The Death Shift

by Peter Elkind

  “Time,” the judge announced.

  Thrown off balance by the interruption, Carnes asked for a few extra moments and stumbled toward conclusion. “Ladies and gentlemen, I simply ask that you take the time, don’t be totally influenced by emotion. Take your time, reasonably sit down, and go through the evidence brought before you. Think about the testimony brought before you, and you will see the presumption of innocence remains. They have not met their burden of proof. They have not come close to meeting their burden of proof. And the law requires a verdict of not guilty.”

  This last day of arguments was the first day in which the judge had not adjourned court promptly as lunchtime loomed. Carter wanted to wrap up arguments first, so Ron Sutton stood to speak at 12:58 P.M., with many stomachs in the chamber rumbling. The DA’s nerves lingered as this final hour loomed. The case had consumed him for more than sixteen months. Remarried during the opening days of the investigation, Sutton was divorced from his second wife on the Friday before jury selection began. The prosecutor blamed the breakup on the long hours he had dedicated to putting Jones behind bars. Obsessed, Carnes had called him, and obsessed Sutton was. With the exception of the defendant, her children, and the family of Chelsea McClellan, no one had more at stake in the trial’s outcome. Victory meant glory, revenge, vindication, ambition. Defeat meant humiliation, shame, and political devastation.

  Sutton had listened angrily to Carnes’s personal attacks. Shaking with emotion, he told the jurors they had witnessed a typical defense attorney’s ploy: putting everyone on trial except the defendant. “He seems to imply to you that either myself or Mr. Rothe, or the combination of the two of us, have enough prestige and power that we can go out and bring in some forty-some-odd witnesses from across Texas, the United States, and even go over to Sweden…and, in some form of conspiracy, have them commit a series of aggravated perjuries.” Sutton waxed indignant. “I have been district attorney since 1977, and I don’t think that if I had that reputation I would ever have survived this long as an elected official in the state of Texas.” The prosecutor noted wryly the assortment of alternative theories the defense had argued. “The only thing that they have not suggested to you as to Chelsea’s death is that she committed suicide.”

  Sutton’s blunt speech lacked Rothe’s seamless eloquence. But the DA from Junction was not trying to weave a narrative. Instead, he was taking advantage of having the last word, methodically taking up, then bludgeoning, each of Carnes’s charges. Sutton reminded the jury that children who had received succinylcholine could look as if they were having seizures—either as the drug wore off or because they had received a small dose. “These extraneous offenses are certainly not to panic anyone,” said Sutton, but to lay out the scheme that revealed Jones’s “madness.” If Carnes considered Jones’s purported motive ridiculous, it was not the state’s fault. “We didn’t develop this motive. The defendant did.” In defense of Holland, Sutton said the doctor had relied “in good faith” on her nurse. “As with these kids, the faith was misplaced.”

  It was all familiar ground, and Sutton went through it one final time: the inquiries of the Sid Peterson hospital board, Holland’s discovery of the tainted bottle, the confrontation with Genene, and the summons to the Texas Ranger that had led to sixteen months of investigation—and ultimately to this trial. Now, “it becomes your responsibility,” Sutton told the jurors.

  “You know, since I have been here in Georgetown, I have been very impressed with the beautiful lady that adorns the top of your courthouse. The statue of Justice is such a beautiful sight…What more fitting symbol can you have on top of the courthouse, standing there with a sword, which represents justice being swift and quick?” Sutton paused to set up his point. “And that is what I think this case deserves, ladies and gentlemen.”

  Sutton’s voice rose, as he brandished an empty hypodermic needle. “If Genene Jones should be allowed to walk out of this courtroom, acquitted on the basis of the testimony and the evidence you have before you, I would suggest that we go up here on the top of this courthouse and remove that sword from the statue of Justice and insert a syringe!” Now Sutton’s voice grew soft as he stood next to the defendant and wagged his finger in her face. “Ladies and gentlemen, as we are here today in this most respected of rooms in any community, the hall of justice, I think if we will be real quiet for just a minute that we can hear the echo of the gates of hell slamming on Genene Jones’s condemned soul for what she did to Chelsea McClellan.” The nurse began to weep. “And I am sure,” said the prosecutor, “that after due deliberations, you will reach the same conclusion.”

  The jury was out.

  Thirty-One

  “You might as well just settle down and get a good book to read,” Judge Carter told his court reporter after the jury filed out at 1:50 P.M. “We’re going to be here for a while.” Carter had never participated in a trial involving so much complex scientific evidence. He figured it would take the jury two or three days just to sort through it.

  As the judge kicked back in his chambers, he soon heard the odd sound of chants outside his window. Carter went to check, and he discovered—to his astonishment—four or five women marching in a circle, picketing on the courthouse grounds. The women claimed that they were San Antonio mothers whose children Genene Jones had murdered. They carried signs demanding a conviction: HOW MANY MORE BABIES MUST DIE? and HOW MANY BABIES HAVE YOU KILLED, NURSE JONES? A crowd of TV cameras and the curious had already gathered to take in the sight. But it was their shouts that worried the judge. “We want justice!” they cried. “Justice for the people! Justice for the babies!” If the jurors heard the chants or saw the demonstration, it could offer grounds for a mistrial. Carter ordered the jury moved to a room on the opposite side of the courthouse. He dispatched sheriff’s deputies to bar the women from coming inside and to ask them to chant quietly.

  After grabbing a bite to eat, Ron Sutton killed time around the courthouse, chatting with spectators and giving interviews. Rothe and the rest of the prosecution entourage returned to their command post at the Georgetown Inn, where reporters, court clerks, witnesses, and assorted relatives of Chelsea McClellan drifted in and out. Sam Millsap was there too, having driven up from San Antonio for closing arguments. Bo Holmstedt had already departed for Sweden, after a guided tour of the Texas Ranger Museum in Waco. He left with a pair of gifts: a white Stetson cowboy hat and a Texas-shaped belt buckle that read “Dr. Bubba.” A few people in the prosecution conference room dipped into an ice chest for a beer. But most had resolved to hold off until there was something to celebrate.

  The defendant awaited the verdict in a holding room at the Williamson County jail. Despite her tears during Sutton’s summation, Genene had seemed buoyant lately, grinning often as she chatted with her lawyers during breaks. Jones’s legal team had retired to Brookshire’s office in a far less sanguine mood. Aware that final arguments had not gone well, the three weary lawyers traded snippets of the macabre humor the trial had inspired. One joke suggested that the Texas prison system had a good use for Genene’s talents: giving the lethal injection used to kill death row inmates. Another, prompted by the extensive testimony about forms of seizures, proposed a new alcoholic beverage: the gin and tonic-clonic. The defense lawyers favored whiskey themselves. They passed the time by sipping Jack Daniel’s and playing cards.

  A little after 4:30 P.M., everyone in Brookshire’s office jumped with the jangle of the phone. Judge Carter was calling for Carnes. The jury had been out less than three hours. Surely it couldn’t be…

  It was not. Carter explained that the jurors had sent out a note through the court bailiff. It seemed an item of evidence was missing: Dr. Holland’s medical record for Chelsea’s final visit on September 17. The jurors had last seen it in Carnes’s possession, when he read from the document during final argument. The defense lawyer was offended by the implication. Why, he knew better than to take trial evidence out of the courtroom! But Carnes checked anyway, and discove
red to his chagrin that he had accidentally placed the document among his court papers, instead of returning it to the pile of trial exhibits. After a brief conference in the judge’s chambers, the record was submitted to the jury at 5:15 P.M.

  Forty-five minutes later, Brookshire’s assistant fielded a second call from the judge’s chambers. Another note, the lawyers figured. This time, they were wrong. The jury had reached a verdict.

  Jurors in a major trial must surrender themselves to passivity and isolation. Twelve strangers must sit together and listen silently in a courtroom for weeks, often barred even from taking notes. The world is absorbed with what they are witnessing, but they are barred from scanning newspaper or television reports about the proceedings. Until deliberations begin, they may not talk to anyone about the case, even one another. Their daily comings and goings, like the period of their servitude, are entirely in the hands of others. It is an experience, particularly if the trial is lengthy—and Genene Jones’s case was now in its fifth week—that tests the patience of even the saintly. The attorneys for the defense had tried to select jurors who, in the confines of such an environment, would tear at each other’s throats. A glimpse within Judge Carter’s jury room would have left them sorely disappointed.

  From the very first day, the seven women and five men sitting in judgment of Genene Jones got along as cozily as a country church choir. Locked together for hours as the attorneys battled over points of law outside their presence, the jurors sipped coffee and tea and happily engaged in small talk. The ladies brought in homemade cookies and cakes. They chatted about their gardens and joked about Ron Sutton’s perpetually sagging suit pants. One of the men solicited advice on flooring his barn. Another arrived on Valentine’s Day with a giant heart-shaped box of candy for everyone to share. The smokers within the group took pains not to annoy the others. And everyone talked about children. Eleven were already parents, and the twelfth had quit her job because she planned to have a baby.

  After retiring for deliberations, the jurors elected Edwin Edwards, a fifty-four-year-old electrical engineer, as foreman. Lawyers for both sides had considered him an enigma. An even-tempered man who taught Bible classes at his Baptist church on Sundays, Edwards wore a poker face in the courtroom that made his sentiments inscrutable. But the engineer had made up his mind early. Familiar with the pain criminal acts could inflict—his first wife had been killed by a drunk driver—Edwards had shed any glimmer of doubt about Genene Jones’s guilt.

  After electing their foreman, the jurors broke for lunch at the L&M Café in downtown Georgetown, in the protective custody of a bailiff. They returned to the jury room about 3 P.M. and set about their task. Despite his personal judgment, the newly elected jury foreman was not the sort to browbeat others. From his seat at the head of the table, Edwards began by passing around the records and medical paraphernalia introduced as evidence. One juror managed to impale his finger on an empty syringe. Almost an hour was consumed in the quest for the missing record in Carnes’s possession. When the document arrived, Edwards went clockwise around the jury table, asking each person to voice his sentiments.

  One juror was convinced by Dr. Holmstedt’s test. Another, the wife of a former serviceman who had been wounded in Korea, made up her mind after hearing from the army paramedics who had transported Jimmy Pearson. Just as the defense had feared, several jurors were influenced by Genene Jones’s manner throughout the trial. They had noticed her flippant air and the way she had tried to stare down unfriendly witnesses. “She’d give them the evil eye,” remarked one juror. “She didn’t have the reactions an innocent person would have.” As the prosecution had hoped, most simply found the pattern of emergencies overwhelming. It quickly became clear that a solid majority favored conviction.

  Two older women sat uncomfortably on the fence, struggling with the notion that any mother could kill a child. Ruth Armstrong, a sweet, grandmotherly lady of sixty-six, was surprised to discover that so many others had their minds made up already; she felt a bit overwhelmed by all the evidence that she had heard. Edwards gently asked her to talk about her reservations. The other jurors pitched in, explaining why they felt Jones was guilty. The peer pressure worked its magic. “I guess I began to think, ‘What’s the matter with me?’” Armstrong recalled later. “Everybody else thinks she’s guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. I began to think, ‘I guess I believe she’s guilty.’” That left only Lillie Kipp, a fifty-three-year-old Wal-Mart store manager, who wrote on her jury form that the Bible was the last book she had read. Edwards led Kipp through every alternative explanation for Chelsea’s death, dismissing each until they came to murder. “Lillie,” he asked, “can you see any other possibility?” Pained by the task, Lillie Kipp was in tears. “I guess there’s no other possibility,” she said sadly.

  Suddenly they were unanimous. They had been engaged in actual debate over guilt or innocence for less than an hour.

  Edwards advised his flock that the defense might ask the jurors to state their verdict individually in the courtroom. They should rehearse that now, he said. “If you’ve never said it out loud, it might be too difficult for you.” But first, he asked everyone to bow his or her head in silent prayer, advising, “You’ve got to make peace with yourself.” Then, around the table, all twelve jurors, in the presence of their peers, pronounced Genene Jones guilty of murder.

  “We have received a communication from the jury that they have reached a unanimous decision,” Judge Carter announced from the bench when everyone had returned to the courtroom. Privately, the judge was shocked at the speed of the verdict. He figured emotion had carried the day.

  “Before I bring in the jury, I want to inform everyone that there will be no demonstration upon receiving the verdict,” declared Carter, intent on maintaining order until the end. “Sit quietly in your seats. There will be no bolting for the door. You will remain until you are dismissed, and there will be no demonstration from any person in the courtroom.” Carter looked around to make sure his message was understood.

  “All right, bring them in.”

  The jurors took their seats in the jury box at 6:10 P.M., four hours and twenty minutes after they had left. All twelve appeared somber. Ruth Armstrong and Lillie Kipp, the two brief holdouts, were crying.

  “Mr. Foreman, has the jury reached a decision?”

  Edwards rose. “Yes, we have, Your Honor.”

  “Hand it to the bailiff and pass it to me, please. Would the defendant please rise?”

  Genene rose to her feet beside her attorneys.

  Carter took the slip of paper from his bailiff and read:

  “The state of Texas versus Genene Jones in the 277th District Court of Williamson County, Texas. We, the jury, find the defendant, Genene Jones, guilty of murder. Signed, Edwin D. Edwards, foreman.”

  Genene slumped into her chair, began sobbing, and covered her face with a yellow handkerchief. After a few moments, Genene looked up through her tears at the jurors and glared at each of them. The evil eye.

  Brookshire asked for a poll of the jurors. The clerk called the jurors by name—“Is this your verdict?” he asked—and each of them affirmed it was, just as each had done in the jury room.

  Standing on either side of their client, Jim Brookshire and Burt Carnes supported Genene as she stumbled down the courthouse steps. A sheriff’s car waited on the street to whisk Jones back to jail, but a heaving mob of press and onlookers blocked the way. As the lawyers elbowed through, the crowd encircled Jones and taunted her, screaming, “Baby-killer!” and “You deserved it!”

  Inside the courthouse, the family of Chelsea McClellan stood at the center of a celebration. When the verdict was announced, Petti and Reid had embraced one another and wept. After court was adjourned, Sam Millsap shook hands with each member of the prosecution team and announced to the press: “Justice is done.”

  Under the rules of the Texas legal system, the jury would weigh punishment the next day, after hearing more evidence and arguments.
Ron Sutton informed reporters that he would ask the jury to sentence Genene Jones to ninety-nine years in prison, the maximum possible under the law. But Reid McClellan told a newspaperman that he envisioned a more fitting punishment for the woman who had murdered his daughter: “I want her to have succinylcholine like Chelsea.”

  Those who would assess punishment spent the night in a Georgetown motel. Judge Carter had decided to sequester the jurors until they had agreed upon a sentence. Edwin Edwards, suddenly troubled about his role of imposing judgment on another human, rose from bed at midnight and went into the bathroom to avoid disturbing the court bailiff who was his roommate. There, perched on the lip of the bathtub, the jury foreman searched the hotel room Bible for guidance. He found comfort in the Book of Exodus, where Moses heeded the advice of his father-in-law, Jethro:

  …provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness;

  And place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens:

  And let them judge the people at all seasons…

  If thou shalt do this thing, and God command thee so, then thou shalt be able to endure, and all this people shall also go to their place in peace.

  After three hours of reading and meditation in the bathroom, Edwards went to bed and slept soundly.