I have been confronted many times, on air and off, by “journalists” who accuse me of not being one of them. I am accused of having beliefs, opinions, and convictions. I plead guilty.

  I’ve never once made a secret of the fact that I am not a journalist.

  I never pretended I was. I am what I am. I am first and foremost a sur-3 0 4

  N A N C Y G R A C E

  vivor who lived through the court system, endured the pain, and made it my business to master the law and the rules of evidence to return to that system and do battle there. I love the law. I believe in our system.

  It causes me genuine pain to see Lady Justice, who is really all we have to protect us, mistreated, tricked, and degraded. I am an advocate for other victims. I have tried to use my knowledge of the law as my sword and shield and studied it in great detail, keeping it at the tip of my tongue and at the forefront of my mind at all times. The reason I am not and never could be a journalist is that I also keep that knowledge of the law deep in my heart, and when I need the shield, I raise it. When I need the sword, I draw it out.