The Dreams of Ada

by Robert Mayer

  Gray-haired, shy, Miz Ward moved slowly to the witness chair. Austin asked if she had anything she would like to say to the jury.

  “I know he didn’t do it. That’s all I know,” Miz Ward said in a low voice.

  “Are you asking this jury not to take the life of your son?” Austin said.

  “Yes, I am,” Miz Ward said.

  As she stepped down, she began to cry.

  Juror number ten, Diana Brotherton, a stylish young woman with close-cropped hair, was also crying. She wiped her eyes with her fingers.

  Outside the courtroom, Miz Ward half-fell into Tricia’s arms.

  Bill Peterson made his closing remarks. “Denice has suffered one of the most grueling deaths that any of you has ever heard of,” he said. She was killed so the defendants could avoid lawful arrest, he said. Joanne Price had shown, he said, that, if allowed to live, the defendants would constitute a continuing threat to society.

  “I’m going to ask you to return a verdict sentencing them to death.”

  Leo Austin, the former judge, moved soberly to the center of the room. He was silent for a moment, then began.

  “I’m afraid, he said. “I’ve never had to stand before a jury and plead for a man’s life. It scares me that I am not up to the task to ask you to find mercy in your heart…

  “You’re asked to put on the black cloak of death, and to do it. It’s no longer an abstract idea…

  “By the length of time you deliberated, and by some of the looks I see, I think some of you have some doubts…It didn’t raise to the level of reasonable doubt, but I’m sure some of you have some doubts.”

  He emphasized again that no body had been found, no pickup. You have been asked to believe, he told the jurors, that these two boys are either two of the most brilliant criminals who ever lived, to be able to rid themselves of all evidence of the crime—or two of the luckiest, since the police had found nothing.

  “What they are,” he said, “are a couple of stupid boys. But don’t send them to the death penalty on stupidity…

  “Ask yourself a question—ask it now—was there no doubt in your mind?…Has all doubt been removed from your mind that, somewhere in this land, Denice Haraway lives?

  “In white slavery somewhere? Walking this land somewhere?

  “If you harbor the hope that Denice Haraway walks the land—and God knows, I do, too—then you’ve got a doubt. I hope the Haraways harbor that hope as well.”

  If someone ever sees Denice Haraway alive, he said, “the ultimate mistake would be made. Tommy Ward would be dead.”

  He was not against the death penalty, Austin told the jurors; the death sentence should remain on the books.

  “But this case is replete with doubts.”

  He repeated his hope that, somewhere, Denice Haraway walks this land.

  When he was through, George Butner faced the jury.

  “You stand as twelve as a decision-making body,” he told them, but said that each of them also stood as one. “Nothing you do will change what happened yesterday. Your decision is what will happen tomorrow…

  “You can say numerous things about the death penalty, but if it’s implemented, there’s no turning back…

  “In this case we have question after question. I think you can see that…

  “On a number of occasions, people who should not have died did, in fact, die…With the unanswered questions in this case, we’re asking for the lives of Thomas Jesse Ward and Karl Allen Fontenot.”

  Butner sat. Because the burden of proof was on the state, the D.A. would again get the last word. Bill Peterson told the jurors the defense attorneys had been trying to put a burden of guilt on the jury.

  “The burden is not on you,” he said. “Don’t you forget what these two defendants did to Donna Denice Haraway, and almost did to Joanne Price!”

  His voice rose as he said the last part. Both defense attorneys jumped up and objected. They spelled out their objections at the bench. Judge Powers ordered the jurors to disregard what the D.A. had said about what almost happened to Joanne Price; that had not been a proper statement, he said.

  Peterson resumed. “Denice not only asked for her life, but she screamed for it,” he said.

  “Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway. And I’m going to ask you to saddle up.”

  He asked them to bring in a sentence of death.

  It was 2:40 P.M. when he finished. The jury retired to consider the penalty. The defendants were taken across the lawn to the jail. Throughout the trial they had been led across and back handcuffed side by side, wrist to wrist, with a single set of cuffs. This time, both arms were handcuffed behind their backs.

  The lawyers retired to private offices. The spectators dispersed, to use the restrooms, to drink soft drinks, to wait. In the dim corridor of the second floor, one of them leaned against the wall, smoking, thinking. He was lean, intelligent-looking, wore glasses, was thirty-five years old. His name was Barry Andersen.

  He had been born and raised in Ada. He went to East Central University, studied pre-law. But he married young, had three children quickly; he could not afford to go to law school. He went into construction work to support his family.

  In August, Andersen was one of the 225 citizens of Pontotoc County notified to report for jury duty on September 9. He did not try to get out of it. Instead, he arranged his schedule so he would begin no construction jobs in September, so he could serve.

  When he arrived in court that first Monday, the list of prospective jurors was in alphabetical order. Barry Andersen was number six.

  For two days he sat in the courtroom while the clerk pulled tags out of a box, with the numbers and names of prospective jurors attached. Panelists were dismissed; others replaced them. When the jury was sworn in, only about fifteen numbers, fifteen names, had not been called. One of them was his.

  Andersen still harbored dreams of becoming a lawyer one day. Since his construction schedule was clear, he decided to sit in on the trial, to watch the attorneys at work, to see if that was really what he wanted.

  Every day of the trial, he had shown up promptly at nine, and taken a seat at the rear of the courtroom. He never left till court was adjourned. He had heard every minute of the testimony of every witness, just as the jurors had. He had seen them render their verdicts in the case; now he was waiting to hear their sentence.

  He had become a familiar face in the courtroom. Few knew who he was—the husband of a juror, perhaps. During recesses, he stood alone in the halls, smoking, rarely speaking with anyone.

  Now, smoking, waiting, he offered his opinion. He said he could hardly believe the jurors had voted to convict. There were so many doubts raised, he said, so many reasonable doubts. If he was on the jury, he said, there was no way he would have voted to convict.

  But he was not in the jury room. Suppose, he was asked, the vote had been ten to two for conviction. Or eleven to one.

  “I have the courage of my beliefs,” he said, softly. “I would have held out for acquittal. Even if it was eleven to one.”

  In the luck of the draw, his number had not been called.

  What about the taped confessions, he was asked, how did he explain those?

  “You can get anyone to confess to anything,” Andersen said. He puffed on his cigarette. “I know. I was in Vietnam. Everyone has a different pressure point. But if you want, you can get anyone to say anything.”

  His questioner hesitated, then asked, “Were you a prisoner of war in Vietnam?”

  “No,” Andersen said. He crushed out the cigarette. “I interrogated prisoners of war.”

  George Butner, waiting, had no doubts. He had been practicing criminal law in this area for ten years; he was convinced the jury would impose the death penalty.

  The Wards went home; they could not bear to sit and watch.

  The Haraway family remained in the courtroom.

  At 4:15, a bailiff approached Dennis Smith. He told the detective the lates
t gossip: Tommy Ward’s girlfriend was in the county clerk’s office, trying to get a marriage license.

  At 5:30, the jury had a verdict. The courtroom filled quickly. Karl Fontenot strolled in casually, his hands in his pockets. Tommy Ward looked devastated.

  A folded sheet of paper was handed from the foreman to the bailiff to the judge.

  It sentenced Thomas Jesse Ward to death.

  All three of the aggravating circumstances had been checked as existing.

  The paper was signed: “Leslie Penn, foreman.”

  Tommy Ward’s head was pressed to his knuckles as the judge read the verdict. He seemed too worn out to react anymore.

  Leo Austin asked that the jurors be polled, to affirm that this was the verdict of each and every one. As their names were called, each juror responded.

  Leslie Penn said yes.

  Claudia Mornhinweg said yes.

  Larry Myers said yes.

  Joanne Manning said yes.

  Janet Williams said yes.

  Nina Ambrose said yes.

  Darlene Berry said yes.

  Virginia Rowe said yes.

  Thomas Daniel said yes.

  Diana Brotherton said yes.

  Mary Floyd said yes.

  Alfred Byers said yes.

  Judge Powers read aloud the jury’s verdict on Karl Allen Fontenot: death.

  Again the jurors were polled. Again each of them said yes.

  The judge thanked the jurors for their services, and discharged them. It was the end of the thirteenth day of the trial. In thirty years on the bench he had never had a criminal case last that long.

  The jurors removed from their blouses and shirts round buttons that said JUROR, which they had worn since being sworn in. As they filed out they dropped the buttons into the pocket of a woman bailiff. The only sound in the courtroom was a faint clink…clink…clink…as one by one the buttons dropped.

  The date was September 25. Under Oklahoma law, Judge Powers had to wait at least thirty days before formally imposing sentence. He set sentencing for 1:30 in the afternoon of Friday, October 25.

  It was 5:54 P.M. The judge announced: “The court will be in recess.”

  The defendants were led away in handcuffs. In the corridor, Bud Wolf hugged Tommy. When Tricia, eight months pregnant, tried to do the same, a female deputy prevented her.

  “But I’ve been doing it all week,” Tricia protested.

  “It’s a whole new ballgame now,” the deputy said.

  They moved toward the exit in a convoy of deputies. Fontenot’s face was blank. Ward appeared dazed. “I can’t believe they’re doing this to me!” he said. “I can’t believe they’re doing this!”

  18

  FALL PARTNERS

  Donald Powers removed his black judicial robe. Beneath it he was wearing gray suit pants, a white shirt, a tie; the jacket of his suit hung on a hanger, on a coatrack. The judge was standing, after a long day of sitting at the bench. A clerk of the court came into the chambers, handed him a batch of legal papers to sign, to formally conclude the trial. The judge remained standing as he glanced through each paper, set it on a table, leaned over, and signed it. As he did, he discussed the trial with a visiting journalist.

  It was, he said, the most unusual case he had ever encountered. “The state spent most of its time proving parts of the confessions weren’t true. That was certainly unusual.”

  He was not, however, surprised by the jury’s verdict.

  He had once before, in 1967, imposed the death penalty on a defendant; that had later been commuted to life; the man was still in the state prison at McAlester. In this case, as always in Oklahoma, the judge would have the discretion of following the jury’s recommendation, or of imposing a life sentence instead. Judge Powers indicated he had no inclination to overrule the jury.

  The judge volunteered that on the most critical legal question of the case—whether the state had proved the corpus delicti prior to showing the confession tapes—his decision in favor of the state had been “a close call.”

  “I think I made the right decision,” he said. “But I’m always glad for the appellate court to review my ruling. I certainly don’t want anyone to die for the wrong reason.”

  If he imposed the death penalty, a review by the Court of Criminal Appeals would be practically automatic; all the attorneys would have to do was file a paper requesting one.

  The judge completed his paperwork. He put on his jacket, crossed the courtroom, walked down the two flights of stairs. He would drive home to Chandler immediately. In the morning he hoped to get in some golf.

  As the judge left, the courtroom was empty except for one person, sitting alone in the back, disconsolate. It was Mike Roberts, Tommy’s friend and former boss.

  “The guys who did it were here,” Mike said. “In the courtroom. They heard the death penalty and got up and left.”

  “What makes you think that?” he was asked.

  “Joice said so. She was downstairs. She said they got into a gray-primer pickup, and drove away. I believe it. The way this town is…”

  His words trailed off, into silence.

  Downstairs, in the first-floor lobby, Steve Haraway was standing in front of a camera and floodlights, being interviewed by the girls from KTEN. It was the first formal interview he had granted since the disappearance of his wife, seventeen months before. He said he wanted to thank the police and the district attorney’s office for all the work they had done on the case.

  “With these people at the helm,” Steve said, “the people of Ada should feel good.”

  Most of the Ward family went to Tulsa that night, to stay at Joel’s place; there would be no spiriting Tommy out of town, as they had hoped. They left Tricia and Bud alone in Ada with their children and their grief.

  Tricia gathered the children around: Rhonda, Buddy, Laura Sue. She told them that whatever they might hear in school or in the streets the next few days, nothing had been decided about Tommy; that nothing would be decided for a long time.

  She reasoned that this was not a lie; nothing would be decided until all the appeals ran out.

  C.L. and Maxine came over. They brought white bread and bologna for sandwiches, and soda pop. While the grandparents babysat, Bud and Tricia went to see the principal of Rhonda’s school. They were thinking of transferring Rhonda to a school out in the country, they told him, where her relationship to Tommy would not be known.

  The principal advised against it. Word would spread. In a new school, anything could happen. Here he would take control of the situation. He guaranteed it.

  The next day, Tricia kept the kids home from school. The principal addressed the students. He told them that anyone who said a word to Rhonda Wolf about her uncle Tommy would have to write a 500-word report, and would be kept inside during recess for a week.

  The threat proved effective. When the kids returned to school the following day, no one said a word about the case.

  The day after the trial, Bill Peterson went out of town. His district-attorney district included two neighboring counties, Seminole and Hughes; his work in those counties needed attention.

  Chris Ross sat in his own office, his feet up on his desk, relaxing. Gary Rogers stopped by to chat, in obvious good spirits. He asked if the D.A.’s office would still trade a life sentence in return for Denice Haraway’s body. Ross said that would be up to the Haraway family; that if such an offer were made by the defendants, he thought the family would agree.

  The verdicts and the death penalty led the TV and radio newscasts. On Thursday afternoon the headline crossed the entire front page of the Ada News: “Jury issues sentence of death.” Below it, for the first time in the case, there was a second, sidebar story. It detailed the testimony of Joanne Price: “Attack revealed in supplemental hearing.”

  The reaction of the town to the verdict was divided. Most of those who had believed from the beginning that the suspects were guilty were reaffirmed in their beliefs. But some of these, having
followed the trial, felt the state had not produced enough physical evidence to warrant a conviction. Among the poorer classes, there remained a widespread perception of a “railroad job” by the authorities.

  The police and the district attorney’s office received congratulations. To Tricia, most people were kind; they told her they were shocked by the verdicts, and especially by the sentence, in a case where there was no body; where, some felt, Denice Haraway could still be alive. At the feed mill, Bud found a tense atmosphere; Joanne Price’s husband worked there.

  Saturday night, Winifred Harrell went to the Oak Hills Country Club. A man she knew approached her. “I like Don Wyatt,” he said. “But I’m glad that he lost this one.” Winifred replied, “If I were you, I wouldn’t let your daughter out on the streets alone too soon.”

  One of those who continued to believe the suspects were probably innocent was Barney Ward, who had refused to take the case in the early days. “I don’t think they did it,” the attorney said a few days after the trial. “Or if they did, they weren’t alone. I don’t know these boys, but they’re not what you’d call Rhodes scholars. I’m sure they’ve been offered a deal: turn in who did it or tell where the body is, and we’ll go easy. But they haven’t done that. I don’t think they’re that loyal. Or that smart. I don’t think they know where the body is. Of course, the terrible thing is, if they didn’t do it, whoever did is still out there.”

  The jurors had returned to their homes, in Ada and the surrounding county—to their jobs, to their private lives. Some had been emotionally shaken by the ordeal; they preferred not to discuss it with anyone, even with friends. But there was one prominent exception—the jury foreman, Leslie Penn.

  An employee of the Ideal Cement plant, Penn had told the other jurors when they began deliberations late that Tuesday night that he had served on a jury before, in a civil case. Because of that, and his take-charge attitude, he was elected foreman.

  Early in the deliberations, several of the jurors were not convinced the state had proved its case; they had reasonable doubt. Leslie Penn believed the defendants were guilty. “They looked guilty,” he would tell someone later. He proceeded to act as “prosecutor” within the jury room. He saw it as his job to knock down any argument raised by other jurors in favor of the defense.